637: Tom Ryan (Ohio State Wrestling Coach) - Chosen Suffering, Emotional Control, Responding to Tragedy, Success Pillars, and Learning from Dan Gable

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Go to www. LearningLeader.com for full show notes This is brought to you by Insight Global http://www.insightglobal.com/learningleader. If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. www. InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader https://www. InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader Tom Ryan is the head wrestling coach at Ohio State University. In college, he wrestled for perhaps the greatest wrestling coach of all time, Dan Gable, at Iowa, where he was a two-time Big Ten champion and a two-time NCAA All-American. As a coach at Ohio State, he's won numerous national coach of the year honors, has coached more than 75 All-Americans, and led the Buckeyes to a national championship in 2015. We filmed this in his office in Columbus, OH, after spending the morning watching some of his championship wrestlers practice. It was one of the coolest days I've had in a long time. Notes: "My first workout after driving from Syracuse to Iowa was a soul-cleanser. I collapsed in my car outside the arena. I couldn't stop crying." "It was a line in the sand moment for me. Where are you going or staying? Because I could have turned around, I could have went right back. But it was this sense of knowing that you were in the right place." It's amazing that Tom decided to leave Syracuse with no guarantee of even making the team at Iowa, let alone a scholarship. He shows up on day 1, and Coach Gable didn't even know who he was! Crazy. And then he goes on to earn his spot and become an All-American. Competitive Spirit from Early Age: "There's certainly an element of competitive spirit... even in second grade, we were on the playground... if you lose, you're fighting somebody. You just wanna win, you wanna win everything you do." Why go to Iowa? The Will to Be Great – "I wanted to be elite at something. And by trial and error, it was almost trial and error... I wasn't gonna end my career with not knowing how high I could climb." Key Learnings from Dan Gable: Emotional Control – "He wasn't a yeller. He wasn't a screamer... The reason why he didn't need to yell was his competence." Focus on Situation, Not Person – "It was never personal... He would focus on the situation and not you as a person. You never felt attacked. It was just bluntly, your single leg needs improvement." Balance of Freedom and Accountability – "Too much freedom. Not good... You can drive someone crazy with discipline and rituals and rules... It's just this happy medium." One of the most emotional moments in my 10+ years of recording this podcast, Tom shared the story of the day his 5-year-old son, Teague, had a heart attack and tragically passed away. The room went silent. And Tom went deep into the impact that it has had on him and his family. This is something I cannot imagine happening. I am grateful that Tom was willing to share and be so vulnerable. I love Tom Ryan, and I am lucky to have been in Columbus with him. The interview with Ohio State: "I wasn't their first choice... But ultimately, I was a leader that had learned. I learned under the best." He prepared extensively, attacked his weaknesses proactively, and wasn't afraid to discuss his faith. Chosen vs. Unchosen Suffering – The concept of "chosen suffering" came after experiencing unchosen suffering (losing Teague). "Wrestling has never brought me to my knees... I never got there in wrestling... but when I lost Teague in 2004, that I referred to as unchosen suffering." Chosen Suffering = Deep Love – "Chosen suffering is a fancy word for love because you will suffer the most for the things you love the most." The willingness to endure difficulty stems from profound love for what you're pursuing. Traits of Elite Performers: Ungodly Effort – "In all studies ever performed on elite behavior... one is an ungodly effort. And I think effort stems from... effort over time is a byproduct of deep love." High Capacity to Learn – Elite athletes have exceptional skill development abilities Living in Truth – "The capacity to live in truth. To really be honest with yourself and be okay with it... really strong self-assessment." Daily Discipline – "The discipline to do it daily... to work on your shortcomings and really be good enough to look in the mirror and say, I love you, but you got some problems." Being Coachable – "Most people wanna be coached until they're getting coached." Great performers actively seek feedback, while good ones want to be left alone. Three-Pronged Leadership Philosophy: Example – Walk the walk and display the behaviors you want to see Truth in Love – "Too much truth can demoralize someone... too much love, you're patronizing me. Stop it. Gimme the truth." Embracing Pain and Suffering – "We're gonna make decisions that weren't right... and we're gonna accept them and we're gonna grow from them." The 3 Success Pillars: Your Mind - Internal you. Where your thoughts originate. Your Relationships - Who you allow to influence your decisions. Your Environment - The setting that will build you or break you. The world doesn't care what we're after, nor does it care about our principles. It doesn't care about you or me, nor will it change for us. It doesn't owe us anything. The world is heading in a direction, spinning on its axis, and there's little we can do to change that. What we can change, however, is what we do. We can control our direction. We must continuously develop our core and worldview to help us navigate the temptations of the world. What happened on the morning of April 23, 2024? Coach Ryan had been on his way to OSU for an early morning workout with colleagues when his SUV, traveling at about 65 miles per hour, struck the semitrailer. Physical Trauma vs. Emotional Trauma – "When we lost Teague, I was healthy, I was physically healthy, I was mentally healthy... when I hit this tractor trailer at full speed... the physical trauma that occurred was surreal. And I wasn't ready." "I went into a terrible depression... I was sad when I lost my son, but I wasn't depressed... But in this, I was suicidal for a little bit." Coach Ryan openly shared his mental health struggles with family and got help. The #1 indicator of sustained success is emotional control. Two-word mantra — keep working. Physical Suffering as Mental Training – "Every single time I bike, there comes a moment in the bike ride where I realize I'm a sissy... there's a humbling, there's humility piece that you get from suffering." Choose the Hard Thing - "I can always come up with an excuse why I'm not gonna do squats... And then I have to pause and say, dude. Get under the bar... getting under the bar... builds confidence for everything else in life." (that was from me) Discipline as a Superpower – "Discipline is a superpower. It's available to everybody." The transferable skill of choosing difficulty when you don't want to.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ryan Hawk?

  This episode is brought to you by Insight Global. I love the leadership team and the people at Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit insightglobal.com/learningleader today to learn more. That's insightglobal.com/learningleader.

• 0:45Ryan Hawk?

  Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am your host, Ryan Hawke. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for full show notes of this conversation. Now on to tonight's featured leader, the legendary Tom Ryan is the head wrestling coach at Ohio State University and College. He wrestled for perhaps the greatest wrestling coach of all time, Dan Gable at Iowa, where he was a two-time Big Ten champion and a two-time NCAA All-American. As a coach at Ohio State, he's won numerous National Coach of the Year honors, has coached more than 75 All-Americans, and led the Buckeyes to the national championship in 2015.

• 1:29Ryan Hawk?

  We filmed this one in his office in Columbus, Ohio after spending the morning watching some of his championship wrestlers practice. This was one of the coolest days I've had in a long time. Some of the things we discuss, what it means to choose your suffering and why this is a commonality among excellent leaders. Then Tom shares the number one indicator in sustained success. And then in what was Probably the most emotional moment in my 10 plus years of recording this podcast. Tom shared the story of the day.

• 2:08Ryan Hawk?

  His five-year-old son, Teague, had a heart attack and tragically passed away. The room went silent and Tom went deep into the impact that it's had on him and his family. It's something I just cannot imagine happening. I'm grateful that Tom was willing to share this and be so vulnerable. I love this dude and feel so lucky to have been there in Columbus with him to talk. Ladies and gentlemen, this is one that was, it's gonna make you feel something like you probably haven't in a while. Please enjoy the legendary Tom Ryan.

• 2:50Ryan Hawk?

  All right, Coach, first of all, thank you for hosting us. This place is amazing. It's really cool and it's good to see and even get to watch your guys wrestle a little bit. I didn't, that was a bonus for me and some of these are like the best wrestlers in the world. It's pretty cool. So thank you for having us.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, thanks for coming down and yeah, setting it all up and yeah, I'm grateful.

• 3:06Ryan Hawk?

  So I want to go back to a moment in your career. I love thinking about like chosen suffering, as you would say. And this is, you're driving from Syracuse to Iowa, okay? You're a wrestler. Iowa is like known as the place and you said it was a soul cleanser. You said, I collapsed in my car outside the arena. This is after your very first workout. I think you wanted to be a walk-on, right? University of Iowa, playing for, wrestling for a legendary coach. And then you said, I couldn't stop crying. What happened like in that moment? What, take, take me back to that time, why you chose to go to Iowa? And then what happened after that first day practicing, trying to get through a workout?

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 3:50Speaker 01

  In seventh grade, kind of the dream started, right? Yeah. I got cut from the basketball team, which I thought I was sweet and I wasn't. And my, my, my coach, Mr. O'Leary, basically said, you're aggressive, you foul a lot, you should probably try wrestling. Yeah. And I was like, I'm not gonna wrestle. The uniform threw me off a bit. So my brother started wrestling in ninth grade. He was two years older than me. He said, I saw I come home for dinner and I let everybody know I got cut from the basketball team. And, uh, you know, mom, we were seven of us. So mom and dad were kind of, kind of a bit busy with, you know, just raising up seven, seven kids. Yeah.

• 4:31Speaker 01

  So, um, my brother's like, you're gonna wrestle? I'm like, I'll give it a try. So I remember the first day in the room and I fell in love with it. So from that point forward, it was, what can I do to be the best wrestler possible? So it was, I changed some sports, you know, instead of playing football, I tried lacrosse. I, I ran cross country. I would run track. So everything was kind of focused on this, you know, what's gonna make me the best wrestler? So fast forward, I go to college. I choose Syracuse University. I'm living with my brother. He and I are teammates. We're wrestling a weight class apart. He's now one of the top attorneys in the world. He's, uh, the, the chairman of a firm called DLA Piper, which is an intellectual property law firm.

