David Novak 0:04 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interviewed some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learnings so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is John Calipari, head basketball coach at the University of Kentucky. Yes, the legendary coach cow. I gotta tell you, if you're listening to this podcast first thing in the morning, you could just get the coffee because coach cow will get you fired up with just as passion and energy alone. But you know, there's something even more powerful behind that enthusiasm. And that's how much Coach Cal really, really, really cares for his players. He's always pushing his guys to improve. He knows how to relate to each guy to draw out their best. He's a master at framing up a big goal. And you can see in every decision he makes, he's putting his players and their families first. It's the foundation for every team every season and every player and it comes before the tactics and strategies. It's a huge reason his teams continually do well in his place coach cow in the pantheon of college coaching legends, but enough of the pregame show, let's actually get to it. Here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours. John Calipari.

John, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to have this conversation.

John Calipari 1:41 

David, I appreciate you gotta remind him that I was fired by the New Jersey Nets just that's something that I like to make sure it's in there.

David Novak 1:48 

And you don't coach in business, one of the things that you know people are really missing out on is coaching. I mean, they really don't have a coach. And if you are going to just break down your coaching philosophy into its simplest form, what would it be?

John Calipari 2:04 

There's two pieces to it, that I would tell you, if you care about your people, you always have a job. If they know you're about them, and you truly care, and you're about their growth, you always have a job. And the best piece of advice I had was in 1989 by a guy named Pat Nardelli, who was our supporter for our high school basketball team. And when I got to UMass job, he grabbed me. He did strip malls and stuff. We thought this guy was a billionaire. You know, he was a great guy. And he says to me, like, remember this cow. You can have a bad deal with good people, because stuff happens. But you can never have a good deal with bad people. Doesn't work it does. I don't care what it smells like how much you think you're gonna make? Don't do it. So for me my entire time is when I bring people near me. Are they good people? You know, do they have good hearts? Are they shares are takers? Do they add energy? Or do they zap energy? And those are the people around me. But the people that I'm here to coach, they got to know man, this guy cares about me. This guy's about my future. This guy is here to make me better. So I would say that those would be the two things that I've lived by. No, that's

David Novak 3:21 

great. You don't go out alone. I'm sure you remember this. Maybe you don't. But you know, I remember beat you for the first time we were at the Kentucky Derby. You just become the coach of Kentucky and and you came into my suite at the Derby and you said you don't want. I heard you go see Warren Buffett every year you got to take me to Warren Buffett. You know, when you go I want to go with you. Why don't you learn to make such a bold request like that. I'm gonna you asked me that. Shameless. You asked me to have it in 30 minutes.

John Calipari 3:50 

I'm shameless. When they told me you went and then we fly out to see him. And he has no body guards. He has one person in his office. He says we're gonna go have lunch. I'm all excited. He gets in an old Cadillac was an academy.

David Novak 4:05 

Lincoln, it was a Lincoln Lincoln.

John Calipari 4:08 

And then you and I think we had a driver. He's driving himself. And where do we go for lunch?

David Novak 4:14 

KFC big guy.

John Calipari 4:16 

You gotta go to KFC went to Kentucky Fried Chicken. He gets a chicken breast. How much salt did he put on that chicken

David Novak 4:22 

more than any human being I've ever seen the only person on Kentucky Fried Chicken.

John Calipari 4:28 

He puts so much salt on. I'm like, he was talking to us. He's like this and I'm looking. I'm like, we'll stop and he just kept going. I'm like, he must have forgot that he was doing that. He put it but how about being around him for an hour or two? Whatever. It was incredible.

David Novak 4:44 

What impressed you the most about about Warren Buffett? regular person?

John Calipari 4:47 

Regular guy. Like, no, you know, you knocked on his office door and they buzzed you in? You come in it's a secretary and no one. I mean, it's not crazy. Um Oh, no. You know, I think again, his stuff is about ideas and doing things and being curious and being about people and, and when you're around them, you're just like, this is success. Wow. It's like be normal, you can still be worth billions and billions and have the greatest idea and the greatest common sense ever, and still be a real person. I mean, you I mean, you had been with him before. I think you'd laugh when I'm looking around. Like, you gotta be kidding me. He's in an old Lincoln. Like,

David Novak 5:34 

I remember his license plate has a thrifty audit, you know, which is great, you know, but I remember we were having lunch at KFC. He started talking about his shareholder meeting, which he always has in Bay, and that he through the magic of video, he he dunked on top of Lebron James. And, you know, it was really funny. And he showed us that and so you immediately texted LeBron, and LeBron texted you right back. And I think that really impressed Warren Buffett.

John Calipari 6:04 

How excited was he about?

David Novak 6:06 

He loves like,

John Calipari 6:07 

he went crazy talk, you got to watch the video. You got to see this. I mean, like a little kid, you know what I'm saying? It was like a little kid about it's, it made me one I've always respected him. But at that point, I grew to really like him. You know what I'm saying? I just thought, wow, this is neat.

David Novak 6:26 

Well, we talked a little bit about LeBron James, and you really talked about his his leadership. I remember when we were with Warren, what have you learned from your, your relationship with Lebron James, because you guys are pretty close.

