116: Sales Lessons From Coaching The Yankees With Coach Dana Cavalea

Thank you to our partners, SalesLoft, LeadIQ, and Costello for helping us put this one on. Find all our upcoming events at jbarrows.com slash events. Good afternoon, everybody. This is John Barrows. Make it happen Mondays. Hope you all had a fantastic weekend. I have a very interesting guest here. It's a little hurtful right now because I'm bringing him on my podcast as a Bostonian. He's a New Yorker, and he's been working with the Yankees for the past fucking 14 years to help them beat up on us a little bit. Plus, I think he's got a lot of really cool shit to talk about as far as that experience is concerned and also just drive and passion and everything else. So, Dana, you want to introduce yourself to everybody here and talk about what you're up to these days?

Yeah, no, absolutely. So, my name is Coach Dana Cavalia, and right now I spend most of my time, you know, training athletes, helping them improve their overall performance, and I did the same thing for, you know, CEOs, executives, and, you know, entrepreneurs that are dealing with the grind of entrepreneurship day in and day out. So, it's a lot of fun, and there's so many similarities between sports and business. So, that's actually how I got pulled into this, and it's quite enjoyable, too. Love it, because you were the actual director of strength and conditioning and performance for the Yankees for, what, 14 years, give or take? Yeah, so I oversaw everything having to do with the physical body.

How do we get these guys faster? How do we get them stronger? How do we improve their bodies, cut the fat off when we have to, nutrition, anything related to energy, sleep, anything along that line? And then, at the same time, you do a lot of mental conditioning and training as well, just because you're dealing with players that are hurt, they're beat up, they're in slumps, and we have a great staff that handles that as well. But, you know, when you're working with a player's body, it's amazing how much they share. You know, it's a very personal connection, you know, when you get your hands all over these guys. And it's really interesting what you learn, you know, I'm the coach, I'm supposed to be doing all the teaching, right?

But it's amazing what you learn from, you know, just being around high performers day in and day out. And that's kind of where I want to take this conversation, which is that championship mentality, right? Like, there are certain people that I think just inherently have it. They're the Derek Jeter's of the world, you know what I mean, who are just like, as much as I hate the Yankees, like Derek Jeter's literally one of my favorite players of all time. I mean, you know, he's got a lot of love here in Boston, too, because of his drive, because of his passion, because of his work ethic and everything else, right? Right. But even champions sometimes, you know, have that slump and go from there. But can you, like, over the years of working with, obviously, very successful people, both in business and in sports, what are the characteristics, the common characteristics that you see of people who are just like, fucking, yes, like that person is going to be successful?

Well, even if they aren't successful yet, you know it because they have those characteristics. What are some of those things that you constantly see? You know what I found? It's honestly, it's very different than what many people think. And I say that because so many people say, all right, they got to be that hustle grinder, 365-er. And I got to tell you, I work with a guy that's now building his fifth billion-dollar company. I work with guys that are truly incredible in the world of business. And the one thing I saw that was so similar between the guys in business and the players that were the most elite, they didn't have that mentality of, like, you know, that gladiator-type mentality. The gladiator was within them, but there wasn't what I call a lot of false hustle.

You know, guys that are like to look at me and see how hard I work, like, they didn't give a shit. If it was 5 o'clock and they had to leave, they were leaving. But they knew that they worked hard on the objectives that they needed to achieve between 9 and 5. And, you know, listen, I was brought up in sports, and I was taught by my coaches, listen, if you're not the first one there and the last one to leave, you're basically going to suck. And I've also seen that happen in business cultures. And what I find is, as much as we want to see that effort out of our people in terms of they're here, they're working, I think we could all agree that we'd much rather see great results. And we're okay if it's within less time.

So we feel we're spending the time, but where's the result? You know what I mean? So, yeah, totally know what you mean. So you said something in there as far as the ones who know they got done what they were supposed to get done that day. So how much does, like, goal setting come into this when it comes to, you know, business or athletes or anything like that? How do they set goals and hold themselves accountable for them? Yeah, it's interesting. We don't really goal set, right? What we do is we mission set. Okay. Okay? And we say, like, in the Bronx, it's easy, right? What do we want to do? Win a championship. Okay, well, what do we need to do every day in order to do that? And when we decide on what the actions are daily, we don't do different actions on Tuesday from Monday, from Thursday, from Friday.

Every day, you attack that plan. Consistent, consistent, consistent, consistent. You're not out searching and grabbing this and grabbing that. And that's one thing that I saw amongst the best is they have a level of conviction and trust and belief within themselves. And they're not always searching for what's next or what's best. They know what's best for them through trial and error in their younger years and as they were becoming the professional. If you're just starting out, you have to try different things and you have to have a very, very simple system that says works, doesn't work, works, doesn't work, and works, doesn't work. But that can't be your 20-year career in terms of doing it with high frequency.

