Beat Yesterday: Competing Within to Win Together

You've got to lead yourself. You got to know your people and then you got to improve your chatter, how you communicate and what you communicate effectively. From a coaching standpoint, being the best is a really difficult deal because most people, when we do that, we're putting all of our stock in the external outcome and our validation around it, and it gets really dangerous.

The comparison gap can also give you this false sense of security because you and I both know, again, it's natural. But oftentimes leaders will compare their best intentions to the people that are leading's biggest faults.

What we want more than anything is a competitive culture that's also collaborative. And a lot of people see those as conflict, right? You either have a team that's ultra competitive or they're ultra collaborative. But the best organizations in sports and in business and life, right, they learn how to push each other internally without attaching identity and worth to compete externally.

Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host, Ed Molitor and I am thrilled to welcome today's special guest, Jake Thompson, who previously joined us on episode 181. And Jake is a keynote speaker and the Chief Encouragement officer at Compete Every Day, a brand that he started in 2011 by first selling T shirts out of the trunk of his car and is now worn by leaders in over 62 countries now. He spent more than a decade working with leaders and organizations worldwide on how to get better results for themselves and their teams. Through his entrepreneur sales experience, client work and research, Jake has built a proven compete framework that helps leaders improve their grit, productive habits and leadership skills to create more positive influence within their organization.

And Jake and I will dive a little bit into how long we've known each other, how much he means to me in my professional journey and personal as well. I consider him a great friend. I have so much respect for him and I'll share a little bit more about that with you. Inside of this episode, Jake is going to be kicking off our Coaching Effect Summit in Omaha, Nebraska on May 5th and 6th at the Brand new Tanaska Center. It is going to be an amazing event. You do not want to miss it. Couldn't think of a better way than to have Jake kick it off. Jake absolutely is as real of a person as you possibly will ever meet. He's so authentic.

And Jake, I'll tell you this, he is the breath of fresh air and the shot of focused energy that every leader needs. Inside this episode, we're going to dive into his new book that's coming out Beat Yesterday and we're going to talk about his previous three books and the journey to writing those and where those came from, where the ideas came from. Incredibly interesting story. And those books are Compete Every Day, which is first Book, then followed by Lead, Better now, then the line, Amazing story inside of that book. And then of course, I just mentioned his new release, Beat Yesterday. And we're also going to dive into leadership and culture building, balancing competition and collaboration in teams, pulling teams toward internal validation lessons from leadership experience. I can go on and on again.

We'll extend that summit invitation and talk to you about all the opportunities for growth and networking that will provide. So I'm going to get out of your way. I hope you enjoy this conversation half as much as I did recording it with Jake Thompson. Jake, welcome back to the Athletics of Business podcast.

Man.

It has been way, way too long since we've had you on. How are you doing, my friend?

I'm great. I'm great. It has been a wild coach, but excited to hang out with you today.

I mean, I would love to know how many conversations we've engaged in since the last time you're on the Athletics of Business podcast and how many things have changed in our world since then. But regardless, you're here. Yeah. Yeah. How are you doing, man? How are things going in your world?

Man, life is good. Great. Great start to 2026. Super excited about everything that's kind of happened in the last year with the book that came out in the fall. That has kind of been an unexpected surprise. And then as were talking offline, my big release is in April of this year, and so everything's gearing toward it. But man, life's good. I can't complain.

Let's talk about the books for a second, because when you and I first met, you were working on Compete every day, right? Yeah. I think we're in. I think we're in Philly with Michael. I think we're in Philly. Right? And you were so. And I, I've got to tell you know, I don't say this enough to you, and this is what happens sometimes in friendships, but watching you grow and watching you work at it and watching you grind and it not being a grind to you. Right. Like the little things that you did. One of the first things I noticed about Jake is we're with a heroic public speaking in Philly, working with Michael, Amy Port and hundreds of other amazing speakers. And this dude's carrying around a camera and he's making Videos. And he's engaged with that. He was like the mayor. Okay.

But the thing I said to myself is, there's a guy that's willing to do what 90% of people are not willing to do. You know, never a doubt. And when you talk to me about your first book, Compete Every Day, I mean, your. Your face lit up and you couldn't talk enough about it. And now to see the.

The.

The timeline of books and in the evolution of the books you've written, can you talk about how they changed a little bit or how they've stacked up since you went from compete every day to lead Better now to the line by the. Which I mean, obviously I love the first two to line. Amazing. Killed it. Okay. And now to your. Your next book coming out beat yesterday.

Yeah. So it's interesting. And the real story, most people don't know is compete every day. Obviously, the brand had been around forever, and when I started around that time, you and I, probably a little bit before we met, I was losing my. In my first year of speaking, I was losing gigs for not having a book. And it's the most frustrating thing in the world. And so I was like, okay, I'll write a book. Like, this was my competitive side, right? Oh, this is why we're losing. Like, let's go do it. And I wrote a talk based off of our keynote that I'd been working with Michael and Amy that was corporate focused, being more competitive as a team. And I just didn't love it. It honestly sucked. The draft sucked.