John Calipari 6:39 

Well, we were close, but it's you know, he's like a typical guy in mind. It's one of my players that goes Pro, it's, you know, you're the best you're gonna get as a text back and forth. So, but here's, here's what you learn. The most loyal person you would ever say, loyal to his family, his the people that he grew up with, but he holds everybody accountable. I'm gonna help you get started, do what you want, but you got to earn your way. I mean, he's that way too loyal. Also driven and wired to be special. He called a good friend of mine who's a good friend of yours to work on a shooting Bob Rotella Right, right. And he had him go to Vegas. And he said, Bob said, so tell me and his comment was, I want to be one of the best players to ever play this game. And I gotta improve my shooting. And I want you to talk to me mentally about so not to get into any detail. But he was that way. How do I get better? He went to see Warren Buffett because he said I want to be the best with my money. Give me ideas, and he met with them based on that I want to give me what do you think? How do I go about this? So here's what he is curious, curious about everything. And loyal is the day is long, wired and driven, has been blessed with talents and body and you know what? He's paid it forward with a school in Cleveland and different things that he's doing. He's a special, special player, special person, you know, special father, he's the real deal.

David Novak 8:23 

You brought up Bob Rotella and and I remember when the PGA event was at Valhalla in Louisville, he was Bob stayed at my house, you learn to that and you called me up and said, Hey, I want to come have some Kentucky Fried Chicken with you and talk to Bob. Your father was there right Dad? Father? Absolutely. And I just want to ask you, how is Bob Rotella this great sports psychologist? How has he shaped your leadership?

John Calipari 8:48 

Um, one thing he taught me is that you don't have ESP, you got to talk. And you got to get what people are really thinking because body language always doesn't fit how someone's thinking, what he's done for me where I thought so and so or this kid or that kid, he'd have in meetings with players and wouldn't break a confidence, but he would say, Wow, you got a team that really trust you. And they need you. They need your affirmation. They're only 1819 year olds. But I'm telling you cow, you got a crew of kids, where anybody that you would think by looking because of a body language, you can't, you know, you can't really tell and you got to have communication and you got to meet with them individually and you Bob's been working with my teams and me. It's kind of like he worked on my my golf game. And he developed a nice shank after being around me working with me a little bit. And I say, I mean, you get with me as a psychologist or a psychiatrist. You're gonna have a, you know, you're stuck, your body will start moving certain ways,

David Novak 10:03 

you'll start having a problem. You know, I remember you told me this story about how you learned about the patented dribble drive offense, you know, about this junior college coach, could you share that with our listeners, because I just love this one.

John Calipari 10:21 

Well, Vance Wahlberg reached out he was in Memphis, Tennessee, and wanted to come to one of our practices. So he watches us practice. I think he watched the game. And I said, Why don't we go to lunch? We start talking. I said, well, so how do you guys play? What are you doing? He saw you don't want to know. And I said, So what do you mean I don't want it's totally different. You know, your, the way you're playing is great. But we play this is totally off, you know? So I said, No, show me. So we went with salt packets, sugar packets, I should say. And we five of them, and we moved them around. And he showed me what he was doing. It was the original dribble drive motion. And this was before anybody was running it. And I'm like, it was really hard, but it made sense the spacing of it. So flew to Fresno, California, where he worked. And I watched him put it in with his team. I went home, I had a headache. I went home and I tried to do some stuff. I flew back out and looked at him and watched him do it again. I didn't have the total players that could run that. So we did it through one player. And that one player had the ability when he caught the ball, and Tonio Burks to just go and we played off his drive everybody else we'd be playing, but when he got it, we went dribble drive, ends up being the Player of the Year in the league ends up getting drafted by the Memphis Grizzlies. And he was a walk on two years prior. Wow. And I said, Wait a minute. I'm gonna go full monty with this. And within the second year, I went for money. Now I had a lot of people all over me like, Why in the world? Would you change what you've been doing? You're winning 7578, whatever it is percent of your games. And you change because a junior college coach came in? Well, I'll be honest with you, David, I thought it would be better for my players. It make them more aggressive and more of an attacking moat. Problem is you're going to have more turnovers. Can you live with that? You're going to have less assist, because most of its driving to the rim, no mid level shots. Well, now you look at it, everybody's running dribble drive, and we went from where we work to my guess is went in about 90% of our game, playing that way. And we don't solely play that way. But I teach it to every team. Because I've had some big teams, I've had different teams that didn't fit that offense as well.

David Novak 12:54 

I love that story. Because you know, you took an idea from somebody is much lower level because the idea made sense. I also love the fact that you Yeah, you went out to lunch to dinner with him. And you went back there a couple of times. That's that's shows me something. You know, can I also know that you were one of the first coaches to ever really adopt social media? You know, you started using Twitter way before everybody else did. Now you have like 1.6 million followers, you know, what have you learned about social media? And how have you made it such a powerful tool for you?

