 Just because something is basic, it doesn't mean that it's easy. Those are not synonyms, and yet people mistakenly use those words as if they're interchangeable. Just because it's basic, it doesn't mean it's easy. If it was easy, everyone else would be doing it. The first time I met Kobe Bryant, my life changed forever. See, back in 2007, Nike flew me out to Los Angeles to work the first ever Kobe Bryant Skills Academy. Nike brought in the top high school and college players from around the country for an intense three-day mini-camp with the best player in the world. And for any of you that don't follow basketball as closely as I do, just know that in 2007, Kobe was the best player in the game. One important fact about me is basketball was my first identifiable passion, my first love. I fell in love with the game at five years old, and I'm so grateful that here, four decades later, basketball is still a major pillar of my life. And having grown up so closely around the game, I'd always heard this urban legend of how insanely intense Kobe's individual workouts were. Well, when I found myself on his camp staff, I figured this is my chance. This is my shot, so at my earliest opportunity, I walked up to Kobe and asked if I could watch one of his private workouts. He was incredibly gracious. He smiled and he said, sure, man, no problem. I'm going tomorrow at four. Well, I got a little bit confused because I had just got done looking through the camp schedule, and the camp schedule clearly said that the first workout with the players was the following day at 3.30. Well, Kobe recognized the confused look on my face, and he clarified that with, yeah, that's four, A-up. Well, I couldn't think of a reason of why I couldn't be somewhere at four in the morning, so I'd committed myself to being there, and I figured if I'm gonna be there anyway, I may as well try and impress Kobe. I may as well leave my mark and show him how serious of a trainer I was. So I came up with the plan to beat him to the gym. So I set my alarm for 3 AM. The next morning, the alarm goes off. I jump up. I quickly get myself dressed. I hop in a cab and I head to the gym. Now, when I arrive, it's 3.30 in the morning, so it's pitch black outside, and yet the moment I step out of the cab, I can see the gym lights were already on. From the parking lot, I can faintly hear a ball bouncing and sneakers squeaking. I walk in the side door of the gym. Kobe's already in a full sweat. See, he was going through an intense warm-up before his formal workout with his trainer started at four. But of professional courtesy, I didn't say anything to Kobe and I didn't say anything to his trainer. I just sat down to watch. And for the first 45 minutes, I was shocked. For the first 45 minutes, I watched the best player on the planet do the most basic footwork in offensive moves. Kobe was doing stuff that I had routinely taught to middle school age players. Now don't get it twisted, this was Kobe Bryant. So he was doing everything with an unparalleled level of intensity and everything was surgical precision, but the stuff he was doing was incredibly basic. His workout went on for a couple more hours and when it was over, once again, I did not say anything to Kobe. I did not say anything to his trainer. I just quietly left. But my curiosity kept nipping away and it eventually overwhelmed me to the point that I had to know. So later that day at camp, I went up to him again and said, Kobe, I don't understand. You're the best player in the world. Why are you doing such basic drills? And he flashed that million dollar smile. He gave me a very friendly wink, but he said in a very serious tone, why do you think I'm the best player in the world? Because I never get bored with the basics. I never get bored with the basics. Kobe Bryant, the best player on the planet and someone that has truly mastered his craft, said his entire secret is that he never got bored with the basics. And as obvious as that may be to you all right now, that was a life-changing moment for me. You see, in that moment, I finally realized that just because something is basic, it doesn't mean that it's easy. Those are not synonyms and yet people mistakenly use those words as if they're interchangeable. Just because it's basic, it doesn't mean it's easy. If it was easy, everyone else would be doing it. And you all know that we live in a world that tells us it's okay to skip steps. Tells us we should always be looking for a shortcut or a hack. Tells us we should constantly be chasing what's new and what's shiny and what's flashy and what's sexy and just ignore what's basic. But I'm here to tell you when you do those things, you are making a huge mistake. And that's because the basics work. They always have and they always will. And the very first step to you improving performance in any area of your life. It doesn't matter if it's personal or professional. It doesn't matter if it's individual or organizational, but the very first step is to admit that the basics work. But it's also having the humility to acknowledge that implementing the basics every single day is never ever easy. Now I would hope that the primary lesson and the actionable takeaway from that story is blatantly obvious. And that is this coming Monday morning, I want every single one of you to report to work at 3 a.m. No, I'm just kidding. Here's what I do want you guys to do. I want you to spend the next several days getting crystal clear on the basics that you personally need to focus on to raise your game. What are the fundamentals that you personally and individually need to work towards mastery of primarily during the unseen hours so that you can continue to show up and make a maximum contribution to everyone and everything around you. You have to get crystal clear on those fundamentals. Now, my goal for being here today is also very basic. And that is to add as much value to your lives as I can in our very short time together. See, if you are in this room right now, if you are part of the power of one, if you are a part of this family, you are a high performer by definition. And