And for some reason that summer, I got asked to speak at the Big Brothers Big Sisters event in Dallas. And so I've got a room of 8 to 18 year olds and 30 to 60 year olds. And I'm like, my main keynote does not work for this crowd. And so I started thinking, like, what are easy ways I can do it? Like, coaches, right? What are the catchphrases that our team can pick up and remember? What are the catchphrases? As a manager, I want my team to remember. And as I started sketching the ideas, like, those seven choices became the idea for Compete Every Day, which got me so fired up because I was like, oh, man, I can run with this in a zillion different directions.

And when you're starting that speaking, you know, journey, you're still trying to figure out the niche of, like, where do I fit best? And so I spoke at colleges, high schools, corporate sales teams, and real estate, to staffing, to, you name it, to construction. And as I'M starting to gain my footing of like where this message is resonating. It's really corporate. Well, as we've both seen, you start going down the path of working with corporate teams, you start hearing more of their challenges and how we can help solve those challenges. And the second book started to really fester. Lead Better Now. And the reason it kind of catapulted me is I sat on that book for a couple of years not really knowing what to write. You know, you write the first one internally.

There's a lot of pressure I put on myself as a performer of the second book's gotta better, right? There's no, hey, it's just gotta be good, it's gotta better. So it's gotta have a better idea, it's gotta be a bigger idea. So all of this kind of pressure of how do I create this second book? Until the opening story of that second book, my wife walked in my office and just kind of had a breakdown because she's in real estate. And during COVID everybody moved to Texas and so they were just busy working. She didn't have to really manage or lead because there was so much work.

And then in 20, 22, 23, things started to shift as interest rates went up and she's on the escrow title side and she just felt like she was a failure as a leader because she didn't know how to lead manage people. And for some reason, as we're having this conversation, it's clicking all of these conversations I'd had with clients and I'm like, oh, this is the book. Like the book is how do you step into leadership? And the interesting part is like, there's a billion great leadership books. You and I talked about some offline, you know, there's John Maxwell's got 80 going on a hundred. And a lot of high level books on leadership are very much cast vision and how do you lead organizations? And.

But when you get promoted for the first time into management and your results are tied to other people, like, you're kind of drowning in the deep end and you just need a life jacket. You don't really even care about casting vision at that point. You're just like, I need my people to like figure out how to do the right stuff and lead them. And so I wrote Lead Better now is really a playbook for somebody stepping into leadership management for the first time. And the really cool part about it is we talk about you've got to lead yourself, you got to know your people and Then you got to improve your chatter, how you communicate and what you communicate effectively from a coaching standpoint.

And the really cool part about that book is, although it hasn't sold nearly as well as Compete Every day, the amount of doors it's open for me to go speak and train on these topics has been far and away more than I ever anticipated. Because organizations of every size need this. And we do a lot with a blue collar manufacturing, construction trade around this. But even our core sales clients need it because we see it everywhere, right? Doesn't matter if it's pharmaceutical, you name it, you're great at sales, let's make you a manager. Even though it's a completely different skill set. Those were the first two books. The third one, the third one you and I laughed about. It is, it's called the Line.

It's a fictional story about a high school quarterback in Texas struggling with comparison, struggling with teammates that are, you know, more athletic than them. And what happens in a sports setting when you start competing against your teammates instead of with your teammates. And I'd been asked for years, maybe since 2020 of every time I'd give a keynote, somebody would ask, what did you have for my kid? Because the lessons and stories, they're like, man, I wish my kid could have heard this. They played middle school, high school, college sports. Man, they really need to understand this idea of competing with yourself. And I never had a book form, never had an idea. And so it's kind of set over here to the side. And so I just kind of sitting there with it.

And as I started working on this fourth book, Beat Yesterday, one that I'm incredibly excited about because it explores the idea of pursuing your versus the best and what that actually translates to from a winning standpoint, from a life standpoint. As I'm writing this book and I'm developing our framework that really everything that I do is built around this core Compete framework. Started thinking of, like, what would it look like to teach this at a very high level to a younger audience? And I've never written fictional stories before, so it was just a challenge in and of itself. But I really attacked this book as a way, how do I introduce younger people to the things, man, I wish I had this framework. And what's really cool is we just kind of rolled it out.

Like, we did a little marketing around it, but I was like, this isn't our core audience. I want to support our audience as kids. And the emails and messages I've gotten From people of like, this is your best book. Like, I like to compete every day. I love the concepts of outworking your talent and all this. But like this book, this framework is the one. And I kind of chuckle with the parents. I'm like, wait till you see the next one. Like the next one. We get into the research and we talk about how to leverage comparison in a healthy way and how to really live out this compete framework.

And so it's kind of been a journey, evolving, but really like that outside of the line, wanting to help my, I would say my core audience as kids and who I wish I'd had back when I was 14, 15, 16, struggling with comparison and unhealthy competition. Each one of them is designed to help somebody show up better personally and professionally. And I really feel like the newest one coming in April gives someone the most practical way to do that on a day to day basis.

You know, it's really cool because it runs like your books as they come out, it seem to run parallel with what you're hearing and learning from your audiences, Right?

Yeah.