John Calipari 13:32 

It's one of the best things I've ever done, and I was tucked into it. I'm not a computer guy. So we have Facebook probably have 750 Facebook followers, maybe more. Twitter, like you said, 1617, whatever it is, all the other platforms we have. And here's what it's done. Throughout my career. Before social media, you were defined by others. And if they chose to like you, they define you nicely. If they chose not to like you, for whatever reason, they didn't define you nicely. Some of the stuff was self inflicted, some of it was like, where did that come from? But you couldn't ever defend yourself, David, you cannot defend yourself, someone else has to defend you. Because if you say I didn't I don't I don't I didn't I don't they say he did. So you can. Well what happens and I never tried to defend myself. This is who I am. I'm gonna live my life. Whether you like it or not, this is who I am. But now here comes social media. I can define who I am. And I can be transparent as I choose to be. I can have followers who defend me I don't have to defend myself. If you write something that's not true, and I know it's not true. I don't even have to say anything before I had to accept it. All right, it's done. Now, there's a lot of stuff on social media, if you read it, which I don't. So let me tell everybody out there, I really can't get into a computer. I can't. If I'm on a zoom call, someone else probably got me on. Okay? Notice my hands. I won't touch anything here. Because if it goes off screen, I can't get myself back. Okay. So I have a crew that does the Twitter, Facebook, my website, all that stuff, nothing goes out. Unless I say I read it, I like it, or I send it to them. And maybe haven't read it. Because sometimes David, you say stuff, typing it, it's not how you meant it, and someone else will read it, they sent it out the way you meant it. But that stuff, and how we've been able to use it has really elevated our program. Here's what I say you use this for all these platforms, to get out the message to pick people up to let them see how you are to do that. The trolls. Now I want all the trolls to hear me. I don't see one thing that's tweeted back, I don't see one response on Facebook, on my website, listen to me, you may think I see a response. You just wasted your time typing because I'm not watching listening. It's about me being able to get out my message. Me being able to pick up people. I mean, it's someone's birthday, and in my realm of people, and I put it out, and they call it oh my god, I got 1000 text messages that you put my birthday. You make people feel good. You put their name on there, you do stuff like that, that and I tell my team, don't read the stuff that comes back. Because half of the people are not with you. Don't read it.

David Novak 16:49 

Coach, that sounds great. You use social media in a positive way. But I have to tell you, it sounds like you've got a little bit of a chip on your shoulder. Do you think you've had a lot of people take unfair a lot of unfair shots at you? And if so how do you handle that?

John Calipari 17:03 

Well, I'll say this, I have bazooka holes in my body. So when people shoot arrows, it doesn't hit skin goes right to and and, you know, it's it's how could somebody like me who's been blessed with so many things whose grandparents came through Ellis Island, who's the first college educated my sisters and I and our family? That's the coach of Kentucky, they pay me to do this job, I would do it for nothing. Well, not nothing, but I would do it for very little. And they pay me to do this job hard for me to complain. And whatever has gone on and hadn't slowed me down. And maybe even help. Maybe made me stronger. David, maybe made me thick skinned where stuff I don't. And when someone comes at me with something, you know what I say now? I agree. Can we move on? I agree with you that way. Yeah, I agree with you. Can we move on? I mean, anyway, fine. I mean, and I've learned this early in life. Don't ever argue with the drunk, because you're just gonna get mad. It's not worth

David Novak 18:06 

it. And I'm sure you run into a few of those. Not that you frequent those places. I know you don't. But, you know, I bring up all these experiences where you sought learning from others. Because you're a voracious learner. Who are you learning from today?

John Calipari 18:21 

Well, I John Gordon just sent me one of his books. He's, John Gordon has some great stuff that I also pass along to my team. And one of the things I do reading for me is given me stuff to give to my team. So I'm not reading novels. It's not, I'm not that doesn't what moves me. I want to read something that I like history. You know, you like reading different things in history that I look at now and say, Wow, I mean, I always say this in the 60s, in the 70s. Can I do some of the stuff I'm doing now when I have the courage to stand up and do some of these things? I do. Play that kind of stuff. You know, we're, Look, Sam Newton played an old black team in Alabama, in the 70s. You know, I went up to him and said, Kurt, I mean, you had courage. And he said, and really, I was trying to when I was playing my best players that can play I didn't see color. I was trying to play good players. But when I have the courage to do that, when I have the courage, my jobs on the line, I talked about Coach Smith at North Carolina, David, he, well, first of all, he who he was as a ninth grader, he went from a middle school, that was desegregated, and to a high school that was segregated. And he went to the school board and said, This isn't right. This isn't fair. You can't do this. He was in ninth grade Dean Smith. It tells you who he was in Topeka, Kansas. So now when he's on their campus, and they're hanging him in effigy because he's not winning enough. He goes with the students and sits at the counter I always wonder what I have courage to do that. Now, later on Dean Smith and me at this point, I mean, you're not, it doesn't take as much courage to really say what you feel, and to do what you think is right. Forget about the popularity of it. But back then, when I've had that courage, I don't know. And so what I read for and what I do those things for, I want to have stuff that I can give to these young people to make them think to make them more curious. I give them books to read. We talk about what what is what did you take from this book?

David Novak 20:35 

That's fantastic. You know, and, and John, in every business, it always comes down to people and talent is everything. And you're reputed as as the best recruiter and college basketball, you know, what's your secret? How do you I know you got a great brand with University of Kentucky. But there's a lot of great brands out there, what do you do to always bring in the top talent?

John Calipari 20:58 

Well, first of all, that, if you're going to have a good team, it starts in how you recruit. If you promise the world or say whatever you have to to get somebody, you may forget what you said to that family, because you're recruiting all kinds of families. But do you know who won't forget what you said to him? That family, or that young person, you can't have trust, you can't build a team. This isn't for everybody at Kentucky. If you're drinking smoking club, and Jason, you don't come here, if you're really into basketball, if you're into sharing to see what kind of teammate you can be, if you're trying to every day in practice, have a competitive partner, that's going to make you better for 170 days, instead of 15. Games, you're playing against somebody as good as you do you understand everybody has to eat, you can't score 30 A game now, we need five or six of you to score 30 In a game or more. So when we get in the NCAA Tournament, everybody knows we can do it, we got a whole team that could get 35 if they need it. But you can't average that here because everybody's got to eat. Well, if you want to hear you're going to be the only guy every place through you, you're the guy. We only have two guys that we recruited no slots, and those guys take all the shots and you're not coming to Kentucky. Most cases they know each other before they come. I want them to recruit each other who when one kid said he wants to come I'll say Who else do you want with you? Tell us who you want to bring in? How do we do this? Well, you know, it's funny, I used your stuff with John Wall. John, don't you leave here by yourself. You take every one of these people with you. You take these with you. And David, we had five first round draft picks that year, never been done before. And the only way it'll be done again is if we do it. But it's only been done once in the history of the game. And I gave him what you said. Don't you leave here by yourself? You take these guys with you? And he did?

