South Beach Sessions - Mike McDaniel
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Hello and welcome to South Beach Sessions. I'm legitimately thrilled about this one and not for the reasons this guy thinks. I don't think. I'm a fan of his general way. He is doing it differently. He's a football coach and he's made the Dolphins a little more successful than they were. But his personality seems not only unusual but authentic in a way that suggests real leadership. I'm happy to have you in town. I've loved the way that you've carried yourself.

And now the pressure starts. You got to win playoff games because it's been a joy ride for two seasons as the whiz kid. And people have all sorts of questions now. The pressure starts. Yeah. I like to meet the delusional folk that got to have this job and have two years where they didn't think they had pressure.

I don't envy how lopsided the sport makes you guys because it seems to me like you want to live a full and balanced life. And then you also have this passion that probably eats a good 80 hours a week out of your brain power. Yeah, you know, it's similar to the path of many American or human is that there are certain things that you can't control.

So you do have to understand that you can do the job the right way. You can do to the best of your abilities and things can't work out and you have to be okay with that. It is...

It is all-encompassing. There are a lot of people that have opinions based upon your success or failure, and you have a part in that, but it's definitely a team that decides that. But I wouldn't shed too many tears. It is public. It's rough, but it's not that different than...

Um, many people experience life where there's things that you can't control that you are subject to. Oh, but I've always found fascinating in your line of work that there are things you can't control, but by nature, you guys are control freaks. And then you plan and you plan and you plan, and then somebody fumbles or something happens out there that is out of your control. To me, it's the great exasperation of what you do for a living that you would be

You're passionately obsessed to the lopsided detriment of your life, and then you get out there on Sunday and everything you did is out of your control. No, I think that it's one of the greater challenges to lead in this scope or in this way at this time in the world, I think.

There's a lot of things that are drawing you to become a control freak, that are drawing you into experiencing your experience first and foremost above all others. But there's the caveat of the position is that your head coach that has the ability to really...

really influence a lot of people's lives you are by nature that the job is servitude and so you should be serving others i think the the the challenge that is uh not deep diving into your own personal experience and how the outcomes affect you is also what you're you know the

what you sign up for is to be a head coach of and influence the, the lives of other people in a positive way. So for me, the, the pressure, all of it, um, is part of the job. And I think part of the challenge is not, is to let go of the control is to be a teammate is to properly empower teammates with things. And, um, really, um,

have all your teammates being uplifted with autonomy, with things that they have to call their own. It's such a farce to over-control and over-try to regulate what's going on within an NFL organization because, truth be told, you're vulnerable to their work. Don't get delusioned. It is not you. It is...

the accumulation of everyone. So that's not what leadership looked like in your world 20 years ago. That's not what you grow up learning from the idea of that job is service leadership. Isn't, Hey, you follow me. It's how can I help? Yeah, I think, um, you know, I think, uh,

Fortunatiously enough, I didn't come from any scope of background of leadership. I got to witness it organically of what was effective and what was not. You know, there was no one in my family had a tremendous amount of power in any of their jobs. They hadn't, you know, from my family, hadn't gone to college yet. We have a couple family members that have graduated college now besides me, but...

you know, overall, I think, you know, there, I knew, um, from my first conscious memory that, that, uh, the things that I would view that I would aspire to be, um, hopefully one day, um, I didn't look the part by nature anyway. So I was going to have to be unique and different. Um, different was, uh, I attached to greatness. I saw Michael Jordan and, um, and, uh,

I guess when I was a little older, Tiger Woods, but, you know, any supreme athlete of Bo Jackson and all of my... What do you mean your first conscious memory? Loving sports you're talking about? Just my conscious memory of myself. My conscious memory of myself was loving sports and was also, you know...

I wanted to be a head coach of an NFL football team since I was like five years old. So... What the hell is that? I don't know. Obsessive compulsiveness as a five-year-old. It was probably...

You know, there were a couple of years after I was five that I spent time thinking about being an architect or something. Probably unique. I don't think there are a lot of five-year-olds who, like, was there a coach you had modeled there? No, there wasn't. You imagined yourself as a five-year-old leading football players as the head coach. Yes. I...

I was tied to an idea that my mom predisposed in me, which was that I was special, that I could be great. And then along the way, I started to notice that my will and my drive could get me to places that if I would have...

Basically, I learned at a young age that if I was overambitious and I had big dreams, even if I didn't realize them, I would maximize myself. And so the biggest dream that I could come up with as a five-year-old in Greeley, Colorado, was to be the head coach of the Denver Broncos. So from that moment on, I'm recognizing that nothing about myself is...

There's a ton of similarities that I'm seeing people doing that job and living in that world and leading people. But there's fragments of things that you pick up that you notice that are kind of like your personality. And then you, you know, for me, I just kind of thought about, well, theoretically, if you could help.

anyone achieve their hopes and dreams and you can convince them as such, they don't really care about the way you look or the way you talk. And the more that you could add value to people's lives and show them that you have valuable things to contribute to their lives, it can look any way that you want it.

