Eliah Drinkwitz 0:00 

It's really about my players and coaches and every day, doing everything I can not to let them down, and at the end of the day, that's all we got, because all this other stuff, like the crowds, the rankings, the stuff on Twitter, that ain't real. What's real is the relationships we have, the interactions we have helping them become the best version of themselves.

David Novak 0:30 

Great leaders know how to motivate their teams, and if you want to see how it's done, keep listening. Welcome to how leaders lead. I'm David Novak, and every week I have conversation with the best leaders in the world to help you become the best leader that you can be. My guest today is Elia drinkwitz. He's the head coach of the University of Missouri football team, and let me brag on my alma mater for a minute, because last year was a breakout season for this Mizzou team. They went 11 and two and earned a spot in the Cotton Bowl where they beat this little team called Ohio State, and Elia was named SEC Coach of the Year. Now, Elia and I recorded this episode before the season started, but let me tell you, I just got back from watching Mizzou beat Vanderbilt. And let me tell you, they are now four and Oh, as they get ready for Texas A and M and I was the honorary captain, and had the time of my life. It was so much fun to be there on Friday, give them a motivational speech. Go to all the team meetings, go to the team dinner, be on the sidelines, be in the locker room. After that double overtime victory, it was amazing. And one thing for sure, something special is happening at Mizzou, and after this conversation, you're going to see why Elia knows how to motivate his players by balancing connection, encouragement and challenge. It's a formula we all can follow, and you can follow it too if we want to get the most out of our teams. And let me tell you something. Coach drinkwitz knows how to do just that. So here's my conversation with my good friend and soon to be yours. Elia drinkwitz, M, I, z, z, o, u,

it's great to have you on the show, man.

Eliah Drinkwitz 2:36 

I appreciate the opportunity. This is like one of those highlights in life, like you, you know, sec Coach of the Year. Yeah, that's pretty cool, but to be on this podcast, I mean, that's a whole nother level. So I just appreciate the opportunity, man,

David Novak 2:50 

you're great. You know, I met you for the first time at the opening of chiefs, which is Eric Church's new bar and music venue in Nashville, Tennessee. And I gotta ask you, how'd you get to know Eric to begin with?

Eliah Drinkwitz 3:06 

So, you know, I was a head coach at Appalachian State, and you know, fortunately for us, Eric Church is an alumni for there, and his dad, Ken is a huge supporter. And So Ken, kind of, you know, made an introduction. And you know, Eric was a big supporter, would always provide us with things that we could use for auctions and raise money. And so just started developing a relationship there. You know, never had an opportunity to really interact with him. But, man, I love his music. He's my favorite artist. And so it's a crazy story. I'm actually on vacation. I get this text message, and I don't really look at it. I look at it a little bit, and it's like, you're invited to the Chiefs grand opening. I'm like, What the crap is this? So I just quickly respond. And I'm like, Yeah, I'll check my calendar, because I get some of that stuff all the time. Then I reread it, and at the end it said, EC. And so then I respond back. I go, is this Eric Church? And he goes, it's me, amigo. And I'm like, holy crap. Like, this is as big as it gets. And so got the opportunity to go and and, man, it was an awesome night. You know, it's funny when you when you win and you get, you know, you get to go to places people send you stuff. Like, I think here I've got, like, a, you know, I got a book that was sent to me, you know, from, from you, from the David Novak, taking people with you, but I hadn't had a chance to meet you yet, and so when I got a chance to go to chiefs, man, it was funny how the Lord worked. You know,

David Novak 4:37 

that was really a unique experience. And you're standing right behind me, and we quickly became fast friends and had a great conversation. So

Eliah Drinkwitz 4:46 

here's, here's a quick story for you, David, I don't know if you remember the movie. There was a cartoon back in the day called prostars, okay? And it was Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson and Wayne Gretzky, and they were like, saving the world Saturday mornings. It was a hit car. Tune. Well, that night, Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan were at that grand opening. Unbelievable. A week later, I go to the Masters, and Wayne Gretzky is at the Mercedes deal. And so within the span of a week, I admit all the pro stars. I mean, it was an incredible week of my life to be able to be around that much greatness. And then obviously I got to see the Manning brothers and you and Eric, and so I'm living my best life. Let's not lie about it. Okay,

David Novak 5:30 

you know, I have to do a podcast with Eric Church, and it was a great one, and he talked about the importance of vision. Yeah, now, you won the Cotton Bowl last year at Mizzou. And so what's your vision now, when you think about the Missouri football program,

Eliah Drinkwitz 5:46 

yeah, you know, I think when we first got here, I had this vision. And for me, vision is you got to see it happen before it happens. Like, that's what vision is in your mind's eye and your belief system, you got to see it happen before you actually get the tangible results. So in my mind, man, I thought the University of Missouri, all right, it's in the SEC it's a little bit further north than all the other schools. It's the only division one playing school in the state of Missouri. It's got these two great metropolitan recruiting areas in St Louis and Kansas City, and that I'm sitting there thinking in my mind, like, this could be an elite place. It's a place that could be one of the best in college football. But when I got here, man, we were not that. We were mediocre in a lot of areas. And so for me, it was like, Okay, how do we take steps to get to where we want to be? And you know, last year was kind of that culmination of, man, this is kind of where I believed it could be. And so for me, this off season was about challenging myself to do a new thing. How do we do a new thing at the University of Missouri? How do we not just be satisfied with where we're at? How do we keep pushing and what's that new thing that we want to accomplish? And fortunately for us, we're surrounded with a great board of curators, a president who's got that kind of vision, and we just launched a $250 million North End Zone idea, and we're gonna build it, and in two years, we're gonna have a premium Stadium in this in this conference. And so for me, it's always like, what's the next thing that we can accomplish? And for us, it's about building a premier world class. Tell the rest of the country that, hey, we're here. We make we're here to mean business. You

David Novak 7:27 

know, I saw something recently where, if you look at the past 20 years in college football, nothing's really changed in the hierarchy of football. It's, you know, the same four or five teams are always ranked. One through five are pretty close to that. You know, do you ever see the zoo being able to break into that level on a sustainable basis?