David Novak 22:58 

Yeah, absolutely. What process do you go through mentally John, the really figure out how what makes each player tick.

John Calipari 23:08 

That's a lot of individual meetings and watching. And the other thing I'll tell you I tell the kids fail fast. Go try things do things. Hook can take aggressive coaching, some cannot. I'm always pulling my best player side and I tell him I got to coach you harder than everybody else here. If it gets too much come and see me we'll talk about it. But if I can coach you hard, I can coach everyone on our team heart. We had Karl towns. Normally I'll do this we'll be in a locker room and it's two months into the season. I'll say, alright, who am I being hardest on? Normally there'll be three or four guys. I said, Well, it can't be all three of you. It's got to be one of you. So I'm saying Who am I hardest on? But Carl raised his hand and everybody pointed out. And he had such pride that Yep, he gets on me harder and and he's the number one pick. He signed a supermax contract he calls me dad. You know, I love you, Dad I made to this day, and I was harder on him than anybody. And I think if you can do that, you can coach, if you can't do that you can't coach these kinds of kids because you'll lose your team. I'm not going to deal with him. But I'm going to coach all you guys can do it.

David Novak 24:26 

How do you go about painting the vision for each team that comes in? Does the vision changed, John, depending on the team that you have,

John Calipari 24:35 

you know, I think every team is a little bit different. But the whole idea is we use the basketball season for one thing. prepare us for the NCAA tournament. We use our conference tournament. For one thing, prepare us for the NCAA tournament. That's it. There's no league titles, no tournament league titles. Don't care. Now we want a ton of them because of that mentality, you're playing like, you really don't care. And all of a sudden you turn around, you won more league titles than anybody. But you weren't even trying to do that. But in a season, we want to play every kind of team possible. So a fast team, a slow team zone team of pressing team, we want to be able to say we faced everything. For one reason to prepare us for the NCAA tournament, we want five or six guys to score 25 points or more in a game, at least one maybe more, so that they know going into the tournament, it may be your night. These are one and done tournaments, we don't know who somebody is, might have to step up, he may be bad, he may be bad, you may be in foul trouble. It's up to you. So go to get it done. And then the conference tournament, which I hate, because it's three games in three nights, what does that do to prepare you for the NCAA tournament? But I tell him when we get to the finals, if you're going to have us play another game, you better win this thing. Now. I think we could have lost the first or second I'd have been fine. But now that you got us in the finals, and I got to coach this game, you better win.

David Novak 26:10 

That's good. When you think about the culture that you have, how important do you think culture is? And how do you how do you describe the culture to the team?

John Calipari 26:21 

Well, it you live and die with culture, I believe. And I think, again, there's got to be things that are absolutely unacceptable to the leader that they know. And that's how you build that culture. We've had 20 guys graduate, in the 10 years, my son and three others graduated in three years, they know it's important to me, we've gotten the academic award from the NCAA, be ready 10 years in a row. I know everybody listening out there says that can't be true. You've had all these guys leave after one year. Well, they leave in good academic standing, which means they can come back because they all have lifetime scholarships. So if something goes bad, you can always come back and finish your degree, but you got to be in good academic standing. So they know that it's important to me, conditioning and weight training. They know that's a big part of what we do. What is important how you act, how you treat people. We've had telethons to raise money, I'm trying to teach them that you're going to come across fame and fortune. The question is, what are you going to do with it? Do you know how to build joy within you? It's what you do for somebody else. It's not what you're gathering or what you're dragging in. And so part of our pillars of what we want to do in our culture, is that it's not about winning basketball games, if we take care of everything else, we'll win our basketball games while the chance if we love on them, and they love on each other. We'll have a chance to win the national time. Because it's about Yeah, you got good players, but they got like last year's team may have been the closest team I've had. If we to play the NCAA Tournament, I'm telling you, David would have been one of the last team standing. Mighty, I don't care what you think they were so close. And you know what they know they needed each other. And they came out and played collectively. So good. They worked hard. They were good kids, they were curious. They understood it was more than just basketball. They understood how we take the season. If you're into yourself, it's not a real good place to be. You got to be about everybody else here.

David Novak 28:38 

One of the things that coaches have to do is you've got to define reality, you know, how do you go about doing that with your team?

John Calipari 28:45 

Well, one, the only thing you don't want is people to be delusional. Because delusional is probably right there. With arrogance, you're delusional, you're not. You want them to, like the players always say to me, David, we want you to keep it real, like keep it real. Unless I keep it real with them, then they don't like it so much. They want me to keep it real with another player. Don't keep it real with me. But in all of this that we do, it's trying to help them define what they are and what their strengths are. And play to your strengths will work on your weaknesses, but play to your strengths. And again, a lot of times we're here eight months together as a team. This year, I have nine new players. I have one player returning that got any minutes and they're picking us in the top five. Think about what I just said nine new players. So now they gotta fail fast. They gotta learn about each other they better be good kids and know each other before they get here. Then they gotta train and conditionally get their mind right their body right before we worry about team basketball.