And you're giving them because you think about the great leaders we know. Like, you and I have talked about this like someone and before we started recording, were having a conversation and I, were throwing some names out there about people we know and people we've connected with. But when you go back and think about the conversations you've had with them, some of them the most successful leaders I've worked with and that I know one of their biggest struggles is how do I translate this into parenthood? Or how do I translate? How do I give the kids the gift of knowing what I didn't know then because of my experiences now and doing it in a way that they don't feel like, oh, dad's being dad or mom's being mom, feel they don't feel threatened, right? Like, oh, Jesus, no.

But I mean, kudos to you because I mean nothing short of another word, it's brilliant. It really truly is brilliant. And coming from someone that can use that and will use this with my children. Thank you.

You know, it's funny, one of my best friends laughed because he's read all of our stuff. His wife gives him a hard time that he's a compete, everyday poster child because he's got so much of my gear. But he was texting me, he was like, no, like, I'm not blowing smoke. He's like, I'm changing because I'm reading the line. He's like, I'm changing Questions I'm asking my son after practice or with school stuff of, hey, are we drifting? Are we competing? What's the competitor's choice we want to make? And he was like, and I'm giving him ownership to make those choices. And he said, I didn't have that language before. Obviously it lands differently when I say it. And I just had. We were laughing.

I just had a client spoke at their event and we got talking about core values and setting values as an organization and the importance of clarity for us to be able to compete effectively. Afterwards, they, one of the team members was like, man, I've been saying some of this stuff internally and just kind of felt like it had fallen on deaf ears because I'm in house. And when you said it, I can see them registering of, oh, we need to do this. And I laughed. I said, to your point, it's no different than us as speakers, both of us, when we come into an organization, you're not really work mom, work dad. And so when you say some of the same things they're used to hearing all the time in a little bit different light or language, it lands better.

So that what I hope the conversation continues after I leave or if we keep working together, it lands differently. And so I appreciate it, man, I love getting to do this and just want to find a way to help people do the stuff that I've struggled with and kind of fumbled my way to figuring out. And I think the framework that we really kind of finalized last year and got really tight on has helped us do that.

You know, let's talk about the framework. The Coaching Effects Summit is not just any leadership conference. It is annual event where high performing leaders come to grow through research, relationships and real coaching work. Join our co effects team and hundreds of business leaders on May 5th and 6th at the brand new Tanesca center in Omaha, Nebraska. Two days packed with powerful keynotes, interactive sessions, meaningful networking, and a night at let it fly that you won't soon forget. This year's theme, driven by data empowered by people, is grounded insights from over a half a million coaching interactions revealing exactly what high impact coaching leaders do to drive performance. Here's what you can expect. The latest coaching and leadership research, formal and informal learning opportunities, a supportive community full of networking opportunities, and absolutely just a ton of fun. You nailed it, right?

And I'm not going to steal your thunder. I'm gonna let you talk about it, but you absolutely nailed this and I'm certain that the listener will agree with me. Once they hear you speak this. But it's something like what you have done. Blue Ocean strategy, you have gone where a lot of speakers and a lot of performance coaches aren't spending their time.

One of the things I wanted to get really clear on, right, we have two trademarks on the apparel side and really in the business side, and it's compete every day, which is the core name of our business, right? How do you show up and compete? Each and every. Most people talk about winning every day. And you and I both know, right, sports, you don't win every day. You win games that you don't deserve to win. You lose games, you play flawlessly. And in life, it's kind of the same way. You have days you get kicked in the teeth, but do you show up and compete? And that. That's really the difference because everybody loves to win. Everybody loves the good outcome, but not everybody's willing to do the competition piece, the work piece.

And so that's one, and then the other one for us is beat yesterday. And that, you know, running with that in the title of the new book is the importance of that 1% growth. And so where we really try to position and where I think we do a great job with organizations is once you've had success, how do you build on it? Because every sales team has had the person or the season to where you have a good month and you have a bad month, can you take your foot off the gas, Right? In sports, the Nick Saban then would say you're playing to the scoreboard and not the standard. And so how do we help organizations play to the standard so that one win doesn't stay your only win?

And so that's kind of where we position ourselves as the market is what happens after you win and how do you keep winning? And for us, the compete framework really does that. It helps you get really clear on the game that you're playing, how you score points at that game, how you effectively use comparison, which we've always been told is the thief of joy, the root of all evil. How do you actually use it to your advantage in a healthy way? How do you execute on a daily basis, knowing that seasons change and then importantly, right, how do you not just be someone who executes, but you take time to rest, reflect and review? Right? You can't get better if you don't take. Take time to watch game tape. Otherwise, it's kind of like the definition of insanity.

You keep doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result and reflection and review is really the thing that allows us to turn our effort into progress instead of broken records. And then the last for us is your environment, the people around you, right. Who do you fill your organization with? Are they the type of people that have the right standards or right character for your group? Who do you run with in life? And so all of these kind of fill in around this framework and what I love is the framework translates so well in any setting. So for example, I'm working with a client this week and one of the things they're a global sales team and so we talk about like observe O for us is observe the rules. How do you score points?

