My friend Tony Petrozza interviewed me for his The Self-Help Coaching Podcast with Tony Petrozza. I share a ton of beliefs that have served me as a coach and entrepreneur. See full episode on The Self-Help Coaching Podcast:
How Does Coaching Football Relate to Life?
- What is a skill stack?
- Why mix Coach Tim football and Coach Tim SEO?
- What is Building Men/Women for Others?
- What is the secret to a long marriage and how it helps business?
- How does football totally inform a life and business and how does it not?
Key Takeaways:
Tim draws from a lifetime of mentors from professional football coaches and
players from gurus of the fortune 500 in order to install a useful roadmap for relationships
and marketing while giving back with his always updating skill stack.
Do not coach football, build men and women for others. We have an obligation to coach beyond the wins or losses and coach for the big game.
“I really believe that it’s a hell of a lot easier to get ahead in life when you steal excellence from others, lol!”.
A reference to the saying is from the mantra of Loyola High School in Los Angeles and modeling success by copying process. A key component of NLP.
A reference to the saying is from the mantra of Loyola High School in Los Angeles and modeling success by copying process. A key component of NLP.
I’d rather watch what one does, and when what they say they do, and what they do match, you have a person who is a master, or at least on their way to being a master at that context.
So I have tried to impart that onto my kids when I coach football. But what if you translate these lessons cross context into relationships? That’s the power that we’re given as leaders.
…That translates to business too right? I mean your audience is easily bored, especially nowadays… everybody’s swiping and you’ve got about a half a second of attention if that.
I learned how to tell better stories from night time stories to my kids, coaching, and from writing blogs and doing podcasts.
How we get stuck in uour narratives.
you know when i started working on
teaching personal development especially
as i developed self-help coaching
you know i saw that which was necessary
to manifest
the the results and and the benefits
that a person wants
is that they have to take their
knowledge
and apply it as consistently as possible
to get to get the goods that’s the way
to get the goods
you are about in a very similar way
about optimization and the ubiquity of
things
generalized talk about that there’s that
word you’ve been you have been
researching
[Laughter]
um yeah we so
somewhere along the line uh one of my
one of my big uh hurdles
in life had been
to stay in a lane right so instead of
going with the coach tim
you know and and hiding it the football
side of me
at some point you know after and
probably is when my
clients are calling me up hey coach tim
you know they’re they kind of were
digging
the the whole thing you know and so i
kind of
said okay this could work and i was
uncomfortable with it because again
i don’t want to be judged right don’t
want to be judged as that guy
because i know people have judgments of
their coaches
they had that [ __ ] you know 30 years
ago who yelled and screamed and made
them feel horrible
and you know and that’s that’s not me
though
and so uh i try
to when i put out coachy stuff really
come
all it is just context right if you if
you listen to
i’ve got uh uh tom vizzini on the on the
on the podcast talking about anchoring
okay
jonathan alfield who i have been trained
by uh in person
i’m sorry me too oh yeah he’s great he’s
great
um and uh and others
they i made them step into the context
of football
right how to coach and and do that stuff
in a football context but it works any
anywhere
it works anywhere and one of the things
that actually
you know adam got me to do my my buddy
the hypnotist
is to not worry about
that i’m not like a hundred percent you
know
hypnotist of the year award right you
you can still go out and anchor it’s
okay tim
right and it and it wasn’t so much that
he taught me how to anchor i already
learned it but i thought it was like
this magical thing right
and i literally went out the next day
and anchored the hell out of somebody
right and i’m like all right i’m just
going to have fun it
all just looks silly if you know if it
doesn’t work
and and we did a deal
i mean it wasn’t you know and really
what i learned from that
is i mean man everything it was the
beginning of me
realizing everything’s really about
feelings i mean we’re so
bendable um and why i like that little
hamster there because it’s like he’s
um he’s sort of stuck but if he just
jumps off and
chooses another wheel he’ll he’ll have a
different experience right
to step off i feel it’s incredible how
feelings
are so
really the most important thing i mean
try to have a good day while feeling bad
yeah right try to have a bad day while
feeling good
you know it’s just you know being
simplistic you know as