David Novak 29:56 

Well, every year it's kind of you you have your team basically check He changes out because everybody gets drafted and they go on and play professional basketball and you got to start fresh. What advice can you give to people on on on how to build a great new team?

John Calipari 30:11 

Well, it all starts with trust. If they trust, they won't be timid. If they don't trust, there'll be selfish and timid both. So it starts with being honest and being real being upfront. Larry Brown, I told you told me if you care about people, you always have a job. And if they know you care, you can be aggressive, you can coach them, as long as they know you care. The hard thing now that's made this job a little different for all of us is social media. Because now they are seeing lists and where they're ranked. And you got people telling them if you shoot more, if you and you're like, Whoa, Anthony Davis was our fourth leading scorer, and was the number one pick Karl town scored 11 A game it was the number one pick. So who's telling you? Is it the barber, the butcher who's telling I mean, so if you understand that numbers don't matter it Kentucky you go prove what you do transfers to the next league? And you're fine. How about this, David? There's a leading scorer on every college team. There's a leading rebounder on every college team. That doesn't make them pros. And it's the same here. Anthony and and, you know, Karl towns and Michael Kidd, Gilchrist was our fifth leading scorer. I mean, you know, it's not what it is. It's, do you have what it takes?

David Novak 31:43 

You mentioned the chemistry of this, this team you just had, okay. You know, chemistry is critical. And for any great team? What do you do uniquely to create a chemistry that you know, is going to lead to the right outcome?

John Calipari 31:59 

Do they trust us? When we piece a team together? Do you trust that we have your back? Do you understand and you have to explain when we play this way? They may not ask you. But you gotta answer this question. What's in it for me? They're thinking it. Like what's in it for me? You know what I do? I point to the 40 draft picks on the walls above there. That's what's in it for you. If we do this, we have to win. I got something over my shoulder. That was the platoon. All those guys who drafted in the NBA, that's something over there. That's the ad and my guys behind me, but they have to know what's in it for me. And if it's, I got to you got my back then I'm going to do what you're asking me to do. I'll tell you the hardest year we had was the year we had the two platoons. I just figured out John McClendon, the iconic coach who we've named this new initiative after was the first one that did platoons and he did it back in the 40s and 50s. Were again five bringing five he brought three fives 555, and they just kept coming. Well, what happened with that team? They said, How did you do it? You had the twins. DEVIN BOOKER came off the bench. He scored 70 in an NBA game, and you brought him off the bench. Karl towns played 21 minutes Willie Carly Deckard Johnson. You had Tyler Ulis, who's one of the best point guards I coached you had to Harrison brothers and Alex, you had MARCUS LEE, how did you do it? We won every game. If we had won every game, if we had lost three or four, it would have been hard. But when you're winning, and they're all benefiting, they'll continue down that road. And you know, we went 38 straight games. We lost. I didn't want all 40

David Novak 33:53 

Well, yeah, it was a great team. And because you recruit such good players, you know, they go to the NBA, you got to start over basically every year. How do you as a leader, rejuvenate yourself and stay fresh to tackle each challenge like this has got to wear you down? Well, how about the

John Calipari 34:09 

other side of it is what if you had the same lesson plan your teaching for 20 years? That wouldn't wear you down? I mean, so I go in every year. It's exciting like this team. I have. Don't say anything. This may be one of my better teams. So I'm excited about but I don't know how we're going to play it. We may have huge guards. We may have long wings, I don't know. But you know what, that's what gets me up in the morning that kind of wakes me up. And then it's my job to figure out how I put something together that every one of these kids benefit by. But let me say this, they are responsible for themselves. Like you you are responsible for you. I'm here trying to help putting this out but you got to perform. You've got to do it. You've got to put in the work. Um, you got to be unselfish. But I think it's exciting. I'd rather hit look, I will take talent over experience every time. I would

David Novak 35:16 

you know, great coaches, you know, like you light up when you talk about, you know, helping people achieve their potential. And who do you think you have helped the most as a basketball player and any any young man, who have you helped really achieve what they they never thought they could ever achieve?

John Calipari 35:33 

Well, you hope you help everybody. But today, I get a call from Derek Willis, who took four years to get it right. Coach, I got an issue, I want to talk to you about this, I got a decision to make. And he, he and I were on the phone 30 minutes today. And you know, the guys that weren't the stars, stars, as you look back, probably appreciate you more than the other guys that were there. You hear from a more they text you more, they're more active, which is fine. And I get it. Everybody's on their own life path. And they move. What I hope is that everyone left here saying, Well, he was hard may he was tough to play for he was demanding. But you know, he did care. And he wasn't afraid to tell you the truth. You know, and hopefully, over a period of time, that turns into some infection, there's probably some that that are like, I can't stand the guy, which is firing. I mean, look, you know, and I sometimes I like to say, and I didn't like every one of them either. But I really did. I can't name a handful of guys that I didn't enjoy coaching. And I'll tell you what's been my blessing. My best players have been good guys, which made my job. He's one of your best player, your star within yum. And he's getting it done. But he's such a pain in the butt. And he screws up everybody else. But he's so he gets it done. And you got to deal with that. So I mean, that makes it hard when your best guys are good people and our shares of givers, not takers. I've been blessed now for I don't want to say I've done this for 30 some years, but I've done this. David,

David Novak 37:20 

what's a one on one coaching session with you? Like,

John Calipari 37:24 

what depends if we're at the table in my office, that means I'm a listener. If you're I'm at my desk, and you sit in one of those chairs in front of me that's lower than my chair. You're the listener. There's a reason you're sitting over there down lower than my chair. But the reason I'd like to be on a court one on one with guys, because now I feel invested. And then I become I'm rooting for them. And I'd like to play coach, every player that we were I'm rooting for you to do well,

David Novak 37:56 

you've been such a great coach and still a great coach, obviously. But you there got to be times when you need coaching yourself. You know, how do you go about coaching yourself through difficult and tricky situations?