As you go, your frequency should lessen. And like, again, in this example, Derek Jeter, you know, we worked with him very differently at 28 versus 38. Yeah. So we were looking for what's best for him. But early in his career, it was about establishing what his habits were, what the process is, what it looks like. And the most important guy to determine what those things are was him. Derek, what is it that's working best for you? And we identify that and then we start to package it. And that becomes your routine. And no two players had the same routine. Some guys before a game want to listen to Metallica. Other guys want to listen to John Mayer. And other guys want to lay on the floor like a guy named Raul Abanez and listen to nothing except his own breath.

So there's no one-size-fits-all model. But you've got to have a mission. And what are you setting out to do as a team, as an individual, and as an organization? You know, we talk a lot about that as knowing your why. Like, what are you, you know, why are you doing what you do? Which is the ultimate kind of mission of your life, your career, your job, whatever it is. But I think that's an important just routine in general. How important is a routine in general to be successful? Yeah. So here's the thing, right? Routines come in all different sizes, colors, shapes. But the one thing I found is the commonality between each successful person is that they have some kind of routine where, again, their days aren't looking totally different day to day.

Like, when they – the fastest way to disrupt a successful player, this is what I would always say and what I do say, is that if you can interrupt their routine, they're dead. So, for instance, and I'm using some sports analogies now, a guy like G, he'd have on his locker, right, there'd be a monitor, like a computer monitor. And, you know, guys would have ESPN on it. They'd have all different stuff. He would always have the weather. He'd always be tracking clouds. Because if there was a rain delay, it would disrupt his routine. So this was a guy at 3 o'clock, you knew where he was. 3.40, you knew where he was. 4.10, 4.50, 7 – you know what I mean? All the way until the game started and until he was out the door at the end of the game.

Everything was so structured and so planned that any disruption in that, it interrupted him. And same thing again, we have a player named Mark Teixeira for a lot of years, and he was struggling. And I said, Tex, what are you going to do? And he said, I'm going to keep executing on my routine because I know that the hits will come. It's like you're a great salesperson, but you're just not closing deals. And I got a guy, a couple guys that I work with in finance on Wall Street, and if they're not closing deals on private equity, they're a mess. And I said, listen, don't abort your strategy. Don't abort your process. Sometimes that's the last thing to actually happen is the birth of the deal. Well, how do you figure out, though, that, you know, what if your process isn't a good one?

Like, when do you adjust, if you will? Because I totally get it. Like, if what got you to be successful, okay, and you keep kind of doing that, and all of a sudden you're not for some reason. I do agree with that, okay, stay the course, right? Just keep doing it. You know, just be consistent with it. But for those people who are a little bit younger out there and really haven't figured out, like, total success yet, they put a routine in place. How do they identify the fact that this is probably, this is not a good routine or I need to change things up a little bit? Yeah, well, at that point, the guys that I'm referencing in terms of just sticking with the process, these are people that are proven.

Yeah. The routine is already proven. It's just they're sick and unfair expectations that they put on themselves. They're not meeting. You know, it's guys with huge missions and huge, you know, revenue targets. But for somebody that's just starting out, again, there is a lot of that trial and error. And if you are doing something that is not working for you, what I say is you have to almost micromanage your routine. It's not saying the whole thing sucks, so let me get rid of the whole thing and start over on a rebuild. It's tweaking this and tweaking that and tweaking this and things. So when you look at your routine as a whole, what I like to do is break it down into parts and say, working, not working, working, not working.

Now, out of what's working, what's working great, and we move that to the top. What's working okay, we move that to the middle. And whatever's not working, we have to abandon. And when we abandon that, whatever slots we abandon gives us the opportunity now to try some new things. And those new things may work better than the other things that are on deck, and then you do the same system and the same process. So I like to assess and evaluate a process every quarter, so that way you're on top of yourself. And another thing that I like to talk about a lot is tripwires. I call them tripwires. What are these things that are tripping you up with consistency? And it could be how you talk to yourself, how you think about yourself, or just your overall work ethic.

You know, I mean, sometimes we've got to check ourselves, especially social media land, and there's a million ways to distract ourselves today. And there's always been, but today we've got to be very cognizant and aware of where we're putting our time and our energy. And I'm going to break it down like this real quick. I know I'm on a ramble here, but I say there's two things, right? You have your IPAs, which are your income-producing activities. And then you have your EDAs, which are your energy-draining activities. So the faster you can identify IPAs and EDAs, the better off you're going to be. And again, you've got to be really honest with yourself. You know, like social media for me is an absolute EDA.