• 5:17Speaker 01

  I always say, when, when, when he was reading, I was running. He ran also, but so I tell him, read, read, read and write, right? So, so I get to Syracuse and, and I'm there with my brother and things are going well. I'm, I'm, I'm happy. I'm happy. We're roommates. I am improving, but after my sophomore year, uh, there was something, right? That was, that was more important to me than just like being happy. Yeah. I had lots of good friends on the team and things are going well, but I wanted more. And at the time, there was no internet, there were no cell phones. And the University of Iowa, led by legendary coach Dan Gable, was winning year after year. They were producing national champs, world champs, Olympic champs.

• 6:01Speaker 01

  So it was for me, kind of a... Just a logical for me, a very logical next step. Now, the blessing in my life was I had a family that was always uplifting. There was never, you can't do it. Don't think that big. Think small minded. It was never any of that. I never got any of that in my house. There was a lot of love. There's a lot of trust. There was a lot of chase your dreams. So I talked to my brother. I'm like, I'm gonna leave after my sophomore. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, go walk on. I was on a full ride at Syracuse. We didn't have a lot of money and money meant a lot at that time because we couldn't afford school. But I met with my brother, called my dad, called my mom and just said, look, I'm gonna leave. And they were like, let's go. Let's do it. There was no.

• 6:43Ryan Hawk?

  Full ride to walk on.

• 6:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, to walk on. There was no, and you know, there was no like, well, you're crazy. You know, what are you thinking? Why would you do that? It was, I love this sport. I want to be the best in the world at it. And the fact said, at that time, in this sport, you want to be under a gable. So I packed my car after the, my classes ended, my sophomore year and drove to the University of Iowa. So this whole cleansing part comes from, I had a belief in myself. I thought I was really fit. I thought I was strong. I thought I was technical. I believed in my readiness. So I get out there. Now I had spent summers out there.

• 7:19Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 7:19Speaker 01

  They had a really good wrestling camp, which transformed me as a person. It was called the Iowa Intensive Wrestling Camp. It was one month, four workouts every day for one month. It was, it was run by a guy named Jay Robinson, who was an Army Ranger. And the, and the, and the purpose was to, to teach you what your capacity was, your work capacity was. So I learned the work reward relationship as at a very young age, in eighth grade, I did that. In ninth grade, I did that in 10th grade. So every summer I would go. So I knew the region a little bit. I'd run the streets a lot, these workouts, a lot of runs in it. So I get out to the University of Iowa, drive out there and I drove with a guy named Roy Salger. But anyway, we get out there. I go to practice and I remember I'm sitting in the corner of the room and I know who Gable is

• 8:03Speaker 01

  because I went to camps out there and I just, everyone knew who he was. If you were in wrestling, you knew who he was.

• 8:07Ryan Hawk?

  Sure.

• 8:08Speaker 01

  So I'm sitting in the corner. And he walks over to me, he said, who are you? And I said, I'm Tom, and I want to wrestle for you next year.

• 8:18Ryan Hawk?

  So. Wait, so you hadn't talked to the coach?

• 8:20Speaker 01

  No, no, no, never.

• 8:21Ryan Hawk?

  You just went there and said?

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Showed up.

• 8:22Ryan Hawk?

  Just showed up?

• 8:23Speaker 01

  Never.

• 8:23Ryan Hawk?

  No.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  I didn't know his number.

• 8:24Ryan Hawk?

  So like, there's a chance, though, you could have left the scholarship and not even got on the team.

• 8:28Speaker 01

  There's a chance that he's gonna say, you can't wrestle for me. I'm not gonna get a fair chance. You know, but it's like, it's like what you're experiencing with what you're doing with your pod. You just love it. You're good at it.

• 8:36Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 8:36Speaker 01

  And, and I loved it and I didn't, I didn't want to, listen, at a young age, I knew I was gonna, at some point, I was gonna die. And I didn't want to be on my death, on my deathbed, thinking, why are you such a coward? Why was it all the things that you could have done, you were, you were fearful to take the chance? And I think my home really taught me to take chances, you know, to take risks, to be, to not be afraid of failing.

• 9:03Speaker 01

  So I get out there, I'm in the corner, he walks over to me, he says, who are you? And I said, I'm Tom. And he said this, he said, you're not gonna get any better sitting there. That was the first thing he said to me. Go wrestle with these two brothers. They were the Steiner brothers.

• 9:17Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Who, I didn't know them, know of them. Again, there was no internet. Now everybody knows everybody, right? Every, I can watch anything I want, any team I want. So, so I'm thinking to myself, I'm gonna whip these two. They were smaller than me. I was, I looked, at least I felt like looking at them, eyeing them up, I'm bigger than these two. Watch this. And the intensity of the workout was overwhelming for me. What I thought I knew, I realized I didn't know. So we're drilling, we're just, we're just kind of sparring, getting ready. What's, what I thought was practice. So about an hour into the drill, I'm exhausted. I'm, I'm spent, physically spent. And I remember Gable yelling, time.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  The room was filled with people. I was just in a group of three, the two Steiners and me. And he yells, time. And I thought, that was really, like, that was, that was really hard. And then he said these words, and this is true. It's not for the drama effect. The words were, are you warm?

• 10:19Ryan Hawk?

  Good warm up, coach.

• 10:20Speaker 01

  And I'm thinking to myself, this is gonna be terrible. Like, there's nothing I can do. You know, and there's nothing I can do because they're fresh and I'm not. I'm gonna get killed here. So for the first five minutes of live.

• 10:32Speaker 01

  It went okay. And then the next hour was what I would refer to as, you know, you know, a brutal beating that if my mom was in the stands, she would have said, we're going home. No one's doing that to my little boy, you know, even though I'm a college sophomore. And it's when I knew, it's when I knew I was in the right place. It's when I knew, I knew I made the right decision. So I was honestly too tired to even pick my head up because in wrestling, you're getting pulled on a lot. So your, your, your, your, your neck muscles, your traps, your back, your, your, your, your lower back, your hamstrings just go. And when they go, there's not a lot you can do about it. So I literally remember grabbing my stuff like this and I couldn't

• 11:13Speaker 01

  even look up. And I walked up the staircase in Carver Hawk Arena. I got into my red Ford Escort GT and I said, and it was a summer day. It was June. It was a summer day. It was really hot and I'm sitting in the car and I just remember just crying. Probably 15 minutes, I sat there and just balled in the, in the parking lot. I was beaten terribly. I was kind of embarrassed. And it was like, it was a line in the sand moment for me where are you going or staying? Yeah. Cause I could have turned around. I could have went right back. But it was, it was this sense of knowing that you were in the right place. I'm in the right place. This is exactly what I needed and

• 11:53Speaker 01

  I'm grateful. So I go back to Roy says, I stayed in my car a little bit for a few nights. I started to make some friends. A buddy let me stay, not a buddy, but a friend, one of the guys even let me stay in his place. And I remember going back there and then you, you, when you have truth, you either ignore it, which just happens a lot, right? Or you live in it. And I lived in it and my thinking was, okay, they felt stronger than me. They felt, they were certainly more fit than me and they were tougher than me. How can I, how can I, and they were more skillful than me, like in every category I was beat. So, you know, you just attack one at a time. So you feel sorry for yourself for a little bit. You take a nap and I went back to the wrestling room and got on

• 12:36Speaker 01

  the treadmill and ran. And the next morning I came back in and lifted and the next day they were there, the two brothers. And I'm like, what do you think happened? I wrestle them again. The same thing happened. You got killed again? Yeah. Like one run and one lift doesn't help it anymore.

• 12:52Speaker 01

  And I stayed and I just, you know, the way Gable said it was, I just kept coming back, you know, and you know, the power and just keep coming back, keep coming back. And before long, I just had dinner with those two, uh, three nights ago.

• 13:04Ryan Hawk?

  Oh, really?

• 13:05Speaker 01

  In Vegas. Yeah, the Steiner brothers. They're amazing, amazing human beings.

• 13:07Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 13:08Speaker 01

  Terry is now the head coach of the women's Olympic team and Troy is coaching in Wisconsin. But ultimately, that level of a beating ended and then you start to make progress.

• 13:18Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  And you hold on to the smallest nugget when you're fighting for your life. You hold on, which is what I was doing. Uh, you hold on to this smallest nugget and the smallest nugget was I touched his leg. Right. He started to beat me up at the 15 minute mark, not the 10 minute mark. I got one takedown. Uh, I gave up only 10 takedowns and not 50 takedowns. And your brain just, when you're trying, finding ways to survive and progress, you just hold on to any truth nugget you can. That is an improvement. It wasn't, I had to beat them. It was, I'm closing the gap. And ultimately I closed the gap and made the team.

• 13:56Ryan Hawk?

  What, what was it in you? Was it from your parents, your, your siblings? That said, cause a lot of people, you, you know this, they face that first day and they're like, all right.

• 14:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:09Ryan Hawk?

  Like, I'm still good at Syracuse. I'm still really good. I can go have an amazing career on scholarship. I don't need this. I don't need to, I don't need to put myself through all this. What is it like in you or put in you through your family? Is it genetic? Is it nature versus nurture? I'm curious where it comes from to say, no, no, no, no. That's actually the right place where I'm getting beat up every day. That's where I want to be.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  You know, I see it in the elite guys I've ever coached. There's certainly, there's certainly an element of competitive spirit, you know, Coach Meyer, Urban Meyer, right? We call it, that was his X factor. The most important thing was being in like an, an, an, an A, an A type personality competitor that you, you know, even in second grade, you're on the playground.

• 14:48Ryan Hawk?

  Oh, yeah.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, if you lose, you're fighting somebody.

• 14:51Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 14:51Speaker 01

  Like, which I'm not condoning fighting, but like, you just wanna, you wanna win. You wanna win everything you do. And I think so. I definitely had that spirit.