Basketball, you got to put the ball in the hoop on your side, right? Doing on the other side doesn't do you any good. Helps the opponent. And for a lot of people in sales, like they know, well, I know I need to prospect or I know I need to make discovery calls. I know I need to follow up. And when you ask them, what are your goals this quarter? Well, I want 10 deals. What does it take to get 10 deals? Well, nobody knows. But if were to break down how many outbound calls and emails does it take to get a meeting and then how many meetings do you have to be able to send a proposal and how many proposals do you have to send to get a deal? Well then you know the numbers and you just work the numbers.

Hey, I've got to make 6,000 calls this quarter because that will eventually get me to where I can close at least 10 deals. It puts me in that ballpark for the right range. Then you're working that process. But if we take the same thing and were to go to your kid's soccer game and it's a Tuesday night and Your kids team is 05 and it's raining and this time of year, rain, it's cold. And you're sitting out there and what are the rules of that game of being a present active parent? Well, it's not sitting on your phone, scrolling LinkedIn or thinking about what have I got to do tomorrow? And anything or anytime your kid looks at you're kind of space cadet. The rules of that game is, hey, when my kid looks back, man, I'm watching them, I'm cheering them on.

When they go on the field, I'm yelling, I'm supporting them. When I see them do a great hustle play or encourage a teammate, I'm calling it out. And then when the game's over, I'm asking, what'd you love about today? What did you learn today? Not, did you score, did you win, did you have fun? And what did you learn? Like, those are the rules of the game. But what happens so often is we know these rules. We just don't execute. We know things that we know. We should choose grilled salmon over pizza every night. But sometimes, right, pizza wins because it's. It's not always the knowing and doing. And so the framework really allows us to get super clear on what's our game, what are the rules, and then how do we do it effectively?

When you go back to what you're talking about, like with the calls, right, the 6,000 calls, and I need to get this many meetings, and. And not only that, how are you showing up in those? What is the preparation level and what is your confidence level, and what are you learning from one call to the next and from one meeting to the next and from one deal to the next? And when. When you. Your foundation coming from the compete every day and now talking about sustained success and elevated success, talk about how those two actually connect, but yet how the competition part actually evolves, right?

Yeah.

It's not banging your head against the wall. It's not, you know, £5,000 around. It's the quality of it. Right. And the thought that goes into it.

Yeah. So you think about it, right? We typically always associate competition with someone else. It's always me versus you. Like, that's how most of us are raised. And our core belief at compete every day is it's you versus you. It's an internal battle. And you look at the definition of competing, it says, strive to gain or win something. It's the pursuit of something. Pete Carroll famously talked about this in a UFC class one day, and there's a really cool video online of him. But he said, we only control the pursuit. We only control how we strive. We don't control outcomes. And for us, at compete every day like, that is the core focus of really dialing in on that. And so it evolves, if you evolve. So you think about this, right?

I teased it a little bit with Beat yesterday, but Beat Yesterday is this idea of being your best versus being the best, because the best is always a moving target. There's someone always ahead of you, always behind you. Right. You can be the best salesperson in your organization, and tomorrow your company hires someone else with 20 years experience with bigger names and bigger brands. It's not that you suddenly got worse. It's the target shifting, Right? Or you as you've done and I've done and everybody who's ever done anything sales related has done. You could have had the pitch of your life. Best presentation, best positioning, best everything. That company has budget cuts, so they can't do any deals. And it's not like you lost the deal. Circumstances change that are out of your control.

And so being the best is a really difficult deal because most people, when we do that, we're putting all of our stock in the external outcome and our validation around it, and it gets really dangerous. Think what you want about him now. Last year when A.J. Brown won the Super bowl, right? Top 15 receiver, three time Pro Bowler, wins the Super bowl, first championship he's won in his entire life. He goes on Instagram and not even two days after the parade talks about how the feeling and the high was already gone. Biggest game of his life, biggest moment of his life, has a great game and everything he thought it would fulfill him on is gone. Cooper cup just won the super bowl for a second time this year when it was Seattle.

He talked about, he's like, man, the super bowl high lasts about a week. So if that's all you play for, you're always going to be disappointed because it's always going to be gone. And so when you talk about being the best, it's this idea of we're putting all of our eggs in this finish line or this destination that honestly doesn't exist. When you look at being your best, well, that's a continual growth game. To your point on this, it's. It's the idea of Carol Dweck, who is famous for fixed mindset and growth mindset, talked about the idea of performance goals, right? Performance goals is how do I perform, what did I win, what did I achieve, lead to higher anxiety and burnout and honestly, more likelihood that you give up.

When adversity strikes versus mastery goals, when you have a mastery goal, it's about how do I improve my skill, how do I get better than I was yesterday? That actually makes you grittier, that reduces your anxiety and burnout. You play the game longer because you're not worried about where do I stack up compared to everyone else. It's how do I get better? And when you do that, when you shift into mastery, it does a couple of things. It makes you more confident because now you control the game. It's not me versus you. Right? I'm never going to compare myself to you as a basketball coach. You know X's and O's better than I ever will. Right. You understand the game in a way I never will. But I'm comparing myself to the person you met back in 2018.