Like, well, you can make money on social media, you know, posting and generating. I have it. Social media is the sprinkles on my ice cream cone. Gotcha. Not my ice cream or the cone. Nice. You know? So with that, you talk about the drive, right? Do you think drive is nature? How much? I mean, it's both. But nature versus nurture, right? Because one of the things I struggle with is I, for whatever reason, I have a pretty strong internal motor, right? Like whatever happened. And it's not because, you know, other people have it because they came up, you know, they struggled when they were growing up. You know, their parents didn't support them. They were homeless or whatever that was. And so that's kind of driven them to be like, now, I grew up in a pretty normal house.

Normal these days is a term, but, you know, a normal household, good parents supported me. But for some reason, I just have this work ethic that I don't mind. I actually enjoy working. I don't mind working 17-hour days, 18-hour days type of thing. But there's a lot of people out there that don't have that internal motor. So first of all, how much of drive do you think is nature and nurture? And second of all, for those people that you've coached before or you've managed before that just don't seem to have that drive, how do you pull it out of them? Yeah. So I've never worked with somebody that's achieved success in business that doesn't have it within them. So I'll put that out there. Yep. Sports, I've never seen a Hall of Fame player that doesn't have it either.

Yep. So, but I've seen players that make it based on their talent, but it's like they say you can have great talent, but if the great talent doesn't work, it's only talent and it only lasts for so long. So I know a bunch of players like that. And again, I always say this, it doesn't mean they're bad people. It doesn't mean that they can't contribute to the team or the organization. It's just, if you're leading that person, you're going to go batshit crazy trying to get them to be something more like you, the leader. It's not going to happen. But that doesn't mean you should just say they're out unless their laziness or their lack of drive just totally doesn't fit in with the culture that you want or the culture that you're building.

So if that's the case, then you have a very, very simple way to know if somebody belongs on your team or not. And I meet so many leaders of sales teams and just CEOs of companies, they tolerate people because they think that they have to or they feel that they could turn this person around. And honestly, people, Mike Musina, you know, always told me in the picture, he said, people, for the most part, they are what they are. If you give them a little bit of time, three to six months, you'll see who they are. We used to have a three to six month rule. In six months, a player will always show you who they are. And that never really lets you down. And if someone's been a dog for your organization and an EDA-er to you, draining you, how am I going to get to this person?

How can I motivate them? How can I inspire them? It's honestly easier to cut them and let them go their own way. And you're actually helping them because chances are they feel like they can't succeed in your organization anyway. So they come up with all these different excuses and they're just there for the check. So you've got to have, I always say, in business, life and sports, you have to have guts and you've got to have nuts. And it's important that you bring that sort of air and energy as a leader, you know, or else people are going to kind of, you know, piss all over your yard, as I like to say. Totally. Yeah. And so how do you approach, like if you look at the typical bell curve, right, the distribution of talent, I think this is true across the board.

I think it's true across organizations. I think it's true across sports teams is there's the A's, B's and C's, right? You've got your probably top 10, 20% A's, you've got your probably middle 50% to 60% B reps, and then you have your bottom 20% to 30%. How do you coach each, how do you, or how have you seen successful organizations coach each group? So let's start with the C players. Let's start with the ones who are just not, you know, they're maybe batting ninth in the order or something like that. I'm not saying they're bad. I'm just saying they're not like your number three, your number four hitter, right? And they might not have all the skills, you know, let's assume that now that they got to the majors, they at least have some sort of motor in them that wants to be successful.

What's your coaching approach to the different buckets there? Yeah. So this is something I use that actually can span all three. This is my starting point. Okay. You have to be in a, in a mindset as a leader to identify strength. Okay. Yep. Identify strength because the easiest thing to do is point out what somebody is not doing. Right. But if you can identify their strength, then that's followed by the question, are they in the right position? Because I think so many times we see people at the bottom of that curve and it's just, honestly, they're not in the right position, but they may have a quality. That makes them an A player with that, that makes them an A player with that, just that quality.

Right. And sometimes people are doing a job because they kind of fell into it. Maybe some of them don't have the confidence to get out of it or maybe the organization is set up as more of a dictatorship than the leader actually thinks. And this person says, well, I'm secure here. I know what I have, you know, and then there's players that sit in a C level, that lower level, because, you know, at the same time, they don't know what the opportunities are for them within that organization. Because sometimes they're not experiencing any success. They say, I don't even know if I can get up to the next level. Right. So there's all of these things that exist. But when it comes to those C players, I ask myself, what is their strength?