• 14:59Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  I was small. So I was also small. You know, I wasn't a hawk, you know, I was a lion. You know, my pop pop was a Golden Gloves champ, five foot one, Italian. You know, my grandpa, my dad was pretty big. My dad was big, but I didn't get that size. And I had tried so many sports and the reality was I wanted to be great at something. I wanted to be elite at something and by trial and error, it was almost trial and error. And it wasn't like, you know, someone boxing me in a corner and saying soccer player, lacrosse player, which, which is easy to do these days. Uh, I wanted to be elite. I wanted to be great and I knew, I simply knew by trying all these other sports, it wasn't going to happen for me in those sports.

• 15:40Speaker 01

  I was, you know, in seventh grade, I was 75 pounds, you know, playing football against someone that weighed 160. I actually played against Scotty Graham, who was a really good running back here for Ohio State. He's from the same neighborhood, basically I'm from, a couple of towns over. I played football against him. He ran over me at least 50 times. I was a cornerback. And I remember the coach grabbing my helmet and saying, dummy, tackle him. And as a young kid weighing 75 pounds, I'm thinking, he's gotta weigh 180. I weigh 75. Why don't you tackle him? You know, like that was my, so it just became, you know, and, and, and it was just a will to be great at something. And this was where my bread was going to be buttered. Wrestling was going to be the sport and I wasn't gonna,

• 16:24Speaker 01

  I wasn't gonna, as I said, I wasn't gonna end my career, you know, with, with not knowing how high I could climb. And the only way to learn how high can climbs around people that

• 16:33Ryan Hawk?

  Are the best.

• 16:34Speaker 01

  Are soaring.

• 16:35Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 16:35Speaker 01

  And I just inserted myself into a world of people that were really, really elite at what they did. And just, and then it should be a good follower.

• 16:43Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 16:44Speaker 01

  Right? Forget leading, just follow, follow, follow the one that's doing things the right way. And they're really shining and that place was loaded with those people.

• 16:51Ryan Hawk?

  Well, it's funny, that's, that's actually one of the traits of some of the, I've done this for a decade. We were talking about before, 630 plus, most of them were pretty good followers at some point. And at regular points, they're learning leaders. That's, that's what the name of the show is like. They're, they're constantly learning and one of the guys that you learn from, I would imagine. And even non wrestlers have heard of Dan Gable, right? That's who you chose to go on the football, baseball, basketball in high school. So I didn't, I saw the Wrestlers, I admired them from afar. I didn't go in the room that much, though. Those guys are crazy, right? You guys have to be a little bit crazy. Anyway, Dan Gable, you go to wrestle for him. What, and now you're, you know, kind of like the version of him in college wrestling as a coach.

• 17:33Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:33Ryan Hawk?

  What, I mean, there's probably books worth of stuff, but what are some of the things you picked up from playing for one of the, maybe the greatest wrestling coach of all time?

• 17:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And I know I'll backtrack for one second.

• 17:43Ryan Hawk?

  Okay.

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Like I've played, I think football's crazy. I love football. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a diehard college football fan.

• 17:50Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 17:51Speaker 01

  And, um, you know, even when I, when I, when I tried football, it was like wrestling, he's your size. You know where he is, like you're as a quarterback.

• 18:00Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 18:00Speaker 01

  You don't know.

• 18:01Ryan Hawk?

  You get surprised sometimes.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  I say wrestling is contact.

• 18:04Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 18:04Speaker 01

  Football's impact. I like contact. Like it doesn't make sense to me. Turn into, turn into another human being full speed makes no sense to me at all.

• 18:12Ryan Hawk?

  Okay.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  But I love it. I love it.

• 18:14Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  So, so the lessons from him, I mean, just, just so many. I think, I think.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Oh, the first thing was, I would say was his emotional control. And he wasn't a yeller. He wasn't a screamer. You know, I think people think that, you know, that's a trait you have to have in order to get someone to listen to you.

• 18:34Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  So I think the reason why he didn't need to yell was his competence. He was so competent, like immediately walking in the room, you know, for me, there's, there's, there's, I didn't know Jesus that well at the time. I know him better now.

• 18:46Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 18:46Speaker 01

  But I would have said there's Jesus and Gable. You know, so, so his, he was just so competent. He, you know, he was Olympic champion, world champion.

• 18:55Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  He had coached every team he ever coached, won the big tens, 26 straight. Yeah. He won maybe 19 national titles. I lost track at some point. But his word was the law for me. Whatever he said, I listened to.

• 19:10Speaker 01

  He knew the habits of the elite.

• 19:12Ryan Hawk?

  Yep.

• 19:12Speaker 01

  He'd coached so many, so he knew exactly how an elite person acts and trains.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  Like I said, his emotional control was really good. He was, he was honest.

• 19:23Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 19:23Speaker 01

  You know, it was never personal, you know, like, like he would focus on the, on the situation and not, and not you was a, he just never attacked you personally. You never felt attacked. It was just bluntly, your single leg needs improvement. Let's work in these positions. So, um, you know, managing a team, I watched how he managed people. I watched his loyalty. I watched his structure of a season. You know, I would have thought it would have been a lot more, um, going there, I thought was me a lot more militaristic.

• 19:52Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  You know, like this is what you do in the morning. Exactly. You know, you know exactly what I say. And it was a lot of freedom, which was a blessing. So we had a perfect amount, you know, they say, um, you know, on, on, on, on the west coast, you have,

• 20:06Speaker 01

  freedom on the right coast, you have accountability, right? And it's just, it's this matching of the two that is just so critically important. Too much freedom, not good. I don't want to say too much accountability, but you can drive someone crazy with discipline and rituals and rules.

• 20:20Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  So you just need this happy, I mean, you're raising five daughters, so you know.

• 20:24Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  You know, and raising four children is a, is a happy medium. Being at 6:00 PM and put your cell phone on the table. When you're a junior in high school is going to make them nuts.

• 20:33Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  Come in whenever you want. I don't care what you do. Isn't healthy for them either.

• 20:37Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  So it's just, it's just this happy medium. And I think under Coach Gable, I just saw this, this really good combination of freedom and intensity and, and discipline. So those are just some of the things that, you know, and of course he was good to me. I was a walk on. You know, the, the guy in my weight at the time, well, he was in my weight class at the Nationals that year. When I was at Syracuse, he was fifth. I didn't place. I knew he was there. He was in my weight. And he gave me a fair chance, which I really appreciated. You know, he had someone that was doing well.

• 21:12Speaker 01

  And so just, you know, I think his, his treatment of me as a person and, you know, and seeing my love for the sport, he allowed me to be in his room.

• 21:22Ryan Hawk?

  What made you, once you got done?

• 21:24Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:25Ryan Hawk?

  As a wrestler, what made you want to coach?

• 21:27Speaker 01

  It's kind of funny, you know, I, you know, it, it wasn't like I was, I'm not from a like as, you know, this, this, this coaching tree.

• 21:33Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 21:34Speaker 01

  You know, my, my dad and his dad and his dad's dad.

• 21:38Speaker 01

  I was good at wrestling. I actually honestly never thought about coaching until the Big Tens, my senior year. So at the Big Ten Championships, a coach from Indiana, Dwayne Goldman, who was another former Iowa wrestler, he was coaching in Indiana. He approached me at the Big Tens and he said, have you thought about coaching? We need someone your weight. I was a 158 pounder. But we're interested in you. Would you come in for an interview? And I said, let me get through the Big Tens, through the NCLAs, and I'll think about it. And so it was the first time I thought about it. But it was natural. It was natural. It was a space. I've spent so much time in my life. I had so many hours logged in the sport that it became, yeah, let me give this a try. So I, that's how I got into coaching. It

• 22:18Speaker 01

  was, you know, it was, opportunity was there and a door opened and I was ready to.

• 22:24Ryan Hawk?

  And you just kind of have kept going since?

• 22:25Speaker 01

  Kept going, yeah. So that was 1992.

• 22:28Ryan Hawk?

  Wow.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  So I was an assistant coach for two years. Met my wife at IU when I was coaching there. So that was great. She was back from school and living in the community of this, where she grew up. And then I coached at Hofstra for 11 years as a head coach. I think I was 25 when I became a head coach at Hofstra. Wish I wasn't ready for.

• 22:46Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 22:48Speaker 01

  Trial by fire. So I was there for 11 and then by God's grace, the Ohio State University job opens up and I'm coaching for 11 years and I got a shot at it. And the way the interview process went and, you know, I believe, I believe emphatically that God wanted me here.

• 23:05Ryan Hawk?

  The interview process is fascinating, not only for coaches and for wrestling, but for anybody. I think anybody can learn. Why do you think they picked you? What was it? Like what happened? Can you even like remember the process or who you talked to or what you said? I'm curious what made them, because they could probably pick anybody, right? It's Ohio State.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, at the time, at the time they picked me, I thought it was because my interview was the best.

• 23:28Ryan Hawk?

  It was not, you're saying?

• 23:30Speaker 01

  But as time went on, I became friends with the people that hired me. I wasn't their first choice. You know, so that's how I, you know, yeah, yeah. Which is fine. You know, I don't care. I mean, I wasn't Gable's choice at all. He didn't pick me. I picked him.

• 23:43Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 23:43Speaker 01

  You know, so it didn't bother me at all that. That, you know, they, they, they like this guy, Kale Sanderson, who,

• 23:51Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 23:52Speaker 01

  who has rewritten history books. They like Tom Brands, who was a, who was a teammate of mine, who's now the head coach at Iowa.

• 23:59Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  They like Terry Brands, who was actually in the interview process. He and I were roommates for three years. But ultimately, I would say, I would say why, so I, I still did get to a certain point to be in the mix.

• 24:10Ryan Hawk?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:10Speaker 01

  Right. And the why was to, to, to the, to the, to the name of your podcast, right? I was, I was a leader that had learned. I learned under the best.

• 24:20Ryan Hawk?

  Mm hmm.