And that's a game I can keep winning. You also start to unlock sustained performance because you're not worried about, oh man, I'm just never going to be as good as this person. And I'm a hundredth, you know, my global company, I'm ranked 100th in sales. I'm never going to get to 1. It's like, how do I get to 99 and then how do I get to 98? How do I move up incrementally over time? And then the last piece, the cool part is you actually become more competitive because when you have a target and you believe you can achieve it, you're more likely to strive toward it, right? We, we would call this in beat yesterday, we call it the 3% target.

The thing that's just ahead of you because you need a goal that feels like you can achieve it, but it still challenges you to reach it. Right. It's not so far away. And so when you have those little goals, you start to compete with yourself. Cause you're like, man, this week I was like 13 of 16 on my to do list priorities. Next week, can I go 14 of 16 or 16 of 16? And it starts to create this game to where every week you're getting more competitive. But what you've done more than anything, and I think this is the foundation is you've separated your identity and worth from the outcome. And so now winning and positive outcomes are byproducts of the choices and inputs you make. And you take pride and build your confidence in the inputs that are in your control.

You just used a word that I use so often, the byproducts, right? Let's just say metric wise, you're winning. Okay?

Yeah.

Well, let's say you absolutely know when you look at your mastery goals, right? Or your lead measures and what you truly laid out and mapped out that you need to be doing, behavior wise, task wise, execution wise, you're slacking. Now, you and I both know somewhere down the road that's all going to catch up to you, right? And that success is no longer going to be sustained success. Not only that, it's become a real freaking struggle. Okay?

Yeah.

So how significant is that for people to have that self awareness, to recognize, okay, when their metrics are actually a byproduct for the last 90 days of things they were doing? And somewhere in those 90 days, maybe the first 31st 45, they were crushing the lead measures. Lead behaviors now, not so much. How significant is that, man?

You've got to have the self awareness to understand and catch yourself when you play to the scoreboard and not the standard. And there's a couple ways to do this, but the big one is the word that most people avoid, which is accountability. And there's two ways to do it, right. Holding yourself accountable usually requires a visual cue. So for me, I have an app on my phone called HabitFi and it tracks everything I have. You know, my 10,000 steps every day, how many workouts a week, But I have every month. I need to have 32 sales conversations, like on the phone conversations. I also need to be sending out a certain amount of outbound every month. And so I'm tracking it so it's visually in front of me, which to that point, January and February are typically my busiest months of the year.

Speaking in travel because sales kickoff events, all the SKOs, a lot of our construction clients and leadership trainings are in Q1. And so I know some of my outbound goals and daily input slipped because I was on the road, because I was traveling, because. And so me having it constantly in front of me helps me maintain. I need to be sending this. I need to have this call today. What am I doing when I get online and I have all these other things I need to do? What's actually the top priority and how do I make sure that I remain at focus? So having things in front of you is really important. Talked about it in compete every day that when Jerry Seinfeld started the comedic career, he'd put a calendar on his fridge and every day challenge himself to write a new joke.

Just forcing the habit of every day writing jokes. And so he put a big red X on that calendar. So visually it was in front of him. Because if it's not visually and physically in front of you, it's really easy to skip. Like you skip one day at the gym, it's no big deal. Start to skip a few days. I've just been busy. But if you see it on a calendar that there's two X's in the last three weeks, like it's in your face that you've got to get back on track. The other piece of that is your relationships. It's the accountability. It's having somebody in your circle. It's having somebody who's going to check in with you and say, hey, what's the latest with the book? What's the latest with your sales calls? Hey, how are you doing on your habits.

Don't tell me, like, man, how great your year is. I'm going to celebrate that with you. Tell me what your inputs are. And so when you compare, having a visual cue helps you start to play to that standard every day. And then when you have people around you that you say, hey, listen, these are my goals this week. And so it was one of my friends who's a speaker, was struggling. We had a conversation maybe about a year ago because she. She thought I would just, like, perfect every day, hitting all my priorities, all my tasks. And I kind of chuckled. I was like, here's my. Here's my overdue list right now of other activities that I've pushed to the side. I said, but here's the top priorities I work on. I said, you're in a different season.

You have three young kids, you have a startup. Like, you're in a different stage of life than where I am. But I said, what you need to do is create some accountability and simple targets. So for her, it was every Monday, emailing one of our mutual friends. Here's my three key priorities for the week. These are the three inputs I have to get done. And then Friday, the friend, if they hadn't heard from them by end of day, would send them a text or an email, hey, what's the status? And so they created this accountability loop so that she kept focused on the key priorities but was maintaining, what are the inputs? What are the inputs? What are the inputs? Not, hey, what are the outcomes that I've won? Because to your point, they're lagging. Their outcomes are great.

They make us feel good, but they're terrible coaches on what we should do next.

As I'm taking notes here and I'm listening to talk and the priorities and the lagging and answering the questions and answering them honestly. At the end of the day. At the end of the day, how much truth is there to this fact? The only individual that can truly keep us accountable is ourselves. We all need someone there for us. Like, we all need someone to be able to ask us, to be able to get to us. But you and I both know there's many folks out there that'll say what they think we want to hear and what they're supposed to say just to buy time. Okay, easily. What do you. What do you do? Not you, because I don't think this ever happens to you. But actually, you just wrote a great LinkedIn post on it, though.