What could they be really good at? And do I have a position available for those people? If I don't, then I'm better off letting them go and having that honest conversation. How much do you focus on strength? Like, so, because there's a whole philosophy out there of strengths versus weaknesses, whatever. You know, I'm always of the mindset of focus on your strengths, minimize your weaknesses. Right. Not necessarily fix your weaknesses because your weakness is your weakness for a reason. You don't like doing them. So that's kind of where my head's at. But what have you seen, again, the champions and successful people, how they approach strengths, their own strengths and weaknesses? Yeah. Well, here's the thing, right?

All of the things that we're talking about, they don't discriminate based on the amount of capital you have. So sometimes I feel like these problems, it's like, well, we're a small company. That's why we have these talent problems. Oh, we're a mid-sized company. That's why we have these talent problems. But then you go to corporate behemoths that are really well-funded. They have the same problems. So the other day I'm having lunch with one of my coaching clients and, you know, he runs an $8 billion, you know, hedge fund. Yeah. And we're talking about the exact same things that we're mentioning here. And he's like, you know what? The day I learned to stop focusing on my weaknesses and delegating them, my business went to another level.

And this is kind of, we're conditioned to not focus on our strengths because we just take those for granted. And we're more apt to focus on our weaknesses because our systems are built that way. They're built to make us the complete person. Right. But I don't know, I'm sure you've met some people that are really successful. Sometimes they're a little socially inept. Yeah, absolutely. Some of them are so socially advanced that they're so good at hurting people and raising money. But when it comes to actually doing the processes that drive the business, they're terrible. So they need a great operator next to them. So we hurt ourselves when we're trying to be a number four hitter and we're laying down bunts and trying to steal bases and move guys over.

So we'll go, if Dustin Pedroia tried to play like Big Papi in Boston, if Big Papi tried to play like Dustin Pedroia, both are great players, but they're out of position and they're both going to fail. How much of that is self-awareness versus coaching, right? So, and obviously I think this has to do with the stage of your career too, but how much of that is on us to understand as individuals what I'm good and bad at? And how do I figure that out at an early age and then how much of it is on a manager to kind of come to us and say, hey, here's where you're good. Here's where you're not. Let's, let's put you in a position to be successful. Yeah. So my, my whole position on coaching and when I coach people, it's really simple.

I try to coach people to greater self-awareness. There you go. So, so if you can do that, you're getting people to identify things for themselves. Like you'll be amazed at people don't realize what they're actually saying. Example, I'm sitting with someone the other day and he's complaining about his, his team and his staff and they're not good at this and they're not good at that. And they say one thing and they do another. And I asked him, the CEO of the company, I said, hey, you know, that kind of sounds like you with this, you know, performance training program. I have you on and you giving me the excuses over the past two weeks why you haven't actually been able to do it. So people aren't oftentimes aware of what they're saying because as leaders, sometimes they just say, I'm the leader.

I'm, I'm perfect. Right, right. And how do you coach that? How do you, I mean, because self-awareness I think is, you know, I don't know if you follow Gary Vee, but, you know, Gary Vaynerchuk, he talks a lot about that self-awareness stuff. I believe in it. I think it's one of my biggest strengths. I definitely know what I'm good at and I definitely know what I'm not. And I, and I tend to lean toward, lean on my strengths here. But how do you, how do you actually coach self-awareness? Yeah. Well, the first thing I do, honestly, and this scares the shit out of people that are the typical client that I work with. Like I work with a type A, high horsepower, you know, go-getter, entrepreneur, financier, leader, like they're crazy.

So you got to slow them down. And I, I'm big into horse racing. I like to pull back on the horse and say, hey, if I got to slow you down, I want you to feel some of that stuff that you're really uncomfortable feeling. I want you to have those real thoughts that aren't just about you being in high gear all the time. Like I want to slow you down enough to just say, wait, how do I feel? And that was the number one question that I asked players when I work with them multiple times a day. Hey man, how you doing? And I make them stop, not good. And they're walking away. How you doing? I make them stop and actually think, wait, how am I doing? Because we get in such a conditioned mode of saying, I'm good.

You know, okay. Busy, working hard, you know, grinding one day at a time, you know, all these things. And really it's like, well, how do we actually feel? Well, that's, that's what I, I'm always asking people. And I actually want them to, to actually have an awareness. What do you feel? What are you thinking? And it goes back to something we talked about earlier. You know, you said, why? What's there, why? And I know that's a very commercialized thing right now. You know, that question. I ask people, how do you define winning for yourself? And, and you'll be amazed again, professional season can't even answer that question. And I think that leads to a lot of that, the problems. And it's also just, again, a lack of self-awareness.