I have a thousand follow-up questions. Your ambition as a five-year-old being extreme, where else did it reveal itself? You said it was showing up all over the place because that's super unusual what you're talking about. Well, you know, I brought it up before and I'm never able to do it quite justice, but there's a moment in my third and third grade that was a game changer for how I approached all of life and something that...

provides residuals to this day. It was, you know, piggybacking on, I had a single mom that was building me up all the time and saying I was so great at anything. Any little thing I did was unbelievable and I could be, and I started to buy into that. Your best cheerleader giving you confidence, giving you...

and maybe not the most popular kid in the class or whatever, and you're trying to digest the world. The world was my mom before, but now the world says that I'm maybe not that or giving me reasons to think that I'm not that, not being the... My mom said that I was so cute. Why don't the girls love me? Those types of things. You're not fitting in exactly. Not the way that...

I kind of saw myself through my mom's eyes. And then third grade, there's a multiplication test that's like a timed 100-question deal. And I really wanted to get 100% and finish first. I wanted to be the best in class. Well, there was someone along the way

that I'd noticed that was better at math than me, Stephanie called us. She was like, she also happens to be like eight inches taller than me and just dominating math. And I could tell she was better at it than me. But then this one day we have this test and I say, no. Not today, Stephanie. I'm going to win this test in my head. No, I am the best. And I just decided to

to mimic what my mom had told me blindly, even though I knew it not to be the case. I ignored that, whatever, that narrative within your mind. And I, sure enough, I won the test, the whole competitive finish within a time, who can get 100, I won. And I was like, that was the light bulb. That if I could, that people are,

You can will yourself out of fearlessness to outperform people that are more talented than you simply because they aren't... You have something inside you that you can control that can help you succeed where others fail or you can... And that for me...

transformed the rest of my life. I don't know what you regard as the most interesting parts of your path, but tell me just how unlikely it is with whatever details it is you wish to choose from your childhood, how being with a single mother who was working six and a half out of seven days a week, how unlikely it is to get to Yale and get to your dreams coaching an NFL football team from wherever it is you were.

Yeah. It's wild to think in those terms. Yeah, I would say the percentages are pretty low. And I think, you know, it's interesting. You have the two things that go on, especially when you talk about your own childhood. You have your experience at the time and then as you reflect, you know, that are quite different a lot of times. And

you know, there's, there's so much of who I became were results of, of, I don't know, um, solving the problems that every, every kid has. Those, those problems are monumental to me, um, and manifest themselves in the way I just go about life in general. Um, but like,

Being a cool kid at school was a big deal, and it didn't come easy to me. Having friends, I didn't know why at the time. I was chasing a lot of popularity in elementary school, middle school, and high school. And I just remember always trying to, as I grew up and I started figuring out some of those things,

those, uh, I don't know, conundrums or those, those life, life obstacles. Um, you know, I think I was, I was constantly trying to, uh, changing schools from sixth grade to seventh grade, moving from Greeley to, to Denver, um, going from a 70,000 person town to metropolitan Denver, um,

um was a was a big moment in my life and and i spent the my seventh grade year um you know i found a friend early dan soder who's a the comedian um and we kind of hung out together and kind of navigated the waters but i was really trying to figure out how i could

um, still not fitting in before that still feeling a bit still, still not, uh, not, not fitting in, not being cool, but now you've got a friend, a little lonely. Yeah. A little lonely. Um, but then I, you know, my personality is kind of changing. I'm starting to try to be funny all the time. And at the time I remember thinking that I'd always want to

I wouldn't ever want people to feel like they were better off if I wasn't there. So like I'd want to be, if I was invited somewhere, I'd want to be the life of the party and add value. I can remember feeling that way and those types of obstacles.

Or me being driven by that. But inauthentically, right? If you're seeking popularity, it's not just by being yourself. You're seeking a reward. Right. Seeking the reward. And at the time, these were for a person that doesn't model his personality authentically.

after anybody that never really had someone to kind of model themselves after. And you're kind of figuring out who you are and what works. And, you know, I just know this driving forces so that people want to be around me. Um, and so those things, those things, figuring out

figuring out how to do that and being able to be successful in that scope with that vision with that objective for her to belong and and doing that You know trial and error and you know when you're when you're young your your world is when you're 13 that

The world's only existed for 13 years, so a month is a bigger deal. It's interesting, though, that you're choosing popularity. Like, you're not going to didn't have money, and you're saying a little bit. You're saying didn't have someone to model myself after, but you're not sinking into the idea that dad wasn't around. You're just saying all I wanted was popularity because it would allow me to fit someplace. And, you know, the funny is I've had people always...

ask me about dad not being around and how that affected me. And if you would have asked me, I would have with a hundred percent conviction told you it didn't matter when I was young. Only, you know, I kind of tie this desire to belong and I know chasing people wanting me around

You know, in hindsight, as I've been older, it probably was driven from, you know, that that lack of acceptance that you experience when you're void of a void of a parent's.

on their own choosing in your mind. You know what I mean? Yeah, you blame yourself for it and you question your worth. Like, did I run them off? Especially during formative years like that when you don't know anything about it. You know you want to be an NFL head coach, but you don't know how other things are going to impact you. But the reason I bring up popularity, the reason I bring that up is because it was something that was ever present from, you know, I want to say when I moved to Denver in seventh grade and on.