When you feel like you're buying time, how do you step out of that,.

Yeah, I mean, I think we're all guilty of stopping between knowing what we should do and do it. And for a lot of people, right. I think Tony Robbins said it right. You have to get to the point where the pain is so much for you to change or the pleasure is so great that you want to achieve it. And we have those. Every one of us have people in those lot in our lives who they know of things they should do. They want us to hold us accountable to it, but they just get busy, they get distracted, they get all these things. And I think a lot of that goes back to the very first question in the framework is clarify. Like, what's the game you actually want to play? And why does that game matter to win? Right. There's the three.

The three questions that clarify is what game do you want to play? Who's the competition? Which. It's always an internal battle, right? Our own habits, our limiting beliefs, you know, what my, how my parents raised me, what I think is happening, and then why does winning this game matter? And when you get really clear on those three questions, you become more inclined to take action because you know why you're doing it and you know what you want to do. The problem is we typically chase other people's games, other people's finish lines and assume like that's what we want. So, you know, you and I, you know, met and have been around speakers all the time. Like, we know a ton of different speakers. Everybody's business is dramatically different. And there's some guys we know that we're like, man, that looks a lot of fun.

But I don't really want to be on the road 190 nights a year. Right? Because as we talk about, you've got kids at home and sporting events and then there's other people where you're like, yeah, but they don't really do a whole lot of speaking. They're doing more training on the back end or coaching. I, I kind of want to do more of that. So, like, everybody's business looks very different. And when you chase someone else's finish line and you get there, you realize like, oh, this isn't what I wanted. And it's so interesting. Have you seen the movie J. Kelly on Netflix with George Clooney?

I have not.

Okay.

Actually, I have. It's an amazing movie, Nancy and I saw, I apologize. An unbelievable movie.

Great movie. I watched it last night and so I'm going to tell people a spoiler alert. So if you haven't seen it. You're dying to see it. This isn't like the Sixth Sense, but spoiler alert, it's this Hollywood global icon, George Clooney. And he's going through this stage in life where he's realizing he pursued this career over the people, and he's coming to terms with all these relationships and people in his life that he just put to the side because this was the goal. And he's having to come to terms with realizing, I probably didn't play the game I wish I'd played. I remember watching it last night and thinking, man, that's it. What happens when you pursue your entire life for the game, for that you didn't pick for yourself, and you realize this is not the game I wanted to play, right?

Because there's. There's people on our team that the leaders listening to this, there's people in your organization that do not want a corner suite. They don't want the corner office. They don't want to rise because they want to be at every kid's soccer match, right? They're not driven by certain titles or outcomes, whereas other people on your team are. And we have to understand that, like, if they're a great team player and they're always doing better work, but they're like, I don't really want their promotion. It's not that there's anything wrong with them. It's that they've gotten really clear on the game they want to go play, and they're going to play that game. And as long as they keep doing better work in their role, like, keep running, because those are people you need.

You always need people in your organization in every level. And so I think we lack the ability from translating knowing into doing because we don't get clear on the game. And honestly, as I write about, like, comparison is the thing that screws us up. Comparison is the one we either fall into the trap of why bother because someone's so far ahead, or we're worried we're not going to be the best. And so we mail it in. It's like, you know, you've done tries like you. You did a half or a full Iron man.

Two. Two halves.

Two halves. So it's the idea of, like, you do a half, you crane for this half. You man, you worked your tail off. But as you go through the training process, you happen to see somebody who's an ironman and they're posting online about their training schedule and what all they're eating and all the things they're doing. And you think, and I can't. There's no way I can do, like, that level of commitment. And so, man, if I can't be the absolute best, well, I'm just kind of gonna mail in some of my training here and there and I'll do the event. But, like, I'm not gonna give it my best. That's what goes on our head when we start to say this, why bother?

Because what we start doing is we think, well, because I can't be the best, I'm not gonna give my best. And that's the thing that derails a lot of us from getting better, right? The. The other one is the always behind. This is the trap with comparison, where it feels like everybody else is ahead of you. I did this coming out of college because friends are doctors and lawyers and real jobs and real houses. And I'm renting a house with a roommate, selling T shirts out of the trunk of my car, right? And so comparison gets in your head and tricks you into this idea that you will never reach this finish line. And so for me, it showed up of, like, vacations.

I was miserable because I always felt like I needed to be working more or like, I would see something on social media and see, oh, that person's ahead, man, I got to keep chasing. But there's no, like, finish line to ever get to. And so you eventually get to the point where you just stop. And that's where a lot of people have gotten. And the last is just the inferiority. And we laughed about LinkedIn, right? I laugh posts of mine on Facebook. You know, my sweet mom is the only one that'll comment, God bless her. And I chuckle about it where somebody else says, oh, my God, they had a thousand comments like, what am I missing on here? And social media obviously weaponizes all of this. And so what happens is the reason we kind of.