one thing I know for certain, having been around and studied and observed high performers firsthand for my entire life is high performers are always looking to grow, looking to improve, looking to develop, looking to evolve. No matter what they've accomplished in the past, high performers are always looking for that edge. And that's why I'm here today to help give you that edge. And I'm gonna tell you some stories and give you some stats, but more importantly, I'm gonna give you a handful of practical, actionable strategies, concepts and ideas that each and every one of you can implement immediately to do a handful of things. Number one, improve your personal influence and impact so that you can forge much deeper and stronger connections with the customers and consumers that you serve, but also with your colleagues and your coworkers, the folks in this room and the folks at home that are a part of your team, forge stronger relationships. I'm gonna provide you with strategies that will allow you to continue to embrace change, not only the massive change you've incurred over the last couple of years, but the change that's still coming, because as Mark said so perfectly, the only constant is change, and we have to learn how to embrace that. I'll certainly provide you strategies to continue to build a winning team and a championship caliber culture, but most importantly, I'm gonna arm you all with everything you need to continue to play to win. Now, in order to do all of that in a very short period of time, I need each and every one of you to stay open-minded to heightening your clarity in three specific areas, your perspective, your personal core values, and your personal purpose. So let's unpack each of those, your perspective. As leaders, and everybody in this room, I hope you consider yourselves leaders, because that's how I consider you. As leaders, I wanna encourage you to adopt the foundational mantra of transformational leadership, which is choosing to look at the world through the lens of, it's not about me, it's about you. It's not about me, it's about you. You should be able to look every single member of your family in the eye, your spouses, your significant others, and your children, and say it's not about me, it's about you. You need to look each other in the eye, your colleagues and your coworkers, and all of your teammates, and say it's not about me, it's about you. And individually and organizationally, you need to continue to look at your customers and the end consumers in the eye, and say it's not about me, it's about you. See, when you can shift your focus off of what you want from people, and put it on what you want for people, you become the most magnetic person in any room. So it's all about perspective, it's not about me, it's about you. Number two, your personal core values. I feel so aligned with the basic beliefs of this family. It's one of the reasons I was so excited to have this opportunity to share with you all. But not only do you need to have organizational core values and basic beliefs, but you need to have a personal code that you uphold every single day. What do you stand for? What do you believe in? What are the non-negotiables that you use to make all of the decisions in your life? See, when you can get crystal clear on your personal code of conduct and your personal core values, it actually makes decision-making more fluid. Now, this doesn't mean you won't still have really hard decisions to make, but it means now you have a framework to make that process more fluid. Because every single decision you make in your life, you run through the filter of, is this in alignment with my core values or not? And the more consistently you can make decisions that are in alignment with your core values, then that makes you consistent as a leader and consistency matters. And don't forget this, whether we're talking about your individual teams or collectively the power of one and the family, your team can't become something you're not. And you can't lead your team somewhere you're not going. So you need to make sure that your personal core values are in alignment with the basic beliefs. So those are our core values. And third is purpose. What is the purpose behind the work that you all do? And I don't want you to confuse function with purpose. The function of that chair you're sitting in is to provide somewhere for you to sit. The purpose of that chair is to provide you comfort. Purpose has a much deeper meaning. What do you all think of when you think of the Smuckers brands and all of the brands that you all represent? You all serve people, you all serve pets. When I think of your iconic brands, for me personally, I think it brings me back memories of childhood. I can't eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich without thinking of my childhood. So it brings back fond memories. It makes me think of family. It makes me think of memories. That is incredibly purposeful work that you all do. You bring people and pets together. And the more connected each and every one of you can stay to that purpose, then the higher your sustainable buy-in and believe in will be. So we have to stay connected to purpose. And one of the reasons I feel so attracted to this group is because of this saying, the power of one. But I want you to connect to the deeper meaning. How does that help guide the decisions you make in the way that you show up to make a contribution? See, this is so powerful. It reminds me of the international shipping and logistics Goliath DHL. Their organizational purpose, they've broken it down to a very similar thing. They say, we don't deliver brown boxes, we deliver promises. That is ultimately their mission and that is their core belief. We don't deliver brown boxes, we deliver promises. So they go to great lengths to make sure every single member of their team stays connected to that. They wanna make sure that the person working the graveyard shift in a warehouse, in a remote town, in a remote country knows, you are not putting a brown box on a truck. You're putting a little kid's birthday gift on a