when i developed our first um
home study course which is benjamin
franklin’s the way to wealth which is
about financial security
as i learned what that course you know
was about the principles that franklin
had which was about like 85 principles
which i isolated
and they saw the weight of wealth isn’t
knowing isn’t one skill for example
or or attitude for example ben teaches
don’t go into debt unless it’s
absolutely necessary
and it’s that and and becoming wealthy
is totally not all about just making
more money that’s just
one slice of the pie uh but it’s also
you know there’s another skills like for
example franklin says you must care you
must take care of well everything even
the little details you must take care
that’s the way to weld
so all these skills come together in
synergy
or you’re building on it one on on on
top of the other in order to
become wealthy don’t have to become
financially independent
you do a thing called skill stacking
what’s the relationship what’s the
correlation what’s skill stack
it’s it’s not it’s not really my phrase
again i stole it uh scott adams who’s
a the dilbert guy
and honestly if you watch it and
strip the politics out of it you’ll get
an education
in persuasion and a lot of the stuff
he’ll say
it’s in his words which is why he’s a
great marketer he
you know uses it and puts it into his
own concept
but he talks about his skill stat
right and his skill stack
is let’s see he’s now a huge
youtuber or or a
blogger and he was a keynote speaker
he’s a trained economist from berkeley
he’s a hypnotist
he’s a corporate he was a corporate
executive
and i’m sure i’m missing something so
that gives him the
a unique gift
to the world right his experiences
and sharing it is his unique gift to the
world now why one of the things i say
when i train people in how to create
content
and and you you gave me a compliment
earlier which is
looking around and that’s really just me
doing my content
right i mean that’s how you found me and
so i’m i’m all over the place
ubiquitously as i love that word
one of my favorites yeah um
it’s years ago i told the story it was
when all we had was blogs
and i got interviewed by uh this guy at
the
chicago tribune i think and he asked me
and i never thought about it you know
why blogs and
and i said uh just came out of my mouth
i said well it’s really
a blog is the ability to tell the
your brand’s story through time
and and so now instead of one blog we
have you know
every social media platform and
new thing being created every day that
we can be putting
stuff out there and um
so that is the idea of ubiquity to me
and so no matter
where you go there i am sort of sort of
thing
you talked awesome no you did
you have a really wonderful uh
conversational way about you and i
really appreciate that
it’s really it’s really it’s very
conversational
um you talk about the need for persona
and perspective in the digital economy
now and i also know that you uh
you mix uh uh coach
tim football and coach tim seo i don’t
we haven’t i haven’t
we haven’t been specific yet tim is a is
an internet marketer he
he does internet marketing digital
marketing for people and
i got to tell you for my company
we just got a new digital marketing
another company
and it was really an exhaustive search
if i hadn’t known more about
you i would have been talking to you
because you
seemed i didn’t know you did that i know
i knew that you were one of us
if you will you know practitioner of
nlps into persuasion you know as a
modern guy
but i didn’t know all that about you i
would have been talking to you more
about this stuff
that’s if there’s one thing i’ve done as
as a failure in social media
is um is not putting that out enough
i uh uh i’ve worked so hard of putting
together a persona
that i’ve failed to put out
the the business persona side of it yes
and i knew about the football side i did
not know about the business side as much
yeah the football side’s almost you know
it’s it’s syrup
as my wife would say it’s like okay i’ve
heard the story 100 times stop
you know but uh but the um
the reason is is because although i love
what i do
and everybody i’m sure loves what they
do but it’s social media
it’s not by [ __ ] media right
and so uh and i think that’s
you know i it’s one thing that drives me
nuts a realtor
well oh i listed another house like i
haven’t seen another house and how is
that conversational
you know i’m saying it’s it’s like and i
appreciate that you
you’re saying that i’m conversational i
work really hard at that
but that’s to me what this
platform these platforms are supposed to
be about
and through conversation we can learn
from each other
uh and it’s not all i’m just trying to
you know get into your wallet
and and so that’s been my hold up and
you know the old-time sales guys will
say
and i’ll go okay well tell me how many
likes and how many shares and how many
and how many followers that are that are
uh that showed hearts or i should say
