Matt Doherty — Former NCAA Basketball Coach on Leadership Lessons Learned and Applied
Download MP3[00:00:00] Hello, and thank you for joining us. My name is Richard Gerber. I've worked in education, human development, and leadership for the last four decades. In this podcast series, I'm chatting to a diverse range of people from a number of different fields, business, sport, the arts, education, and philanthropy to explore what our young people and organizations really need in order to thrive, not just survive in times of increasing change and uncertainty.
Richard Gerver: Welcome to the Learning Bridge. Today my guest is, well, those who are regular listeners know I like to do a slow, painful reveal as to who my guest is. But there are very few people I've [00:01:00] met in my life who has a resume like my guest today and in particular. A man who has shared a court with Michael Jordan.
There are very few of those that I have ever. In fact, I can count them on the fingers of no hands. The number of people I've met in that situation. I'd love to introduce you all to coach Matt Doherty, who is an extraordinary man with an extraordinary story, incredible moments of successes and failure, and I think.
Deep insights, which will challenge and galvanize you all as we think about the future for our young people. Matt, thank you so much for joining me today,
Matt Doherty: Richard. It's really an honor to be on your show.
Richard Gerver: Thank you. So look, what I often do at this point, rather than read the email from one of our dear beloved relatives who's written a really lovely CV about us is ask [00:02:00] you just to, to tell our audience who you know, let's, I'm gonna fess up here.
We've got many listeners in the US so they will understand a lot about the context of your life, your career. And a lot of people in the UK who won't.
Matt Doherty: Yes, I understand.
Richard Gerver: Particularly, I think when we talk around college sports, college basketball and that sort of thing. But before we get into all of that, can you just tell people a little bit about you, your childhood and the journey you've been?
Matt Doherty: No thank you. First of all, thank you again for having me on the show. My grandparents came from Ireland and I don't know if that's good being on a show with an Englishman. But they came from Kerry and came to the United States. My mother from New York City, my dad was from Brooklyn.
He has Irish roots as well. Middle class. Dad owned a Pepsi route. He drove a truck and delivered Pepsi. The soda. And my mother was a homemaker. We [00:03:00] had, I had three older sisters and a younger brother. And I like to say that I was the golden child. And you know, when they got to me like they were gonna shut it down, but my brother showed up six years later.
We were I grew up 30 miles from New York City. Around a lot of first generation New Yorkers, like my dad, my mother the teachers, the coaches we had. And there was a sense of community for sure takes a village to raise a child. I think there was alignment. You know, you'll hear me say alignment a few times today.
There was alignment in the community. From the teachers to the priests, to the parents, to the neighbors to the, just there was alignment. What do I mean by that? Well, if you stepped out of line, the neighbor had the right to discipline you. The teacher had the right to discipline you.
The coach had the right to discipline you, and [00:04:00] when you got home, it was gonna be worse. Where nowadays if a teacher criticizes or disciplines a student. The parents are going right to the principal's office and trying to get that teacher fired. So I grew up in a community like that where it took a village and there was a lot of discipline and there was a lot of love and I think they go hand in hand.
They sound counterintuitive, but discipline is a form of love. And so we were Irish Catholic and a lot of discipline, a lot of love, a lot of fun. Sports were a big part of my life. The beautiful thing about sports is that as a young person, it can help you elevate your status, social status, your financial status, your educational status.
If you're good at a sport in the United States, you get recruited by good colleges that you may not have gotten into without the sport. I ended up being recruited by Notre Dame Duke, [00:05:00] Virginia, North Carolina, Princeton you know, some really good schools that I wouldn't have gotten into probably without basketball, even though I was a good student and I didn't have the financial resources to pay for a lot of those schools.
So I got a scholarship and I played at North Carolina. I was blessed to play for a great coach and Dean Smith. And a legendary coach and played with legendary players like Michael Jordan and I think through sports, there's so many lessons in athletics dreaming, putting a plan to chase your dreams dealing with success, dealing with failure in a public manner.
I think those are all great lessons that we learned through sports. That really can shape us as we go on in the world, whether it's in athletics or not. Brilliant. So, after college I thought I was gonna be good enough to be an NBA player and I was not. I got cut, which was one of the worst days of my life.