truck. You're not putting a brown box on a truck, you're putting a future bride's wedding dress on a truck. You're not putting a brown box on a truck, you're putting somebody's medicine on a truck. And by getting every single team member to stay connected to that mantra of we don't deliver brown boxes, we deliver promises, then they continue to escalate their cohesion, their collaboration and their remarkable culture. And I want you all to do the exact same thing with the power of one. Now, when it comes to our perspective and our personal core values and staying connected to purpose, no one's ever done that better than my good friend and mentor, Jay Billis of ESPN. For those of you that don't watch a lot of college basketball, just know Jay is the face of ESPN College Game Day and has been a personal friend and mentor to me for over a decade. And back in December of 2010, ESPN tasked Jay with calling a very highly anticipated early season game that pitted Duke versus Butler. And the reason this game was so highly anticipated were those were the two teams that met nine months previously in the national championship game where Duke narrowly escaped with a two point win. And it is very rare that the two teams that meet on the biggest stage in college basketball meet again in early December. So as I mentioned, there was a lot of anticipation around this game. Well, part of Jay's responsibility with ESPN is he goes and he watches both teams practice the day before the game so that he can learn their strategies, their keys to victory and learn everything he can about their personnel. Well, Jay, being a Duke alum, decided he would go watch Duke practice first. And Duke was led by recently retired Hall of Fame coach Coach K, the all-time winningest coach in the history of college basketball. And when Jay walked in to the Duke practice, he saw Coach K saying, with great confidence, clarity and conviction, guys, if you do what we do well and you play to our strengths and you stick to our playbook, we'll be more than fine tomorrow because we clearly have a competitive advantage. We are bigger, stronger and more powerful than they are. We're gonna pound the ball down low and get easy layups and dunks. We're gonna out rebound them and we're gonna put a hand up on every shot. If you do what we do well and you stick to our strengths and you stick to our playbook, we'll be more than fine tomorrow because we clearly have a competitive advantage. And Jay left that practice and was thinking, this could be an absolute massacre. Coach K, one of the best to ever blow a whistle or hold a clipboard, just told his team definitively why they have a distinct competitive advantage. But he needed to do his due diligence. So he went to watch the Butler Bulldogs practice who at the time were led by head coach Brad Stevens. Three years ago, Brad Stevens was promoted from head coach to president of basketball operations with the Boston Celtics is an absolute basketball savant. And to Jay's surprise, Coach Stevens was saying with the exact same level of confidence, clarity and conviction. Guys, if you do what we do well, you play to our strengths and you stick to our playbook, we'll be more than fine tomorrow because we clearly have the competitive advantage. We are smaller, quicker and faster than they are. We're gonna get wide open looks and transition and on fast breaks. We're gonna put on a smothering full court press and there's no way their big guys can get out to our corner shooters. If you do what we do well, you play to our strengths and you stick to our playbook, we'll be more than fine tomorrow because we clearly have a competitive advantage. And Jay left that practice and was thinking, I have no idea who's gonna win this game. Both of these Hall of Fame caliber coaches have the self-awareness and team awareness to know where their strengths lie. Know what strategy they need to be successful and know the blueprint and the playbook that needs to be executed to give them the best chance to win. And I share that story with you for a couple of reasons. One, individually, I want each and every one of you to take inventory of your personal gifts and your talents and your strengths, the things that you can bring to the table to make a maximum contribution to everyone and everything around you. Number two, I want you to run that same audit collectively, organizationally. What is it that makes you all best in class? What is it about your cohesion and your collaboration that you can continue to double down on? And three, I want you guys to stick to the playbook that you've created because if you stick to that playbook, it gives you the best chance to continue to have market share and create yourselves a competitive advantage. Now, I just mentioned the importance of both self-awareness and team awareness, and I wanna unpack three pillars of each of those. The reason we start with self-awareness is the very first step to improving the team is improving yourself. If you want the team to be better in fiscal year 2024, then you need to be better in 2024. And there are three areas specifically that I wanna encourage each of you to heighten. First, through your habits, second, is your mindset, and third, is your focus. So let's look at our habits. Research has shown that upwards of 40% of everything we do on a daily basis is habitual. That means almost half of everything we do from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to bed is habitual, it's on autopilot. Each and every one of us have grooved a series of repeatable, borderline predictable behaviors. Now I've told you, my evaluation of every single person in this room is you guys are high performers. You all are the Kobe Bryant's of what you do, but I have a really important question to ask you. Are you a high performer because of your habits? Or are you a high performer in spite of your habits? If you were to make a list of the things that you do every single day of your life, which percentage of those are helping you and which percentage of those are hindering you? Here's a self audit that I want each and every one