And at no time did I have any reason with why that was the case. Maybe because my mom said I was cool when I was little. And may have been overcompensating too. She was probably afraid, just generally afraid. And so let me help boost him as much as I can, even if I have to feign strength. Right. But I've since attached all those things...

to kind of my, you know, I don't think it's ironic that there's things that a team sport provides, being a part of a team, being a part of a, you know, outside my grandparents, on my mom's side, I wasn't really close with a lot of my family, so I had a very, very small family, and I was, you know, trying to embody, you know,

As a head coach, you get to kind of right the wrongs, so to speak. You get to be the dad of a team. You get to right the wrongs of... I didn't have a dad in my...

In my life, that was someone that I could call dad, but I sure could be a great dad. And I think there's some ties to my professional ambition, team, subsequently, a whole...

There's a whole list, a laundry list of things that I've since been able to kind of reason where this drive, where this focus, this obsession that I've had my whole life, where that came about. And it starts and stops with the most foundational elementary pillars to success.

that coincide to who we are, those nuclear relationships and how they manifest themselves in your life.

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Official sleep and wellness partner of the NFL. See store for details. It's a super unusual way that you coach. Are you an empath? Like if you, I don't know whether there's a clinical diagnosis for this, but are you an empath? Yeah, I've been, um, I've been, uh, an anointed as such by, um, people in, in the energy field. And I've been convinced kind of as such, I kind of, I kind of, uh,

you know, it's funny. Um, I had heard that, uh, heard that phrase, you know, I was kind of, um, I'm typically an open-minded person, but I wasn't, I didn't deep dive into the world of energy. Uh, and then once, uh, you know, there's an esthetician that my wife was working with that, that met with me when I was in California, I kind of took advantage of the, uh, the, uh,

I try to take advantage of the world that's around me. And in California, there's a lot of energy talk. And, you know, she was overtaken by, like, my presence in the room. And, you know, start talking to me, kind of open my eyes to something that is a part of me. I guess I would be...

It'd be appropriate to describe me as an empath because of all the energy that I'm absorbing and giving out on a daily basis. You're energetically trying to help people find a better path to their optimal success and the things they want through servitude. And you're energetically trying to

with them in ways that are, I mean, I don't, at the height of what you do for a living, I don't know if it can feel spiritual, but in there somewhere would be purpose. Very much, very, very much does. I'm drowning in purpose. Drowning has negative competition. I am like, if purpose is oxygen, it is purpose.

breathing through me on a daily basis. This is how this studio was built. You have to be the best listener that I've ever encountered.

Oh, thank you. The stuff you just shot back at me? Well, I'm super curious about the roots of who you are because I haven't seen a team coached this way. And I haven't heard a coach talk this way because it's pushing down of feelings. It's repressing of feeling. It's covering up feelings. It's toughing through your feelings. Your feelings don't matter. And you're sitting here saying, no, I kind of care that my linebacker likes music. Yeah, exactly.

I think to be your best self, you have to be yourself. And I really believe that. I think there's different... To truly maximize each individual, how silly does it... This blows my mind. When you start talking about the psychology of performance and you start to talk about how you...

How great people do anything great and where they put their mind and what they're focused on. In a professional setting, if I'm creating an environment where people are spending time trying to guess as to the way I want them to present themselves to me.

That's the orchestration of not being in a place you can't be yourself. A lot of wasted energy, too. And that blows my mind, the short circuits, about how much opportunity cost that is. When you're doing one thing, you're not doing another. And when you're trying to... It's really inefficient. It's crazy. And we're talking about being able to focus on certain...

to be able to focus on the right things and to hear the hear coaching in general and to be able to focus on what you need to do to ensure that your dream of your life can be uh i don't know fulfilled

oh, by the way, spend half your time trying to figure out the way I want you to act. No, it's, I can't imagine. And that's impossible. Well, I just can't imagine how someone like Odell Beckham, for example, who has been punished for his authenticity in an assortment of ways publicly, how he arrives at your doorstep and then your recruiting pitch to him on like, no, no, no.

We're going to work to help you here so that we maximize the best you because I understand how hard it is to do what you do through all of the injuries and everything. How hard it is to be as great as you've been. No, and so you go into the avenue of scars, and that's what that fits within. Like, how long does it take someone to get over scars that they have? You know, you're conditioned to experience... You go to a football meeting and...

You have a certain mindset. A lot of these guys that have had unbelievable success have had it with coaches that were favorable to the journey and without them and all in between. And for me, when players get into our building, like, you know, I think our coaching staff and the whole building does a great job of this, but like understanding that they're carrying the weight of all those scars and,

Those expectations, those that you think is true. And then, oh, by the way, it's not this way here for a specific reason. There's a lot of resistance, a lot of like,

Is this a setup? They don't trust it. This is a nurturing environment. This is football as a nurturing environment. You're not coddling them. There are expectations involved. But the fact that you care about their feelings at all, I think, is unusual. I don't think coaches are supposed to care about it. Eric Spolstra says all the time, I don't care whether they like me or not. That's not the job. No, and it's more for them to...