• 24:20Speaker 01

  And that was Gable. So my connection with Gable automatically gave the people here a sense that he was around someone that was really good, even if he got the drippings of Gable's knowledge, that's going to be better than what most have seen. So that was a big piece of it. I was very prepared for the interview. I knew who was on the committee. You know, I put a detailed packet together and in the packet, I kind of laid out. I was, you know, I had a lot of good people in my inner circle, you know? What are concerns with Tom Ryan? Why not Tom Ryan?

• 24:52Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 24:52Speaker 01

  So you attack your weaknesses, you know, with this is what, so I attacked some weaknesses, not being from the state of Ohio. You know, there were some people in the interview process that were from the state of Ohio. So how do I combat that? You know, laid out my plan, my success plan. You know, what first 30 days would look like. And ultimately, you know, I also talked a lot about my faith, which was ironic because I was really growing in my faith at that time.

• 25:17Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  Uh, this interview was a year after, you know, we had lost our five-year-old son. So I was really growing in my faith. And you know, often they say, faith, don't bring that up in an interview. Like, that's just not part of the interview. But I can't lead and coach without, and share without that, just, it's just an important part of who I am and my belief system. So I shared some, some, some things about truth and love, which is a Jesus thing, a faith-based thing. Some things that I shared and ultimately, they just trusted and believed that I could do the job.

• 25:51Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. You mentioned, um, your son Teague. He's right here behind me on the wall.

• 25:57Ryan Hawk?

  I don't even know the, the best way to bring this up, other than the fact, you know, you, you lose him at, at five years old. Um, you know, I, I think anyone who's a, a mom or a dad is just like, oh, like it.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:10Ryan Hawk?

  We don't even, I have not experienced anything like that.

• 26:13Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:14Ryan Hawk?

  It, how, how does that change your family? How does it change you and your wife? How does it change you as a coach going through something that most of us can never even imagine?

• 26:24Speaker 01

  Well, I wasn't ready for it.

• 26:25Ryan Hawk?

  Right.

• 26:26Speaker 01

  I don't know if you're ever ready for it.

• 26:27Ryan Hawk?

  No way, yeah.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  You know, there's no way to be ready for, he was healthy.

• 26:30Ryan Hawk?

  Yep.

• 26:31Speaker 01

  He was a little beast. I mean, he could do eight pull-ups. He loved wrestling. You know, as we were talking earlier, as parents, I'm assessing his foot speed and his balance. You know, at five, I've got him, you know, this is what he's gonna do, you know? You start to, your mind starts to race. And he was the third son, my third son. Jordan was 11 at the time, Jake was eight, Teague was five, and Mackenzie was three. We were at the dinner table. It was President's Day, February 16, 2004. We had just come back from the wrestling room. There's no school on President's Day. So I took the kids with me. We were together all day, laughing, playing in the wrestling room. We get home, he's at the dinner table, we're having dinner. He's chosen by us to shower first, and he's pissed.

• 27:13Speaker 01

  So he gets up from the table and he starts running around. My wife's chasing him. We're laughing, get him, get him. It was this beautiful moment. It was this incredible moment in our home. It was an incredible day. It was an incredible dinner, and everything was just great. My team was doing well, life was great, you know? We had just put a pool in the backyard. We were, we had, we, we had air conditioning home now. We each had our own car, you know, like just simple things in life that you celebrate.

• 27:42Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 27:42Speaker 01

  You know, I was raised with no air conditioning. It was air conditioning. We had window fans. And people are like, what's a window fan? I'm like, you know what a window fan is? It's a fan in the window. That's it. It blows whatever temperature's outside, inside. That's what you get, you know? So, um, so we, we were just living a, a family life of just celebrating, you know? I know you're going through with your five girls and you're going to events and, and meets and things. It's just so much fun.

• 28:08Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 28:08Speaker 01

  So we're just in the midst of this amazing time. So to have this happen out of nowhere, it was an explosion, right, in the house, right? He died of a massive heart attack. Uh, he just, at five years old, kids don't die of heart attacks, right? He just, he had a genetic disorder, we found out, that was passed on a gene, passed from me to him, that, that is, that, that children need this gene until they're about 10, they said. And then at 10, another gene steps in, and it's just, it's, it's for successful heart function. He didn't have that gene, so when he was startled, his heart reacted in a way that it shouldn't react. So my wife kind of startled him. He was coming around the corner, she was hiding.

• 28:52Speaker 01

  She startled him, I watched it. She picked him up, and it was just a typical, like a boo.

• 28:57Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 28:57Speaker 01

  You know, you don't expect me to be there, and there you are.

• 28:59Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 29:00Speaker 01

  So she picked him up. And I know, in fact, without question, when she picked him up, I'm watching, his head's hanging. We had two Yorkies, they were jumping up at him. And I remember thinking, his head looks funny to me. Like, what, you know, but, you know, mothers are born to hold babies.

• 29:17Ryan Hawk?

  Right.

• 29:18Speaker 01

  Mothers are born to do a lot of other things too. But they're baby holding masters.

• 29:22Ryan Hawk?

  Absolutely.

• 29:23Speaker 01

  So I didn't say anything. She gets to the back of the house and she starts screaming. So I run to the back of the house, I grab Teague, I put him on the coffee table. He has no pulse, his eyes are all back in his head. And she calls 911 in for about 12 minutes. You know, I'm pumping on his chest, I'm breathing in his mouth, I'm doing CPR. And I couldn't save him. At one point, I heard, I thought the ambulance was coming, so I picked him up. I ran him out of the house. Ran him up the street to the corner to get him in the ambulance faster. It wasn't an ambulance, it was a cop on a call for another reason. I run him back to the house, keep doing it. They finally come in. The EMTs finally come in, they run some tests on him. Throw him in the ambulance. My wife and I follow the ambulance to the hospital.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  And, you know, something we had never done before in our, at the time, 11 years of marriage, 12 years of marriage, was pray together. You know, we held hands. I did two things. I called my older brother, that's now the attorney, and said, listen, something happened, we're on the way to the hospital. Teague's in the ambulance. Here's where we're going, let the family know. And my wife and I started to pray together. He's in surgery for about an hour and a half. My whole family's gathered now. We're waiting in the lobby. And I remember the surgeon coming out. Remember, I'm not looking up. I remember I'm looking down. I'm like, oh, man, why is he looking down?

• 30:58Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 31:22Speaker 01

  Sorry.

• 31:24Ryan Hawk?

  You don't have to be sorry, man.

• 31:27Speaker 01

  You know, anybody watching, I know that anyone that's been through anything traumatic, just the, um, the memory of it can take you back there instantly, right? So you're instantly brought back to that moment. So, um, you know, he just said, we're sorry, you know, we're sorry. We couldn't save him. And, uh, so, you know, grief isn't something that I ever experienced, you know? So, so, uh, and the, and the disbelief and the pain. So we get in the car. My wife and I were driving back. It was about 14 miles, 14 minutes back to our house. My children were waiting at the house. My 11, eight-year-old and three-year-old.

• 32:09Speaker 01

  So we pull in the driveway and I remember as we pulled in, my kids came running out of the driveway, running out of the front door and down to the car. And my eight-year-old son Jake asked, you know, as many people as you've interviewed and as many amazing people I've met in my life, a lot of them just say, what's the, what's the key to this long-term success? We know there's a lot of pieces to it, but one of them is common sense, right? Just using common sense. And my eight-year-old son asked a common sense question, which was, where is Teague? Now, I was 36 at the time. My wife was 35. If he would have asked me the name of every supporter, if he would have asked me the

• 32:54Speaker 01

  tendencies of every guy on my team, technical tendencies, why I bought the truck I'm in, why we moved to the house we moved to, why I left Syracuse and went to Iowa, I could have answered. But he asked me a question I didn't know. I was 36, leading a family of four. I didn't know where he was. So my, in that moment, my life's mission went to, where is he? What, what are the possibilities? And I dove into that. So there was a lot of grief. There was a lot of fighting. I'd like to say that our marriage was this, this perfect, this perfect in unison couple grieving

• 33:33Speaker 01

  together. It wasn't that. It was rough and it was ugly at times. And the three surviving, you know, a lot of times, all the interviews you've done, a lot of times, the three surviving children struggle. They struggle for extended periods of time because they're forgotten to some degree, because people aren't strong enough to get over their grief. And I think we made a decision early on that wasn't going to be us, but there was a lot of struggle in the house. We got help and we fought. We fought to stay together, right? We fought to raise a family. We fought for it and my faith journey began. And I basically took a piece of paper and, and the thinking was simply,

• 34:13Speaker 01

  where could he be? Well, there's two places. Either it's over and you live and die and that you're, you're, you're created by, by chance to some degree. It's just a random, a random something happened and we're here. Or there's a God that loves us. And I, I dove deeply into both. So all of my free time was, was, was focused on where's Teague? And, and I studied it intensely and I got an answer. And I decided, you know, I think a lot of times we get answers and we don't decide, you know, you have to make the decision and the decision was God is real and I'm going to follow him. And that's where Teague is. And I say this to a lot of people have said

• 34:57Speaker 01

  to me, well, it was probably because, you know, not whether, and listen, whether you're like, I was agnostic. I wasn't, I wasn't even agnostic. I think I believed. I just wouldn't bet my life on it. I was raised Catholic. I went to church every week. I knew there was something, but I never put enough focus into it to say, I would, I would die for this. I believe this so strongly I would die for it. And now, you know, I'm in that place where I actually absolutely would. I believe that's, it's truth. So I chased truth. I didn't chase God. I chased truth and I found. And I'm happy to say now that the place I'm in right now, so we're 21 years removed from that day, that February 16th day. It was 21 years that February 16th, 2025, we lost Teague in 04.

• 35:42Speaker 01

  I know where my life is now. And I can only say where it is based on what I chose. Now, if I would have chose no God, I would like to say I'd be in the same place. But I don't know that. I only know what I know. And the truth is, I'm where I'm at. My kids are where they're at. My wife is in the place she's at. Our marriage is in the place because I chose to follow God. I believe that emphatically.