Like, what are you actually trying to do here? Because you may have players on your team that are already satisfied. And you're like, no, you're not doing enough. You need to be more. But that person's satisfied. They just don't have the same goals as you, the rest of the members of the team and the company or organization. So they're satisfied. So it's, because, and I think it's, you know, it takes an open mind to be humbled, I guess, to enough. And do you feel, do you think that there's a point where people do have to be humbled to a certain degree by an outside influence in order to be self-aware? I, I can say yes. I would say yes and no. Okay. You know, like sometimes there's people that just don't have, like if you get ready, if you're a leader and you fire them, they're completely blindsided.

Even though you had about eight meetings with them to talk about their performance or lack of, right? So that person is completely gone. They're just not aware of what's happening around them. And then you have the person that's obviously hyper aware of what's going on. And they, that could be a problem too. I mean, again, I'm working with some other people that they're forecasting, you know, being reprimanded by a boss and they're doing great work. They're playing the game to not be yelled at or not be reprimanded or not be scolded for poor performance. That's not the reason why you should be doing that. No. Yeah. You know, it's like, well, if I don't hit my numbers, then it's like, just go out and work and don't worry about that side of it.

Yeah. So, so with that, like, so for those, let's talk about coaching people out of a slump, right? So say you got your, you know, you got your, one of your top performers or whatever, and look, we all hit it. You know what I mean? You get the yips in golf, you know, and baseball, that type of stuff. You know, sales, it feels like, you know, all your deals just either get pushed or don't close or whatever. And it's, and it's an emotional thing, right? I mean, for, especially for winners, people who are constantly hitting their numbers that, you know, go into a slump. What are some of the things that you've seen be successful with some of the, you know, really champion driven people that they've done, but also what we could potentially do as coaches and managers, if you will, to help people get out of slumps?

Yeah. Well, I'll start with this, right? Just because you're losing doesn't mean you're a loser. Yeah. Like, we'll start with that. See, what happens is so many people, they connect themselves personally to the result. And again, it's good to be passionate about what you're doing. But listen, we all know when we play the game of sales, there's going to be deals that we think are guarantees and they're not. They end up being a bust. Then there's that deal where you're like, I don't even know, this one probably has no chance. And all of a sudden, boom, that's the one that comes, comes up to the top. But we can't, we just, we can't also live for and based on the results we get. So I always tell this story, right?

I tell the story about Mariano Rivera. And as a kid, you know, I'm a young guy in high school at the time when he first came up to the big leagues. And I'm trying to figure out who I am, what I'm about, you know, all those things that teenagers go with. I see this skinny Panamanian kid come up on the mound, Yankee Stadium, 1995, and he's throwing fire. And it's like amazing. Nobody's seen this guy before. And every year he got better, better, better, and better. So this was back in about 2009. I'm at his house and I say, I'm stretching him in the off season in his basement. And I said, Mo, I got to ask you a question. I've been waiting since 1995 to ask you this question. He goes, what's that, buddy?

And I said, how do you do it? Like, how do you do it? How do you go out there in these competitive situations and get it done? And he looks at me and he goes, buddy, I do three things. He goes, number one, I slow everything down. Number two, I quiet the noise. And number three, I throw one pitch at a time. And he says, see, I don't let the externals and anything else, stadium noise, anything, control my internal environment. I don't let that control how I feel about myself. I don't let my results control how I feel about myself. And I said to him, but what about the big moments, like the World Series or that big deal? You know, what about that? And he says, buddy, every moment is the same. We decide what's a big moment.

We decide what's a big deal. And we decide what emotion and emotions we give life to. And when I heard that, it changed for me the whole way I go about my life and about my business. And I realized if I'm getting worked up, that's coach responding to an external problem. And when I look at people in business that are up and down, up and down, and their life is a roller coaster. And they lack the trust. And they lack, really, the belief in themselves, in their process, and everything in between. So it's an interesting predicament to be in. But are there things that, like, you know, from, like, a motivational standpoint, that you give people tools to help them get in the positive mindset? You know, there's the Tony Robbins of the world, change your state, that type of stuff.

But are there ways that you have coached people to get rid of that internal mental noise? Because it hits all of us, you know what I mean? Like, self-doubt. I mean, I'm a pretty confident cat, right? But there's plenty of times where I'm like, holy shit, am I doing this right? Like, you know, that type of stuff. So are there things that you've done to help people get in the right mindset and out of that slump, for instance? Yeah. You know, something that I do, it's really simple, right? This is like a notepad that, you know, has become foreign to people these days because everything's digital. Literally, like, write down. Like, I have a list in my kitchen right now where I literally did this over the weekend.