We don't bridge this knowing doing gap is because we start to compare in the worst way. We're not clear on our game. And. And what we do is compare. And. And what researchers found. There's a psychologist, Leon Fessinger, I believe is his name, in the 50s, discovered that comparison is a hundred percent common. It's natural. It's hardwired into your brain because we always needed to see where we ranked in our tribe. But our brain has a problem if we don't give our brain an objective target to compare to. It picks whatever's around us or on our social feed, whatever we see, and then it automatically starts to play the game and look for evidence that you're losing, which is incredibly dangerous.

But when you give your brain an objective target, like yourself, like who you were last week, like, where you want to get to, then it has a much healthier approach to comparison that you can use. And so we always say comparison is like fire, right? It'll devastate villages if left unchecked. But if you know how to use it properly, it'll save your life in the winter. And that's how we have to approach it. And so when you have those people that struggle to take action, it usually comes down to getting clear on what game do they actually want to play, why does it matter to win? And then helping them start to separate from unhealthy comparisons so they can move forward, not worried about anyone else. But, like, what am I doing to get a little bit better today, Man,.

I absolutely love this. But I've also found this, right? The comparison gap can also give you this false sense of security, because you and I both know, again, it's natural. But oftentimes, leaders will compare their best intentions to the people they're leading's biggest faults or their peers, right? Or whatever it may be. And as you work towards sustained success, how dangerous is that? Like, you may not even be comparing yourself to the right people, okay. Or to the right organization or to the right metrics. Like, how dangerous is that to fall into that trap where you get that false sense of security? And that's purely driven and purely feeds and fuels the ego.

And that's where we get. I mean, that's the biggest thing for us is. Is the ego gap, right? It's the thing that keeps people from competing and drifting because you get comfortable and you think, I'm already good, I'm already ahead. Or we talked about the inferiority trap, where people are feeling always behind, but on the same side, you can flip it, and you have the people who are always comparing themselves to others behind them think, I'm good, I can relax, I can coast, right? It's the high school basketball player who's got unworldly talent. And instead of focusing on becoming better so they can play in college, in the NBA, they just compare themselves to their high school teammates who they're better than. Michael Jordan did this. Jordan is interesting. There's a book.

Marty Smith from ESPN wrote a collection of interviews with coaches, and he told a story that Roy Williams told him that when Michael Jordan showed up, Roy was an assistant coach at North Carolina and was running preseason workouts. And Roy said Man, I just wanted to make them the hardest workouts there were. And he said, michael Jordan shows up as a freshman, and he's going through these workouts, and he comes, sits down after a practice with him. He's like, hey, coach, I just want you to know I'm going to be the best player in North Carolina history. And Roy Williams laughed. He said, you're going to have to learn to work harder. And Jordan was offended. Like, he got mad, and he's like, I don't know what you're talking about.

He said, I worked as hard as any one of my teammates in high school. He was like, ask anyone. And Roy Williams said, yeah, you're talking about teammates in high school. This is North Carolina. Like, you can't just work as hard as everyone else if you want to be the best ever. And he said it was interesting. Jordan responded of taking on that challenge and. And as we've seen in the last dance and everything else, he would never be outworked. Like he was going to set the tone because he had caught himself comparing himself to guys at a lower level, expecting great things to happen at a new level. And leaders get into trouble with that. The other thing leaders really get into trouble with their teams.

As we talk about it, when you get into complacency, and we'll talk about this a little bit more in May, is a lack of clarifying what the standards and expectations are. Like, there's no clarity, and it may be clear coming out of our mouth and what we think it is, but if our teams don't receive it as clearly as we expect it to be, there's a breakdown in communication. And the worst thing that can happen in cultures, in any relationship is unmet expectations, because it creates conflict, it creates friction. But leaders get into this idea of, like, well, man, the last person got this. Why don't you get this? Or, man, I'm an adult. I know how we should handle this situation. Why don't you? And that's a whole.

Whole other level of assumptions, because we're assuming they had the same experiences, same background, same upbringing we did. And so we lash out or we get frustrated because they're on a different page. But we've never taken the time to clarify what page they should be on and what game are we playing together.

And, you know, great segue. Speaking of May. Right. We've said for years, we have to find a way to work together. Now, technically speaking, I'm just going to sit there with the rest of the crew and be amazed at your performance. May 5th and 6th, Tanesca Center, Omaha, Nebraska. The Coaching Effects Summit.

Right.

Put on by Organization Co Effects. I couldn't be more excited. May 5th, you're taking the stage. I hope you can stay and join us that night for a networking event that let it fly. Some amazing people. We have a great comedian that night. It'll be awesome. But let's dive into what you're going to talk about on May 5th. Okay?

Yeah.

The Coaching Effect Summit. It's all about coaching effectiveness. There's cohorts, there's peer groups, there's all this amazing work. And for you to have the ability to get up on stage and to talk about how to build a culture of purposeful performance as a leader. Right. Talk about that a little bit and what you're so excited about.

Yeah, man. It's a lot of the stuff we've talked about today. I'm really honored. Because what we want more than anything is a competitive culture that's also collaborative. And a lot of people see those as conflict. Right. You either have a team that's ultra competitive or they're ultra collaborative. But the best organizations in sports and in business and life, right, they learn how to push each other internally without attaching identity and worth to compete externally. Right. They're ultra great at collaboration together. And so we're going to talk about, as leaders, how do we help our teams be more competitive? Right? How do we give them those targets to help them strive toward? What are the things that we can do in a leadership sense to build a system of coaching and accountability? Because as we talked about, that's the difference, right?