Eliah Drinkwitz 7:48 

Yeah, I mean, for me, that's exactly why I'm here, and because here's what I see. The last five years in college athletics, it's been a total disruption. You've had transfer portal, you've had nil, now you got this NCAA settlement. And so the things that built these blue buds in the past have now kind of been equalized. And so for us, it was an opportunity. You know, I've had this saying to our to our uh, administration is we need to be stable in the midst of instability, and we need to be adaptable in the midst of a lot of uncertainty. And I think if we can have stability within the coaching staff, within the systems that we run offensive defensively, we can be an attractive place for great talent out of the transfer portal. We've been really efficient and effective with utilizing our n, i L, and I think it's balanced the playing field. Now. I think the other thing that's key is, you know, in the past, you really had to be one of the best four teams in order to have a shot at it, but what we know now is you just got to be in the top 12. And if you can get the top 12 with the experienced quarterback, no different than in the past, in the NFL, a team gets hot like Eli Manning and the New York Giants, they're playing their best football at the end. You know, a team gets hot like Peyton Manning, play their best football at the end, or Tom Brady or Patrick mahomes, you know, you got a chance to win. And currently, right now, we got a pretty good quarterback who's got a lot of experience. So, you know, we got a long way to go, but there's a formula to do that. And I believe if you can consistently recruit the talent, you can consistently have a stable foundation for what you're trying to do within your coaching staff. You know, I've said, If you build it, they will come and, you know, our our universities, built the brand new indoor facility. They built this North End or they're building this North End Zone. We've recruited the talent. Now it's time to continue to put it all together. And

David Novak 9:45 

you talk about stability being something that's really important if you want to really get to get to greatness. Yet with this, you know, transfer portal, you can put your heart and soul into a player. And you know, I don't know you real well, but I. Know you enough that that's exactly what you do, and then they can just lead you on a on a dime. Yeah, how have you sort of reoriented your own mentality towards that as as a leader?

Eliah Drinkwitz 10:12 

So now this is deep now, okay, so my best, one of my best friends in the world, is Blake Baker, my defensive coordinator from last year, and we have all this success, and I'm all banking on all this stuff moving forward, and he feels like his journey has called him to another SEC school. And man, I disagreed with him, but it's his life, it's his journey, it's his opportunity, and and I wished him well, and now you got to rebuild. And in my heart, like man, it's just it is raw, and that's the same thing. I've had several players do that, but I was watching Yellowstone. This is last year. I was watching Yellowstone, and there's this two minute clip where Jimmy is riding down to the four sixes Ranch, okay? And he asks him, he goes, Why do you want to be a cowboy? And he goes, You know, I like the rodeo. I like the lights. And the guy asking, What about the horse? Do you like the horse? And Jimmy's like, Well, I never really thought about it. And he says, doing, look, if you want to be a cowboy, it's about you and your horse. Try like hell not to let each other down. And so for me, it really just redefined what my entire existence in coaching is. It's really about my players and coaches, and every day doing everything I can not to let them down, and at the end of the day, that's all we got, because all this other stuff, like the crowds, the rankings, the stuff on Twitter, that ain't real. What's real is the relationships we have, the interactions we have, helping them become the best version of themselves, letting them achieve something that a lot of these guys never dreamed up. Man, you know, how many guys in my room are going to be first generation college graduates? You know, we talk about in our program all the time, chase two dreams, a life with football and a life outside the game, because the reality of it is football can change their life for the positive, if they go the NFL with n, i L, but man, what can really change their life forever, and the trajectory of their family's lineage is getting that degree. And so for me, it just reframed everything about it. And so, yeah, man, I get my heart broke a lot. I mean, guys come in that we've invested in. They're like, Hey, I gotta transfer out. I need to go somewhere else. You know what I do? I get back on that saddle. I ride that horse again. Because I know, hey, that's their journey. My journey's right here at the University of Missouri, and there's gonna be somebody else come in, and they deserve to get the very best out of me. There's another thing they say in Yellowstone, they say cowboys like art without an audience. And for me, that's really what coaching is too, man, because the best coaching that I do, there's nobody, there's no crowds around, there's there's it's not on social media. It's in one on one meetings. It's at a practice field. And so for me, that's that's kind of how I reframe, you know, the disappointment when people leave.

David Novak 12:59 

You know, you talk about the college football business basically being disrupted with n, i, L and the transfer portal, and, you know, it's leveled the playing field. So you're looking at that as a very positive fashion. So you've got this vision that you want to get Missoula, you know, on a consistent basis up there at the top, yeah. And you got the different playoffs system, which is, which is great. So those are really good things. When you think about your staff. Have you restructured or or hired different kinds of people, given the fact you got in I L of the transfer portal? I mean, how do you work? Navigate just the finance and the statistics of it all.

Eliah Drinkwitz 13:45 

Yeah, you know, I think that's actually yes. So when you said, How did I restructure the staff? So, you know, when I first started, my ego was tied to me being a play caller. And I felt like, man, as long as I'm a good play caller, I could always justify, you know, if the offense is doing good, blah, blah, blah. And what was going on was I wasn't doing the best job I could for my football team. I wasn't being the head football coach. And so it really came down to if we really wanted to as the leader, I really wanted to take this thing to a different level. I had to do what I asked my team to do all the time, which is, embrace your role, put the team first, not embrace your role. Put your ego first. And so for me, it was, hey, I need to go be a head coach. I need to go make sure I understand the contracts, the financials, the investment. I need to go be raising money. I need to make sure that the culture's right, that our guys understand that comparisons the thief of joy. It doesn't matter what you make compared to somebody else, it's what you have and be grateful for what your opportunity is. And so I went out hired an offensive coordinator, and Kirby Moore has done an outstanding job. He's one of the brightest offensive minds in college football and and, and that's allowed me to really do a lot of the things that I need to do in order to get the team to run. It's natural when. Somebody gets a promotion to really lean on their strengths as as what they do. But really, I think you get promoted because most of the time, you have a figure it out factor. You've been successful at your previous jobs because you just figured out what that was, you know, and you grew in those things. And so that's really what I did, and I'm still doing it today. You know, you talk about in your book chapter three, fill in your gaps. You know, I realize I've got some issues that I got to keep getting better. So today, I was working on my schedule, and I had a question come up in my mind. Picked up the phone, and I called Coach Saban and asked him, Hey, how did you handle this? You know, what were some ideas that you had? And he was gracious enough to give me about 15 minutes of wisdom there on Hey, this is how I did it when I was running the program. And so it's allowed me to have a lot more flexibility to do that. And I think it's allowed our team to see me as the leader. Embrace the things that I talk about in our culture, which is, embrace your role, put the team first.