show strong sentiment that you have and
and oh yeah that will be that would be
about not much
so there’s a balance and i’m probably
i’m probably way too far over on the
on on the uh airing on the uh the
persona
the personal side but i think that’s
very important
and um i just have not gone as far i’ve
actually put a
a meme up yesterday on facebook and
others for the first time
of a testimonial from a client
so i’m finally starting to get salesy
we’ll take a quick moment to hear from
our sponsor and we’ll be right back with
tim o’keefe
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for you we’re back you’re listening to
the self-help coaching podcast with the
very interesting tim o’keefe tim what is
it
what is building men and women for
others what’s that about you
we touched on that at the beginning but
can you expound on that
well we talked about where it came from
and
i believe you know i i use it
in in a way i mean it’s obvious like the
example i used with the kid who’s a
pro ball player it’s making
them into great citizens so part of that
ethos and motivation came from
i think it was john wooden’s last
interview
he did on tony robbins
uh power talk if you remember those ways
now we call those podcasts
[Laughter]
but back then you paid some ungodly
amount
and um and uh uh
and john wooden talked and he talked
about his players
and he mentioned a guy named amos alonzo
stag
who at one time was the winning as
football coach in college
maybe all of uh football history and
then uh
gosh i can’t remember bear bryant i
think broke his record and then somebody
else broke bear’s record but
anyway amos uh interestingly enough was
a coach at my college university pacific
and the stadium used to be named after
him and
high school was named after him and had
some really big years there and
and back in i guess the 40s or something
like that
in fact i was on a zoom last year and
i met a guy that was an alumnus
who played for stag way back a jillion
years ago
and he’s still alive god bless him and
he told some old stories it was just
wonderful but
but he was very successful so the the
a journalist comes up to him at the end
of the season and he goes
coach coach what do you think what do
you think about all your kids success
and stag answers back and he goes i
won’t know for another 20 years
that’s great okay and so wooden
saw stagg as a uh a mentor although they
never met
and so that’s the way that wooden talk
to robbins in that in that interview he
says uh
you know so-and-so’s a preacher now
so-and-so
is a is a as a doctor the other person’s
a lawyer
wonderful family been married together
you know forever
and so he was measuring it on bigger
things
and so that’s always been kind of my
my mandate as as a football coach is to
pass on
the bigger picture and it’s not about so
typically i’ll go really big picture
like whey macro and then get really
micro in
in when i coach right so
most coaches are going to look at wins
right and you’ll appreciate this
as a helper so i’m like okay yeah but
you can win
just by getting off the ball fast so if
you i break down into pr
into a progression or a process
as they call it in some circles um
i’m now saying okay how do you block
somebody
well i could probably give you 20 to 30
steps on how to block somebody whereas
in our mind we just go you get out the
body
you bang into them and you try to push
them across
the field isn’t that what blocking is
but
you can really break it down to probably
30 steps so
each one of those 30 steps if i want to
be really super anal retentive could be
a win
so there’s all kinds of stuff in there
that i could give that kid that’s a win
and as you said earlier you can’t if you
feel like you’re
you’re in a bad mood you’re not going to
have a great day well
if you feel like you keep losing
then you’re not going to win right i
mean and collectively
so how and so translate that into normal
life
and and just away from the field and if
you learn that
as a player if you uh do that in your
own business and realize there’s
there’s processes in all kinds of places
and there’s
and as a leader there’s the ability to
to pat somebody on the back um
right and it’s a good job at whatever
and i realize now
in in my middle age bearded middle gray
bearded
middle age that um uh
that matters you know and i used to be
mr tough guy way back when where i was
not
so quick to compliment and and it still
is a struggle i
i try to do it as much as possible
um you know because i come from well
this you’re doing what you’re supposed
to do
so why is that a big deal and and
it’s just human nature we we want to
feel good
so you’ve talked about and you can
elaborate more on how football
informs a life and business but how does
it not
it’s a great question that’s that’s been
part of my
reason that i coach was to get
that answer um because
it’s funny i my last game ever in
college was
i was pacific’s up in northern
california in stockton first chartered
university