I, I worked on Wall [00:06:00] Street because I thought it would be sexy to make money. A good replacement, but I really lost my identity because my identity was wrapped up as a basketball player. And I struggled. I struggled with alcohol. I I've found myself drinking a lot. And the one day I woke up on a porch of someone's home beach house, and it wasn't the house I was staying at, and I realized I had a problem and I was blessed.
You know, people say, what's the thing you're most proud of in your life That I recognized I had a problem, I dealt with it, and I hadn't had a drink in 34 years. That sobriety gave me the capacity to do great things. And 10 years later, I was the head coach at Notre Dame. And if I didn't give that up, if I didn't make that decision.
Who knows where I would've been. So then I went on a basketball journey. I was a coach, college coach for 22 years and you know, you deal with failure. I've got fired twice and you know how to reinvent myself again. [00:07:00] And the thing I think the common thread with you and I is education being curious.
Being a lifelong learner and trying to learn from other industries. I, when I was a basketball coach, I would go to the Dean of the business school at SMU and try to learn about selling, about organizational behavior, about technology, about anything that was cutting edge that could help me be a better leader.
And so, nowadays with podcasts like yours. We can all learn. I learned from teachers. My sister was a principal of a Catholic high school. My other sister was a special ed teacher in New York City. I have great respect for teachers. Matter of fact, if I was president for a day, every teacher throughout the country would get a dynamic raise because they're the most important people in society.
'cause if we don't get that right, we have so much collateral damage that we have to try to fix down the road.
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[00:08:00] I so, gosh, thank you so much. There's so much in what you've just said that I wanna go back on and unpick. It's just so rich. But listen for some of our listeners who are educated, I'm just gonna let them revel in the in the war serious.
Richard Gerver: What you've, I'm serious. I agree with you. And it's, we
Matt Doherty: hand off we hand off our kids for what, 12 years?
Richard Gerver: Yep.
Matt Doherty: For what? Five, six hours a day. To these people to influence our children, and we want the best and the brightest, but nowadays, the best and the brightest don't go into education because there's no respect.
There's no money. Yeah. So why do it?
Richard Gerver: Absolutely. I mean, I've said for years that we need to value education as the new rock and roll. You know, we need to treat these people as the idols and the superstars and the value. And you're right. I mean, going, if I can way, way back to the beginning let me ask you one fundamental why basketball?
Where did that come from for you, Matt?
Matt Doherty: Good question. My dad was a baseball player, played minor [00:09:00] league baseball, and where I grew up everyone started out with little league baseball. We didn't have soccer back then or football as you say, in the uk right? And so, Pele was just coming into the states with the cosmos in New Jersey in the, I think the late seventies maybe.
And so, I was born in 1962, so, I was blessed. You had the Yankees, you had the Mets we had the New York Knicks. We had the New Jersey Nets, the New York Nets rather. At the time we had the New York Rangers and Hockey, the Islanders, the New York Giants and Football, the New York Jets and football.
You know, it was really a cool place because you got to see these teams pretty much up closer. And dream. I think dreaming is such a big thing. You were afforded the opportunity to dream up close your eyes, vision yourself on the field, on the court, on the baseball diamond and then you had the sports to go out and mimic these great players.
So baseball was the first sport. [00:10:00] And then my dad signed me up for basketball camp and he bought me a jock and handed as he was handing me the jock. I remember this in the car handing me the jockey said, when a coach tells you something, don't say, I know I was fourth grade and what was he telling me?
As I look back and I have my own son and my own son I think, has a lot of my traits for better or worse you know, that I was probably a little bit of a know-it-all and always had an answer. He said, basically, you wanna be coachable. And if you come back and say, I know they're gonna stop coaching you, so just listen, like listening.
I say this as a coach, listening is a talent like running and jumping. You know Michael Jordan, I collect quotes. One of his quotes is that he was coachable. He aggressively listened. And so that's what my dad taught me at an early age, and I think I was very coachable.
Richard Gerver: Yeah it's interesting that I've spoken, I've had the privilege of speaking to a couple of different coaches and athletes over the last [00:11:00] couple of years for this pod and also leaders in, in a whole range of fields.