of you to do within the next week. At some point over the next few days, you take out a piece of paper and you draw a vertical line down the middle. On the left side of the paper, I want you to come up with an exhaustive list of the things that fill your bucket, the things that energize you, that light you up, mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually if that's appropriate to you. But what are the things that fill your bucket? Then on the right side of the paper, I want you to write down how you've been spending the bookends of your day. What do you normally do for the first 60 minutes after you wake up and what do you normally do in the 60 minutes before you go to bed? And I want you to get crystal clear on what you've been doing. And then to complete this self audit, I want you to compare the two sets of notes. And I want you to ask yourself the most fundamental question you can ask yourself when it comes to raising your game and improving your individual performance. And that is, am I doing the things I know I need to do in order to show up as my best self consistently? Now we've got a room full of really high performers, but I promise you, if you do this with some honesty and some vulnerability, you'll start to uncover what's called a performance gap. And a performance gap is the gap between what we know we should do to be our best selves and what we actually do on a daily basis. And it's okay to have that gap, but the goal is making incremental, systematic, progressive improvement to slowly start closing that gap. To care about yourself and to care about your teams and to care about your families enough to prioritize yourself care to the point that you start taking things from the left side of the paper and you start integrating them into your morning and evening routine. As soon as you start doing that, you will immediately start to have more energy, more optimism, more confidence, and you will show up as the best version of yourself more consistently. And if everybody in the room makes the commitment to do that, then you all continue to elevate together, power of one. So those are our habits. Now let's take a look at mindset. The way we choose to view the world around us. And I want each and every one of you to adopt what I call a winner's mindset. And that is simply waking up every day, making the commitment to yourself and to each other that I'm going to do the best I can with what I have wherever I am. That's it, full stop. Do the best you can with what you have wherever you are. The reason I love that as a foundational mantra for mindset is it automatically eliminates a trilogy of behaviors that I can promise you from firsthand experience. Well, undermine your performance, undermine your productivity and contribution and undermine your sense of fulfillment. And that is blaming, complaining, and making excuses. If everyone in this room can make a commitment to start to reduce the temptation to blame, complain, and make excuses, it's like taking an emotional weight vest off. You immediately become emotionally more agile. And you know what you are if you're not emotionally agile? You're emotionally fragile. And you all cannot continue to excel and lead at the pace that you are if you're emotionally fragile. So that is our mindset. And now let's look at the third pillar, which is focus. Where you choose to place your attention. And let's look at the playing to win concept, which I, again, I'm so attracted to and love. Well, let's look at that word win. That word win is actually an acronym for focus, which is what's important now. Break down the word win to what's important now. At any given moment of any given day, you need to be able to take a deep breath and ask yourself, am I choosing to place my attention in what I believe is most deserving of it in this moment? I'm gonna say that again, because it's that important. Any given moment of any given day, you should take a deep breath, take a beat and ask yourself, am I intentionally choosing to place my attention in what I believe is most deserving of it in this moment? If you can do that, then you can start to make progress in what we call being in the present moment, living present. A short definition of that, and this is actually kind of a mental trigger, a reminder that I say to myself dozens of times a day is you need to learn how to be where your feet are. Wherever your feet are, make sure that's where your head and your heart are as well. We need to get all of those faculties in alignment and they all need to be present in order for you to perform at the highest level. If we break it down a little bit further, there are three pillars that go into being in the present moment. And this requires the ability to refocus the lens. See, we can talk about focus, but we also have to acknowledge in today's day and age where we are bombarded with so many distractions, many of which are digital, that we are going to lose focus. We are going to be distracted. Our minds are going to wander. We have to accept that. But can we have the skill set and the awareness to refocus the lens? And don't forget, awareness is always the first step to improvement in any area of your life because you will never fix something you're unaware of and you will never improve something you're oblivious to. So the way that we improve our ability to be focused is to recognize and accept and acknowledge when we are unfocused. So there's three things we need to refocus the lens on. The first, we refocus the lens on the next play. Second, we refocus the lens on what we have control over. We say control the controllables. And number three, we refocus the lens on the process. So when I was in the basketball training space, in addition to helping players improve their on-court athleticism, my number one job was to get them to play present. You just missed the wide open layup. It's okay, next play. You just turn the ball over. It's okay, next play. Yes, I know, the referee didn't make a call. It happens, next play. Why do I want my basketball players focused on the next play? There's nothing they can do