John Calipari 38:10 

Well, I'm not afraid to call for help. You know, Bob Rotella has a phone call, I have four or five coaching buddies that I know I can trust. And I can ask them, they can give me an honest opinion, my wife will give me an honest opinion. In normal times, non pandemic times, I go to Mass every morning, I go to Mass every morning because I have big responsibilities that I have to deal with. And it isn't coaching basketball, it's dealing with 12 children, the families of those children look at me and trust me, and I get up every morning and go to Catholic mass. And that's like the first thing in my day for 30 minutes to get me thinking right to get it off of me and think about everybody else and do a prayer list and stuff like that. And I would suggest to anyone out there. It's it doesn't have to be that. But I would spend time. If I wasn't doing that 30 minutes a morning on just reflecting how grateful I am. What I What else can I do to improve? How can I help people around me? You know, have I been thoughtful? Who haven't I talked to lately. Like, I'll leave mass and I'm praying for somebody and I said, you know, I haven't talked to them. And why not call them on the way out of the mess. Hey, if I go to New York City, I go to St. Pat's and many people that if they're watching this will know. I like candles for people. And then I take a picture. And I like grow candles, like eight candles. And I like the candles and I'll start sending to my buddies. Look, I lit a candle for it. And I think again, to get out of myself and into that mode. I feel way better. Way better. Looking back.

David Novak 39:45 

When did you have that light bulb moment that said I want to be a coach.

John Calipari 39:49 

I was pretty young. I look I wanted to be a high school coach and the teacher. Never thought about college coaching. It was hard to think about college. There were no college graduates in my family. So So, the we live right near the high school when I say right now the properties were next to each other. I had to go up a hill, and I walked 15 yards and I was in the high school and went up a little hill 15 yards. So I was always in the gym. I was the Bat Boy for the high school baseball team, Ray buzzetti was the coach. I was in third grade. I was the ball boy for the basketball team skip to tell Bill Sacco were the coaches. Those three are still my friends. Today I was in third grade, I wore a bowtie like the pin on bowtie. And so that's who I looked up to. And then the other thing is, it looked like all the Italians coach. So I said, I guess I'm gonna tell you, I'm supposed to coach buzzetti Capital One Oh Sacco to tower and, and that's what I was going to do. And I went to college, and all of a sudden, I'm like, wow, I was a gym rat. And I love to play

David Novak 40:55 

when you were a point guard. And that was your the coach on the floor. Did that say hey, um, times

John Calipari 40:59 

I didn't know how to lead. You know, you lead back then you think you're, you know, do what I say? And you're not really, you know, even the kids today, because they have the best personality or traits to lead. They don't know what it means to really lead. Well tell us what that is. What is it? Well, it means you're willing to take a seat, step back and serve. You're willing to watch someone else's success and have great joy in it. How about this one, you're willing to be wrong sometimes so that somebody else can be right. And that's a true leader that that the kids now think go get my towel. No, you get the towels for everybody else, you flip them to him, you're leading us. You're the one that makes sure that the locker room is cleaned up, not the last guy on the team. You're the one that takes care of the trainers, and the equipment managers and our managers. So everybody follows your lead, and they watch you. And now they treat people better. So teaching all that kind of stuff, when they tell me leaders are born. I mean, you may be born with a personality, there are some traits but not to skill to really lead my opinion. I may be wrong. What do you think? I think that's true.

David Novak 42:11 

I think I think leaders can be taught, you know, I think he can be born with some traits that make it easier for you. But I think you have to learn through experience and time and grade to figure it out. So I don't think

John Calipari 42:24 

that's what you've done your whole career. David, you've you've taught leadership. Well, I

David Novak 42:27 

do love your books on leadership. Well,

John Calipari 42:31 

no one listens to me. My players don't listen to me. My wife doesn't listen, I'm

David Novak 42:35 

listening to y'all. I want to learn. I'm learning right now. You know, when you look back, what leader who taught you the most?

John Calipari 42:43 

Well, first of all, you don't fall far from your family, your tree. You know, I had, I was so blessed to have two parents. One was a dreamer. My mother said to me, you drain me on your surroundings. You're not responsible for any of this. You dream beyond this. My dad was a grinder and a gatherer. So he worked at the airport, he was a fuel of my mom sold ice cream at the junior high school for diamond. And I go to work with my dad. And they'd have more fun. And he teased everybody and they had one guy didn't work he cooked. So if it was pigs in a blanket, that Polish guy, you have sausage and peppers by the Italian guy, someone else they'd all met. So one of the guys in the crew, your day to cook and then come back and one day the guy Johnny bucyk would come and he cut everybody's hair. So he he was off that day, even though he's working. They said we caught you but you're cutting hair today. I mean, and he gathered and and so you learn from your family initially, but the coaches I played for Larry Brown, Coach Brown, you know, being around him for two years. The true essence of coaching, caring about people being around about the people that your staff and helping everybody give them a culture and environment that they can explode in. I mean, if you look at his staff back at Kansas, they just did a story about pa RC Bill Self myself. Billy bein a week ago, Alvin Gentry, Ed Manny was on the staff with us. I mean, I could go on Mark Friday and go who's an NBA scout? John robic, Billy beno, I mean he had so many guys on that staff. That all went to another level. It's It's incredible what he was able to do. Yeah.