David Novak 15:59 

We'll be back with the rest of my conversation with Elia drinkwitz In just a moment, as you've heard us talk about Eli and I are both big fans of country music star Eric Church, and in Eric's episode of how leaders lead, he shares how every leader needs conviction around their vision if they want to lead people through the tough times,

Eric Church 16:19 

number one thing is vision, and your conviction to that vision is going to define whether or not you're a good leader you're not a good leader, because there's going to be times that people challenge that there's going to be times that you don't have success. And if you don't continue to have that conviction to the vision, then you're not going to be able to lead them through the rough times or the times when it's very challenging. Go back

David Novak 16:44 

and listen to my entire conversation with Eric Church, episode 192 here on how leaders lead. I want to get more into how you're taking Mizzou to new heights, but first I want to take you back. You know, what's a story from your childhood that shaped the kind of leader you are today. You know,

Eliah Drinkwitz 17:02 

growing up, I lived in a trailer. My dad was a teacher. Mom was a stay at home mom. I had three sisters, two brothers. We lived in a in a trailer, you know, two brother three brothers in one room, three sisters in the other you know, my dad was but he had to go back to school to get his teaching license in the state of Arkansas. So there was a year there where he was on unemployment, temporary work. He'd get up in the middle of the night go the shovel spinach at the local Allen cannon company. He'd umpire baseball. He just did whatever it took to keep our family afloat. And I remember my mom talking about, hey, as a team, we got to we got to stay together. We all got to pull our own weight. We all got to sacrifice. We all got to do whatever it takes for us to be successful. So my older sister went and got a job. My older brother went and got a job. Me and my other brother mowed yards to do whatever we could just to keep our family going. And so I think for me, that was really when I first really embraced this, like team philosophy, where you're more powerful together than you were by yourself, and I never once was the star. I was a decent high school football player, but man, I understood team and I understood keeping people together. And I think really that when I look back at it now, I think that was really something that influenced me, whether I ended up becoming the student body president at my high school, or becoming the student government president at Arkansas Tech University. I think it was because I was always gathering people and making people feel a part of the team, and I think that was a foundational trait for becoming a coach. It's

David Novak 18:38 

interesting that you say you you grew up in a trailer, you know? Yeah, I did the same thing. Yeah. My dad was a government surveyor, and so I got to ask you this one, you know, when my family gets together at Christmas time or the holidays, you know, it doesn't matter how big the house is, we all just sit on top of each other. We clubbed. Is that the case for you?

Eliah Drinkwitz 18:58 

Yeah? And you know what's crazy, brother is like, now God is blessed. Now live in this dumb, stupid mansion, but every time I go home, we're all six in one room. We're all in the living room together, like, well, y'all spread out. Like, what are we doing here? But no, once

David Novak 19:13 

it's in the wood, it's hard to get out. It's hard,

Eliah Drinkwitz 19:16 

it's hard, it's hard. But just to keep my daughters humble, we drive by. There's a trailer that we drive by on the way to church. And I always look over and say, Hey, I used to live in one of those, and they don't believe me.

David Novak 19:27 

That's great, you know. And when did you have this light bulb moment? Or did you have one that said, you know, I want to be a coach? Yeah,

Eliah Drinkwitz 19:35 

you know what? I was gonna in my mind my senior year, I was going to school, I was I was wanting to go be a lawyer. I have no idea. I mean, I like to argue and be rational about my thought process, so I wanted to be a lawyer. And my high school football coach pulled me aside and said, Have you ever thought about coaching? I think you'd be really good at it. And I really had never thought about it. And I was like, Nah, I don't want to do that. Well, he was smarter than I. Was so I went to school, and I had put that totally out of my mind, and they had a coach leave. And so on Friday nights, they needed somebody to be up in the box talking to their defensive coordinator about what was going on. And so they called me and said, Hey, will you come? Will you drive to the games on Friday nights and be our spotter up in the box? And I said, Yeah, I'll do that. And they had me hooked. And so from that point on, I knew I wanted to coach. And so from then, it was about mapping out how to become the best coach possible. I knew that there was, there was an elite coach in the state of Arkansas named Gus malzon, and so I worked really hard to get my student teaching assignment in Springdale, Arkansas, with him, was able to do that and and then from that point on, man, it's, it says the Bible, the mind's been playing the ways the Lord directs your steps. And that's kind of how it worked out for me.

David Novak 20:50 

Fantastic. And, you know, you talked a little bit earlier about what you think coaches is, you know, really bringing the best out of out of people and, you know, lifting each other up. Can you give me an example of a player or a team where that really came to life? Life for you?

Eliah Drinkwitz 21:07 

Yeah, I mean, I really think last year's team, you know, when we were going into fall camp, okay, I felt like we were a really talented team, but we were a little bit selfish, like we knew we were talented, but it was really more about coach. I want to be all SEC, and I want to be this, and I want to be, you know, recognized for my talent. And so for me, it was really about challenging this football team to let's prove that together we're collectively talented. Because if the team will achieve something, all the rest of us will achieve it. But if it's about us individually, I don't care how good we are individually, if our team doesn't have success, nobody's going to recognize how talented you are. You're not going to receive the accolades that you want to receive. And so you have to buy into this team mentality. You know, I was reading the other day they say this generation is the most under encouraged and under challenged generation. And I thought about that. That is so true. Like sometimes this generation, if you challenge them, they think it's personal, but if you don't challenge them, then they just waddle in. It'd be an average but you also got to encourage them too. And so it's that magic touch of figuring out how to challenge them, how to encourage them, how to connect with them in order to get the most out of them. And you know, right now, there's that big deal going on with with two attack of Aloha, talking about, you know, a previous coach, and Mike McDaniel and and then you have Tom Brady come back and talk about how, you know, it was really him utilizing both the challenging of Coach Belichick and the encouragement of Josh McDaniels that really allowed him to grow and be the best. And so for me, it's about utilizing that, you know, I think Brady cooks a really good example. You know, Brady cook last year was in a huge battle for the job, and we were challenging, challenging, challenging, to play better and be more accurate, be a leader, and he goes out there and he plays really good against the team and and before the game, they were booing. I come in the pro game press conference and I just rip our fans to shreds and say, You can't boo the starting quarterback. You can boo me all you want, but you can't boo the starting quarterback at the start quarterback at the University of Missouri, as long as I'm the head coach here. And man, it was something that galvanized our team, because they knew that the head coach at the University of Missouri, they had, he's got our backs. And I think it was that fine line of I was challenging him in private, but in public, I was cheering him, and everybody knew I had his back. And

David Novak 23:40 

now you got a great quarterback going into this season, which is fantastic. How do you get into the psyche of these 18 to 22 year olds, these athletic superstars? You know, everybody that makes a team was least very good in high school.