• 36:10Ryan Hawk?

  The word choosing and chosen has come up. By the way, thank you for sharing that. I really, really appreciate that. Chosen suffering is like your ethos is you. It's the title of your book. It's a big thing. Can you go deeper on that ethos of yours of what chosen suffering is all about?

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. So it's interesting. I'm sure when you just started playing football and quarterback and your family into sports, for me, when I got into wrestling, it wasn't chosen suffering.

• 36:38Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 01

  Like I was a seventh grader.

• 36:40Ryan Hawk?

  But I don't know, wrestling kind of is a chosen suffering thing.

• 36:44Speaker 01

  It is for sure. But you know, cross country, you know, we've talked about you and I talked about Prefontaine and all of his great quotes and, and just being able to, being able to, to, to do things that are unbelievably hard, right?

• 37:01Ryan Hawk?

  Yep.

• 37:01Speaker 01

  Now, chosen suffering, so I came up with the term chosen suffering.

• 37:07Speaker 01

  Not when I was in seventh grade, you know, when I got involved in wrestling, not when I was at this intensive camp, not when you're in the middle of a 10 mile run. But I came up with the thought of chosen suffering after the loss of Teague, which was unchosen suffering. So I didn't label, I didn't label all this work to be the best at what you do as chosen suffering until I experienced unchosen suffering, which are all the things in life that bring you to your knees. Wrestling has never brought me to my knees. Now, look, I was crying for 15 minutes. I've cried a lot. I've gotten, I've gotten beaten to my knees. But it never took me to a place of begging for mercy.

• 37:49Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 37:50Speaker 01

  I never, I never got there in wrestling. Yeah, I wanted to be really good at it. I wanted to be elite at it. But at no time did it make me think at a much, much deeper level about life. And when I lost Teague in 2004, that I refer to as unchosen suffering, right? All these things, again, that happened that you didn't ask for. I didn't, I didn't want that. And there's a lot of things that happen, that happen every day in, in our lives and everyone, our friends' lives, right? There's a little boy right now named Oscar. You might've seen the story in the news. His grandfather and I are friends. Oscar was attacked by pit bulls on his front lawn. He's, he's nine years old. He got mauled by pit bulls. That is not something, right?

• 38:35Speaker 01

  That you would ever ask. That's unchosen suffering, but the world's full of it. So when, when I was dropped to my knees by, by the loss of our, of Teague, that was unchosen. And it made me think about all the things that I chose that were really hard, but didn't really, they transformed me to some degree, but not my, not my faith. And then my book was kind of a faith, it's kind of a faith journey. I know you, or it's kind of, you know, it's a lot about leadership and learning, but it's also a lot about, you know, coming to, coming to your belief system as you walk along earth, right? Which is to me, the number one decision we all make, more than anything. You know, I would've said it's who you're gonna marry, who you're gonna spend the rest of your life with,

• 39:19Speaker 01

  what's your profession you're gonna be, what sport you're gonna choose. Oh, there's so many big decisions we make and little ones. But the number one decision we make is to, is to decide your belief system. Is it, is there a God or not a God? So, so it was, um, yeah, a lot of, a lot of, a lot of struggle. So unchosen suffering gave me the, you know, is unchosen and chosen. And there's no question that people that climb really high, throw themselves into the fire. You know, I think you just, you just do it. You have a belief.

• 39:49Ryan Hawk?

  It feels like too, I'd be curious because like, you know, again, I've had the bonus now to get to sit here and watch some of the best wrestlers, wrestlers in the world work out, you know? With you, you know, kind of commentating, it's the coolest thing ever. I'm curious, like, What, what do those guys that we just watched, like, what do they have, they all seem to have in common that the ones who aren't quite as great, almost the difference between good and great, they aren't quite as great, like, what do they have that the others don't?

• 40:20Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I would say, I think in all studies, in all studies ever performed on, on elite behavior, whether it's Zueck, was it Zueck and, and, and Galston, he studied it in 1869, I believe, and Zueck in, in 19, uh, no, in 2018. So in, in, in 1869, it was studied, Galton, in, in, in 2017, I think she wrote her book, and there was commonalities in it. And one is an ungodly effort, effort. So in both studies, effort was incredibly important. And I think effort stems from, I think, I think effort over time is a, is a, is a byproduct of deep love.

• 41:05Ryan Hawk?

  Yes.

• 41:05Speaker 01

  And chosen suffering is about deep love, right? We call it chosen suffering. It's a fancy word for love, because you will suffer the most for the things you love the most, right? If one of your girls has an issue, you are standing in front of her in an instant to help her and protect her. So you would die for any one of them, right? That's chosen suffering. So, um, so, yeah. Um, I lost my train of thought a little bit.

• 41:31Ryan Hawk?

  Well, no, we were talking about like some of the-

• 41:32Speaker 01

  Or what they have, their traits.

• 41:33Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, the commonalities between the, the elite of the elite versus the ones who are just good.

• 41:39Speaker 01

  So, deep love, effort, effort, you know, efforts given to the things you love the most, a skill, a high, a high capacity to learn and skill. I think something, you know, another thing is just, um, effort and skill are the two.

• 41:51Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 41:52Speaker 01

  Are the, are the, are the two biggest, effort and skill. But then you have this capacity to, to, to live in truth.

• 41:57Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 41:58Speaker 01

  To really be honest with yourself and be okay with it. Um, you know, it's really strong self-assessment.

• 42:05Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  On, on, and then, and then the capacity, the, the, the discipline to do it daily.

• 42:10Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 42:10Speaker 01

  All the time to work on your shortcomings and really be good enough to look in the mirror and say, I love you, but you got some problems.

• 42:16Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, yeah. You know, the best of the best also, I found, whether even in business, I ran in sales teams in corporate America. The good ones, like let's say the good reps I had, they were like, hey, can you just let me do my thing? Leave me alone. The great ones?

• 42:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:32Ryan Hawk?

  Give it to me. I need, I need, give me the, I need some feed. I want feedback every day, all the time, every call. And it feels like, I mean, it's happening right now as we speak, like the great ones want.

• 42:43Speaker 01

  Yeah. The coachability is just a big deal.

• 42:45Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 42:45Speaker 01

  Being coachable and wanting, you know, it's funny, most people want to be coached until they're getting coached.

• 42:51Ryan Hawk?

  They're like, ah, coach, chill out.

• 42:53Speaker 01

  Easy, easy. But I think there's also an art. I think there's an art in when to coach and you know, it's like, you know, don't beat them too much when they're down, you know? We were saying in your hard on self, not down on self, which is a built to lead, you know, built to lead. I got a really good friend, Chet Scott. That'd be a great interview. He's a superstar leader.

• 43:09Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  He's helped me a lot, but we talked about be hard on self, not down on self. Down doesn't get you, you know, be hard on yourself. But guys that are hard on themselves is really good.

• 43:17Ryan Hawk?

  But then they can look. What's the difference between being hard on yourself and being down on yourself?

• 43:21Speaker 01

  You know, it's a play on words a bit, but it's like, you know, it's like you can be so hard on yourself that you, you, you, you, you, debilitate yourself.

• 43:28Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 43:28Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, like that's, that's down.

• 43:31Ryan Hawk?

  That's down. Okay.

• 43:32Speaker 01

  You know, like, like be hard on yourself. Yeah. Yeah. I want more.

• 43:35Ryan Hawk?

  Have high standards and strive to live up to that.

• 43:37Speaker 01

  Yes, but, but don't get down.

• 43:39Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 43:39Speaker 01

  You know, because down, you know, just be hard. Yeah. So, so, um, a lot of the guys, you know, just really hard on themselves.

• 43:45Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 43:46Speaker 01

  You know, and then we do a good job and make sure they're not getting down on themselves. Because down on yourself leads you to a path that you don't want to be.

• 43:52Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  You don't want to be in that path, you know?

• 43:55Ryan Hawk?

  The other thing where you were pointing out your coaches.

• 43:57Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:58Ryan Hawk?

  And you look at your career as a wrestler, like your whole staff, starting with you are all killers, like great, great, great wrestlers. And in my sport, there are some of the best coaches that didn't even like play, like they didn't even make it to college or certainly not the pros. I played for coaches who didn't, and at times it's like it, they can still be good coaches.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:20Ryan Hawk?

  You know, it doesn't feel like that's the case. And maybe it's just your program and others, but like Dan Gable is a great wrestler, like you're a great wrestler. Every guy on your staff's an absolute killer wrestler. What is it about wrestling where it's almost like the guys aren't going to listen to them if they weren't all Americans? Like what's, is that what it is? Like what?

• 44:37Speaker 01

  It's interesting you bring this up and it's a really just, it's, it's a, it's a. It's a just got good awareness of of that fact in wrestling and I think it's I think it's to to a detriment.

• 44:48Ryan Hawk?

  Huh.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  I think it's to a detriment. So you know, I've I've talked to football coaches. You just don't go from playing football to be a head football coach.

• 44:55Ryan Hawk?

  No.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  I mean, you heard me. I was two years in assistant.

• 44:58Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  And I'm a head coach. And I think wrestling is in this in this realm of of of you had to be a master at it.

• 45:06Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 45:07Speaker 01

  If you're gonna help me, you know, and I had to watch you and and then there's some degree of you have to be able to beat me.

• 45:15Ryan Hawk?

  Huh.

• 45:15Speaker 01

  You know, like you have to whip me. If you can't whip me, then you can't help me.

• 45:20Ryan Hawk?

  When you were 25, could you beat everybody on the team?

• 45:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:22Ryan Hawk?

  Really?

• 45:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 45:23Ryan Hawk?

  Like you still would beat everybody?

• 45:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, I could. I could. I would. Yeah, I I.

• 45:26Ryan Hawk?

  When did that go away?

