166. Why Relying on Talent Alone Will Fail You
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The game of life in the game of business can be quite chAllenging in difficult times, but with clear intent, strong relationships, in a fair amount of practice, we can be successful. My name is my brahms, and I teach strategic communication at stanford graduate school of business. Welcome to think fast tox mark the podcast today.

I'm really excited to speak with Andrew luck. Andrew is a former nfl porter back known for his exceptional leadership and strategic thinking on the field. Andrew is also a standard graduate with an undergraduate degree in architectural design and recently a masters degree in education as quarterback for stanford.

Andrew LED his team to multiple Victories, and he continued this trend while playing professionally for the indian APP lus. We earned four probe al selections and the twenty eighteen N F L. Comeback player of the year award.

And do thank you for joining us. Um IT is a too pleasure to chat with you. I watched many of your games here at stanford and certainly on TV.

Many, many more. Thanks for joining us today. Yeah, my pleasure. We get started. excEllent. As a quarterback, clear communication is crucial with your teammates, your coaches, the press in your fans. Other specific strategies and tactics you found help you communicate more effectively with clarity and accuracy when you're in those high stress situations.

Yeah that that's a great question. You know I think communicating with fans, with the media a lot different. Communicating with teammates and game, which is a lot different than communicating with coaches when you're in the room during the week preparing for a big game.

So with teammates, I think I learned clarity was really important. That was as much non verbal as verbal, walking or professional locker. I had to earn veterans respect so they would listen to me.

I mean, that was a simple equation in my mind. I got to go build some equity. I got to show up every day.

I have to show guys i'm holding up my end of the bargain so that when I ask you to that, you feel like there's a respect there. So I very much believed in that with my teammates. And the media was another interesting, hard, difficult certainly to speak to the media two or three or four times a week.

But I think also there's a level of accountability that you just have to eventually own when you speak publicly about your performance, your team's performance. And I always felt that I needed to keep things about myself, and pointing fingers was not gonna be a good thing, especially not towards teammates, and try to be as authentic as possible. And I was, I didn't do IT perfectly, but getting up there and and not lying IT also helps.

So something you said that, that I think is really important for all of us to think about of the notion of establishing the equity that you have. And that's work you have to do right away. And in some case, we can do that ahead time in terms of how we set expectations for the meetings that we have, the conversations. But really, many of us go into these high stress situations thinking about what we want to say, not necessarily about the relationship we need to build in advance of that. I think that's really important point.

It's part of why I love team sports. The relationship is at the core of locker room culture going out there together. You internalized that very early on when you played team sports.

I can succeed without you. You can't succeed without me. We've got to put the work in one .

of the things that i've always admired when i've watched you play. As you seem to stay very calm, many of us find ourselves in situations in our lives, our careers, where it's really intense around us. What do you do to stay calm? How do you center yourself?

Yeah, that your observations, I stay calm. There I can. So I look back and pick of times.

I did not feel very good, come off the sidelines and throw a helmet down and frustration, or let some emotion out. And I think one is a player. I learned that I was okay to play emotionally.

I enjoyed that part of what made sports fun, that the highs and the lows. Now when you walk in the huddle and call a play, you've got to sort of become a clinical IT is business. You're on IT in the only way I learned to do that was to practice that fantastic coaches, starting with my dad and pop Warner football.

Jim harbor and David shot stanford at amazing coaches in the nf fell. And we practice those high pressure situations all the time. I think there's a romantic notion I held growing up.

You know that you rise to the occasion, you rise to these great moments, but I think you're settled to the level of your training. I really internalize that is with how we practice. I mean, practice had a sense of urgency, had pressure.

There were stakes at practice. I mean, there was competitive. We learned to compete against other. We learned the phya know this is a corby. I arn. The physiological response, can I control my breathing to call a play? Clearly, I with some level of positive effect to my teammates. So we have a collective belief we can go and get this fourth down or score touched down here, right? So I think practicing that and having some awareness of that, this is what we're practicing for help helped my growth, help my career.

A lot of us think of practice as something that's a nice thing to do if we have the time but don't purposeful ly do IT. I mean, I got a high sticks meeting where I am trying to sell or presents something. Maybe IT makes sense to practice with somebody and get some feedback. My hunch is you've spent many, many more hours .

in practice than you have in the actual game. Absolutely, in five years out or so, I practice like, this was fun. I was, I was like a many game that there's a great line from Marvin Harrison, a why receive hall of fame, who I didn't play with, but he was on the court, sort of my fandom of middle school, high school.

He said, I get paid to practice. I play a game for free, right? And I love that. And when I think of the great courter backs that I grew up watching, like paint manning and tom brady um and you hear stories about their intensity of practice and I wanted to a body that as well that notion .

of being paid to practice is an interesting one. I think of all of us think about our jobs that the performance aspect, that's really the preview where we're earning our money and earning our keep. You've been praised for your leadership both on and off the field. How would you describe your leadership style? And what are some important qualities you see and effective leaders.

certainly when you play the quarterback position and this starts from pop Warner football? I mean, eyes are on you. So you you are given a leadership world.