Let's say that we have the gift of the best things that a player could hear if you're playing professional football. We have these pieces of gold that are coaching points. If players understand that gold and understand where your intent lies, they're

going to listen, allow us to give them that gold that much faster and with that much more conviction and clarity. I think if you had, to me, I want to take out all of the unnecessary, quite literally bullshit that people have accumulated through their journeys to get there and just let's make it about I can help you with anything

um with these things listen to what those things focus focus on those things focus on nothing else and then watch your game improve and though to me the that's the that's more of the way of the modern day athlete that has more individual training that has more um club exposure that has more um

has more knowledge of and more scope of what should be done. Let's show them that we can give them the best tools. You're basically saying I'll meet you where you are. You don't have to come over here trying to guess where I am. And I mean, the modern day player also has something that I don't think anybody is bringing any sort of sensitivity towards. And that's uncharted, uncharted

micromanagement of their careers by you know the the social media and and how that one person's voice or one person's negative um take on who you are and what you're doing how they can spiral people now magnify by 50 million um there is so much noise that is just like the noise that i had

when I was a third grader and I recognized that Stephanie Call was better than me. But I had the tools to block out the noise. That's what you're trying to give them in a professional football setting is a place that...

All of those things are true in terms of how I try to be a human being for them to understand where I'm coming from to best engender a teacher-student relationship. But also, it's also very demanding. If you ask any of our veteran players about how we practice, I put...

I mean, we practice like it's a game at all times as best we can within the rules of CBA. I didn't accuse you of being soft. Nobody out here isn't saying that you guys aren't working hard. But that's why people don't do it. People don't do it because they misconstrue individual relationships and investing in people.

as um a sort of softness that that we're just trying to find a a different level of coach to player relationship that can access um deeper dives and fuller commitment than other places can um it's it's

It's less that you were accusing and more like by nature, I always have to stipulate that because it does... I've just preconceived notions of what it is to... Let's just have a human-being relationship. What if you had an asset in the world? What if you're a five-star athlete and from the age 16 and on, you've been exploited by every person that knows you? And you make millions of dollars now. And so you have...

even fewer people that give a shit about your experience but that is real what if you have a what if you have a teammate in that process what can that take your game your life all of that you know

Can you explain to me the extremes of your obsession when you say obsessed? Like how often is it actually are plays creeping into your sleep? Like what are some of the examples you can give people to say you don't understand how obsessed I am with all of this? Well, I have to. There's also.

Something that I recognize that's balanced, that you do have to balance your life out. And that's 100% what my wife and daughter do for me. And so I have to personally create periods of time where I refuse to think about anything football. Being present with your family and you can't be consumed by something else that love at home will call you on. And I can't. So...

In those times, I can't watch documentaries.

Okay? That's a whole other caveat. It's a distraction. Well, because it will get me back to a professional thought. And I'm just... So family time is 100% family time as ordered by you and the family as best for you and your life. And I try to hold... You know, there's a lot of guilt that comes into being obsessed professionally when you're so motivated by having a family and being a father to my daughter, Ayla. So...

Doing that, I can cut out all the family time and I can be myself, which is myself is always thinking about how I can grab something outside the box and apply it to...

to what I'm doing professionally, which is that I get the honor to, to serve the Miami Dolphins organization as the head coach and, and serve the fan base and all that stuff. Um, and it, it, if it's not family time, it doesn't go away. Um, uh, plays on numerous occasions. Um, I'll wake up at midnight and I'll utilize my iPhone notes app, uh,

and write the most random things that has one catchphrase that will get me back to that point. What has Katie, your wife, taught you about love? She's taught me how to love someone that loves you. She really taught me what it was like to be loved. You feel the

You feel the love of nuclear family, of things that you sign up for. You feel what you think is to be loved when you're in relationships as you go in your life. But then there's, you know, I didn't realize what it was like to be loved until it felt unconditional, which, you know, there needed to be some adversity for that opportunity to present itself and

I've talked about it a bunch, but having my wife look at me and love me after failure, a disappointment or whatever, there's been much written about when I got sober. That was probably the last time that I've really let her down.

But feeling someone love you unconditionally and actually love you for your successes and failures, that has taught me how to love in life, not just her, but just people in general, to not look at your actions as conditional based upon other people's actions and how to...

give the love that, I mean, listen, I'm in the midst of living, um, a dream that I've had since I can remember. And there's a lot of gratitude that comes with that. Um, and where do you, where do you pour that into? Will you pour that into the love that you have for the, the world that exists that can put you in this position? And then you pour it out into people, even if it doesn't

they're not going to give it to you back. You know, those types of life lessons. I think the actions that I take on on a day-to-day basis, there's a lot of love that I exude when I do that. And I didn't understand that until we got deep into my wife and I's relationship, not just on the front end, but, you know, you go through things that people go through.