And the one term you keep hearing from people is listening the ability to listen. And it's fascinating, isn't it, because. The general perception is leadership's all about charisma. It's all about telling. It's all about setting the rules. It's all about and listening is, so, I remember talking to a soccer coach, actually a pre English Premier League soccer coach last season, and we were talking about elite performance, which is something we may come onto in a while.
And he said, honestly, Richard, when you get to that level, so many of those young athletes have supreme natural gift. The ones that are gonna make it are the ones that have the ability to be coached and the are one, the ones that listen.
Matt Doherty: Big fundamental God gave us two ears and one mouth because we should listen twice as much as we talk.
Right?
Richard Gerver: Yeah. And you know that thing about teachers too. I think it's so important that parallel for me of coaching in sports and teaching is [00:12:00] massive. And that ability to make sure you truly understand the needs of your athletes and to to listen to them physically, mentally, is such an important gift.
Would you say that was the same in coaching?
Matt Doherty: Yes. Well, two, two of two of coaches that impacted my life tremendously were Bob McKillop, the head coach at Davidson College famously coached Steph Curry at Davidson College. He was my high school coach, but also my ninth grade social studies teacher. Okay.
And then Roy Williams, the legendary head coach at Kansas and North Carolina was an assistant coach when I played at North Carolina, but he was a high school, I think PE teacher. And so why do I bring that up? Because to be a coach is to be a teacher. You are a teacher. And I think that what I've tried, I'm an executive coach now.
My purpose, like I think when you can find your purpose in [00:13:00] life and sync it up with your career, that's where the magic happens and it becomes very fulfilling. My purpose in life is to teach and coach. And so whether it's coaching basketball, teaching basketball, or now executives. In, in, in small to midsize businesses.
I teach a lot about culture and systems and recruiting talent and selling. But I interviewed a gentleman named David Novak and on my podcast and he was the CEO of Yu Brands. He had a million and a half employees worldwide and he called his leadership team coaches. He didn't call them bosses.
And that distinction, that mindset of a coach is trying to help, it's a servant leader. A teacher is a servant leader. And so he had the mindset instilled in his leadership team that you are coaching, you we're not, like, one of my [00:14:00] faults as a young coach was I was a find the flaw kind of coach.
Oh, gotcha. You did that wrong. Do it right. This is how you do it. As opposed to like putting my arm around them this is how you should do it, is every what don't you understand? How can I help you understand it better? And I, it helped me grow as a teacher and a coach is the emotional intelligence and the self-awareness.
So the teaching and coaching you know, the better we can do that, the better we transfer the knowledge, and that's the key. We wanna transfer our knowledge from point A person A to po, person B.
Richard Gerver: I think what you've just said is really, really essential. That thing about as a young coach, as a young teacher, you are always going, oh, you did that wrong.
Oh, you made a mistake there. Oh, you did that. Right? And that, that balance is it's about, it's much more nuanced than that. Right? It's much more sophisticated and it's also, Richard, I wanna
Matt Doherty: say something, Richard, I wanna say something. I was searching for this comment, Mike. [00:15:00] My college coach, Dean Smith, was a teacher.
He would say that he was a teacher. He ran practices like a classroom. There was no distractions. You know, people just couldn't walk in and out of the gym because you don't want distractions. Now the, now teachers have to deal with cell phones, talk about distractions, right? So you want the attention.
And he had a very controlled environment. But one of his favorite sayings that, that I adopted later as a coach was, praise the actions you want repeated. Because we are quick to tell a child no, and they hear a form of no hundreds of times a day. But they very rarely hear the praise.
And the praise draws them. To wanting to self-fulfilling prophecy, like the halo effect. You know, Hey Richard, that's a great job of paying attention. Whoa. And then all of a sudden the other people in the classroom are like, that's what the teacher wants. So now he's getting [00:16:00] praised for listening. I can do that.
So my mother was a great teacher. I remember going to the grocery store again, I had three older sisters, so I was the one that went to the grocery store with my mother. And you know, you get antsy. You're standing around, you're looking at eggs and milk, and then you start hook pulling stuff, the cookies and the cereal off the shelf.