about the play that just happened. It's in the rear view mirror. It's in the past. It is unchangeable. There's nothing they can do about the missed shot, the turnover, or the referee's inability to blow the whistle. Those plays are over. And any physical, mental, or emotional currency, they choose to waste in something that is in the past means they don't have it to invest in the present, which means by definition, they cannot perform at their maximum level if they are still worried about the past. So we have to refocus the lens on the next play. Second, we refocus the lens on the only two things in the world. We have 100% control over 100% of the time. That is our own effort and our own attitude. We have to acknowledge that working hard is a choice. And if we acknowledge that working hard is a choice, there has to be another side of that coin. If working hard is a choice, then not working hard, that's also a choice. And it can't be one we make very consistently if we want to be our best selves. Same thing with attitude. The most important part about attitude is the acceptance and acknowledgement that we do not control the world around us. We don't control the outer world, but we absolutely control how we respond to the outer world. And we cannot let the outer world dictate our inner world. You can't let circumstances, events, what people say and what people do dictate your perspective, your mindset and your attitude. That has to come from within. Number three, we have to refocus the lens on the process. It's amazing to have goals. I want each and every one of you, both personally and professionally, to have a North Star that you're aiming for. But once you've got clarity on that goal of that North Star, you can take your eyes off of it and you need to put it on the process. The best way I can describe the process or the best analogy is if you were ever tasked with building a brick wall, don't worry so much about the wall. Put all of your heart, soul and love into laying each brick with as much care and precision as possible. Because if you can lay each brick with care and precision, the wall, it'll take care of itself. The juice is in the bricks. The juice is in the reps. The juice is in the process. Speaking of playing to win, the best group that I've ever seen execute this is the men's basketball program at Queens University, one of the top division two men's basketball programs in the United States. And their head coach Bart Lundy figured out after watching a decade worth of game film that there were four key stats that heavily dictated whether or not Queens University would win the game. For those that follow basketball, these will be very obvious. For those that don't, I'll do my best to paint the picture to make it obvious. There were four key stats that heavily dictated whether or not Queens would have the most points on the scoreboard when the final buzzer went off. The first was turnover differential. If we can have more possessions than our opponent, it gives us a better chance to win. Number two was offensive rebound differential. If we can take more shots than our opponent, it gives us a better chance to win. Number three were free throws attempted in college basketball. The free throw is the highest percentage shot per possession. If we can take more of those than our opponent, it gives us a better chance to win. And number four were three pointers attempted. Three pointers, a massive weapon in college basketball. And if we can take more clean looks from three than our opponent, it gives us a better chance to win. When Queens University came out on top in those four statistical categories, they won 97% of their games. I'm gonna say that again, cause I don't think y'all think that's as cool as I do. When Queens University came out on top in those four statistical categories, they won 97% of their games, which is unheard of in any sport. That makes them statistically and mathematically almost unbeatable. So now I'm gonna ask you lovely folks a series of rhetorical questions. What do you think Coach Lundy and his staff talked about, reinforced and emphasized before every practice, every workout, every film session in every game? What do you think Coach Lundy and his staff used to design every practice plan, every workout plan, every film breakdown session and every game plan? To Coach Lundy and his staff, never talked about winning, never talked about championships, never talked about banners, never talked about trophies. All they emphasized were those four things because they knew if they could do those four things at a high level, the winning, the championships, the banners and the trophies would all take care of themselves. They focused on the process. That, my friends, is how you play to win. You figure out what winning looks like, you figure out what needs to be done to do those things at a process level and then everybody, power of one, makes the commitment to fulfilling your role to make those things happen. And when it comes to individual performance and habits and mindset and focus, the epitome of that was my all-time favorite basketball player, Steve Nash. Steve Nash in the early 2000s won back-to-back MVP titles, which puts him in very rare company in the NBA. And the first year that he won the NBA MVP, he actually only led the league in two statistical categories. He led the league in assists, which means he liked to share the sugar and pass the pill and get other people involved, but he also led the league in physical touches. I'm actually talking about high-fives, fist bumps, and pats on the backside. How could I possibly know that Steve Nash led the NBA in high-fives, fist bumps, and pats on the backside? Well, it just so happens there was a research team from UC Berkeley who was conducting an official study because they wanted to measure if showing signs of physical enthusiasm actually led to more wins on the court. So they hired a team of researchers to watch every minute of every NBA game and make a tally mark every time a player gave a high-five, a fist bump, or a pat on the backside. Well, the Phoenix Suns, who