I want to talk about your sobriety, but she's described the job as lonely and anxious because of your job. So it's your dream and she's supporting your dream, but it takes her husband away, mentally away. And yes, you've got your errands and your honey-do list, but it takes you away. Your dream takes you away. It really does. She was blown away.

I'm three days into our one summer break where I get away from work. As a head coach after the season, you're dealing with a lot of things that has to do with people's jobs moving forward, whether that's within the organization as a player or as a coach or as a player.

And she was like jaw dropped the other night, I think Thursday night, the day of my last, uh, the last day of work, um, before at the very front end of our break. And I was just going to new levels playing with some Paw Patrol toys. And she was like, where'd you find this energy where, Oh, it's work, huh? And you know, the, uh,

until that moment where I can file work away. Um, you know, I can't, I can't even manifest myself as a father to the degree that I can with a hundred percent on them. You know, it is all encompassing. She even brought light to that, um, when she was digesting my out of control, um,

new dad behavior, you know. - Just dad away from work for a little while, you can concentrate without the daily stresses. I mean, it's just a perpetual responsibility energy pull. There's always a problem to fix, right? - Yeah, that's the job. The job is not to avoid problems. You're talking about 150 people

It's to find them and fix them. Yeah. And that's what your role is. And, you know, I thought I knew that. I'd been given such a grand tutorial by being, you know, Kyle Shanahan's right-hand man for so long and watching him do it and watch all my peers get the jobs. And, you know, I had a very concrete, very...

great scope of what the job what job is but until you're in it you don't those things you don't really understand quite literally your no problems can't dictate your energy your your your otherwise you will have no energy it's whack-a-mole it's there will always be more problems who are who are people going to go to if they don't go to you for problems you are the solution finder so um

It is ever-present for that as well because you're, you know, the second that good things are happening, it's hilarious. Every time that, you know, my wife will let me know that things are pretty positive just in the mediascape, like,

My knee jerk reaction is, all right, where's the problem coming? Something bad's going to happen. There's problems all the time. And I think where I'm at, you know, in this being my third year, it's really cool to have an idea on job of what it is to be successful at it and to be able to lean into those things that you think you're capable of being. It's hard to bring energy back.

positive energy to people all the time when people are constantly bringing you negative things. But if, you know, I never got into this field trying to be like, hopefully I can be a head coach or hopefully, you know, my ambitions are much grander. You know, I want to be, I want to win multiple Super Bowl trophies and ultimately that

in me being able to be in a gold jacket where those things are grand. Okay, well, I better be good at handling problems. All right, I'm going to continue to get better at being the guy that people both shovel problems towards but then expect positive energy pushed towards them. And I'm capable of doing that because there's a...

I've got better at assembling people around me and the people that have been around me on top of some of the added individuals within the organization were able to facilitate that because I am definitely a product of a cumulative work of many individuals. And I, it,

It is tricky, but Mom and Ayla, they definitely notice when it's 100% all of my problems are that bedtime is too early and we need to be able to watch more movies and not play as much or do the math arithmetic that Dad's bestowing upon.

I can't imagine what the last three years have been like for you because those are two seismic life events to arrive at your dreams and also after tribulation, finally being able to welcome your daughter into the world. Right. No, it was funny because I had finally earned the opportunity to

you know, be a big part of what we did in San Francisco from a coaching perspective. And, you know, the players that I was able to touch and the responsibility given to me from game planning and all that stuff. And, um, we were the sun, the Saturday before he left to Miami, um, for the, for the Superbowl, um, a week before that, that Superbowl that, um,

was a paramount implications to my entire career. That's when we found out that we were pregnant or that Katie was pregnant. I was not pregnant. You were adjacent. You were adjacent to the proceedings. And, you know, I think it would be you're chasing things for so long and you're

They're both... They could be considered overwhelming responsibilities. For me, they're the greatest gifts that I've ever been given all at once. And fortunately, I've been preparing who I am as a man to be a father my whole life and who I am as a professional to be a head coach. So I... You know, it...

came all at once, um, in terms of gigantic things within my life. But, uh, you know, I felt like I'd been, uh, working tirelessly, uh, to be ready for it, you know? So it's, yeah, it's definitely unique. Um, but, you know, I think I'm also looking at it like that. I'm very fortunate that

uh, I feel like I'm capable, um, to execute both jobs and at a high level. So, you know what, what I, cause for me, you know, in both circumstances, there's no going back that you don't get second, second chances. Um, and the last thing I want to do is live in regret in either one. So, uh, the, uh,

I love the idea of fatherhood as a job I perform at a high level, like coaching, that you're giving yourself good grades on fatherhood because you're making sure to be present. And I don't know what you're taking from your own childhood that you had that you're applying here and that you didn't have that you're making sure to apply here. Well, you know, I think like most people, you...

uh work hard at identifying what your parents do do well to replicate that and then it's very easy to find the things that you were without um as as motivating factors to to parent i get you know the the i had so many things to for me i was spending my whole childhood in the positive in the optimistic world that my mom created and

And that is so powerful just in the journey of life. She conjured the positive, right? It's not necessarily that it was that positive. She was just bringing it to life verbally and in her daily actions. Right. And for me, in retrospect, that...

is a prime example of you can say, you can, you can spend anything into what you want it to be. Um, our lights were turned off. Um, we didn't have barely any money. Um, I, I, you know, we were, I was at home from first, you know, there's large struts of stretches of time where I'd be home to, um, fend for myself when, you know, can afford childcare and that,

That space between I need to work this much, but I can put you in childcare for this long. Dad wasn't around. We didn't have much. And I had no idea because of what she chose to focus on. And I remember getting cool shoes when I got straight A's on my report card.