in the state uh looks like an east coast
school you know ivy on the brick and
everything
and uh come down here we play against
cal state fullerton which is
down the street you know about a
30-minute 40-minute drive
and uh i
was recruited by them i didn’t go there
because it looked like the junior
college that i went to it
looked like almost a high school just a
big high school you know it’s
uh more modern less less collegial
looking like like pacific is
and uh anyway we come down and and i had
we lost a game it was a mud bowl
and uh but i’m i asked the coach
can i stay home and i’ll just fly home
on my own
and he said yeah especially being the
the last game and so
i stay the weekend
and with the family fly back
and it was just different
before you walk across campus
and there seems like there’s always eyes
on you
they’re always looking to make sure that
you’re you’re okay
right because we that affects the the
next game if you’re
limping and uh how
how are you limping where why don’t i
know about this right commodity
yes you’re you’re you’re you’re you’re
you’re
you’re owned and now
yeah they were nice but i didn’t get as
much
of those eyes you just feel it it does
you’re not as important anymore
and and that was very
uh empty it felt very empty
and it wasn’t until years later i i
realized well the reason it felt like
that
at least in part was there was no
closure
and well the reason there’s no closure
knucklehead is because
you didn’t go back with the team you
stayed
with your family and you didn’t go back
up there with the other family and
everybody i’m sure said their goodbyes
and their hugs and
and lobbyists and all that kind of stuff
and and
it was uh it was appropriately done i’m
pretty certain of that
and so that’s when i realized okay it
wasn’t as cold as i
thought it was although i’m sure it’s
still pretty cold um
so what how does it not
inform a life um uh
so one of the things that
that really made me
succeed was that
um you know i had won
was one of those kids that just won like
all these awards in high school right so
in my head football not academic
let’s be clear
and i you know in my head i’m like
oh my god my dreams of college
football or the future’s so bright the
future is so bright
blinding you know and
where’s the back then were the letters
you know not email or anything like that
where the letters were
no letters no letters that mattered
they’d send out like it was almost like
uh
like a sales letter you know of the old
times it was like
this is it was like badly copied and the
guy
signed it you know and uh
xeroxed and uh i’m like man no one
really
cares you know and so all of a sudden a
couple jc’s show up at the school which
are the only coaches that showed up at
the school
what are jc’s junior college okay
and uh two-year two-year school right
and um
and uh
santa monica showed up and i went over
there
and then el camino showed up i went over
there
they took me for a tour and
where am i gonna go i go to el camino
why it’s closer
that’s the reason a hey that’s a factor
now that was the reason man um and i had
i had been there i had familiarity
because my i
joined for i think seven bucks each year
the dodger pepsi fan club
and you would go to their their theater
and get to watch
ron say and steve garvey explain how to
throw a baseball right even though i was
a football guy
i just thought it was it was a cool
thing so i went went to that for a
couple years so i knew the school and
anyway uh i i got a
little oh i’m do you want to take a
break now
yeah we’ll take a break and we’ll come
back for our final segment uh final
segment
uh so just a quick moment from our
sponsor
this episode of self-help coaching is
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[Music]
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we’re back and you’re listening to
self-help coaching podcast
with the wonderful yes wonderful tim
o’keefe i’m loving this stuff
really and continue from where you were
tim well where where i was going was um
with the the idea of how it helps and
how it doesn’t
is uh i’d gone there i go through the
summer i’m
i changed my position from line from
defensive lineman to linebacker
uh and uh the coach to this day
will tell me that i was gonna start and
the head coach stole me over to the
offense because we were getting so many
injuries on the offensive line
and so being a team player and it’s just
in my
psyche you know not to be selfish as a
player that’s what they
they taught me in youth football and in
high school football
um all right coach but as soon as the
season’s over
i’m i’m going back to to to defense
and so i go through an entire season
i i’ve since become friends with guys
that were on the team when that happened
and
told me how just just ruined i was
on my face i just wore it on my face i
was very very tormented and i
kind of pushed that out and
i thought my college dreams were over
right um
because i’m not going to get recruited
as a six foot