There's no way around that calling plays. You're telling people what to do. But it's not just enough to be given that role and yet have to earn IT.

I always thought I had to be a the best teammate I could be before being a decent leader. I have to learn to you can't avoid certain levels of conflict. And yeah, you can come out the other side and both parties can be Better.

And the night, you know, I was profoundness impacted on a college coaches, jm, horrible and David shaw, and something jim harbour really, really helped me with. As he empowered the courteau, and he empowered the courteau to have their own personality. I felt like I could go play with my personality and IT didn't have to be a mirror image of what jim harbour was. So that a profound impact. And that's what I think about one thing of yang quarter backs and a volunteer school of making sure i'm not stamp my ego on who I think they should be, but empowering them.

Have to admit, I find IT a little surprising that somebody who plays a highly competitive combat tive game, if you will, was conflict diverse? Tell me a little bit more about that, and i'm very good because I I also conflict diverse, but I I didn't play professional football. How did you manage? How did you learn to lean into .

that part of what was fun about playing contact sports for me, like football or basketball on getting down there was that I could I didn't have to be nice per say. I was okay to step on toes. IT was okay to get there.

Is OK to bring a level of intensity. So I do think exports helped me sort of identify conflict diversity little. And you can work on IT and you can grow on IT. And you have to, I mean, you have to when you're .

on a team you found is somebody who is conflict verse. Playing sports allow you to explore being in conflict and seeing positive results. Maybe there's some other areas of our lives where we can practice that, get more comfortable.

Oh, I think there's a lot of truth to that because we film everything now, because we have phones out. Practice really needs to be a psychologically safe and physically safe space. Because you try stuff right and you fail, you look stupid.

I see this personally, and the work I do, I teach communication skills, and i'm encouraging people to try new things to see what works and what doesn't. I'd like to joke that my class is like a high school chemistry class where sometimes the experiments blow up and sometimes they don't. And you learn in either case, and you have to have that environment, your decision to retire from the fl.

In twenty nineteen surprised a lot of hands and players alike. What was your thought process on how to communicate that? What was that process like?

I did not seal myself, often a vacuum. My girlfriend, my wife was very much involved, my family, my inner circle. And then when I decided to retire, we were gonna a press conference on a sunday. And IT wasn't going to be a celebratory press conference. This wasn't like, you've want to watch a supervise and you're going off.

But but I know I needed to write something down, so wrote some stuff down, but word leaked out during the saturday night preseason game with about seven eight minutes left to go and um and so I felt IT was an odd feeling. I felt cameras turned to me and I sometimes that this is out, thankfully, and you took go back to teammates friday evening and saturday morning. I had spent time reaching out to the ten guys, eight to ten guys, on the team that I played with for a long time.

And that I that I loved and respected, and felt very much tethered to with friendship, in kinship and all that. And we SAT and shared in different guys in different ways and in other guys in other ways. And some we had a little more time, some we didn't.

One of my team is was evolved for the whole process to knew and others, and called some folks as well. But so, so when the news broke saturday night, I was grateful for two things because I was a surprise, grateful one that I had told my friends and teammates that I, but I felt like they needed to know. So I was grateful I ve been working on this draft at city of the pr guy, because I had A A speech ready to go for the impromptus ss. Conference at eleven pm on a saturday night at A T shirt. And then the lesson I learned is if the more people you tell news like this gets out IT, especially in the industry like the nf file, and that sort of a little bit behind the curtain, what that process was like.

the decision sounds like IT was very difficult to make, but IT sounds like you did some things that were very wise. One, you spend some time, things think about IT in advance in terms of what you might communicate, and you reached out to others. I'm hearing a theme across all your answers that IT, it's about connection.

It's about relying on others. It's about relationships connecting with others. And I think that's really powerful.

And a lot of us can think about that when we make career moves connecting with others. We know thinking about how we want a message. IT is really important. Congratulations are in order. You recently graduated with the masters degree in education. You came back to campus, what motivated you to return to education and return to stanford and and share a little bit about what you studied and what may be wanted to take a ways you had.

I, anyone wanted to chAllenge myself and learn. I certainly wanted to get back into an academic setting with cool people. I did spend a lot of a time thinking about the role sports plays and how kids grow up in this country, and how sports and k through twelve education in or twin, which in this country's a big deal.

And I wanted to be around new people, and i'd been in lockers in my whole life. I wanted to go see what was like as a graduate student. And I need my perspective to be chAllenged.

So share with us an idea to that. You now think of differently having matrix later through a graduate program.

one I have learned that to rush to judgment unless I feel like I am the expert expert. But you probably worth asking someone.

there's some research about things. What do you see yourself doing?