Steve Nash played for at the time, were so enamored with this study that they hired a full-time intern to count just for Steve Nash. Just by show of hands, how many of you have ever had a crappy entry-level job before? Yeah, can you imagine if that was your very first job? Yeah, you see this guy right here? Every time he touches one of these big, tall, sweaty guys, you can make a tally mark. In the first game that the intern counted for Steve Nash, he delivered 239 high-fives, fist bumps, and pats on the backside. He was a furnace of human connection. Now in basketball, where physicality is appropriate, it has been physiologically proven, you can transfer energy to another human being through physical touch. You, through a well-placed high-five or fist bump or pat on the backside, you can indeed help someone raise their game. Just to make sure that I'm crystal clear and both CDC and HR compliant, I'm not telling you all that when you go to the break when I'm done speaking to pat each other on the backside. Here's what I am asking you to do. I want you to get creative. I want you to be intentional and I want you to be thoughtful about the myriad of ways you can raise the game of the two most important groups professionally in your lives. Those on your team and those that you serve. Your colleagues and your coworkers and your customers and the end consumers. And I want you to get really creative with appropriate ways that you can make that energy transfer to help boost somebody's mood and to help someone raise their game. So here's another challenge for you. And I've seen this radically change the level of cohesion and collaboration in sports teams and even in Fortune 100 businesses. It's called 10 assists. Here's how it works. Every single morning when you wake up, you put 10 rubber bands on your left wrist. Every time you give an assist to one of those two groups, either somebody on your team or somebody that you serve, you move one rubber band from your left wrist and you put it on your right wrist. And an assist is anything you do that goes above and beyond what you are expected to do. This is not part of your job description. This is extra that adds value to their lives or makes their lives just a little bit easier. It's anything you do that is completely unexpected that adds the wow factor of extra value to those two important groups. And whenever you do that, you put one rubber band, you take it off of the left and you put it on the right. But here's the deal, you can't go home for the night until all 10 rubber bands are on your right wrist. You can't go home or put your head on your pillow or close your laptop until you know for a fact that you personally have done nothing short of 10 tangible things to add extra value to the two most important groups in your professional lives, those on your team and those that you serve. And then just start doing the math. If every single person in this room starts to make that commitment to do 10 extra things every single day and you make that contagious throughout each and every one of your collective teams going back to the power of one, you'll see cohesion, you'll see collaboration and you'll see your already absolutely amazing culture continue to skyrocket. So now let's quickly unpack the three components of team awareness. And then I'll put a big bow tie on it the final story, take a bow. And then I believe we're going to a very well-deserved break. The three areas of team awareness will be role clarity, accountability, and communication. So let's look at role clarity. Every single member of your team, yourself included, you need to know your role, you need to embrace your role and you need to make the commitment to star in your role to the best of your ability as consistently as possible. You also need to value, respect, and appreciate everybody else's role on the team. I heard it mentioned before with all of the previous speakers about breaking down silos, that is so important. See whatever your role is, whether it's sales, whether it's marketing, it is so easy as human beings to get caught up in believing what we do is most important and what we do is most valuable. That's just an innate human bias that all of us have. But we have to show so much value, respect, and appreciation for all of the other functions that make you all who are playing the ultimate team sport continue to be successful. And we have to be able to acknowledge those folks, especially folks that do most of their work during the unseen hours. So that's our role clarity. Second is accountability. I'm gonna tell you the same thing that I tell my own children. Holding someone accountable is something you do for them. It's not something you do to them. Holding someone accountable is the best gift you can give another human being because it unconsciously tells them, I care about you and I care about us. And I care about you and I care about us so much, I'm not gonna let you slide by doing less than your best. So holding someone to a high standard of excellence is the best gift you can give them. But before you can hold someone accountable, you have to be crystal clear on what you're holding them accountable to and the level of expectation, the standard of excellence that you have for what you're holding them accountable to. So I'm very amicably divorced. I'm the father of three. I have 13 year old twin sons and an almost 11 year old daughter. So I have my kids half of the time. And a few months ago, I had my kids over for dinner. And at the end of dinner, I asked my 13 year old son, Luke, to please clean the table. After he rolled his eyes at me, he grabbed the plates and the utensils and the glasses. He went and he threw them in the sink and he went to his room and he started playing on his iPhone. And I found myself momentarily frustrated because that is not how I define cleaning the table. See, I define cleaning the table as carefully picking up the plates, utensils and glasses, going over to the sink, using the sponge or the scrubber to rinse them off and wipe them off, line them up neatly in the dishwasher and then take a Clorox