Eliah Drinkwitz 23:54 

I think the biggest way for me is you got to connect with them, and you got to figure out what makes them tick, and everybody's a little bit different, like I had, I had a young man come in here the other day, and he's got an opportunity, I think, to be a first round draft pick, but he hasn't matured quite the way we want him to. And so I just brought him in, and I thought maybe it was arrogance. I thought maybe it was he was way too focused on the NFL and and way too like I think I'm really good. It wasn't that at all. What he needs to hear from me and from our quarterback is that we need you. I'm counting on you. Because he told me, said, Coach, when I don't block, I can't hardly look at Brady in the face. I can't look at him because I know that I let him down. And when he told me that I knew we had it, because then it was about me and the offensive line coach and the offensive coordinator and Brady making sure he knew. Hey, man, we're counting on you today. We're counting on you to be a more mature player. We're counting on you to practice harp. We're counting on you to be a leader in that offensive line and not being out front and gung ho. Is, he's not quite there yet, but he knows we're counting on it, man, it he's gone to a different level because he understands that there's a connection piece, and I think that's it's just different for everybody. Luther burden is is motivated to leave a legacy here. He wants to be the best player to ever play at the University of Missouri. So he's got this goal he wants to achieve. And so, you know, last year he returned punts. He wasn't very good at it. He didn't catch Him in the air very much, but he didn't practice very good. So before we started fall camp, I called him in and said, hey, everybody that has won this award, they that's not a quarterback or a defensive end has this in common. They've scored a special teams touchdown by returning punts. And I would Peter Warrick, Reggie Bush, Desmond Howard, Charles woods, Barry Sanders. And I have all these clips, and I watch them with them. And man, every day, he spends five extra minutes before practice, five extra minutes after practice, catching punts, catching punts, catching punts because I tied his personal vision with what motivates him. But I need it for our team. He thinks he's doing it for him. I tricked him. I need it for Mizzou tigers. But when you can connect those two, and I think this day and age with our players, you know in the past, when you and I were growing up playing, if you said the team needed it, they that's what I was about. But now you just got to, you got to make sure that their personal goals and the team goals match.

David Novak 26:30 

That makes so much sense. And like we talked about earlier, your players can transfer on a dime. Now, how has that affected your ability to instill discipline and and, and be a truth teller, especially with this person that say it's going to be a first round draft choice. I mean, you don't want to lose this guy. You know, how do you how do you balance that? I think, does it affect you? David,

Eliah Drinkwitz 26:52 

I think, honestly, it's given me the freedom to be even more of a truth teller, because I tell them all the time like, this is how we do it. Here. You don't have to, but everybody that's going to stay here is going to do it just like this, because this is our brotherhood, this is our culture, and I've got to fight and protect our brotherhood and our culture. And so when somebody's not doing or upholding the standard that we have, it's up to us as coaches, whether it's Coach Russell, who I think is the best strength coach in the business, or myself or our coaches, to tell them the truth. Um, because if I if, if they leave based off hearing the truth, I can live with myself, but if they leave and I haven't told them the truth, well then shame on me, because I didn't give us a fair chance to really connect. And keep the keep the young man you know as

David Novak 27:38 

a coach, every year is a new year, and you always have new players, and you got to build a new team. Take us through your process that you use to really build a great team.

Eliah Drinkwitz 27:49 

Yeah, now more than ever, right? We had 46 new players from last year's team, and you have 120 hour roster. So you're talking roughly 40% of your team is brand new. And so for us, it really starts with laying the foundation of who we are, and it starts with from the very beginning. And so we have the very first team meeting. I tell them what the goal for our program is, chase two dreams, develop an Elite Edge, play for championships. You come to school here, you ask any one of my players, they can tell you what's the goal for me here, chase two dreams, develop an Elite Edge play for championships. Say more about chase two dreams? Yeah, so for me, chase two dreams is, you know, God has given these guys a unique ability to play the game. I mean, they're the elite 1% of 1% but we all know that of the 120 kids I have in my football team, we set the Mizzou record last year for draft picks, and it was seven. Okay, so the rest of these guys have got to have a dream. And even those seven players that go play in the NFL, I mean, we saw Eli and Payton at the emboja accident at chiefs opening, they're in their second phase of life. So you got to have, you got to identify outside of the game of football, who am I and what kind of person and what kind of purpose do I want to have? So the when the game's over, I can be a positive contributor to society. We got an AAU institution, one of 65 in the entire United States. I mean, it's an unbelievable academic institution. Shame on them if they let this university just use them for their talents. On furrow feel on Saturday, they got to maximize and they got to use the university. They got to get to know the business school, the engineering school, the David dovag School of leadership. I mean, they got to maximize those connections that they have. And so that's what I talk about when chasing two dreams. And then, you know, we talk to them about, okay, this is, this is the goal. These are our four core values. We spend a week in the off season, teaching what each one of those core values are. Then we spend a week teaching what an Elite Edge is and exactly what we mean by that. And then we get into fall camp, and we do it again. And then, you know, we also do personal training, which helps them do chase two dreams. We also bring in guest speakers. But man, we. Are just continually emphasizing the messages of who we are and what we live by. And I think that's been really good. And, you know, look, we have some new guys, so the very first week here in fall camp, we stay in the dorm. Well, I had two transfers they, I guess they thought I was kidding, so they snuck out the doors, and they didn't, they didn't stay with the with the team, and so I caught them, and it was a moment right there where I knew, depending on how I handled it, it was really either going to galvanize our team or it was going to fraction the Brotherhood. And so for me, it was a pivotal moment, and I figured out exactly how we were going to handle it. We handled it. And it was a great thing for our team to come together and realize, okay, we're all in this together, and we either have to be all in together or we're all going to be out. And so it was really good

David Novak 30:51 

say more about how you handle it.