And my mother, instead of getting mad at me, she would say, Matthew, you're so patient. And then I'd stand up straight. And I'd be a good boy. Power. It's power. Powerful. What comes out of our mouths and how we say it.
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They're so potent. And that thing about parents, which is, I want to again, come back to something you said before, which fascinates me this idea of it takes a village to, to raise a child.
Richard Gerver: I mean, there's two parts to this question really. The first is, do you think? I mean, it's interesting you talk about first generation if you like you know, new Yorker in many ways. I [00:17:00] had a similar experience as a young Jewish boy coming over to the uk and that it was a recent generational shift that I was a,
you know, a young Jew in, in London and therefore inevitably community was very potent, very powerful. That idea. You are right. I made me smile when I was a child at school. If I got told off, the last thing I'd do is go home and tell my parents. 'cause I'd get a clip round the ear. Right. Whereas when I became a teacher, if a kid went home and said they've been turned, I'd know because the parents would be on my doorstep by four o'clock telling me they were gonna have me sued or fired.
Do you think that, so the first part of this question is do you think that sense of community is something that's faded a little bit from society? And the second part is, as a coach yourself, what did you do? If you like, to make sure that families, parents, how did you create a community to support your goals as a coach?[00:18:00]
Matt Doherty: No, it's great questions. I do think the community is broken down in the United States. Why? Because we're so transient. You know, my, my parents lived in the same house for 50 years. They only owned one house, and when they left, they moved in their early seventies to an apartment in the same, in, in basically, say.
Three miles away, five miles away. I've lived in nine houses in, about five different states. So you're just by that definition, by that example, you're not gonna have the same sense of community. So, when my kids walk out the door my neighbors were Aunt Jean and Uncle Pete. Pete Smith, Jean Smith, they were my mother's.
She was my mother's best friend. Growing up in the Bronx. There was a house available. My parents told 'em about it. They moved out. Their neighbors, we called them Aunt Jean and Uncle Pete. They weren't blood le relatives, but we were family. [00:19:00] You know, we'd eat together, we'd vacation together, we'd go to the beach together.
And if need be, they would. Discipline us and vice versa. And if they said hey, that's not, you don't do that you wouldn't do it. And so, you respected them. So I think the community has broken down for that reason. There's more moving around, more transient. And then your second question had to do with coaching in a community.
Yeah. I think this is really important. And it's something my Dean Smith did very well, and it's something I try to teach my clients. In terms of recruiting talent, you have to know your core values. You have to know your vision. You have to really communicate what's acceptable and not acceptable behavior for your organization.
As you onboard or recruit this talent. So if I'm when Dean Smith came to my home, he was interviewing me as much as I was [00:20:00] interviewing him. You know, they did their research and so you have to ask behavioral type questions. The this is where I love to learn. I was a scout for the Indiana Pacers and we had a sports psychologist and we're all trying to predict who's gonna be the next Michael Jordan.
And he would say the only predictor of future behavior is past behavior. So we can't change the stripes of a zebra. So if I'm trying to recruit you to my company, to my athletic team, I want to talk to everybody that's touched your life. I wanna talk to your youth coach. I wanna talk to your teachers.
I want to ask them, what was Richard like? Tell me of a time he overcame adversity. Tell me of a time when he showed up late. Tell me of a time when he didn't meet a deadline. Tell me of a time when a teammate missed a goal, an open goal, and how did he react? Tell [00:21:00] me of what does he do after practice?
What's he like in the locker room? What's his parents like? When Richard didn't play or you had to sit Richard or discipline him, what were his parents like? I've got the picture. So we're quick to rush into relationships, but we really need to explain who we are, our core values, the behaviors we accept and don't accept.
Explain that, and be willing for that person to walk even if they're talented. Because if we, your cul, your culture is what the behavior you allow. So if you're a talented player and I recruit you, you come to my team, you show up late to practice, but you're talented, and I let it slide, everyone's looking at me saying, oh, okay.
We're allowed to show up late. Or if you're that talented, you can, you have these benefits and that just eats at the culture of any organization, whether it be the classroom, an athletic team, or a corporation.
Richard Gerver: There's such a powerful lesson there about the three dimensionality of the knowledge of the [00:22:00] people you are working with.