I wrote down the five things that were, like, pulling on me. And it turns out, I was like, I could hammer this list out, and then it won't pull on me anymore. So they call it the brain dump, whatever. I would, listen, sit down, think about, what is it that's driving me crazy right now? You know, it's like your crazy list. It could be, I write down actual things that I have to do that are weighing on me. But I'll also write down, like, things that I'm saying to myself. Like, these themes. I call them even tripwires. What are the tripwires? What are the things that I keep tripping over that cause me doubt? Like, you know, and it could be anything. You know, it's like, oh, I got to do this, and I have to get that done.

Or I'm constantly, whenever this topic comes up, whenever the topic of money comes up, I get crazy. Why is that? You know, what's causing that? Or how could I write down what could my alternative response be? So these are different things that you can do. And again, everybody's going to respond differently. But the best thing you can do is catch yourself. And that's where the self-awareness comes in. That's where the slowing down comes in. Like, what are you telling yourself? We hear all the, we talk about all this chatter, but what's it actually saying? How do we decode the chatter? Do you believe that you can talk yourself into a positive mindset? Like, just literally by talking yourself into it?

I coach myself most of the day. Yeah. Let's go. You're being lazy. Come on. And I do. I get, you know, it's not always verbal. Sure. Like where other people could hear it, but it's like, hey, come on, let's go. I have to keep my own pace up throughout the day. Because, listen, there's things that we just don't want to do. Right. You know, like I had to sit at the bank today and go over, like, I had to get something done. And I'm like, I should be somewhere else. This sucks. I got to get out of here. So I changed that. And I say, listen, you got to get this done. And when you get it done, you know what? You don't have to come back here. This is great. And what else are you going to do later? So we have to decode what our chatter is and what the noise is.

And then start to come up with alternatives to that. The more we do it, the more we do it, the more we can be in the moment. But listen, we all know what our response is going to be when a deal falls through. Right? I'm sure. I'm sure if you talk to anyone listening to this show, hey, when your deals fall through, what do you feel? Yep. And that's something where we know it's predictable. It's such a predictable pattern. How do we break that pattern? And language is so powerful, you know? Language is really, really important. Like, you know, that's why I actually write. I like to write because it's therapeutic. Yep. So a couple more questions here. I'm always curious on this one. With all the successful athletes and business leaders you've been around, is the hate to lose versus love to win.

Is that, like, do you find a trend in really successful people, whether they hate to lose or love to win? I'm just more curious than anything else. Yeah. So that hate to lose mentality, that is the person that we're talking about that does not need external motivation at all. So I work with a bunch of guys in business. Like, you know, I live in the New York area. They were born and raised in Brooklyn. Back when Brooklyn was a dump. It was Brooklyn, yeah. Back when Brooklyn was Brooklyn. Yeah. And what's interesting is these guys are motivated for life. Yeah. They're very successful. I mean, the top 1%. And what's interesting about them, they say they still have memories of Brooklyn and they still fear having to go back to Brooklyn.

And so people will say, I mean, well, you can't be motivated by fear. These guys are 100% motivated by fear. Yeah. And they use it as a positive, right? So they're not just scared and being, you know, you know, cradled in the corner. They're using that fear to drive them forward. So it's that chip in the shoulder, bulldog, you know, underdog mentality. I mean, I know you probably hate it, but I think the best example of that is Tom Brady, right? Like, no matter who knows. I'm a Tom Brady fan. And I'll tell you, you're right, man. Tom Brady, I tell people this when I speak, love him or hate him, at 43 years old in the NFL, he is an absolute underdog. Every time. Every time. In his head. Yeah.

I think he still wears the 199 t-shirt. Like, he literally still wears the t-shirt that says 199 on it because that's what he got drafted in. And that's, he's like, and he wakes up every day trying to prove why they made, everybody made a mistake. And I mean, the story of him meeting Kraft for the first time, and as this, like, noodle of a dude with, you know what I mean? Like, not defined at all. Like, pick no one 99, he meets Kraft in the hallway, and he says, I'm going to be the best decision you've ever made in your life. Like, holy shit, right? But when you say that, right, what is that showing? Showing confidence in the self. Exactly. So that's the thing. You know, when I talk about sales, there's also some key things that you got to have, right?

Confidence being one of them. Now, that's a big thing I like to talk about because, listen, some of us have situational confidence, where we're stronger in some situations and not in others. Some people have just no confidence at all. Other people have dangerously high confidence. But we want to kind of sit right in the middle to where we're confident in ourselves as people, who we are. Not the salesperson, not the father, not the, you know, the wife, whatever. We're just confident in ourselves as somebody that roams the earth, right? So I always say, what can we do? And this is what I do. This is what most of my coaching is about is, what can we do to elevate your confidence and keep it there?