Well, keep up and stay afford with projects and know, think also the energy around college campuses is really fun. Get to learn from folks. There's interesting things .

going on and you are so red. And part of the reason I love my job is just to be around really smart people engaging in in really interesting ideas. As a coach, your job is to help your players be the best they can be at their sport, but also in their lives. How do you approach that dool task and their specific life lessons you try to in cocaine .

in your students? And yeah, I mean, I think one is fun to teach football. I think without being too explicit about the life lessons you learn, like showing up on time, showing up ready for practice.

You to do that to win the game, right? You need to practice with urgency. We talk about in night.

So some of those life lessons communicating with players has been really interesting. Coaching is hard. I issued coaching freshman football. I got nervous calling place. I played .

a comfort service games.

And bug is. And I was nervous. I felt physically stop.

And all I shouldn't call that, shouldn't call that, sit down and go through. Okay, next time learn from IT. It's a lot of funny realized to you.

You've gotten let those kids be themselves. I view practice time in this time that they get on the field in the game. Time is almost sacred.

They put their phones away. Ve, they're with each other for two hours and a half. They're struggling together. They're in conflict with each other in a minute later, they're collaborating with each other like it's A I think there are really powerful lessons that exists. They're Frankly part of my at least my personal chAllenges to start drawing those lessons out more.

As a father of two boys who played sports, there be times where you yell at the coach say that was a bad, but I just can't imagine a parents saying Andrew luck made the wrong play.

I but this notion of teaching life skills, especially to Young boys, I mean, I think Young people have chAllenges that that I certainly never experience today, but especially for Young boys, as they become Young men, to really help them in the way that you're doing is so critical, because many of them are not going to go beyond high school sports, just the way that IT works. And to learn those skills come rotary timely ess, how to communicate, how to have conflict productively, how to collaborating to have a relationship with another person in a meaningful way. And this has been a true pleasure to chat with you.

Before we end, i'd like ask three questions of everybody I interview to or similar. And then when I create just for you, you up for that, please, you have always struck me as somebody who is very articular. You communicate very efficiently, very effectively.

Talk to me about where that I came from. Is that something that existed in your family? Did you work on IT? Is is just part of who you are? You communicate well, how did that come about?

Group, in an amazing housel with a mom and dad that imbued with love and books, fun and sports. And my father had somewhat of a public role growing up as a sports executive. And I mean, he played a counter back in the nfl, and so he would take me around.

And I, we've been in the car, he called or radio, showed up to talk about the houston dynamo who is running at the time. Or there is something else where i'd go to charity events. He was the MC.

So you're learn from watching my dad, especially in the public communication sector. And my mom is an incredibly impatient person, incredible empathic woman, and is a lot of care and a lot of tenderness from her. So I learn a lot from both of them in separate ways.

I want to think about training for a quoter back like I got, I mean, no problem. I got lucky. My dad like that, the talking to the media. I was a kid growing up watching that. And when I you know those commercials about you turning into your father, like dad turning into my I hear myself talk, but i'm grateful .

for both of them. Let me ask you question number two, who is the communicator that you admire and why beyond your father?

Yeah, communicated that I admire. I was going through a tough time with injuries during during a spell in my file career in my physical therapist, spending a lot of time with A A dutchman somewhere from the netherlands, zam wilden cramer. And he was so direct, no, and he was dutchy.

So sort a little bit of a mean about cut through the flight. Leave a for amy and I needed that ah I did not like IT often, but I needed to hear IT. He helped me raise questions that I had about myself and I was okay to answer them and I was okay if I didn't have the perfect answer.

IT was IT was IT was a safe place of psychologically safe space. Uh, direct communication, a listener. If he was wronged by me, he would share IT.

There was not sure coding in. And we celebrated Victories together. You know, the full spectrum. And I really needed that at at that point .

my life you are the first person in our hundred and fifty guests to to name a physical thera. We get poets, we get presidents. That's great. And IT sounds like the directness and doing what was needed in those moments as what made you to select him. Final question, what are the first three ingredients that go into a successful communication recipe?

First of all, respect, clarity. And I want to say reciprocity.

okay. yeah. So respect. And clearly, clearly respect as a theme across many of the answers and ideas you shared.

Clarity, I can imagine as somebody who did the work that you did, being very clear, reciprocity, listening, being receptive instead of, certainly makes a lot sense. Often people see communication is a very directive thing. But I think to be a recipient and be in that moment and cocreate tes, something is really powerful.

And this has been fantastic. Thank you for sharing your insights that come from a very different domain, but they directly apply to how we live our lives, how we manage our careers. IT was a true pleasure to chat with you. Thank you for reminding us of the importance of relationships, the importance of connection and the importance of.

我 妈呀， 那 这 孙子 可 都 往 外 挤。

Thank you for .

joining us for another episode of think fast, talk smart, the podcast to learn more about leadership and coaching, please listen to episode one fifty three with tara vanderveer. This episode was produced by Jenny luna, Michael Riley, h. Ash and me that you were hit our music is from floyd d wonder with thanks to podium podcast company. Please find us on youtube and wherever you get your podcast, be sure to subscribe and red us also follow us on linked in and instagram and check out faster, smarter doi o for deep die videos, english language learning content and our newsletter.

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