Eliah Drinkwitz 30:54 

Okay? So, you know, at first I was really ticked off, okay? And I was just going to blow it up, and I was going to make a huge scene about it. And I really challenged myself to how do I take a negative and turn it into a positive? Because the most important thing we do is practice. The only way you get better at the game of football is to practice. So I called them up, and their number one core value is always compete. So we're getting ready for practice, and at the end of the practice, we have this thing called Red Zone lockout, okay? And red zone lockout is offense versus defense. They're going to go back and forth until they score enough points to be the winner. And I said, here's what we're going to do. We always compete. All right? So the winner of red zone lockout, you get to leave the dorms early, okay? The losers got to stay in the dorms an extra night. And defense, you had two players and nobody knew. I said, defense, you had two players who chose themselves over the tee. So they're suspended for Red Zone lockout. They were starters. They're going to go be punished while we're doing red zone lockout. And now you got to compete versus the offense, down to people, and that's real life, because that's what happens. If people make decisions outside of the framework of the team. They don't put the team first in their decisions, which is rule number three, then everybody pays the price. So the offense, they went out there. Defense went out there, they competed, the offense won. It proved my point. For me, the offense ends up winning. They competed in one and really the two guys that missed ended up being the reason that the ones won, that the offense won. So the defense had to pay the price. They had to spend two extra nights in the residence halls. And it made everybody realize, like, shoot, we're all dependent on each other. It rewarded the offense. We had a really spirited practice, and there was some accountability for the guys who were involved.

David Novak 32:45 

That's great story. Say more about what you mean by Elite Edge?

Eliah Drinkwitz 32:48 

Yeah. So for us, Elite Edge is everybody's always looking for an edge over the competition, right? But we define it. Edge for us is energy, details, grit and emotional consistency. We believe that positive, contagious energy. It's contagious, and we work on it every single day. At practice, we have this thing called daps, which is the transfer of positive energy, you know, dapping your teammate up, running on and off the field, dapping in a drill, dapping a coach, because we want our guys to be excited to be at practice. We want our guys to be excited about what they're doing. And, man, there's no energy vampires allowed. You got bad attitude, bad energy. Don't come in here. Go, go, change your mindset, or don't come but it's only positive energy here. We believe details drive excellence. We believe the separation is in the details. Like, how do we get an edge over a competition? Man, we practice with great energy and great attention to detail. We all know that grit, that that stubborn refusal to quit, that's how we define grit, is just showing up every day. If you can just show up every day with positive, contagious energy, and you can find details in your work, and man, you're just there every single day, you're going to gain an edge over the competition. But then the last one, it's consistency. It's emotional consistency, right? Consistency, I believe, is the highest paid trait in the world. People pay you to be consistent every single day. That a known quantity. And so we believe those four characteristics applied to whether you're talking about football, whether you're talking about being a CEO, whether you're talking about being a classroom. If you have those four characteristics in your daily operational procedure, we believe you'll have an edge over the competition.

David Novak 34:20 

You know, I was thinking as you were talking that you were sounding like a CEO right there, and you are the CEO of the Missouri football program. But you know, how much time have you put into thinking about these concepts? Because you've got real clarity around what you stand for. What do you want to have happen? What your culture is? You

Eliah Drinkwitz 34:38 

know, at first I didn't, I tell you what, when I first got to App State, I kind of had this loose idea. I knew what my core values were, but I didn't have a holistic program. And to be honest, we had a lot of really talented players, and, you know, we really overachieved that year, but it was really more of them than me. I was just, I think I added some good. Team stuff, but really it was more them than me. And when I first got here, I relied on my personality, and I relied on trying to bring people together, but I hadn't learned accountability, enforcing the accountability of what you really want to be, and I hadn't learned all the details yet, and I really was spending so much time trying to be the offensive coordinator and trying to raise money and trying to recruit that I really wasn't developing myself enough. And so whenever I took a step back and said, You know what, I'm not doing a very good job as a head coach, I better start studying. I better dive into books. I better figure out how to apply myself. And that's really when it became clear to me, like, you better have a clear, consistent message of who you want to be, and you better be willing to hold people accountable. And the only way you'll hold people accountable is if you believe enough in it that if you don't, you know you're going to lose and so that's really what it came down to me like, man, the hardest thing for me as a people pleaser is to hold people accountable like today. Today we go out to practice, and my star football player doesn't have his Thigh Pads in, and I had a choice to make. I can either say, Hey, man, he's a star. Let's not rock the boat today. Let's just have a positive. Let's just be positive. No, no, no, no. Well, that's a lack of detail, and if I don't, if I don't attack it, then that's a lack of emotional consistency, and I'm violating number three rule, number three, which is, put the team first. So I get on him, I get on his position coach, and I set the tone for the rest of the practice. Like we bullcrapping. We're out here to get better, and the only way we can get better is we apply the standards to every single person, because I know if we don't, we're going to lose which is what happened my per my second year here.

Koula Callahan 36:47 

Hey everyone, it's Kula. We'll get back to the interview in just a second before we do though, I have a question for you. Have you downloaded the how leaders lead app on your iPhone? If you haven't take 20 seconds right now, go to the App Store, search for how leaders lead and download the how leaders lead app. In the app every day, you'll get a two minute video that'll give you a leadership insight from one of our amazing guests from our podcast to inspire you and to really get your mind in the right place before you start your work day. So go to the App Store, search how leaders lead, download the how leaders lead app, and start your day every day, with two minutes of leadership wisdom. It'll take 20 seconds go to the App Store, download the app, and you'll be able to watch every day, just like me, the leadership insight from how leaders lead so

David Novak 37:35 

you have very high self awareness. How do you go about getting better and better as as a coach and as a leader every year. And what, how do you think about that?