If you're overweight, right? If you're that stereotypical, you know, Callahan Auto, Tommy Boy salesperson, and that's the way you look every day, that's not helping you gain your confidence, right? So we got to get, I always say, you build confidence through routines. You got to train. When you leave the gym, when you finish a good walk, if that's your mode of exercise, if you do some kind of activity, how do you feel about yourself? I don't know anyone that leaves the gym and feels worse about themselves. Yeah. They feel great and they feel confident. And that's what we have to keep trying to think about. How can we gain our own confidence? How can we continue to build our own confidence? Yeah.

And there's a fine line there between ego and confidence, right? Like, you know, I actually think it's the same thing with like the fine line. You know, I talk a lot in sales about the difference between being direct with people and being rude with people, right? There's a very fine line between being direct and being rude. But I think we all have to figure out what that is. And unfortunately, in order for us to figure out each of our own directness, we have to cross into the rude barrier every once in a while. So that we can get pushed back on it. Yeah. It's just confidence. It's like, I see a lot of people who, you know, project confidence, but really it's an ego and you can tell. It's weird.

Like, you can't put your exact finger on it. But when you see somebody with confidence, you're like, damn, right? When you see somebody with ego, you're like, ugh. But it's that fine of a line. So does confidence come from like, because I think you can build confidence in your solution. You know, you have confidence that you're, you're, what you're selling is good and whatever. But that internal confidence, does that come with experience? Does that come with self-talk? Does that come with, what does that come with to build that internal confidence in yourself? I think that it would come from a little bit of everything. You know what I'm saying? Like, again, we're all born, I believe, you know, when you check our confidence meter at birth, I think we're all destined for a certain amount of it based on also our upbringing.

You know, if you grow up in a house where you're constantly getting battered down verbally or even physically, your confidence may not be that great, you know? And if you grow up in a nurturing environment, you may have, you know, confidence but no spine, you know? So it all depends. It depends how you're raised. But, you know, confidence is one of those things that we can certainly obtain. Once again, we're aware of what also strips us, you know? And I'll find, too, like, if you know where you're vulnerable as a person, you can double down on that. And people enjoy that. Like, people today, they want to do business with people, you know, you've heard it a thousand times, know, like, and trust.

But they want to do business with stand-up people. You know, that stereotypical salesman of the 1980s and 90s, that bullshitting salesman, you know, we have a lot of them here in New York. You know, they're very sexy in ways, but they're also repulsive in others. They have every technique. I mean, you see it a lot now online with a lot of the online marketers that are out there. It's seductive. But the question is, does it align with who you are? And we all are different people. Much like I said earlier, we all have different routines. You can be a great salesperson and be, you know, a little more flamboyant in your approach. And I could be a great salesperson and be much more reserved. And I've seen it across the board.

But ultimately, the common thread, I think, amongst those that last is that they have character and they have good values. And they're not trying to beat you. They're trying to do a sale, but keeping their integrity intact and do the right thing for the customer. And you said something important there, which is their values. I actually encourage people to write down their values because I don't think enough people go through that exercise of, what are my genuine core values here? Because what you can do with that is, I always say, look, you and I can argue until we're blue in the face as long as we have core values. If you and I have a fundamental core values system that is aligned, then we can have debates.

We can have arguments. We can do all that stuff. But when we're not aligned on core values, that's when it turns into yelling. That's when it turns into, I'm right and you're wrong. And I think that's where, in business, I think as individuals, what you should do when looking for jobs or looking for career, that type of stuff, is first you've got to be very solid on what your values are. And then go look for people and organizations and customers that share those values. 100%. Right? Yeah. I agree with you. And it's kind of like us just having a little friendly banter, Yankees, Red Sox. Listen, we can both agree that Derek Jeter is a great player because he embodies values and things that we value as fans.

Same thing. I could say, hey, Dustin Pedroia is one of the best players I've ever seen and one of the most stand-up guys I've ever met. You know? Enemy in terms of team. But we can honestly say those two guys are great players. Yeah. It's funny. It's funny you bring that up because I don't think people have, you know, the Boston, New York, rivalry, specifically Yankees, Red Sox. People see it as this visceral, like, hatred and whatever. And it's obviously dampened over the years since we've actually won a few. But, you know, we're not nearly as harsh and squirrely as we used to be. Right. But I remember going to Yankee Stadium a couple of times and wearing my Pedro jersey, like, in the shit, like, in 2004, 2007.