You know, so often teachers are so stressed and under pressure and they see behavior in the short term from a child, but actually that ability to go deep and understand the context. So for, I mean, I will never forget as a young teacher be having a really challenging child in my class and he would only be challenging on certain days.
Right. And what then became clear to me after I, I was pointed in the direction of finding out more, was that he was a carer. He was a carer at home for a severely disabled mother, and there were certain days where medication would wear off or there'd be a problem with mom at home or there was a pattern.
At that time, you suddenly went, holy moly, for that kid, even to show up today, needs a different response from the one that I've been giving him, which is just automatically to ball him out. And I think that depth of knowledge is so incredibly important because I guess as a coach, like [00:23:00] as a teacher, the skill in that human leadership is knowing how to treat each individual on any given day.
Matt Doherty: You you hit it on the head, Richard. You don't teach coach everyone the same because everyone is different. Everyone learns differently and you can't just blanket we're gonna do this. No. You know, some people learn differently and some people are dealing with things that you don't know. And that's why you really need to connect with the heart of the people you are teaching, coaching, working with, to understand what their day is like before or after they show up in the classroom.
So you then can manage that differently because you can make or break that kid. You can make, if you say something and embarrasses that kid, then all the kids, other kids start bullying him in a playground. Who knows what that kid's gonna [00:24:00] be like. What if you had to go back, Richard, to that moment, knowing what you know now, how would you have handled that?
Richard Gerver: Well, the first thing I would've done would've been to park what I was gonna do with that child. I mean, yes, in the first instance. You've gotta protect the child in the classroom and all the rest of it. And the first thing I would've been doing would've been going out into the wider community, the school community, and gone.
Who can tell me about this child's background? Who can tell me about this kid's ba family? What's the situation here? And then I would've done a bit more of a deep dive and then developed a strategy that would've been unique for that child. And of course, I guess the first thing that would've told me would've been on Tuesday and Thursday is medication day.
Those are gonna be the stressful days. So then you start to preempt, right? You preempt your behaviors.
Matt Doherty: You anticipate, you gotta anticipate. Then I think, how old was the young youngster at the time that you were Nine.
Richard Gerver: Nine years old.
Matt Doherty: Nine years old. Imagine that nine. God bless him.
Richard Gerver: Can you imagine as a para, as a [00:25:00] carer of a parent?
I mean, unbelievable. So, I mean, let me move on, Matt, because again, the richness here is so powerful and I wanna talk a little bit about your own learning. 'cause one of the things that fascinates me for teachers is. Urging them to draw into their own history, their own lives, to truly develop that emotional intelligence and that understanding of what makes people, people.
So I want to go back, if I may, and I hope it's okay to talk about this. So there you were, young college athlete who was. Going great guns, doing incredible things at North Carolina. Am I right? I think that's where you were. And then you get drafted in the NBA about a hundred and 19th, I think, or something in the draft.
Matt Doherty: Yeah. Somewhere where no one makes the team, but yes. Somewhere past a hundred. Yes. Not very good by the way. Yes.
Richard Gerver: So, I mean, just from my perspective, one of the things that really interests me is young people who experience success early and [00:26:00] then so they're treated like the golden child. And then h how did you deal with that moment of.
Failure, I suppose is the word. Yeah. Not just in terms of your own, in terms of your own career, but also the expectation that I guess would've built around you from your family and friends. What did that feel like and how did you overcome that?
Matt Doherty: I remember where I was it was draft day in 1984.
I was speaking in front of 700 campers. The director of the camp came up and tapped me on the shoulder in the middle of my talk. I just started getting going and he said six round Cleveland. And I got, my body got numb. My eyes started to sting. That's not what I wanted to hear, you know? I was hoping like third round Celtics and I, my, my mind was racing as I had these 700 campers in front of me that I was trying to instruct. Somehow I gathered [00:27:00] myself and went back to the lecture. And then I got in my car and went back to my apartment in Chapel Hill, which was about an hour and a half away.
North Carolina. And the next morning we had clock radios back then. So this was again, 1984 and the alarm goes off and it was to this news and local sports, and they go down the names of players in the league that were drafted and they go through all these players and they come to me and I just started to cry.