David Novak 44:42 

And now I want to have a little lightning round of q&a and have a little bit more fun with here. So what three words would best describe you?

John Calipari 44:51 

Three words. Three words. He's got a heart is that four words? He's got he's got heart.

David Novak 44:58 

We'll make it one. Okay, heart you What's your biggest pet peeve?

John Calipari 45:03 

In basketball, catching and passing or rebounding with one hand, everything's gotta be with to anybody that plays for me will tell you, Oh, he was nuts about.

David Novak 45:14 

If you could be one person for a day, who would it be? And why?

John Calipari 45:19 

George Patton. Because I want to know what I have the courage to really go into battle and lead men and be out in front and be aggressive yet care about him. I always wonder I say the same thing. Could I? Could I in the 60s, do what I'm doing now and have the thoughts and the feelings and when I knew it wouldn't be popular? I don't know. So I'd like to be in a position to kind of see what, you know what really, am I? You know what, I have the courage to stand up for what was right. Or would I blend in and say, You know what, you know, it's not worth me saying,

David Novak 46:00 

what's something about you that few people would know?

John Calipari 46:03 

I'm probably that I would go to Mass every Monday through Friday, every morning. So that would probably be the one that they'd say No way.

David Novak 46:12 

Do you have a hidden talent?

John Calipari 46:15 

No, I really don't have any talent. You know, I said as a basketball player, I was small. But I was slow. I'm not very talent. I can't sing. I can't dance. I can't grow a beard. I got hold on. I got spot.

David Novak 46:32 

You look good. You look at you look very good at that beard. Coach, I want to wrap this up. But before I do I want to touch on two hot topics. Okay. The first is I know you're extremely passionate about racial justice. And and what are you personally doing to make a difference?

John Calipari 46:51 

Right, so this is going to take me a few minutes, okay. When George Floyd was, in my opinion, and I could say different ways murdered, where we all saw what happened. And we all looked at each other and said, How could one human being do that to another human being? How does that happen? And then, I'm looking and saying, first of all, I need to step back and figure out what just happened, what's going on? And let me learn and listen, because you know, the profession I'm in, I would know, I would have a better feel. Well, you don't. And here's the statement I walk away with after two weeks of sitting back saying, I don't know, I understand that I may never understand. But I'll stand with you. And that's kind of where I was at that point. My wife and I sat down. And she said to me, Look, I know people are telling you don't be involved your white man, step back, don't step out don't. And she and she said to me, we owe everything to the African American families that have entrusted us with their sons. That's why we've been successful. That's why our family and my daughters and my son and my, you know, going forward, we owe it to them. And my wife said, You better come up with something, you're an idea, man do something. So we looked around and I said, you know, we don't have a diversity problem on the fields. We have a diversity problem within the departments. And so the whole idea was, how about we coaches pay for positions that are one or two year opportunities, their stipend so 2500 a month, you get 30,000 for 12 months, 20 25,000 for 10 months, but you got a real job. And you're going to be mentored by people within athletics, the athletic director to and a basketball coach, and you're going to leave with real world work experience. This is an opportunity, you have to earn your way you have to prove your worth. But this is access an opportunity that you would never get as a minority. So it's minority hiring. So now, it became where do we house it? In the John McClendon foundation. John McClendon was a pioneer African American Coach, first black coach to coach at a predominantly white school first professional coach. First, he was the guy that brought fastbreak basketball. I didn't tell you he trained under James Naismith. How about this? Where do you think Dean Smith got the four corners from this guy? McClendon. Where do you think we got the platoon stuff? John McClendon they already have a program that's created opportunities for minority ATS but we're using that we coaches or the point of funding we're funding it. The athletic directors create the jobs and positions and then we're teaching them to lead and be decision makers, David in athletics, not only would you as the CEO make decisions you had, underneath you, different divisions, someone had to lead those divisions under you. And you needed leadership. Well, in athletics, it's the same way. There's probably 12 or 15 leaders underneath the ad, why not more minorities. So we're trying to fill the pipeline. The coaches are doing the point of funding, we got 5060 coaches signed up. We even I hate to tell you what to Yum, about why don't you be the sponsor, and now you guys can tie into some internships with us, you can look at these as future employees. So we met with the unsaved, let's, let's have matching dollars, let's have so how many coaches could not afford 33,000 or 60,000. Like, you know, you're at a mid major when I was at UMass, I couldn't afford that. So we're saying if we get matching dollars, where they're invested to a certain level, and we fill out the rest, if a business comes with us, we can have 300 schools in this right now. It's going to be 40 or 50. And then the rest is, I want this to spread out and be into business, into athletic administration, how about own a business entrepreneurs will go and say, Hey, you taught leadership you taught, we taught you about decision making, and now all of a sudden, you leave us and the whole goal would be everyone leaves every future leader that comes in leaves and says greatest experience of my life, that's fine. In our day, when we did an internship, we never got paid, I was a volunteer system, your first job, you probably didn't get paid. And now all of a sudden, we're doing this, the reason we're doing that we don't want them to have a second job. We don't want them to have to take a loan, we don't want them to have savings spent. This is a springboard. We don't want this to hold you back. So now you know what I'm doing. That's fantastic. Now, we're moving forward with it. I'm really you could tell I'm juiced about Yeah, absolutely is I believe it can make a difference. I really believe that.