Holding people accountable to clear standards, to clear expectations. And so we're going to dive into this whole ordeal of what makes a competitive team, what makes a competitive culture? How do we draw out the people who aren't competitive that we think, man, they don't have a competitive bone in their body? Like, how do we draw it out of them as well as we all probably have some of those ultra competitive people who tilt toward the unhealthy competition and the dangers of that. And so how do we pull those people that are externally validated to be more internally validated? And then how we get everybody on the same page working together, held accountable and not seeing accountability as a bad thing, but the thing that actually helps us go win.

There's so much there. And one of the things I love that you do and you go back to earlier in our conversation when you talked about your books and how they've evolved and what you've talked about based on the conversations you've had with folks in your audiences and how you continue to serve them at a deeper level. I'm really curious. Okay. Because there's going to be some incredible leaders in this room. And not only when we go to the Coaching effect segment do I love to help people learn. I love to learn from those around me. What are some of the greatest lessons you've learned from some of the leaders who you were in charge of speaking to or conducting workshops and spending time with and serving, yet you found in return you took something away?

Yeah, you know, I think a couple of them, the things I always go back to is the importance of knowing your people and what that says subconsciously to everyone in the organization of when you really invest in knowing your people. And I've seen the good and the bad. And so I talk about it a lot. We're going to dive into it in may of why it matters. And then I think the one that I probably struggled with the most, that I was very fortunate a mentor helped me, is get clear on the game you're playing, but then just take an active interest in everyone else. And the reason I say this helped me and the reason I think it's very important for this event is I was. I'm an only child. I'm the guy who's always trying to scream and get attention.

I loved being the center of attention as a kid. And that often leads us to placating to our ego. Like, how do I walk into spaces and let them know, man, I've got my stuff together and I belong here and people need to know me as much as I know them. And really, all the research says the opposite of, like, going into an event like this and just saying, how can I learn about other people and how can I add value to them? And it's fascinating when you come to an event, because this event, man, there's gonna be some powerhouses in the room. And for some of you listening, you're thinking, man, this is awesome. And some of you might even feel a little intimidated as we kind of tee up, like, the level and quality of people in the room.

And my only request to both of you is to one, be there, but two, walk into each space and just say, how can I learn? And how can I help somebody else get better? And when you approach an event, especially when you have a room full of people that may have better skills in certain areas than you, well, then you grow at a much rapid pace, much faster pace, it's like a, if you're a freshman playing high school basketball, you're going to get better playing against other freshmen. But if you get thrown in against the varsity, you're going to have to build your skillset faster because you're putting yourself in an environment where everyone else's skills are at a higher level. And so you actually get better as long as you're not attaching your worth to where do I stack up against them?

And you just say, how do I get better? And so for everybody coming to this event, if you can take the approach that a 42 year old Jake has, that a 21 year old Jake didn't understand of man, how do I just come into this room and be interested in other people and learn and not worry about like, do I belong? Where do I stack up? Do I have the accomplishments of other people? Then this is going to be a game changing event for your career and even potentially your life outside of it is some of the things we're going to talk about. And so that's the biggest piece of advice I can give besides get your ticket and get to Omaha in May.

Yeah. And thank you. And I probably should have done this at the beginning of the conversation. I tend to make observations about people who reach out to me to connect or I know on the other side, people make observations about me, the way I go about trying to connect with them and why I want to. And I need to tell a listener, if you need to know anything about Jake Thompson, know this. The reason we first got connected was it was pre Covid. I mean, we're talking seven, eight years ago, brother. It's been a minute. And I had written a blog and this was at the very early stages of the Malor group. Okay. I had written a blog, Compete Every Day, literally titled Compete Every Day.

And it was about someone that I, you know, was a dear friend of mine, was two years older than me, I considered a big brother, Brian Blaney. And Brian passed away my senior year in high school, his senior year of college, from leukemia. And watching Brian go through his treatment. And I told his story in the blog and how the one thing in life it taught me to be was to compete every day, to be the best version of me, regardless of the circumstances, regardless of the challenges, regardless of the adversity, to show up every single day. And that's what Jake reached out to me to be on his podcast. And the irony that. And it's not irony, right? Like we're sitting here talking about the very same things.

But I have to know, like, Jake, it doesn't get more genuine and more authentic to you. And I couldn't be more fired up to have you join us at the summit. And I look forward to it. And truly grateful for you taking the time we did this one on short notice. Truly grateful for you taking the time today to jump on the Athletics at Business podcast.

I am honored to be a part of this awesome event. And, dude, I'll always come hang out with you. So we'll do it virtually and we'll do it in person. You just tell me when and where.

You just got to time up them speaking gigs so we get you to a Cubs game in Chicago.

Let's go. Let's go.

All right, Jake. Thanks, brother.

Thanks, coach.

Thank you for listening to the Athletics of Business. Be sure to give us a rating and review so we know how we're doing. For more information about the show, visit theathleticsofbusiness.com now get out there. Think, act and execute at the highest level to unleash your greatness.