Eliah Drinkwitz 37:44 

I think about, okay, what are the areas in my life that I'm struggling with and and how do I get better at them? And really, the messages I preach to our guys are things that I'm going through myself. Like, okay, like today, we talked about, are we as good as we're ever going to be? No, well then we got to keep getting better. We got to go to practice today. You get better. And so that that's, that's kind of my mindset is like, what are the things that I'm learning and growing in? And just take those to those guys, because at the end of the day, I'm just an 18 year old, 22 year old, immature person too, that's really just trying to be, you know, live out his dream as a college football player. But I wasn't good enough to do it, you know, I

David Novak 38:24 

understand. One of the perks of the job is you have a group text thread with all the SEC head coaches, yeah. What's the purpose of that?

Eliah Drinkwitz 38:33 

Well, we got a couple. The first one is, you know, with all the different changes in college football, there's got to be a way for all of us to kind of respond like, Hey, would you all support this rule? Would you all support that rule? But what's been kind of interesting is is there's a few of us who like to have fun and like to joke around, and it's all started by coach Kiffin. Okay, so Coach Kiffin will just, he'll read a yoga quote from a morning, and he'll just blast it out to all of us, 16 head coaches. And it's, it's kind of fun. I don't know if it'll carry on throughout the season just because of the stress of the job and stuff, but it's been unique, because I think at the end of the day, we're all humans, and we all are in this pressure field job, and the only people that understand that stress are the other 16 head coaches in this league, and so I think there's a mutual respect there that like, you know what you know. And especially when Coach Kiffin dad passed, there was an outpouring of support for him on that thread. Because I think there's an understanding that, man, these jobs are tough, but there's actually some really good dudes in the SEC as head coaches, and every once while you need to be encouraged.

David Novak 39:45 

I'm curious who uses the most emojis? You know

Eliah Drinkwitz 39:48 

that's that's pretty interesting. Coach Venables uses quite a few emojis. When

David Novak 39:52 

was the last conversation you had? A laugh out loud moment?

Eliah Drinkwitz 39:56 

Coach cut Cliff asked us if we would all support. Uh, something specific, and Coach smart out outrageously supported it. So he responded 16 times because cut was like, I need to know the next 15 minutes, would all of us support it? Coach Kirby was like, I support it, hell yes, I support it, hell yes, hell yes, I support it. Double hell yes. And it was just hilarious. Him going back and forth. And then, of course, Lane, being the arbitrary came in, and it's like, it's 15 to one, because I don't support it. So it was perfect. Yeah. Now

David Novak 40:32 

I you kind of mentioned a little bit earlier that you kind of said, Hey, we're Mizzou. Nobody thinks we're gonna beat Ohio State. You had that chip on your shoulder and the underdog mentality now that you, you know, moved up the ladder. And can you, can you really use that underdog when it mentality anymore? How do you look at it

Eliah Drinkwitz 40:56 

look, I think you know, STP, for us, something to prove is a motto that fits for just who we are right now, you know, because even still, you know, people talk about us being, you know, having a shot at it, but then they they always take a backhanded slap at us, like, Well, it's because their schedule is not very good, or they don't have this but you know, they really probably won't, because blah, blah, blah, this weakness, that weakness or whatever, so you know, for us. STP, something to prove, something to prove, is always there. And the one thing about it that really hits home for us more than anything and something to prove is we really want to prove to each other that they're right for believing in the Brotherhood. You know. We want to prove to the guys that chose to come here that they were right to choose to be here with us. We want to prove to Brady cook that he was right to face all the criticism and the hardships and that we have his back. And so he's got he didn't have to prove it to the outside world. We want to prove it to him that he was right to be here. We want to prove it to Luther burden, that he was right to believe in this place, and so that's really where it starts. Then shoot. You look at our schedule and the teams we got to play, there's a lot of things that we still have to prove to those guys, because maybe in the past, they beat us, maybe in the past, there were things said. There's always going to be a motivational factor in the way we step on the field.

David Novak 42:20 

Say more about what you mean when you say brotherhood.

Eliah Drinkwitz 42:24 

Yeah, you know, I think there's a difference between being on a team and being in a brotherhood. And a brotherhood is is a group of men with a shared experience and a shared background that invest in each other. And when I'm talking about investing, I'm talking about hours and hours and hours of blood, sweat, tears, heartache, misery, um, tough times being out. You know, we, we actually coined this phrase wilderness brotherhood, because, man, a lot of the stuff that we have to endure. Man, it's out the wilderness. Man, I mean, you talk about these freshmen who have to redshirt, they don't get to play very much, and they're out in 100 degree weather, going to get some of the best players in the competition. Man, you really got to forge your own identity. And it's out that wilderness that you really figure out who you are and what you believe in. And then you come back together and you go take on some of the toughest people out there in the toughest environments, but you got to have that wilderness Brotherhood to you. So that's, that's kind of what we're talking about. You

David Novak 43:29 

know, I've heard you talk about simply focusing on being one and oh, this week, yeah, you know, was, was there a seminal moment when, when you learn to not get get ahead of yourself.

Eliah Drinkwitz 43:41 

Oh yeah, there is zero doubt my mind. This is me personally, 2018 we're playing Wake Forest on a Thursday night, and we played really bad. Got beat, shouldn't, shouldn't, got beat. But we got beat whether it was me, whether it was our players, whether it's coaching staff, you know, on the offensive side of the ball, we just did not have a one and Oh, mindset we were, we just felt like, you know, we were just going to be better than them and show up and win. And that's just not how the game works. Man, we we got a lot of sayings, but winning doesn't negotiate. It takes what it takes, and you can't cheat it. You cannot cheat it. It doesn't matter if you're playing a local high school team, you're playing a one double A team where you're playing the best of the best in the national championship game, it's going to cost the same. You got to put in the exact same amount of work, because if you don't, football will humble you real quickly. And so for us, it's just a mindset. You know, we talk about having a this play philosophy. The most important play in football is not the previous play, and it's not the final score, it's this play, and that's the way we approach our work, and that's the way we approach our game week. That's the way we approach our practice. If you want to play really good on Saturdays, you know, your confidence come from your prep. Operation. Well, you're only going to play good on Saturday. Play practice really good on Tuesday, and if you don't practice really good on Tuesday, you better have a good practice on Wednesday, so that you feel confident in the plan on Saturday. Because if you think you're just going to show up and I'm going to out talent somebody, talent alone is not a separator. Talent is not a separator. There's plenty of talented people out there. There's plenty of talented players in college football. There's got to be a different separator. And we believe the separation is of the preparation, and the separation in your confidence comes from your preparation.