• 45:29Speaker 01

  Um, probably in my third, you know, early 30s. So every five or six years after being here, it started to get a little bit tougher.

• 45:34Ryan Hawk?

  So when you got to Ohio State, you're still killing everybody?

• 45:36Speaker 01

  I couldn't beat Kyle Snyder. You know, there were some guys I couldn't beat.

• 45:40Ryan Hawk?

  Did you actually wrestle them?

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, but what I could do, and I wrestled live with him. He was big. But what I could do is I could challenge them.

• 45:46Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 45:47Speaker 01

  I could challenge them. And maybe we wouldn't go live, but we would spar and I would get them in positions and you you you actually, it's kind of like playing with your kid on the floor. Your relationship blossoms, right? When you're just on the floor with your child, right? They know they'll never forget, right? They talk about it. They know now the brain from zero to one, how critically important that that phase is in a person's life.

• 46:07Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 46:08Speaker 01

  So um, so wrestling's kind of that way. Um, um, now, I can't whip anybody anymore. You know, I'm coming through. I was about a horrific car accident. I can't really move that well. And it and it hurts the connection personally, you know.

• 46:25Ryan Hawk?

  You still look like you could beat everybody.

• 46:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, it looked like it, but I but I can't. I can't. My, my, my grandmother used to tell my grandfather, he can't lick a stamp anymore. That's kind of where I'm at. I can't lick a stamp, you know, so, so it is a unique difference because a lot of the best football coaches, you know, listen, no football coach is trying to tackle their running back or trying to defend their quarterback from throwing a ball to the wide receiver. But in wrestling, there's kind of this rite of passage. And the thing is, in wrestling needs, you know, they need to grow from this standpoint that just because you can wrestle, doesn't mean you're going to be a great coach.

• 46:58Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 46:58Speaker 01

  And it sets the sport back a little bit when, when you think you can, and it's set up that way.

• 47:05Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 47:05Speaker 01

  So you come out of college as an elite wrestler and you think you can coach. Well, you don't know anything about coaching. You know about wrestling. In fact, you know about being selfish.

• 47:12Ryan Hawk?

  Hmm.

• 47:13Speaker 01

  More than anything, you know about being somewhat selfish because it takes that, right? To be an elite competitor, you have to have a bit of that in you. So, um, so yeah, so that's just the reality.

• 47:25Ryan Hawk?

  How do you, because like, for example, in the world of professional selling, it's like back around after I got done playing football.

• 47:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:32Ryan Hawk?

  A lot of times, if you're like in the top of the stack rankings, they have stack rankings that come out every day of who sells the most, right? Those people get the, get to interview to become a manager, right? But oftentimes that person may get the job and they're actually not a very good manager. They're not like good at teaching others to do it. I'm curious how in wrestling, since it seems like the majority of the coaches, or at least the great coaches, were great wrestlers and in football and other sports, that's not the case. So I really am trying to come up with a portable lesson here for the business world of how you get people who are the best at it to actually then become not only good, still good as a wrestler, but good at teaching others and lifting others up and helping them become better at the craft, the better at the thing that they're doing, when before maybe they were just selfish and

• 48:17Ryan Hawk?

  just good for themselves, but not good at teaching others.

• 48:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think, I think so. We're talking about leadership. I think, you know, I think leadership is three, you know, there's a, there's a lot, I think it's three pronged for me. I like the simplicity of it for me is three pronged. The first, the first is they come out as great wrestlers, but the first, I think, trait. Is example. So I think example is the first trait, I think, that all leaders are.

• 48:43Speaker 01

  And they walk the walk, you know, so, so, so I've been in this sport long enough to know that these are the areas that you've got to be really good at. And then you, you, so by example, right, you just, you just play example, but you challenge them in, in these ways. So examples first, and then I think the second thing is we call it all sharing truth and love, you know, which is, which is, which sounds easy. But, you know, too much truth and you're, you're patronizing me, you know, or you're offending me. Like it's offensive, like you're coming at me really hard here. And too much love, you're patronizing me. Stop it. Give me the, give me the truth. Hit me, hit me harder.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  You know, so I think just being able to honestly, authentically share strengths and weaknesses with your staff is really important. And here's where you've got to grow. You know, so I think being able to do that is really important. And then the last one is embracing, you know, embracing pain and suffering, you know, which is, you know, listen, we're gonna, we're gonna make decisions that weren't right. You know, and, um, and we're gonna accept them and we're gonna, you know, grow from them. And just being someone that isn't your fault, it was my fault, you know, so, so I think those are the three of the things that I, I think about constantly, constantly with, with, with my staff and how I can, and help them. And then, and then I empower them.

• 49:59Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 01

  You empower them. It's like, you know, I'm not afraid that a, that a student athlete might say on ESPN one night that Jay Jaggers was the difference in my wrestling career. I'm, I'm, I want them to say that. It's not through the time, it's not the Tom Ryan show. It's Jay Jaggers. It's, it's Bo Jordan. It's, it's Logan Steber. And it's kind of like in wrestling, it's kind of like a positional coach. And you probably had a quarterback coach.

• 50:25Ryan Hawk?

  Yep.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  You know, they're positional coaches. So they're weight coaches and they're not, I don't box them into one weight or two or three weights, but they build a rapport with a student athlete typically around their size because they work with them. So, so it's, you know, it's empowering them too, and giving them responsibility and having, you know, not being a control freak. Where I've got to do everything and, and everything's got to run through me. Like, I trust you. Uh, I trust your decision making. Make the decision.

• 50:53Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 50:53Speaker 01

  So I think those are some of the things I think that. You know, and then I think great coaches are, you know, the three, the three Cs, you know, we call them, you know, competence, they're really competent from a skill standpoint. So I want to be around someone that can teach skill and I've, I've coached them enough and watched them wrestle enough, they understand the positions.

• 51:12Ryan Hawk?

  Right.

• 51:13Speaker 01

  So they're really competent when it comes to the skills of the sport. They're, they're just great people. So they're connectors, right? The other C, the second C is being a good connector, connecting with people. It's not just transactional, you know, which I'm sure is, you know, a big management selling. And then character, you know, they all have great character. If any one of them was behaving in a way that I would get rid of them. I'd get rid of them because, you know, you know, I think deep in, deep in this, in, in my student athletes souls, they want to be around people that are making good choices.

• 51:51Ryan Hawk?

  Making them better people.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Making them better people. I think, I think at the core, we, we want that.

• 51:55Ryan Hawk?

  Well, it's part of like trust, part of a trusting relationship is, I think, first and foremost, high character and high competence. You gotta have both though. I think you gotta have both if you want a trusting relationship, you got both of those things at least that, okay, he knows what he's talking about and I have no doubt in his character and who he is as a person. And I feel like that's like how big time championship cultures are built from high character and high competent staffs. I'm curious for you as the CEO technically of the Ohio State Wrestling Program, that like, how do you create an environment where it's safe and not only safe, but you make

• 52:38Ryan Hawk?

  it known that you want feedback, that you want coaches, player or wrestlers or others to, to provide, cause like you're not perfect, you know this, right? Like you need, you need feedback too, but sometimes people aren't good at creating the environment where people feel safe. Like, oh, Tom Ryan, he's intimidating. I don't know. He was tough guy. Maybe I try to couch it and not make it real, but that's not going to make you better. You need the real feedback.

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 53:04Ryan Hawk?

  So how do you create the environment where people can do that?

• 53:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's a great question. I think, I think, I think the key to that is vulnerability.

• 53:10Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 53:11Speaker 01

  I think the leader being vulnerable that. That I've made choices that I regret.

• 53:16Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 53:16Speaker 01

  That I'm not perfect, that I've, I've, I've failed many times. You know, that I want your feedback, that I care about your opinion. You know, I think it's, I think it's, I think if you come off as a stoic perfectionist that has never failed in any way. I think one people can see through it.

• 53:35Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 53:36Speaker 01

  You know, because it's, it's, it's never happened. Except for once, you know, my opinion.

• 53:41Speaker 01

  One person's lived to be the image of God, and that was God. Certainly not me. So, um, I think, I think that's a big thing. You know, I, I, I ask for feedback, you know, we have, I hired an outside guy to help me with the leadership.

• 53:55Ryan Hawk?

  Oh, really?

• 53:55Speaker 01

  So, yeah, so I hired this guy named Chet Scott. He does a lot of the teams here now. I met him through a common friend. I went to work out with him first because like you, like my lens, my lens is, is, is, is, my lens is very focused on what I'm looking for. I know what I'm looking for and I know what I want to be around. I mean, even from seventh grade, like I have this sense of this is who I want to be near. And I met Chet and I worked out with Chet and the first thing I'll do with someone before I'll ever hire them. The first thing I'll do before I ever buy a piece of machinery is I use it.

• 54:23Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 54:24Speaker 01

  I chat, I test it. So I met with this guy, Chet Scott, who owns a company called Bill to lead. I worked out with him in the morning and the first thing I want to know is, is the dude tough?

• 54:33Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 54:34Speaker 01

  You know what I'm saying? Like, is he tough? Cause I don't want advice from someone who is telling me they're, give me all this advice, but you're a cupcake. I want a tough dude. Like, I want you to walk the walk. So I worked out with him first and I was like, whoa, he looks like nothing, but he's tough.

• 54:47Ryan Hawk?

  Okay.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  You know, uh, he's, he's, he's the golfer, so, uh, he swings the club. And he's really mentally tough. So I'm like, I'm interested. And then I went to watch him work with a leadership group. So I worked out with him first. He passed the test. And then it was all core. It was all core work. This isn't about, you know, I mean, how, you know, like the power cleans and it, it was all core work and, and his core. We called his literal and literal and physical core, right? Your literal core. When I'm in a situation at a party and people are passing around a joint, am I gonna take it or not? No, my core is strong.

• 55:22Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 55:22Speaker 01

  I don't care, I'm not doing, I'm gonna leave the party, number one.