I didn't know that she had to save up to do that. So I think overall, that life lesson was implied with what she chose to focus on because I started realizing some of the hurdles that I'd overcome that I didn't know were hurdles. When I was in my late teenage years kind of figuring all this stuff out, that is something that...

I think Katie and I, we talked at length about, you know, when we had plenty of time to really plan for our child, considering we kind of thought it was a dream lost over five years since we started. And then by that time, we were so elated to have this miracle that we were...

Ultra positive when she when she was pregnant, there wasn't like we didn't get into one fight, you know, trying to picture trying to create something that, you know, we had a vision for that, you know, I had no experience on how proper pregnancy.

Parental relationships should really be portrayed to a child. She had a little more knowledge and history. I love her parents, and she had a great childhood, but we were able to apply that positivity from the second that she was born.

inner stomach. Those things I think are super important. This child will be surrounded by love, a united love. From the moment it's conceived, the energy around this child will be a positive, warm, loving one. And to me, the one thing that I've observed is like everybody, you have no idea the consequences of any sort of actions and, you know, but there's one thing that

I've noticed as kind of like a litmus test on whether or not parents have done their job or not, and me, it being non-negotiable that I right the wrongs that I'd experienced. You know, I just wanted our daughter to know that unconditionally, she is the most important thing in the world to two people. And I think...

If you're able to me, that gave me a fighting chance in the world because I had won. But that idea that you are the most important thing to someone beyond consequence and beyond condition, that gives you the ability to fight through your journey of life and to not give in to the world that does a great job of trying to break you down.

You mentioned your sobriety. You've been sober since 2016. What were you, I've read you say, I was running away from problems, but that's where you left it. What were you running away from? Well, so there's this weird part of me that was like, there's a lot of things that I didn't want to acknowledge based upon, you know, the

When you come from nothing, being ungrateful is like really off-putting. And I was so grateful to be in the NFL, but then I wasn't still, there was things that were bothering me that I didn't want to, with my career, with where I was, you know, whether it was very minuscule or monumental, I just didn't, I'd been passed up.

the opportunities weren't really there. But then at the same time, I was still a coach in the National Football League. I should be happy if it's taking longer than it should for me to ascend in the profession. Who cares? And not allowing myself to even think about anything negative. Instead, let me just forget about anything negative and

Not understanding the process of everything doesn't always have to be positive, but it's a positive experience jumping in and living in to your problems because I was avoiding all problems. And that's not the sauce. That's not plausible, nor is it realistic, nor is it you have to have problems to have. Well, it's not healing either. Avoidance isn't healing. So it was much of that and healing.

Realizing that the second that you started to get a little tipsy, then none of those problems existed anymore. And then I'll figure out the issues later. Those types of things. I needed that next step of maturation of understanding how to still maintain my positivity towards life.

Well, acknowledging the things that can and should bring you down.

Well, how does this one work, though? So are you sad because you're wildly ambitious and not arriving at the things that you want to arrive at? Or are you also just depressed or things are making you feel depressed and now you're throwing lighter fluid or the depressant of alcohol all over them because you're not totally aware of whether it's the job that's costing the sadness or whether it's just sadness? I think it's the greater fear of sadness.

What do I have to do to be like for me? The moment that the professional moment that was bringing me down was also a professional triumph, so to speak. Like if you put me next to all the people that I grew up with and, you know, that's I have a lot to feel great about. Not being able to figure out why I was down was scary, right?

It's scary when you're like, can I be happy? And I think, you know, that it kind of perpetuates on itself and becomes a bigger thing. When in reality, you know, I think, I think it was just such an eye opener that, and a relief that, Hey, you can have two things can coexist. You can be overall very grateful for your life and,

and simultaneously be unhappy with certain things about your life. Just that was a huge epiphany for me because I was such an extreme person and thinking that it was all one thing or the other. That had been, you know, how I'd... And realistically, I kind of looked back and all of my time, you know, went all the way till probably my freshman year of college. I've been kind of...

in a pattern handling things that would come my direction that I didn't, didn't want to be a part of the equation or didn't want to handle. I just kind of dive into diving into, I guess I would be presently, um, getting intoxicated to party out the problems and then I'd have a good time and, and find value in, in that. And, um, you know, get,

never address anything that was kind of weighing on me. Then, you know, in my extreme personality, once I found the better way of the world, which was not running from problems but hitting them head-on, then I kind of became addicted to that. Do you remember the details on how you identified it as a dependency? Because I imagine you didn't think it was a dependency until you thought it was a dependency. Um...

