Stay ConnectedWhat do most Fortune 500 executives have in common? They learned important lessons on the fields and courts of their high school and collegiate sports teams. This is true for both men and women. Ernst & Young found that a whopping 94% of women holding a C-suite position, played sports.
Join 13-time New York Times Best-Selling Author Don Yaeger on his journey to sit with some of the brightest executives in the world as we discuss how sports shaped their professional trajectory in life.
Copyright: Copyright© Greatness LLC, 2020. All Rights Reserved.
Ep. 66: Growing up as the oldest of nine children whose parents ran a dental practice out of their home in New York, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian sought refuge on basketball courts and baseball diamonds, playing "just about every sport there is involving a ball."
But no childhood bathroom squabble or station wagon road trip could prepare him for the challenge of leading a world-class company through years of challenge to become the most profitable competitor in its industry.
Listeners will learn the "dare" that led Ed to run his first marathon at the tender age of 58, and the $1.6 billion "thank you" he gave Delta employees after beating bankruptcy.
Visit https://donyaeger.com/corporate-competitor-podcast/episode-66/ for a free gift, today's show notes, and access to the full interview archive!
Ep. 65: Playing and coaching basketball-shaped this business icon. Long before he became a famous NBA coach with the New York Knicks and an analyst at ESPN, Jeff Van Gundy coached high school basketball in Rochester, New York, and Kevin LeGrett was all the wiser and better equipped to lead because of their relationship.
Upon graduating from college embarking on a career of his own, Kevin developed a reputation for generating tremendous bottom-line profit growth for the biggest media companies in the world, including CBS Radio, Citadel Broadcasting, and currently iHeartMedia.
In this podcast, Kevin connects listeners to the great chain of learning and leading he's enjoyed through the years, including:
Visit https://donyaeger.com/corporate-competitor-podcast/episode-65/ for a free gift and today's show notes!
Ep. 64: Robert "Bob" Glazer is a serial entrepreneur who has worked at think tanks such as Arthur D. Little and incubators such as Cambridge Innovation Center before founding a host of his own companies and charities. His longest-running priority, Acceleration Partners, began in 2007 and works with clients worldwide to develop and scale their affiliate partner programs. He thinks people glamorize entrepreneurship to their detriment.
Visit https://donyaeger.com/corporate-competitor-podcast/episode-64/ for a free gift and today's show notes!
You Will Learn
Ep. 63: Rafe played linebacker for a Super Bowl Denver Broncos team and considered coaching until his entrepreneurial drive kicked into gear and led him to buy ODS Security Solutions. Over 15 years, he led the company through explosive growth, increasing his workforce from a team of 30 to more than 1,000. In 2016, he became a co-founding partner of CEO Coaching International with twelve-time triathlete Mark Moses. Whether he is coaching a client or a member of his team, Rafe believes in using difficult conversations to forge the best possible solutions, with the proviso that once a decision is made, agreement may be optional—commitment to it is not.
"When the huddle breaks, you may not be the one carrying the ball to glory and a touchdown," Rafe noted, "but you have to execute your part to the fullest of your ability. The same is true in business."
You will learn:
[3:00] What it was like to go to the Super Bowl his rookie year.
[13:00] How to overcome the "I don't belong here" feeling.
[14:00] How to focus on what you can control.
[21:00] Importance of preparations and reflection.
[24:00] How to ask better questions while networking.
[33:00] How to take a group of individuals and make them a team.
[35:00] How to give real-time actionable feedback.
Visit https://donyaeger.com/corporate-competitor-podcast/episode-63/ for a free gift and today's show notes!
Ep. 62: Football, basketball, and track shaped Mark Steffe, an Illinois native responsible for guiding First Command Financial Services in its efforts to make lifelong financial security possible for all military families.
When an employee isn't performing up to snuff, Mark wants his supervisors to avoid telling them to sell more, deliver more, get better results, work harder, and the like. Instead, he wants the leaders to "roll up their sleeves, get their hands a little bit dirty and help people get to a better place—not just tell them to get to a better place."