David Novak 45:31 

You're such a great communicator. I mean, you really articulate what you're all about and succinctly and very, very clearly. So I would love to hear one of your, your your, your pregame speeches. You know, what's the best one you ever, ever, ever made in your mind?

Eliah Drinkwitz 45:47 

I would say the Ohio State one. You know, before Ohio State, I just talked about, they call them blue bloods because they've been given everything their whole lives. But that's not who we are at the University of Missouri, who we are as a wilderness brotherhood, forged in the darkness, forged from a place where we run debts, formed with an elite edge out on the practice fields when nobody else wanted us. We came together and we formed our identity, and now it's time to go show the world who we really are, because you deserve this stage. This is your stage. You go, take it, and then something like that is pretty close to that. He'll

David Novak 46:29 

be in, coach, I'm ready to go. Yeah. Now

Eliah Drinkwitz 46:31 

here's the deal. Those things get you fired up, and then you run down on kickoff, you get the hell knocked out of you. They're like, Coach, I don't care about that speech. That didn't mean nothing, but it's good. It's good Twitter fodder. If you win and if you lose, I will say this, I thought one of my best lines was against Georgia. Was, you know, I talked about, there's no fear. They can't kill us. We've already, we've already been to the bottom. Everybody in that locker room had, had suffered some of the worst defeats known to man the previous year. It's like, there's no fear, like, what are they gonna do to us, like, let's just go out there and play free and as fast as we can and show them what we're made of. And we did. We played their butt off

David Novak 47:08 

at winning the Cotton Bowl and being the coach of the year. Has that freed you up, or has that put more pressure on you in your own mind, neither

Eliah Drinkwitz 47:17 

one, neither one, I can tell you, this is as humbly and as truthful as I can tell you, coach of the year really wasn't my award. When you win Coach of the Year, you're they're just saying, man, your team was awesome. The coaches just say, Man, that that that team together did something really cool, overachieved in comparison to everybody else. That wasn't my award. That was an award for my players and for my staff. So that really had anything to do with me, the Cotton Bowl crowd I was on the sideline. I had the best seat in the house. I didn't do much coaching in that game. I said, we're gonna go for it on fourth down. But other than that, like, man, our players won that game. Our coaches won that game. So for me, like, again, as far as the results are, this is just a big game of survival. Okay, we're in the entertainment business now. Okay? Coaches win and lose, and they get fired, and they're putting us all on TV, and sometimes the survivor gets invited back, like it's a, you know, reunion special, and they bring one of the coaches back to the SEC. But man, my real job is to love my horse and try like hell every day not to let them down. And my horse, for me, is my players and my staff is every day when I walk in this building, Am I doing the very best I can for them so that I ain't letting them down? And if I do that and it's not good enough, and there's old saying in the Magnificent Seven, nobody throws me my own guns and tells me to run. That's just kind of what I've come to grips with, like they tell me to go, awesome. Then Then my journey here is done, and I'll see if I can play golf with you one day.

David Novak 48:52 

I'd love that. I'm looking forward to that as a matter of fact, you know, this has been so much fun, and I want to have some more with my lightning round of questions. Okay, what three words best describe you? Oh,

Eliah Drinkwitz 49:04 

fun, fat and fanatical about life.

David Novak 49:11 

Favorite Western movie, oh,

Eliah Drinkwitz 49:16 

Tombstone, Magnificent Seven and the Cowboys. John Wayne, if

David Novak 49:22 

you could be, if you could be one person for a day besides yourself, who would it

Eliah Drinkwitz 49:26 

be? Poof. I mean, can you imagine being up in front of a group of people singing like Eric Church?

David Novak 49:32 

If you could be one comedian for a day besides yourself? Who would it be?

Eliah Drinkwitz 49:37 

Wow. Uh, I think Nate barges pretty good. I don't even know if I say his last name, because he's so clean. Who would play you in a movie? You know, we just did look alikes the other day, and they say Stu from hangover is the closest thing to me, but I gotta go. Brad Pitt. Brad Pitt, went to Mizzou. Brad Pitt, this

David Novak 49:56 

is by. I see a vague resemblance.

Eliah Drinkwitz 50:02 

The youngsters call that a glow up. You know, that'd be a glow up. Your

David Novak 50:06 

biggest pet peeve,

Eliah Drinkwitz 50:09 

people, being late.

David Novak 50:10 

Your favorite protein?

Eliah Drinkwitz 50:12 

My favorite protein, Dallas Cowboys.

David Novak 50:15 

Your Favorite Female Singer,

Eliah Drinkwitz 50:17 

favorite Well, I mean, Sheryl Crow, right? There you

David Novak 50:21 

go University of Missouri. I need to get that one. Okay, now, if you weren't a football coach, what kind of job would you have? I

Eliah Drinkwitz 50:28 

would like to think that I would be a lawyer. I really do. I watched, I binge suits pretty good, and actually told Commissioner Sankey if he needed any help with the negotiation of NCAA settlement that I'd watched seasons one through nine of suits. And so I think I could be pretty good. Harvey Specter, my wife says I'm more like Louis slit though than I am. Harvey Specter,

David Novak 50:51 

if I turned on the radio in your car, what would I hear? You'd

Eliah Drinkwitz 50:54 

hear Eric Church radio on Pandora.

David Novak 50:56 

What's something about you? A few people would know I love

Eliah Drinkwitz 51:00 

to play the guitar I would like to play in the World Series of Poker in Vegas before I leave this earth, and I actually have notes on my phone about how to play it. Yeah, that's probably two things I've heard many people

David Novak 51:16 

know what's one of your daily rituals? Something that you never miss, never

Eliah Drinkwitz 51:20 

miss. Never miss. I wouldn't say never right, but on my, on my on my desk, I have a Bible and a daily devotional that I read every day, and I take 10 minutes just to before my whatever I do. I get a workout. I come in here, I take 10 minutes to just try to focus and get myself ready for whatever's gonna happen. I think one of the challenges of leadership is that there's gonna be some sort of problem that you have no idea about, and you have to show compassion and empathy, but you also have to keep the organization moving forward, and that for me is always a tough balance, and so the way I can do that is to to just bring myself to center before I start the day.