Well, I kind of knew once I was, there wouldn't be a day that would go by that I wouldn't have at least a couple beers. I kind of knew that that was a problem. And then I kind of just kept it to myself, ignored the fact that I deep down knew that I had a problem. And then when the problem surfaced...

I couldn't hide it anymore, and it was in front of my professional world, and I had to come to grips with it. It forced me kind of to figure out, okay, well, is this, you know, I need to deep dive into what is going on because I'm sabotaging myself. You were late, right? You were late or you were let go because you were late too? Those were parts of the journey I fixed. I was never late again once I had a career hiccup with the timeliness of it.

But then it was people catching that I had alcohol in the office and was drinking on nights that no one would be drinking. It was that. It was like really finding my zest, that zest for life that I couldn't find because I was ignoring what was bringing me down. And it wasn't like one thing. It was how you handled all problems. All of those things, that zest, I would find...

with alcohol and then I had to kind of come to grips with, okay, what am I doing and why am I doing that? And originally, I had a feeling that I wasn't addicted to alcohol itself. I was addicted to the results of it. And so I just deep dove into problems, got such a... I don't know. So much weight was taken off my shoulders and...

I was saying that I knew early, probably in the first week, that I could not drink again like I told my wife I wouldn't because it was, oh, I just need to retool how I approach life and not just the good stuff. The more meaningful stuff, the stuff that you have to get over, the stuff that you have to having a problem that quite literally...

Three weeks after I got sober, I had a new problem. I was passed over again for the position coach job in Atlanta to work with Julio Jones the year we went to the Super Bowl. And that it was an immediate example of me being able to manifest this new way to look at things. And sure enough, there was a couple career... There was a couple...

Things that I was able to bring to the team's table on how we teach certain things and kind of had instituted a yak tape that off-season that we really leaned into and kind of an orchestration of how to coach it. Found all these professional, like, new levels of success within the profession, even though I didn't get the job by the formula that I was kind of already using.

laying out all the epiphanies that had hit me. It was one of those moments that you really have to look yourself in the eye and figure out what do you want to be. I had to talk to my five-year-old self and not do wrong by him. Everything that I worked for, it was very therapeutic, very deep dive. It's something I'm really proud of just because I understand

How it could have gone a different way for sure. You need the results, obviously, but it sounds like confidence is a real thing for you. You've learned to believe in yourself. You've learned to do it your way. You've learned to be authentically yourself because it's the easiest thing to be consistently day to day. Well, it also helps me bridge the gap of... There's also the point that you brought up early, which was like, there's only so much you can control. So much of what I do now...

acknowledging things that are difficult and doing things the right way. And that's how I keep score. And certain things that I understand more than ever, why people aren't themselves, the risk inherently that there is towards that, why people, some of the things that I choose to

very intentionally do things in a different manner than I've ever observed. That's because I know them to be right and I know why people don't go outside their comfort zone. I know why people don't lean in to their own personality. And I do recognize that I've been gifted a platform where

Um, hopefully I can encourage more people to, to, to do. What a huge wisdom to have. Like I'm, forgive me for interrupting you, but to be resolute in your conviction of I'm doing this the right way. I mean. Well, and, and it's very, you're doing it for all the right, the correct reasons. Um, understanding all the implications as best you can. And that is so much more.

And there's times that the result won't mirror and you have to be okay with that. It's got to be process, not result. It has to be. Your players can get injured. Like, come on. It's a violent sport and your whole defense can be out when you're headed to Kansas City. And come on. A lot of things can happen. And then on top of that, it doesn't... So much of... I've realized so much of my job is everyone else doing their job and who those people are and identifying...

really good human beings that I think, you know, I'm so proud of the coaching staff that we have in 2024 because, and so proud of the organization where it's at. All of these things I've learned on the job of, you want to talk about humility? I'm only as good as everybody I work with. And across the board, you know, I think that

I think there's a bunch of people in place that really take advantage of the opportunity they have working with me and make me right for how I delegate and how I try to empower and all those things. They have to see the reasons. Really, you just have a bunch of people

living out your hopes and dreams, pressing forth what you believe to be the best thing to do, and being able to live with that for the rest of your life. You know, this is something I've built up. This has been the life dream, sole focus of my entire existence. You don't want regrets.

I appreciate your time. I appreciate your vulnerability. And I will tell you again that I appreciate your way of being. You've given us a lot of time, so I will just get you out of here on a couple of rapid fire questions. Can you tell me please about your senior thesis at Yale? Okay. Senior thesis was the maturation of the National Football League in the 1960s. So I did a, it had to be primary source at Yale as a history major.

One of your course credits is a year-long independent topic, a year-long deep dive, primary source thesis on whatever topic you're passionate about. For me, since I knew I was going to be into coaching, I wanted it to be time well spent, and I spent time, you know,

looking at primary source articles and the Beinecke Library covering the National Football League from like 19 the early 1950s all the way through the early 1970s and found out so much what I already thought I knew what one of the biggest things was like I to learn all the positive things that were occurring by

work of Al Davis in the 60s. I was a Denver Bronco fan. So I just knew the Raiders and I just hated the Raiders. You'd appreciate Al Davis's renegade spirit of doing it differently. Well, but then how the Super Bowl comes about and then from the Super Bowl, just where the state of the National Football League was and then the television rights that kind of, you know, all of a sudden, 1919,

1958, college football is king. 1970, the National Football League is king. To find out the nuts and bolts behind all that, it was a really cool process. Tell me about Smoky Hill High School. What, from your high school experience, is something that is shaping you today that is the adult you still carries around from there? The Smoky Hill High School, you know, it was a...