wipe and wipe the table down. And if you happen to knock any crumbs on the ground, you sweep them up. That's how I define cleaning the table. But before I could get upset at Luke, it hit me and I started to laugh. The failure of him cleaning the table properly was 100% on me. It wasn't on him. It was because I did not clearly articulate or clearly define what I meant by cleaning the table. I left it ambiguous. I left it up to Luke. And I don't know if any of you have 13 year old sons, but if you do, you'll probably agree that the way he cleaned the table is in perfect alignment with the way a 13 year old boy sees the world. He thought he did exactly what I asked him to do. So because the type of father I am, I went and gathered all three kids, I marched them into the kitchen and I proceeded to give them a master class on what I mean when I say clean the table. Guess what? It's never been a problem since. It's never been a problem since. My kids know exactly what I mean when I say clean the table and they know I love them enough to hold them accountable to a high standard of excellence that if they don't do it to that level of expectation, they will do it again. And it has never been a problem since. So accountability is a gift. And our third pillar is communication. And one of the most important parts about communication is acknowledging that there are unconscious messages that underpin everything we say and everything we do. And I just want you all to make sure you have an awareness of those unconscious messages and that we own them. Here's an example. If you ask somebody on your internal team to help you out with something, you delegate something of importance to them. What's the unconscious message you send to a teammate when you ask for their help? I trust you. I believe in you. I know you're competent enough to get this done. That's why I'm asking for your help. That type of unconscious message will strengthen the bond and the relationship you have with that person. What happens if you delegate something to someone on your team and then you micromanage them? You either literally or figuratively stand over their shoulder breathing down their neck, making sure they cross every T and dot every I. What's the unconscious message you send then? Yes, the exact opposite. The unconscious message you send is I don't trust you. I don't believe in you. And I don't think you're good enough to get this done if I'm not standing here. Now, I know that's not your intention. That's not what you mean. That's not what's in your heart. But you need to remember a coaching mantra that I learned very early in my career that has served me very well. It's not what you say, it's what they hear. That's all that matters. No matter what you say, what they hear is Alan doesn't trust me. Alan doesn't believe in me. Alan doesn't think I'm good enough to get this done. And that will erode and undermine your relationship and your connection with that person. It's like pulling a thread out of a sweater. So we need to make sure that we own all of the messages that we put out, the unconscious messages we put out in the world. When it comes to role clarity, when it comes to accountability, and when it comes to communication, just know that little things make a huge difference. In 2008, I was working as the performance coach at Montrose Christian, a very small private high school just outside of Washington, DC. Our most famous alum is Kevin Durant. And I was getting dressed, I was down in the locker room and I was getting dressed for what I thought was just going to be a normal day of practice. It was a cold day in February. I thought it was going to be a normal day of practice. And I walk through our gym doors and I find myself standing 10 feet away from my hero. I thought this was going to be a normal day of practice. I walk through the gym doors and I'm three arms links away from the one person in the world I wanted to meet more than anyone. I referenced them earlier. It was Coach K, the former head basketball coach at Duke, someone I've idolized my entire coaching career. And Coach K was kind enough to chat with me for 10 minutes before practice started. And as iconic and monumental as that 10 minutes was, I don't remember a single word that either one of us said. Not a single word. I guess I didn't quite have the presence then that I'd like to believe I have now. But I will never forget how Coach K made me feel. He made me feel like I was the most important person in the gym. How did he do that? He had great eye contact and a warm smile. He had positive open body language. He showed a genuine and authentic curiosity and fascination and he kept asking me questions about my work with the team and my personal life. He made me feel like I was the most important person in that gym. I wasn't. The kid he was recruiting was the most important but he made me feel like I was. Well, I was raised very old school. I was raised that when someone goes out of their way to do something nice for you, you hand write them a thank you note. So I went home that night and I hand wrote him a thank you note. Said something to the effect of Coach K, you have no idea how amazing it was to finally meet you. Thank you so much for your time. Really enjoyed our chat. Always rooting for you and Duke. Put a stamp on it. Send it off to Durham, North Carolina. And I figured that would be that. Well, three weeks later, I go to my mailbox. I get a letter back from Coach K. I know you all in the cheap seats can't see this, but three sentences in his iconic handwriting on the front of his iconic stationery that basically says the same thing. No, Alan, it was so nice to meet you. Keep up your great work always rooting for you. How long do you think it took him to write this? Even if he writes slow, maybe 60 seconds? Can we agree over the course of our entire lives? 