• 55:25Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  But if I don't leave the party, there's no way anybody can get me to do that. My core is strong. No, just try, just try. No, I'm not doing it. So the literal core and the physical core. So I learned that, and so I watched them. And I watched them interact with people, and it was like, I want you to, I want you to work with me.

• 55:40Ryan Hawk?

  Huh.

• 55:40Speaker 01

  And so it worked with me and my team. And that was, been a big blessing for us as a team and me personally, to hire someone that was in the business and could really challenge me.

• 55:53Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. I think, I think that's the, another commonality of leaders who have sustained excellence that I've learned, is this like yearning for coaching and feedback and not thinking they've got it like, I do this like a good boss or favorite boss and worst boss exercise. And one of the commonalities among like the worst bosses is they've got it all figured out. They got all the answers, they need no help. It's like, that's like, they always are in the worst, versus the favorite bosses is always like growth focused, striving to get better, surround themselves with other people. I want to talk about like, one other day that was monumental for you, and it's not that long ago, April 23rd, 2024. Right, you're driving here, right, you're driving here, early morning, right, probably gonna, getting ready to work out.

• 56:38Ryan Hawk?

  What happened?

• 56:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that was, yeah, that was probably, as, and it's odd to say, that as, as grief filled as I was when I lost my son.

• 56:51Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 56:52Speaker 01

  This was a different experience.

• 56:53Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 56:54Speaker 01

  But, but equally as challenging. When we lost Teague, I was healthy. I was physically healthy, I was mentally healthy. So I was, I was able to cope with, you have three children that are grieving, your wife's grieving, I was better, I was by no means ready for it, but I was better equipped.

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Equipped in some ways. And then when I hit this tractor trailer at full speed parked on the highway at 5:45 in the morning. One, I was not ready for that. And two, the physical trauma that occurred was surreal. And I wasn't ready. I wasn't ready to deal with it. I wasn't ready emotionally. I think the reality of like, you know, you work out every day, like the truth of having, I hadn't missed a workout. I would say maybe I went two days in my life since then without sweating. So now I'm four months in and I haven't sweat.

• 57:49Ryan Hawk?

  Four months into your recovery?

• 57:50Speaker 01

  Into our recovery. I mean, I could.

• 57:52Ryan Hawk?

  What happened? What happened for the?

• 57:53Speaker 01

  So I basically, so there's a tractor trailer parked on the highway. I hit it at full speed.

• 57:58Ryan Hawk?

  Just didn't see it?

• 57:58Speaker 01

  Never saw it. Never saw it. I remember I was singing. I know what I was doing. One, I was wide awake and I know that from this Oura Ring. I track everything. So it tracks my recovery, how much sleep I had. I was wide awake. I was drinking my morning drink, which was garlic, honey, lemon, and ginger root. I mix it all together and it's this drink I drank this morning, you know, this goofy drink that's going to keep you healthy.

• 58:26Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 58:26Speaker 01

  So I was drinking the drink. I was singing Trust in God by Elevation Worship. I was watching the road. I looked to my right. I remember changing lanes and that's the last thing I remember. So I hit it full speed.

• 58:42Speaker 01

  I basically, I woke up from being cut out of the car. I was unconscious, but I heard the steel, I heard the saw cutting me out. I remember saying, where am I? What happened? I remember the EMT saying, you were in a serious car accident. And I remember saying, please don't touch me. I'm in a lot of pain. And that's the last thing I remember. And then I remember little glimpses of things. About five days later, I wake up. I had two, I had this, the left leg was 10 hours. The first surgery was 10 hours to repair the left leg. The right leg was healthy, but used to save the left leg. They took an 11 inch by six inch by half inch piece of flesh off my quad. They took it right above the quad. This guy's a genius, Dr. David Nash. That was 12 hour surgery.

• 59:27Speaker 01

  So day one was 10. Dr.

• 59:31Speaker 01

  Dr. Angela Collins is a genius. Um, thank God they were right here, like the blessing that I was, I was eight miles from the, from the hospital. So Dr. Collins gets me in there. She does the re rebuild of my left leg. Dr. Nash protects the left leg with all this flesh and skin. I tore my shoulder. It's still torn. I tore my bicep off, still torn. I'm just not ready yet to go back in for more surgeries. But the, between the trauma and the pain and, and the lack of, I was at a lack of hope, but I'd be able to wrestle again through the lack of the natural endorphins of working out. I mean, I went into a terrible depression, uh, which I'd never experienced depression. Like I was sad when I lost my son, but I wasn't depressed. I didn't want to die, you know?

• 1:00:14Speaker 01

  But in this, I, I, I was suicidal for a little bit, like, Really? Yeah. I got so low in such a bad place. I shared with my family. I'm like, listen, I, I, I'm in the unthinkable place. Like I can't believe what I'm, what my, what my brain is thinking. And then this right, this falls into being a, being a landlord of your mind and which I talk on the book, but, but you know, being a landlord of your mind, but, but, but not trust, knowing when to trust your feelings and when not to trust your feelings. You can't always trust them. They're not reliable all the time and you've got to be a decipher of, of when to and when not to, and it's not easy. In this situation, it should have, it should have been easy, but it didn't feel easy. You know, a lot of people just end, they just end it.

• 1:00:59Speaker 01

  They over trust their feelings. They're caught up in the moment and they trust their feelings. So I openly shared with my closest friends and my family, this is my thought, this is where I am. I don't like where I'm at. I got help and I can't believe that my brain was in that place six months ago. Like six months ago. I can't, so, so, so we're one year removed from the accident. Yeah. But now looking at, you know, I was at a place where at one point I'm with my grandchildren that I would gladly, like you with your daughters and, and die for, gladly.

• 1:01:35Speaker 01

  Take their place. I would have gladly taken Teague's place. Like, I was with him and I couldn't find any joy in it. So I was just so low and, you know, I got help and time, time and uncovering every rock. It wasn't like just laying in bed, hoping things are gonna get better. I started taking creatine. I started taking vitamin D. I got a therapist. I started walking. I could only walk. I would tie myself to the mailbox and back. How many I could do, you know, in a certain amount of time. And I saw improvement. And the other thing, I think, I stopped assessing, you know, day by day,

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  how I'm doing, because day by day, I felt like I was getting no better. So it can take you, it can pull you down the rabbit hole. You know, I was mad at myself for not having stronger faith. Like you said, God's real. Your goal is to build yourself into the closest image possible. That's all of our missions. How close can you get to the image of what God created you to be? Self mastery. That's the end goal. That was avoiding me. And everything I believed was just, and then you go into a deeper spiral. You cowered. You start calling yourself names you shouldn't be calling yourself when you're, you know, where's your faith? You're faithless. God didn't promise you two good legs.

• 1:02:58Speaker 01

  People have had way worse things than this in life, and they've made it through. And then ultimately, at some point, I just pulled out of it. I just pulled out of it. And I remember when I was in it, I felt like I was in this bubble. And I started to sleep at my son's house. So I went to his house at night because at least the kids, the grandkids, kept me busy. And I think the biggest thing was I just couldn't get my mind off myself. You know, and I think, I was just so consumed with me, you know, and my wellness, that it was like, listen, if you're struggling, they talk about anxiety. I mean, they say if you have really bad anxiety, which to me was never real, now it's real. And I have anxiety in my legs. I feel an explosion. I think it's gonna have a heart attack. So I have a different, you know, approach, but in studying anxiety, it's like,

• 1:03:42Speaker 01

  You're anxious going to a party because you can't get your mind off yourself. Like just walk in the party and tell someone they look good. Like stop worrying if your shoes are right or your dress looks good. Or is this the right shirt? Or did I shave? Am I buffed enough? It's like, you know, it's like focus on somebody else. And I think that helped me in the evenings with my grandkids. At least it was a few hours there where I could just focus on them.

• 1:04:07Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:07Speaker 01

  You know, and get it off of me because they just demand so much.

• 1:04:10Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Of your attention. So, you know, those are some of the ways I think.

• 1:04:14Ryan Hawk?

  So do you think it stemmed because like I, I feel you on the. My medicine in life is like punishing myself physically. Like it's only if I, I don't even necessarily know how I'll feel if I don't do it because I'd never not done it. Since I was in fifth or sixth grade, maybe every day. It's just part of what is honestly, I feel like.

• 1:04:37Speaker 01

  You need it.

• 1:04:38Ryan Hawk?

  I have to have it. I've never had like a crazy injury before I've had injuries, but nothing bad. Is it because that I know you're kind of like that too? Is it because that was just taken away and you're like laid up and in bed? You're like, I'm worthless. I can't push myself. I can't do anything. Is that where you think like the depression stemmed from?

• 1:04:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm exactly like that. Like you are where, where it's not even like I want it.

• 1:05:00Ryan Hawk?

  You have.

• 1:05:00Speaker 01

  You have, you need it.

• 1:05:02Ryan Hawk?

  Yes.

• 1:05:02Speaker 01

  And they shown on like, like science has shown that, that you like talk about natural endorphins and stuff. That your muscles actually send signals to your brain when you're using them. Like it's real.

• 1:05:12Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:12Speaker 01

  It's science, like God and science are best friends.

• 1:05:15Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:15Speaker 01

  Like this isn't like believe one or the other. Our science is real.

• 1:05:18Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:19Speaker 01

  So, so yeah, not having it. I wanted it and I couldn't have it. And I think, I think just the.

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  The natural healing that occurs by being able to do it. I couldn't do that. So it was, it was, it was pulling me further down that I had none of this, these naturally occurring endorphins that are, that are getting to my brain. And then I was just used to. So, so yeah.

• 1:05:49Ryan Hawk?

  So you needed like less focus on yourself, more on people you love.

• 1:05:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, and suffering, listen, I love that you feel that way because, because. And it's, you know, probably a lot of reason why you're so successful is that. Like I think, so when I'm on the bike, I use the bike now. That's my means of torturing myself.