Uh, it's probably in the, at the time, the Centennial, uh, school district or the Cherry Creek school district, I should say, um, was probably the top of the public schools and, um, Smokey Hill was within that. And they had so much access to all the, um,

international baccalaureate programs, all the AP programs, the opportunities that even though I was, you know, nobody was expecting big things coming from me. And it's not like anybody championed me during my process, but I was only able to position myself in the world the way I was because of the access of all the opportunities and how to me the

that comes across in my teaching on a daily basis and trying to gain the listening of a player because I'm trying to give them the opportunity to learn something. And maybe there's walls or barriers between us, but if I can go that extra length to give him the opportunity to

to access those coaching points that my expertise has found very valuable that can allow him the opportunity to take advantage of his... I mean, it's ever-present. The idea of opportunities and that being an obligation, not an obligation, but that being something paramount to...

people's successes and I don't know where I'd be if I didn't have access to those programs and wouldn't be able to compete on a national level in terms of a student trying to get acceptance into a university. I would have had no shot. So that Smoky Hill, great job with your AP program. Appreciate it.

And I'm told from a dolphin source deep in the organization that there is a love story at the center of how it is that you got the Denver Broncos start. How you got your first chance in football. Now 18 years in football, but it started where? Okay, so obsessiveness. I think this was third grade too. You know, I was obsessed about being a head coach.

I was obsessed about beating Stephanie Collin math, right? Again, Stephanie name dropped a third time. And then I was obsessed with, um, in the summer, the Denver Broncos, their training camp was at, um, university of Northern Colorado, which is in Greeley, 10 minute, 15 minute bike ride from my house in the summers. Um, instead of having childcare, um, the Denver Broncos practice would be my childcare. I'd get up at seven in the morning, ride my bike, um,

there and get autographs. Well, in the third grade, I was, I had like a box of cards, um, sorted by numerical order, um, and multiples of each player. And I'd gotten Robert Delpino number 39 earlier in the day. Um,

On one particular day where I was getting autographs. Saw him later in the day. And I was wearing a Charlotte Hornets fitted hat that was super loud. It was the days of Lonzo Mourning and Grandma Larry Johnson. So it was a super loud color hat. So I took the hat off, put it on a wall, ran, got the autograph so he wouldn't recognize me. So I could get a second autograph because I was a greedy. That's good. That's good work by you, though. Got the autograph, came back. Hat wasn't there. Started crying.

First Denver Bronco employee that came out of Lawrence Hall, which is where they stayed, grabbed him, asked him to look in the lost and found. He went unsuccessfully, returned, no hat, took down information. Two days later, I saw the guy at Bronco camp again, brings me inside, gives me a hat with a price tag on it. He went out and bought me a hat.

He was the assistant video director for the Broncos. I introduced him to my mother that night because my mom was like, who's this stranger? Or the next day, because my mom was like, who's this stranger buying you things?

which at the time I was like, what? Now I'm like, yes, I'd be very inquisitive myself. So introduced them the next day. They started dating. They got married. That's how I moved to Denver. And I became a ball boy because I was a video guy's stepchild. Right. You fast forwarded the end part of that story, though. Really, you really rushed through the end of it. And then they got married. I got my hat back. I stopped crying and they got married. Yeah. Because...

Clearly, I told him to. So many more details on the hat than the love. But I just asked you for the love story, and you're told I can see the hat. I can see the hat. The love story you just fast-forwarded through. The love story was that...

It's okay. It's okay. You don't have to do it. It's okay. We can move on. I just went into, I guess, Pavlov's dog. I just went into my mode of telling that story. I've told it many times. But the love was that...

The love part of that story is my mom loved the hat. No. They dated for a while. We can leave it alone. You don't have to keep giving me details. I thought I was going to be able to get you to cry on Ayla. I thought there was going to be something there, but I failed. I have failed here and now I know why. It's because you're just fast forwarding through the details that are emotional for you. No, the...

I mean, there's a lot to cover. We have a lot of interesting stuff to talk about. So it's not of your failure that we didn't cry. Thank you. I appreciate you holding me to your bosom there and nurturing me on that one. I found your sport to be very primitive when it comes to the leadership. And so that you've learned...

that you've learned to reach a new generation of player and that you find yourself as an ally instead of a taskmaster. It's nice to see someone treating the labor humanely. Wow, that was very complimentary, and I am without words. Well, thank you, though. That's it.

Well, that's probably why I have a firm professional appreciation for your show and you as a human being. That's why I'm here. Thank you, sir. I'm building sandcastles. We wore you out. You need to get back to your wife and daughter. You've spent enough time here. I appreciate the opportunity. Thank you. Likewise.

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