Like, you know, and literally getting and screaming. Like, when, you know, the socks would hit one, I'd be up screaming. People would be throwing shit at me. And the guy next to me would tell me to fuck off and all that other stuff. But then as soon as we sat down and, like, started paying attention to the game again, we would get into discussions about the details of the game and how so-and-so was doing. And there's always been a healthy respect between the two. A hatred, true, but a respect because of the love of the game, the education, right? I mean, I've never gotten into more thoughtful, like, knowledgeable discussions about baseball. And I'm not even a huge baseball fan than I have with Yankee fans.

You know what I mean? Because, like, the understanding of the game, the appreciation for the game, and, again, the core value of it, right? So I always found that pretty interesting with the rivalry. It's like, we fucking hate each other, but… Well, there's common ground. And there's a respect level there that we can both walk away and say, all right, you know, I won't kill you. So, hey, anything, you know, you got the habits of a champion, right? Any other big kind of, like, aha moments for you as, you know, as you've kind of written this book and done your thing, right? Is there anything that kind of struck you about, holy shit, I wasn't expecting that from habits of champions? Yeah, I mean, you know, the thing is, you know, we see these professional athletes oftentimes as, like, perfect people.

And they're perfect, and, you know, they don't have the same issues that you have, you know, as a salesperson or as a business person or as a, you know, a father, whatever, whatever your position is. But it's very real. They've just learned how to manage it better than the average. Because, again, they have tools. They have resources. They have professional coaches that are helping them along their journey day to day. And the one thing I learned is, it's just amazing how these players in sport and business at that high level, they don't even try to do it alone. So, they're accused of having huge egos. But, like, I remember as a young guy, I was, like, freaking 27 years old, and Derek Cheater walks in my weight room and says, what do we have today?

And I'm, like, what do we have today? I mean, yeah, obviously, I have a plan for you. But how cool is that, that this guy just turns over the keys to the Ferrari that simply? It's just, like, coach equals tell me what to do so I can be great. You're great at what you do. And you'll put, transfer that onto me and help make me better. And he knew where he was great, right? So, it's important that we use the resources around us. And if we try to do everything ourselves, we are so destined to fail. And so many people, again, if you're a young person in sales, you know, you should sit with the leadership of your sales group, you know, the manager, and talk to them. Don't be afraid to show where you're sucking, because we're going to find out anyway.

Yeah, exactly. So, just be honest. Say, listen, here's where I'm struggling. Do you have any advice for me? And if that doesn't work, go back again. So, you have to be open to development. You have to realize, listen, I'm not that great. Like, I'm not, I tell people all the time, you know, when it comes to, like, online stuff, I'm not that great. But put me in a room, or let me train you, and get you right, or coach you, you'll see where my excellence is. Definitely. You know, but too many of us, we try to do everything solo. Yeah. And the best of the best, they're quarterbackers. They're quarterbacking, and they always have good coaching and people around them. Well, they want to be coached.

I mean, I had the best player. I mean, again, Tom Brady, I think the one of the, Josh McDaniels, the thing he said with this, the most challenging thing. Like, he's like, I'm coaching Tom Brady. I mean, what, he's literally the greatest player of all time. And he's asking me constantly, how can I get better? He wants to be coached. And so, it ups Josh's game, because he's like, I got to bring some new shit to the table for this guy, because if not, he's going to go find another coach. And, you know what I mean? So, the best players, the best sales reps I've ever come across, the best leaders, look for people like you, look for coaches to say, I got to get better. I know I can't do this on my own.

I got to delegate some shit here, but I also got to figure out how to manage this more appropriately. Yeah, exactly. And we all need someone to lean on in our journey, right? Especially when we have high expectations and we're those go-getters. You know, we're playing a sport. Again, I call sales a sport, business a sport, where, I mean, there's a lot of losing that could go on and will go on. A lot of losing. Keep your spirits up. You know, it's put yourself around good people and realize, you know, that everything's a season and you'll overcome whatever's in front of you if you have the right coaching and you ask the right questions. Perfect. Awesome, man. Well, I appreciate it, man. How can people find out more information about you, about the book, about what you're doing these days?

Tell them what's going on. So, the book, Habits of a Champion, is on Amazon and also on my website, DanaCavalier.com. I actually do a daily blog. I call it Performance Leadership, where it's all about taking care of yourself physically, mentally, so you can be a better performer in sales and life and whatever it is you do. So, DanaCavalier.com. And that's it, man. I keep it simple and I keep it real. Love it, man. I appreciate that. And I think the audience does too here. So, cool. Look, appreciate you coming on, man. Hopefully, everybody enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. And look, as I say to everybody, you know, if you do nothing else today but make somebody happy, you know you had a good day.

There's too much bullshit going on out there. So, go make somebody smile today and that'll make you have a good day. So, hopefully, everybody enjoys the rest of the week. Go get it. And let's make it happen. Thanks, Dana. Appreciate it, man.