60 seconds is a little thing. Well, this little thing had a profound impact on my life. This little thing is the reason I choose to wake up every day with an attitude of gratitude to tell as many people as I possibly can. Thank you. I appreciate you. Nice job. This little thing is why I am personally relentless about returning voicemails, emails, text messages, and as many social direct messages as I possibly can. Because I believe if one of the greatest coaches in the history of all of team sports can make the time to hand write me a note back, you better believe I can return your phone call. You better believe I can respond to your email or your text. Just remember that in the leadership positions that you all are in, little things make a huge difference. Now, if I could get my man, John, to switch to the last slide, please. And first and foremost, can you guys all please give John and his team a massive round of applause? The AV team. I know we had a little bit of a hiccup earlier with Mark's mic. That's just something that happens. Mark did a brilliant job of moving to the next play coming over to the podium and repeating what he said for about four straight minutes. Phenomenal job. But here's why I wanna make sure you guys show some love to the AV team. See, I know as a speaker, the role they play in allowing me to do my job, what I love to do. So their work takes place primarily during the unseen hours. In fact, when you come to a conference in an event like this, when is, and I say this with a huge smile, when is the only time you even notice the AV team? Is when something goes wrong, right? Which happens, that's part of life, not a big deal. But I want you to think for a second. The success of their entire vocation hinges on their ability to stay completely invisible so that you don't know they exist for the next three days. Talk about the pressure of that. And I want you guys to make sure that you give thought when you leave here to the people in your lives and the people on your teams that do most of their work and most of their service during the unseen hours. And I want you to go out of your way to show them some praise. So once again, thank you, John and the rest of you guys, amazing. By definition, I'm a keynote speaker and an author, but the moniker that most resides and resonates with me is coach. And as a coach, it is my job to help people actually change their behavior. See, my job today was not to motivate you. If you feel a little more inspired and motivated, that's fantastic, but we all know that's going to wear off very quickly. The most important part is the taking the stuff that you learn over these next couple of days and absolutely implementing them. Action is where it's at. And if I can help you on that journey, it would be my honor to do it. If you want to use that QR code, it'll send you a link to some free reinforcement tools, some videos, some podcasts, some downloadable PDFs that can supplement any notes that you took today, or if you chose not to take notes today, everything you'll need will be there, as well as all of my contact information. So moving forward, if there is anything that I can do for anyone in this room to help you raise your game so that you can make a bigger, more maximum contribution to the team, it would be my honor to do it. Don't hesitate to reach out. Now, I started my keynote telling you about the Kobe Bryant Skills Academy. What I didn't tell you was there was a very special college counselor there. And we didn't know he was special at the time because he lacked the physical stature and the resume of the other players, but we found out very quickly there was something about this kid that was different and it was palpable. The most impressive of these traits was at the end of the first workout, he tapped me on the shoulder and said, "'Coach, will you rebound for me "'cause I don't leave the gym until I swish.'" Five free throws in a row. Swish, five free throws in a row. For any of you that have never shot a basketball, let me just tell you that is an incredibly high standard. A swish by definition is a perfect shot. It doesn't touch the rim, it doesn't touch the backboard, it gets its name from the sound it makes by going nothing but net. And this young man was not going to leave the gym until he swished five in a row. Which means he could have swished four in a row, hit a little bit of the rim on the fifth one, it would still go in. He'd still be mathematically perfect, he'd still be five for five, but that wasn't good enough for him, he'd start over. And if memory serves, it never took him longer than 15 minutes to swish five in a row. That young man was Stefan Curry of the Golden State Warriors who will go down in history as the greatest shooter the game has ever seen. And it's not by accident, it's not by luck. It's not even because his dad played in the NBA. It's because he's willing to hold himself to unparalleled standards. And that's the thought that I wanna leave you all with this morning. The standards that you set today, personally and professionally, individually and organizationally, the standards you set today will determine who and where you all will be tomorrow. Now before I leave the stage, I want you guys to do something for me. Please set down your beverages, set down your phone, set down your pins, you just need your hands ready. This is the last thing we're gonna do and then I believe Hillary's gonna come up and we're gonna go to a break. I'm gonna put my left palm up. When my right palm crosses over my left palm, I want you guys to clap. But I don't wanna hear 360 separate claps. I want to hear one clap. I'll go slow just in case some of you are a little bit slow. All right, these are basic instructions for a basic task, does everyone understand? Okay, nice and slow, we can do this. Let's end this on a high note. It's been an amazing morning so far before we go to our break. Nice, basic instructions, basic task. Now, there's no way I'd come to Orlando from DC and leave you all hanging like that. I care too much about you guys so we're gonna try it one more time. You guys got this, I believe in you, I trust you and I know you're good enough to get this done. All right, you ready? As you guys can see, you still have some work to do. So do it, it was so great to chat with you guys. Thank you so much, thank you.