I started to cry and I kind of, I try to go through the motions and get prepared for training camp. I got hurt and my back and went to camp, didn't perform well, and I ran from it. I ran from it. I was dealing with failure. I ran from it. And I've always had a backup plan, and this is where I get in trouble.
I struggle. Do you have a, should you have a backup plan or not? Like I always wanted to be a good student, understand that basketball wouldn't be there forever, so I should have a backup [00:28:00] plan. But did I go to the backup plan too early or should I have fought through It? Fought through that adversity instead of giving into it.
Maybe I realized I think the most important thing as a leader in anybody is self-awareness. And I think deep down I knew I wasn't that talented. And you know, I made, I started for three years with Michael Jordan because I was tall and I was skilled and I was fundamentally sound and I was a smart player, but I didn't have the gifts of an NBA player.
So I ran to Wall Street and I wanted. You're so wrapped up at 22 years old and your identity and what other people think of you, at least I did. And I all of a sudden there's, I'm stripped of being a basketball player and I felt like I was falling off the Empire State Building and there was no safety net and I went to Wall Street.
I always looked at Wall Street as a cool place to work, and I think I really went to Wall Street because it was sexy. You could make money. [00:29:00] And that was a good substitute to tell people. So when they say, oh, so what happened? You know, you're playing basketball? No, but I'm working on Wall Street. And like even when I said that, I remember I had to state my goals to some people when I was working there.
Like, what's your goal? And I know what they meant. It was a financial goal. And at 2324, I was saying, oh, I, I wanna make $500,000 a year. As I was saying that I felt dirty and I thought my mom on the right shoulder, like son, that's not, that shouldn't be your goal, you know? And so I eventually quit after I explained I was drinking I was drinking more because I was really hurt.
I was really lost. And so I found my identity and I was an all city drinker. I was pretty damn good at it. And, tapped my boss on a shoulder, moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, and I found coaching, and coaching found me and that was the fulfillment. My identity then was teacher and coach.
Richard Gerver: Yeah. [00:30:00] Do you think, I mean, it's really interesting this idea, 'cause you've talked a couple of times about purpose and alignment.
That one of those things young people get too stressed about is believing they have to map out their whole lives on day one, and that actually they need to trust the journey a little bit more.
Matt Doherty: I had this conversation with my children, my son's 27, my daughter's 25. There was a book, and th this is really important, I believe, all of your listeners.
But your life's impacted by three things, the people you meet, the books you read, and the trauma in your life. The people you meet, who are you surrounding yourself with? Well, people are meeting you and me through your podcast. Podcasts are like books now. So you get to learn. And if you could take a nugget, like if you and I today could impact one life through a comment we make, this has been a successful podcast.
And then the third thing is the trauma in your life. So I lose, I get cut by, the Cleveland [00:31:00] Cavaliers, I get cut by the NBAI. I lost my job at North Carolina. That's traumatic. But Nelson Mandela, I love collecting quotes, said, I never lose. I either win or I learn. So what is your mindset? And that's the thing about athletics that I think is beneficial.
You lose a lot. So when you lose a game, what do you do? You watch the film and try to get better. When you lose your job or lose a relate a friendship, watch the film and try to get better, study it and really I also stress, I wrote a book called Rebound from Pain, the Passion, and I talk about the six nos, K-N-O-W-S of leadership.
And the first one was the self. And the last one is the truth. Mind for the truth. See, we're afraid of the truth. We say we want the truth. People don't like to hear the truth. The truth is, you're a jerk. The truth is you don't listen. The truth is you have a big ego. The truth is you you know, you're selfish.
The truth is, [00:32:00] you're too nice. You know your biggest strengths, your biggest weakness. You're a nice person. You're a nice person. You're too nice. You're competitive. You're competitive. You're too competitive. You don't know when to shut it, turn it off. So it's a constant, it's a it's a constant growth and I think that is stimulating to me because I know you mentioned earlier about excellence, like what is excellence?
And I think it's achieving the maximum potential. Our lives but leadership and growth. Personal growth there's no finish line. You like I'd say it's like football. You get to the 20 yard line and you think you're gonna score and somebody pushes a button and extends the field, another a hundred yards.