David Novak 52:17 

Well, what's your kind of energy behind it? I'm sure sure it will. The second thing I want to ask you coach is is COVID-19. You know, how has it changed how you're doing your job now? And what do you what do you expect is going to happen in the upcoming season?

John Calipari 52:34 

Well, the The second piece is would be a guess. I mean, I'd be guessing like anybody else, you have to follow the science. What we've done is been overly protective of my players, testing them once like a week, mask on their living in our lodge, which only they are in there in a bedroom in their own bath. They walk across the parking lot to the practice facility. They're in, they're separated, you know from each other. So it's individually. Hopefully within a week, we're going to start where we can do some stuff Three On Three, five on five, if we can do that. But this has been hard on these players, their mental well being, you know, no one wants to think about that you're worried are they in great shape. But here's a guy that's in his room 20 hours a day. I mean, you can only train so much in individuals and a couple of times in the gym, you're eating and then you're in there playing video, not good mentally. So we're trying to convince people, we have a sterile situation, let them play pickup only them no one else, no one breaks the bubble. But it would be like, if we tested them over and over. It's like a family you can be together. You can do that because you're healthy. And so we're trying to do that a lot of zoom calls, I got a zoom call tonight, a lot of zoom calls with the families to try to assure them of what we're doing. And that's their opinion. Is this okay? What do you think? Should we test more or less? Tell me what here's how it is? How do you all feel and try to protect their son but these kids are 18 and 19. David, they want to play and want to play they I mean, and I'm trying to hold everybody back yet. They're right in a way. If we've done this two and a half weeks, come on now. They should be able to start playing so I'm hoping here in the next week we'll be able to

David Novak 54:31 

get a good coach. What would be the three bits of advice you'd give to aspiring leaders?

John Calipari 54:38 

The first piece would be what I said if you care about your people, and they know you care, you'll always have a job and you'll always be in a leadership position. The second piece was in I'm not sure I said this Pat Nardelli when I was coaching gave me a piece of advice that If you can have a bad deal with good people, stuff happens, but you can never have a good deal with bad people. And again, what he was saying is, you have good people, they come together, sometimes stuff doesn't work out. But if you put bad people together, I don't care what it looks like smells like what you make, it's not good. Stay away. And I've tried to live by that, you know, surround yourself with good people, and make sure they're, they've got a good heart. They're, they're givers not takers. They lead by serving, they, they're grateful kinds of people. And when I interviewed him, I want to see those traits, I can teach you the basketball. And so but the other piece of it is about your people, you got to care about those people, they've got to come first in your decision making, you know, you're worried about what it does, to the fans and this and this, but if you do right by your players, they'll take care of you with everything else.

David Novak 56:00 

You know, Coach, you and I have something in common, you know, my aunts and uncles lived in OCL, Missouri, and you know, nobody knows where Osceola Missouri is, except for maybe you and I and Ellen's for some time. My wife is she's from roseola, Missouri, new My, my, my my family there. Did what you come from a humble background, Ellen, obviously the same. How much is that really affected the way you approach your leadership and the role that you have?

John Calipari 56:32 

Well, I've got to tell you about OSI all the first, when we used to go to Osceola. We had to climb a pole to get on the phone, and then come on now that's obviously all desert. So, but I think, again, I think Elon and I, we don't need much to be happy. You know what I'm saying? Like, we're not, you know, I don't really care what I wear, you can tell, I don't really care what I drive. That's not what's important to me. And I think your mindset is a little different because of how we were brought up. Ellen has done a great job with my kids. They and I tell you, she's done a great job early in my career, I was gone a ton. And now I look back and what she did to keep our kids grounded, to understand. And I used to tell them, everything we have on this earth is borrowed in yours, it's not mine, this stuff is borrowed. And when we leave, we'll leave by ourselves. So but Elon did a great job of keeping our kids in check, because it's dangerous. You know, it's funny, I always say it's, it's one thing, David, to have nothing. And to deal with it. You know, it's worse than having nothing. Starting out with nothing, having more than you need, and then being stupid and have nothing again, that's worked. So I'm hoping I'm never get into a position where I have nothing because I know what nothing feels like. And having something feels way better than having nothing I can tell you I've had both.

David Novak 58:14 

Well, there's a saying as you well know you go to Mass all the time. The more you give, the more you receive, and it's true. And Coach, you obviously get a lot of happiness by being other directed and players first directed. And I want to thank you for taking this time out and sharing your your insights because you have so many, and so many people get the opportunity to learn from you. Appreciate you, David.

John Calipari 58:38 

Appreciate your friendship, David, we go back 1011 years now.

David Novak 58:45 

That's great. Thank you. Thanks.

Can you think of three better words to describe coach Calvin, the three words he said, he's got heart. He sure does. And his heart is for his players. He may be the one calling the plays. But ultimately, he's making those decisions from a place of generosity. He's putting his players first and finding ways to help them succeed. In his words, if you care about your people, and they know you care, you'll always have a job. And you'll always be in a leadership position. Now I know you care about your people, you wouldn't be listening if you didn't. All right. It's time for me to give you a little coaching. This week as part of your weekly personal development plan. I want you to come up with three simple ways to serve your team. Those small acts of service go a long way with your people to demonstrate you care about them. And that's the hallmark of a great leader. So do you want to know how leaders lead what we learned today is that great leaders care about their people. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of How Leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader you can be