six foot one on a good day stretched uh
230 pounds
on a good day i wish i had that it was
there
now but back then i was 2 30
and uh and uh and get recruited by
anybody
uh for for offensive line so um
the last game was on a saturday and on
that monday morning
uh right before eight i’m knocking on
coach’s door remember i said i’m going
back to defense he goes
oh yeah but we already have uh too many
linebackers
and so i said well how about noseguard
and he was struggling with the idea
and then he goes all right because we’re
the great line the great nose guard we
had
the prior uh the prior year had gone on
he was uh done he was a sophomore so he
was gone
and we needed a nose and uh
and so i went and uh
so the example that i have there is i
burned the boats
at the term you know i i wasn’t i wasn’t
gonna quit
and the way i explain it today was
i just didn’t give a [ __ ] i’ll die on
that field
you know i’ll i’ll frickin die i’m going
to get what i want
and there’s some bravado
in that statement but also some very
unhealthy
uh possible repercussions
and um so as the story went
i uh you know i ended up being as
alignment the only uh
most valuable player as as a as a
lineman
up until like two or three years ago and
uh
was recently put up on the wall there is
an
on the all 80s team and um
and it was that that success was burning
the boats
there there was nothing i was going to
break myself
being successful it just wasn’t there
was no other
alternatives everybody else came a
distance second
that’s the downside okay for me to get
what i wanted very selfishly
which they were happy to provide and but
for me god bless them and and i had a
wonderful family wonderful
girlfriend uh but she also was probably
my future ex-wife because of the habits
that i had created
through through that time by the way uh
back in the day i received a trophy as a
uh
most valuable uh defensive cornerback
so i we have football in common and
there you go man
i’m sure you’re you’re a lot faster than
i was i had great hands man i had
great hands let me tell you it’s about
enhanced and uh
and i i tell you man you i feel like
sometimes that when you feel that
commitment
burn the boats that it’s one of the
greatest feelings
where you know it’s such a focus such a
tunnel
to the goal you know but yes it can be
very consequential well and so so my
so i’ll use another example i was
listening to a podcast of a
i won’t name him but this guy who puts
on a pretty damn good
podcast he gets some great interviews uh
it’s a sit-down
show uh in in studio until until kobit
and i remember him explaining his
business and he goes look he goes
in my business and he is a very binary
1-0 sort of either or thing
in my business it’s either [ __ ] great
or it’s complete
[ __ ] and
i first thing i thought as maybe an
older wiser
man than my youth is um
i wonder what his family and
relationships are like
and uh and so i think it’s balance
it’s knowing when to burn the boats
because sometimes you gotta just
freaking burn them man
you just gotta go for it and other times
i mean
you know like i said my academics
were enough so i could play football i
was not an academic
so don’t let my academic beard you
fooled me with the beard
you thought you thought i was all books
you know one of the things talking about
things in common
one of the things that you had alluded
to previously
is going first now you and i share a
primary and a
teacher of neuro-linguistic programming
jonathan alfeld
who is awesome i learned nlp from him i
learned
knowledge engineering and more from him
and he taught me to go first which is a
tenant of nlp
you want to elaborate on that um
yeah and i don’t know if you learn so
much sometimes i love to keep
where i learn stuff in its proper source
right i’d love to give it to jonathan i
can’t remember if
if that’s where i heard it or wherever
but i learned so much from
i too took knowledge engineering which
really made it
so that it’s modeling right and so
really made it so that i could
be a better seo guy because of all seo
is a lot of is just
identifying the processes that google
so i can manipulate google basically and
um and then what is a a football game
but a process
and so forth and so on um
so going first is i think
taking the risk of
my transparency and allowing you to
judge me
to to loop it back to how we started
with the beards
go ahead judge me because the sooner you
judge me i’m going to find out
that i don’t want to know you or i do
want to know you because you might judge
me and
maybe you’ll judge me in a way that’s
not particularly
nice or not not particularly
nice about my look you know flattering
thank you
thank you i i forgot the ginkgo bubble
oba today or something
um and maybe it’s useful right and so
the sooner i and and the thing is is
also i think people
are so untransparent
that it’s it’s a secret power and one of
the things
i was uh doing a talk a podcast
for somebody a few weeks ago and i said
the super power of the internet is just