That's growth. That's leadership. You're gonna screw up. We are flawed. You know, the only person that is perfect, they hung on a cross. And so like, be okay with that. And so what I found, I'm 62. [00:33:00] About two years ago I was struggling. And so I started to pray in the morning. Like I, when I interview people, I thing I love about the podcast as an interviewer.
I get to learn, right? So you get to learn. So I'm interviewing all these people and I like to ask, what's your morning routine? And most of these successful people did three things. They prayed, they journaled, and they worked out. And I laughed and I said well, I can do two of the three. I could pray, I could journal, but I'm not working out in the morning.
And so, I started to journal and I couldn't journal. I think I've got a little a DD. And. I found a journal and I'm developing a journal now because I promote this one so much, I might as well promote my own. But it's a journal called The Five Minute Journal, and it prompts you with questions in the morning and at night.
Like, what, what will make today a good day? You know, you have to write an affirmation. And then at night, what are the highlights of today? What did you learn today? So, and then I read a book [00:34:00] called Soundtracks about this speaker, public speaker, and that's a lonely job. And he gives these, this morning anthem and I stole it.
And I, we all like all good teachers and coaches steal from other people. So I stole it and I use it and it sounded ridiculous at the time. He tell, he says, you need to stand in the mirror and say these 10 affirmations in the morning. And I waited for my wife to leave the house and then I looked in the mirror and I said, I am the CEO of me today is a great day.
Momentum is messy. Everything always works out for me. I am my biggest fan, but I found, as I said, those things, my body changed and scientifically. Your body does change because your mind changes. And you know, to do that every day, I've done it now for almost two years, every day. It's been a life changer for me.
And so I encourage your [00:35:00] audience to have a morning routine. You know, we talk a lot about surrounding yourself with. People like you are the average of the five people you surround yourself with. Well, you also and I say you're impacted by the people you meet, the books you read, and the trauma in your life.
The person you're with the most is yourself and. We can be cruel to ourselves and say some nasty stuff to ourselves that we wouldn't say to our worst enemy. So I encourage you to give yourself grace and say nice things to yourself and be more forgiving of yourself.
Richard Gerver: I think that's what I can't believe we've got almost to the point of the end of our time together, Matt, and it's been extraordinary.
But I think that thing is so important because for me, people who lead people, teachers, coaches, leaders in any walk of life. Assume they have to be selfless all of the time that they have to give all of the time. And I think one of the great, what you've just said, I think should underline to the [00:36:00] people listening today that actually you have to take care of yourself.
That it isn't a selfish act. It's actually a selfless act, and it makes you a better leader, a better person and you owe it actually. To the people you are leading and working with to, to do that. And I think it, it takes huge courage for people like yourself and it's hugely important as a role model for you, for someone like you to come out and say that.
So I thank you hugely for that. I also thank you hugely for your time. It's been extraordinary privilege to talk to you. Matt. One last question if I may. Yes. If people have been captured by you and they definitely will have been, how can they connect with you and find out more about your work?
Matt Doherty: Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity, Richard. They can go to my website, that is doty coaching.com. That is DOH. ERTY coaching.com and [00:37:00] has all the information, keynote talks, books executive coaching. So yeah. Thank you and. This has been the fastest 45 minutes in podcast history. So Richard I've enjoyed it because I I feel the energy, I feel the connection, and we're across the pond from each other.
But we have very similar philosophies. You're. You're doing God's work and thank you for having me on the show. And if you ever have a hole in your schedule and you need someone else to fill it, please have me back.
Richard Gerver: Oh, that is definitely gonna happen. And the other thing is, if ever you come this side of the pond, I will take you out for a warm beer, Matt.
That's guarantee
Matt Doherty: You know, I'll take a non-alcoholic beer because you know Oh, of course.
Richard Gerver: Yeah. Sorry that was very insensitive of me. But yeah, they do warm, tasteless, non-alcoholic beer too. Don't worry. Yeah,
Matt Doherty: no, no problem.
Richard Gerver: Thank you so much. Thank you and thank you all so much for joining us.
If you'd like to find out more, please [00:38:00] check out my website, richard gerber.com and subscribe to this podcast so that you don't miss any future episodes. But until next time, here's to the future.
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