David Novak 52:03 

Well, that's the end of the lightning round. Great job. And Brad Pitt, you look a lot like him. You're just unbelievably good looking guy. You know, you know you and your wife, Lindsay, you have four, four daughters. How do you integrate your family time with your schedule as a coach and the high expectations that that puts on you. Yeah,

Eliah Drinkwitz 52:22 

that's actually something I've really been a lot more intentional about. I think, when I was a coordinator and didn't have as much control over my schedule, I did a really poor job of making sure that my family was and my wife was awesome. But now, you know, we do a families are always welcome in this building. So if somebody has, you know, needs to or they haven't seen their family, have them come up for lunch. All my coaches have the freedom to take their kids to school the first day of school in one day a week. Make sure you know you have the opportunity like today. I got in early, went back, grabbed my kids, took them to school, then came back for our eight o'clock staff meeting, Thursday night's family night, you know, we're gonna go spend time with our family. And then I think the coolest thing is that my girls, they consider the team their big brothers, and they know everything about the team. My oldest daughter quizzes herself on knowing everybody's number and everybody's name on the team. And so they've just been integrated, um, and so that's been cool. And then being intentional, I don't have all the time that I'd love to give them, you know, but the time I do have, we went to Montana for five days, and man, I put the phone away, and man I was we went on a horseback ride with my two oldest. It was awesome. I took my two youngest to this pond and caught fish. One of them caught their first fish and just said, Hey, man, when I'm here, I'm here, and when I'm not here, you know I gotta do I gotta go do my other job, but when I'm here, I'm here for you.

David Novak 53:51 

I did a podcast with Coach prime, and he has five kids, and he told me he ranks his kids one to five each month, you know what, in terms of how they're doing.

Eliah Drinkwitz 53:59 

Yeah. No, no. Now I'm gonna let him be his own dad. I'm not gonna critique his coaching or his parenting, but, but he probably doesn't have five, four daughters, you know, if you there'd be some very hurt feelings there on rankings. You know, everybody, look, here's the thing about parenting, as you know, like they're so unique. Every child is so unique and and some of them have some of the best things about you, and some of them have those things that you know you're like, Man, I got to watch myself on that, and you see it in them, and you got to figure out how to love them and handle them in all those

David Novak 54:33 

What's your unfinished business when you think about it? Well, I've

Eliah Drinkwitz 54:37 

got two answers for you. One, winning the SEC championship. We came here to win the SEC championship, and that wasn't just something I said, something I believe we could do, and so you know that's that's going to be there until I get it done. But the other one is, I haven't walked my kids down the aisle yet, and I've got four daughters. Dollars, and I want to make sure that I have a strong enough relationship with all of them, and I want to be healthy enough that when they choose to get married, that I'm there for and that they want me to be there. And those two things mean the most to me right now. I

David Novak 55:17 

love it. Last question, what's one piece of advice you'd give to anyone who wants to be a better leader?

Eliah Drinkwitz 55:23 

I think the easy one to say is to figure out a way whatever, whatever you're doing, right? Because leadership is is every facet, right? You don't have to be the CEO of the organization to be a leader, right? But I think you could do these three things in any realm of your life and be a great leader. You got to cheer, challenge, connect, right? You got to find a way to connect with the person that you're wanting to influence. You have to find a way to encourage them, and you got to find a way to challenge them, because leadership is about taking people to a place that they can't get there on their own, and so the only way you can you can't connect and just cheer for them. Otherwise they're not getting where they need to go. You got to challenge them. And so it's finding that magical formula of to me, it's those three things. It's being able to connect with them so that they respect what you're going to say, being able to encourage them to be the best version of themselves, but being able to challenge them, like you said, truth tellers, when they're not quite accomplished, what they need to Well,

David Novak 56:26 

I want to tell you something like, I'm so glad that I connected with you, and from the second I met you, I wanted to cheer you on, no doubt about that, but I am going to challenge you a little bit. Yeah, I think you should move beyond winning the SEC and win the national championship, yeah, more than once.

Eliah Drinkwitz 56:47 

Well, you know, if you'll get behind our program and tell me what game you're coming to, and yeah, I've already offered you to be the guy that beats Big Mo, but you haven't given me a date yet. So I'm going to challenge you to give me a date when you're coming to the game. You know, in order to win, it takes everybody. It takes everybody. And I need you to get off that sideline. And, you know, get over here. I know you're a big patriot, you know, big Tom Brady, big Manning fan. I need you to get over here with the Tigers, the Mizzou tigers. You might be, here's the you might be, the guy that gets us over the top.

David Novak 57:20 

There you go. Well, I'm going to be coming this fall. I look forward to spending some time with you and and watching Mizzou win another football game. I

Eliah Drinkwitz 57:28 

can't wait to have you over here, man. So thank you very much. I

David Novak 57:31 

appreciate it very much for you taking the time. Let's see if you can get this right. M, I, z, z, o, u, yes. I don't know about you, but when I listen to Elia, I feel like I need to go throw my shoulder pads on and run through a brick wall. For him, he really knows how to fire up people, and I hope you are listening, because every leader has to find ways to motivate their team members. For Elia, it starts with connection, really getting to know people and understanding what makes them tick, then it takes encouragement, because, as I always say, people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. From there, you can challenge people, as Elia points out, leaders have to take people where they couldn't go on their own. In the week ahead, take this simple formula straight out of Elias playbook, and use it look for opportunities to connect with your teammates, to encourage them, to challenge them, keep those three elements in balance, and I guarantee you you'll level up your coaching skills. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is the great leaders balance how they connect, balance, how they encourage and balance, how they challenge their team members. Coming up next on how leaders lead is Mike worth, the Chairman and CEO of Chevron. I never

Speaker 1 58:52 

would have approached it that way if I didn't stop and ask somebody who I really looked up to. And so my piece of advice is, is ask, talk to other people, ask, ask for their advice and and then, and then learn and apply it. So

David Novak 59:06 

be sure to come back again next week to hear our entire conversation. 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 that you can be.