be a freaking human
show your humanity first and
it’s you you’re gonna win nine times out
of ten you’re gonna win them over
and then you could decide if you really
do you want them
to be won over maybe you don’t want them
in your life right but
at least you started the process of
of taking down the false walls that we
always have
and and just saying hey man here i am
and that’s why you know if i’m truly
ubiquitous all over the internet
i’m just sharing my humanity i’m sharing
football stories
how johnny uh true story uh texts from
the mom
uh johnny doesn’t uh
is up until he started coming to
practice in june
he was uh not too kind and fond of
male adults okay that’s all i was gonna
go i wasn’t gonna dig
on why you know i didn’t i was like oh i
okay i’ll take you at your word but
she said every day he comes home and
and uh he talks about how coach tim
helped and what coach tim said about me
and
coach tim said this coach said that well
wow i feel like okay maybe i’ll get into
heaven’s maybe if you
get get a few more of them but the point
is is is that
that story is
it’s stuff that all of us can can wrap
our arms around
if we have a heart right and now you’re
like oh wow that’s
pretty cool dude and he also does seo if
you would actually tell people that
all right let’s get to my final question
and i’d like you to answer it in about a
minute if you could
what is the secret to a long marriage
and how it helps business
uh
every day recommitting
[Music]
i was trying to remember i know i told
you that before and i was trying to like
what the hell was i talking about
but it’s talked about process
consistency
novelty well one of the things that kind
of
kind of melts people’s minds because we
we get married
and you know essentially you say i do
and you you do a formal contract that’s
essentially what it is
and then 10 years later you know
you’re like what the hell and well i
made a commitment and people just
get they’re only hanging in there
because they made a commitment
10 years ago well wouldn’t it be better
if you made a commitment like
three hours ago that’d be a little bit
better
right and while you do that reattach to
those feelings
why you want to stay married to this
chick
keep it fresh keep it fresh and so
that’s
that’s something that i’ve learned to do
over the last
probably six or seven years and uh
some days i do it more intently than
than others but i always remember i
am committed as of this morning not
because of some
damn thing i did you know 23 years ago
and you could it’s the same thing in in
in business and whatever i don’t have to
be
in i don’t have to be in this business
deal i i can back out
you know now there may be repercussions
contractually with that
just like in a divorce so be careful but
you normally will you you keep it fresh
within a business relationship
also by reminding people of why you
you got married in the business that’s
great it really is tim
okay uh do you have any last things to
say to our audience
final remarks no i just really
appreciate you having me
and uh getting to share some of my ideas
great stuff i really appreciate it how
do they contact you and what do they
have to look forward to
in the future well i am uh
i’m not coaching right now i i it’s
funny i
i said uh i picked a good year not to
coach
um i feel happy
as of tonight the local kids are playing
for the first time in over a year and
um and so i’m really
happy for them that they get to play
their their game again
uh i don’t know if i’m gonna be coaching
or not i
i definitely want to play with the ideas
sort of that we talked about just now
and play with those ideas and how they
translate to other things in life and
then back to football
uh that may mean a book which i have a
very
loose foundation on right now
they’re just notes like all over the
place
and then i have then i have a couple of
books
uh that i’m getting ready to release and
if anybody wants information uh
i i have a book that i wrote a few years
ago and i’m
updating it right now on google my
business so if you have a business a
local business
you as you get a website you really
should have a gmb
or google my business um
what’s that please offer it if you can
whatever you can yeah i was gonna say if
and i don’t have like a sign up page or
anything just you can email me
um i don’t know if you want to leave the
email it’s tim at
spiderjuicetechnologies.com
just say hey can i have the book and
i’ll send out what i have at this point
that’s great tim it has been a real
pleasure
having you on the podcast speaking with
you and sharing all this great stuff
with the audience i i really appreciate
it
and uh we’re gonna there’ll be more
coming down the road because i didn’t
realize how much we had in common until
i researched you and and
had this conversation with you and uh
it’s
it was delightful thanks a lot tim it
was fun thank you so much
thanks for joining us
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