Today, if you walk the halls of First Command— which maintains more than $35 billion in managed accounts and mutual funds and has more than $62 billion in life insurance coverage in force for some 280,000 military families— you will hear your fair share of sporting metaphors.
Listeners will enjoy learning how to be an agile leader, motivate with mission, and make love a core value.
Visit https://donyaeger.com/corporate-competitor-podcast/episode-62/ for a free gift and today's show notes!
Ep. 61: Cornell track and field shaped this entrepreneur. Lokai's brand of beaded bracelets has become a phenomenon sold in 5,000 locations in 170 countries. The bracelets each contain a droplet of mud from the Dead Sea and water from Mount Everest to represent the highs and lows of earth and of life.
Steven paid his dues going "door-to-door" around New York City, trying to get stores to display his bracelets, and was rejected 95 percent of the time. Eventually, his hard work (and his discovery by celebrities like Justin Bieber, Cam Newton, and Blake Lively) helped the company turn the corner… and they haven't looked back since.
Six years later, he founded his second company Elements, which produces functional wellness drinks formulated to consistently balance the body's stress levels.
Listeners are sure to enjoy his descriptions of getting his businesses off the ground as well as the differences and similarities of being a founder versus a CEO, including why the numbers count… but aren't everything, and baking social responsibility into your bottom line. Steven offers a distinctive blend of unwavering confidence and hard-won humility that is sure to inspire and awaken your own creative juices. And one thing's for sure: you'll never look at a baton handoff in a track relay the same way again.
Visit https://donyaeger.com/corporate-competitor-podcast/episode-61/ for a free gift and today's show notes!
Ep. 60: Baseball shaped this highly competitive and goal-oriented executive. Adi Ignatius is a leader who comes to play—whether the "play" involves slow-pitch softball or transforming the country's oldest and most influential academic business journal.
His success includes writing for the Wall Street Journal, receiving a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize, writing for the Far Eastern Economic Review, Time Asia, and Time Magazine, where he became Executive Editor and Deputy Managing Editor before stepping down from Time to take the top job at HBR in 2009.
At HBR he was challenged with leading the transformation of a venerable and beloved business journal into a leading-edge digital platform. That he achieved this and kept the Review's fiercely loyal readership engaged testifies to the inventiveness and flexibility of Adi's mind.
In this episode, he shares stories and observations about the relationship between baseball and business. These include the batter whose appearance made him see business in a whole new light and the three key ingredients that keep winning teams winning together.
Visit https://donyaeger.com/corporate-competitor-podcast/episode-60/ for a free gift and today's show notes!
Ep. 59: University of Florida Crew shaped this technology leader. John O'Shea's career at Tech Data started in 1994 when he was hired from a temp agency. Flying up the ranks as swiftly as one of those sculls plying the waters of a crystal clear lake—"I was averaging a new job every six or eight months!"—he rose to the position of President of Global Business Units at TD Synnex. He has developed a distinctive leadership style that CEO Rich Hume called strong and informed.
You will learn:
Visit https://donyaeger.com/corporate-competitor-podcast/episode-59/ for a free gift and today's show notes!
Ep. 58: Bobsled & softball shaped this competitor and mother. When Elana Meyers Taylor finally steps out of the bobsled for the last time, maybe after the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, she will be able to look back at a trail-blazing career in which she became the first woman to earn a spot on the U.S. National Team competing alongside men as a four-man bobsled pilot. In this episode you will learn:
Visit https://donyaeger.com/corporate-competitor-podcast/episode-58/ for a free gift and today's show notes!
Ep. 57: Georgia Tech football shaped this business icon. In 1971 Bert Thornton went to work at Waffle House flipping eggs and four decades later retired as the President and COO. His best leadership advice? Give out your cell phone number, because "when the trainees have access to the COO, communication improves among managers."
Each of the 11 million bowls of Bert's Chili served annually is named for Thornton, who came up with the recipe when Waffle House moved into Texas in the 1980s.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