• 1:06:05Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can't run right now. I can, I can't really walk fast, but I can, I can, I can bike. And I, every single time I bike, there comes a moment in the bike ride where I realize I'm a sissy.

• 1:06:22Speaker 01

  I'm just a wimp. And that I can't, I can't, like, there comes a, like, your humanity is thrown in your face.

• 1:06:30Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:31Speaker 01

  Like, there are things that you can't do by yourself.

• 1:06:34Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:06:34Speaker 01

  You know, you can't maintain, for me, you know, but you can't maintain at 185 watts.

• 1:06:41Speaker 01

  If you can do that, at some point, you can no longer do that. And I think there's just, like, a humbling, there's a humility piece that you get from suffering, that there's a point in the suffering where you've just had enough, and you can't take it anymore. And, and it's, and it's powerful in your life.

• 1:07:00Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah. I think, to me, it builds immense confidence. For example, I can always come up with an excuse why I'm not gonna do squats, for example, okay? And, and this, this happens semi-regularly. I'm there, I see the squat rack, I have the weights ready to go, there are people around, and I'm like, you know what, my knee's kinda feeling bad, my hamstring's a little tight from sprints on Sunday.

• 1:07:24Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:07:25Ryan Hawk?

  I think I'm gonna stop. And then I have to pause and say, dude, dude, get under the bar. Like, get under the bar, right? And I think regularly getting under the bar, regularly pushing past the obvious excuse that I have, then builds confidence for everything else in life. Like, all of the other hard things, it's like, no, I chose to do the hard thing. I got under the bar, didn't really want to, I had excuses, I had good reasons not to, but then did it anyway. That's what I think is kind of the medicine, the part of it that says that it's so portable to other parts of your life by choosing suffering on your own terms. It prepares you to handle the inevitable adversity you're gonna face.

• 1:08:02Speaker 01

  I think that's, yeah, well said, and it's the power, right? One, in sport, but also just doing things that, like, they say, discipline is a superpower.

• 1:08:09Ryan Hawk?

  Sure.

• 1:08:10Speaker 01

  It's available to everybody.

• 1:08:11Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:13Speaker 01

  But yeah, no, that's... It's just real.

• 1:08:16Ryan Hawk?

  It's real. I know you gotta run, pick up a recruiter. I have one more question before you go to the airport. You work with young people, right? You work with people who are obviously college athletes, college student athletes. I'm curious for the person who's just out of college, for example, right? They don't fully necessarily know what they want to do, but they want to leave a positive dent in the world. What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to them?

• 1:08:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, um, you know, lots of, there's a lot of people that, that graduate college and don't know their purpose.

• 1:08:53Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:54Speaker 01

  Their passion. That's very common. I mean, I've raised children that they weren't sure.

• 1:08:58Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:58Speaker 01

  Right. What they were.

• 1:08:58Ryan Hawk?

  Probably most people.

• 1:08:59Speaker 01

  Most people.

• 1:09:00Ryan Hawk?

  Most people, yeah.

• 1:09:00Speaker 01

  You know, there's a funny skit on Saturday Night Live, or no, it was David Letterman. Where Norm is on his show.

• 1:09:08Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:08Speaker 01

  So Norm was on Cheers. I mean, this might be dating. People, people know what Cheers is. Do you know what Cheers is?

• 1:09:12Ryan Hawk?

  Yes, I do. I do.

• 1:09:13Speaker 01

  Cheers. So Norm's, Norm's in an interview, he's being interviewed by Letterman, and he said, look, I'm one of the few people that go to college and actually am doing what I studied. He said, I used to sit at the corner of the bar and drink beer. And now I'm doing that, you know, so, so, uh, so, so it's, it's one, we, we do a lot, we do a lot with our, with our team on knowing who you are, knowing what your belief system is. I'm not talking about where there's a God or not. I'm talking about your belief, your belief system.

• 1:09:43Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:44Speaker 01

  These are things, because every one of us, every decision we make is based on a belief system.

• 1:09:49Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:49Speaker 01

  Right? You've come to terms that, that, yeah, ultimately, this is, this is, this is my belief system. You believe that getting out of the bar is good for you and important for you.

• 1:09:58Ryan Hawk?

  You have like a code, right? You want to, you want to, you want to come with your life code, values, behaviors. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:10:03Speaker 01

  So, so, so we, so we work a lot with our, with our guys on, on that life code, just, just, just being, it starts inside, right? Build a strong core. You know, my daughter was, I don't know what my love is, or my passion is. In the, in the, in the search, you're gonna find, it's, it will, it will be revealed to you.

• 1:10:21Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:21Speaker 01

  It'll be revealed to you over time, but you have to stay the course, stay the course, live inside these set of boundaries, continue to strengthen yourself, continue to grow in the things. That you do enjoy. My daughter loved film.

• 1:10:35Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:36Speaker 01

  So, listen. Let's get you, she's interned at a church and she learned about film and now she's in film. My son loved wrestling, but he also loved videography. Now, his, that world has taken him to the real estate world, but he followed his love. You know, my son, my son Jake has never had a drink in his life, right? It was, it was a core belief. I'm never gonna, I'm never gonna drink. So, so in the midst of, in the midst of trying to figure out what your purpose and passion is, you can, you can kind of ruin that to some degree. If your core is not strong and you're making decisions that when you finally figure it out, are gonna be looked back upon, like even simple things like every guy in my team follows my Instagram.

• 1:11:21Speaker 01

  I follow them. I know who they follow on Twitter, like who are you even following? Why are you following that? Why would you follow that particular individual? What about that? So, it just, you know, creates a mindset that is just powerful.

• 1:11:35Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:35Speaker 01

  So, you know, they intern, you know, they intern, we get them out in the public, we have them speaking. We, we, we bring them to like we have, we bring children's hospital. You know, one of my guys fell in love with children and wants to be a nurse. So, we try to expose them to as much as possible because you never know when you're gonna.

• 1:11:51Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:51Speaker 01

  It's like, wow, man, my, I got the chills. My, I'm ignited by this, like this is, this is what I want to do with my life.

• 1:11:57Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:57Speaker 01

  So, it's exposed into a lot, but make sure that they're strong internally, their core is really strong. Cause with a strong core, you can do about anything.

• 1:12:04Ryan Hawk?

  Man, those, these guys are so lucky to have you. They're so lucky to have you, man. Like what, what a cool way that you choose to go about this. I'm just so grateful for you. I'm grateful for your time. I would love to keep talking like as we both progress, man.

• 1:12:19Speaker 01

  And you're so good at this.

• 1:12:20Ryan Hawk?

  This is so much fun. And if you'd have us, we'd love to come back, maybe like in a year or less.

• 1:12:24Speaker 01

  Yeah, whenever.

• 1:12:25Ryan Hawk?

  And just in like, because like, if I look at my notes, like we covered 2% of them.

• 1:12:31Speaker 01

  I have a lot too, man.

• 1:12:32Ryan Hawk?

  There's so much, there's so much there too, that you have so much to offer is what I'm saying. And today was just amazing. So, thank you.

• 1:12:38Speaker 01

  Thanks a lot.

• 1:12:39Ryan Hawk?

  Thank you so much for having me.

• 1:12:39Speaker 01

  It was great to be with you.

• 1:12:40Ryan Hawk?

  It was awesome.

• 1:12:40Speaker 01

  Congrats on all your success.

• 1:12:41Ryan Hawk?

  Thank you.

• 1:12:45Ryan Hawk?

  It is the end of the Podcast Club. Thank you for being a member of the End of the Podcast Club. If you are, send me a note, [email protected]. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation, amazing conversation with the legendary Tom Ryan. A few takeaways from my notes. Quote, "My first workout after driving from Syracuse to Iowa was a soul cleanser. I collapsed in my car outside the arena. I couldn't stop crying." I think it's amazing to think about this. Tom decided to leave Syracuse where he was a champion. There was no guarantee of even making the team at Iowa, let alone a scholarship. He was a walk-on. He shows up on day one. Coach

• 1:13:28Ryan Hawk?

  Gable doesn't even know who he is and then says, "I'll go over there and wrestle and let's see what you got." It's absolutely crazy that he did this and he goes on to earn his spot and eventually become an All-American. Just nuts. I wanted to say and note that this one is a lot different for me because we went to Columbus, got to hang out for a few hours. Before we recorded, we watched some of his All-Americans practice, both with their coaches and each other. And just to get to be in the presence of so much excellence and grit and work ethic, it was just one of the

• 1:14:06Ryan Hawk?

  coolest days ever. And then in closing, the moment when he talked about Teague, it's even, I'm recording this days after the fact and it's still almost emotional just thinking about that moment. In fact, I'd encourage you to go to YouTube and watch this one just to kind of feel what it was like in the room. My friend Corey was there to film all of it. I know he did a great job. I haven't seen it yet, but I can, I know based on what we talked about afterwards, but just to hear him go to that day and share what happened and how he felt and just that

• 1:14:45Ryan Hawk?

  moment when the doctor couldn't even look him in the eyes and how Tom, still 20 years later, just to see the feeling and the emotion it brings. Oh, it was a powerful moment and I'm just so, so grateful that Tom had us there and that we did it in person. It's just another reminder that I am the luckiest dude ever to get a chance to. Do this for a living and I'm so grateful that you continue to support it and you spread the word and you tell your friends and you go to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and you keep spreading it and that's what allows me to do the thing I love the most, have

• 1:15:26Ryan Hawk?

  a deep, long-form, meaningful conversation with a guy like Tom Ryan. And because of you, this is what I get to do. So I'm so grateful. Thank you so much. I can't wait for the next one. And if you have any questions or you want to talk more about this, or perhaps you've gone through something really tough, don't hesitate to reach out, [email protected]. Thank you so much.