681: Clark Lea (Vanderbilt Football Coach) - Rebuilding a Program, Belief as a Practice, Leading Misfits, Ownership Mentality, and Why Relatedness Is Your Edge

Go to www. LearningLeader.com/becoming https://www. LearningLeader.com/becoming to learn more about "The Price of Becoming." -- My new book! Clark Lea is the head football coach at Vanderbilt… He's led one of the best turnaround stories in college football. He got hired as head coach in 2021 to inherit a program that had gone winless the year before. What he's built since is remarkable: a 40–35 upset of No. 1 Alabama, back-to-back SEC Coach of the Year awards, and Vanderbilt's first 10-win season in program history. He's won games and changed the culture. Key Learnings Better people make a better team. Development in one area is development in all areas. We're trained to see life in separate lanes (coach here, husband here, father here, student here, athlete here), but when you live that way, you're in constant conflict. Instead, see each person as a circle where all those roles define who we are, and development in one area is development in all areas. Show up on time, deliver on time, engage resources. If you show up on time, turn your work in on time, and engage the resources that are here to help you, you're not just going to survive, you're going to thrive. This is what it takes to be a great football player and a great student. "We are not victims in this process." After missing the playoffs, Clark told his team: This is the ground we stand on, this is who we are. Let's be really proud of what we accomplished, but also acknowledge we've fallen short, and that is no one else's fault. Vanderbilt football doesn't need to complain loud enough to get someone to change their mind. We need to play better football. The joy we can experience is equal and opposite to the pain we can experience. In athletics, you're suspended between the pain and the joy, and the depths of that pain can be excruciating. But the joy we get to experience together in a shared way is unbelievable. The entry fee is the acceptance of that. ? This is exactly where we're supposed to be because there are no mistakes." Driving into work the day Vanderbilt didn't make the playoffs, Clark realized: this is actually exactly where we're supposed to be because there are no mistakes. As a leader, they have to know who you are. How do you coach a team and make sure your personality shows up on the field? As a head coach, being open, honest, and exposed in front of the team is essential to leadership philosophy. Take new players through your entire story. Clark does an intake meeting with new players every year that runs an hour and a half. He starts with an image of himself as a kid and takes them through high school, college, his career journey, where he met his wife, where they got married, where each of his kids was born, the highs, lows, all of it. Then he takes them through the state of the program when he got here and every team since. Share your family with them. Clark's kids are around all the time, his wife comes out to practice, and they talk about things in an open and honest way. That's a gateway to really meaningful relationships, and that's been the bedrock of this program build. "Change is hard. Change is painful. Are you willing to go to the hard places?" This job has been a personal evolution for Clark, which has allowed for program evolution. He had to change, and he didn't know about going to the hard places until he took this job. When you get so obsessed with long-term goals, you leverage the moment in such a way that makes it impossible to breathe. Clark thought he was going to be a major league baseball player. He went to Birmingham Southern, won the NAIA World Series, but his skills were diminishing. He was experiencing the yips, a mental block, because he was holding it too tight. Even though you change places, your problems will follow you. Clark transferred to Belmont for a fresh start, but his skills diminished even further. It was humiliating and challenging to his identity. That year was really difficult. "Relatedness is our edge." Brotherhood is the most overused word; family is overused. Relatedness is this shared experience we have, a sense of belonging and community, a deep respect, a foundational respect. Once we learn how to see each other at that depth and understand one another and care for one another and fight for one another, we carry that as an edge in our performance. "Belief is a practice." Clark said four years ago that they're building the best program in the country, and everyone laughed except people internally. The phrasing is important: "We are building the best." That means it's early stages. Hope is passive; belief is an active decision. Hope is passive; belief is an active decision. When you hope for something, you kind of sit back, and you go, man, I hope that's the case. Belief is, I believe this is the case, so here's the thing I'm going to invest in that puts me on the pathway to actualizing that outcome. If the belief isn't there, your tolerance for sacrifice won't be there. You're going to see the entry fee, and you're going to hope that it happens. When we take belief into a practice, we make it happen. "I don't have to be bigger, faster, stronger in my role anymore, but I need to suffer." Anyone on an aspirational journey makes sacrifices. Clark's tolerance for suffering shows up in getting in the weight room and training, eating habits, social habits. "Make sure before you give the thumbs up that you get your skis up." Clark's dad taught him water skiing: if your skis are parallel or pointed downwards, you're going to go up and over those skis and just be dragged in the wake of the boat. As a leader, once Clark gets in the building, his time belongs to everybody else. He has to have his skis up in the morning. If you're late at night drinking, you're not going to be able to have that time in the morning to prepare yourself to be what I need to be for others. There's sacrifice, but it's also joyful. Sacrifice isn't something you have to do; it's actually what makes us special. "Head, body, head, body." This is from the movie The Fighter. This is Clark's mantra that puts you in the present: no matter what's happened, I'm not going to focus on what's come before, we're not going to forecast, we're going to be right where our feet are, and we're gonna remember the plan. Body shots accumulate. You can't knock the opponent out in one punch. Be the chief alignment officer and the chief reminding officer. Mike McDonald (Seahawks HC) said these are two of his primary roles. Clark uses the spear as a representation of alignment: the spear has to move in one direction to be effective. It doesn't matter what you say as a head coach in the team room if it's not taken into the tightest echo chambers. That environment's not powerful enough to inspire action. The culture of a school is defined in the classroom. For Clark, if what he says isn't taken to the position groups and reinforced, then driven into behavior, they're going to lose alignment and lose focus. "The culture of a school is defined in the classroom. Good teachers make for a good experience. Poor teachers make for challenging experiences." You can never tire of driving the standards and behaviors. The reminding part is: how tired can you get of driving the standards and behaviors? The skill becomes, can we focus on the things that impact winning? Let me focus on the things that are most important and let me be relentless in making sure those show up. Clark is reminding coaches, players, staff, all of it, and helping them and guiding them into driving accountability within their spaces. Then he has to let the program breathe a little bit. Performance can't be tight, it can't be restrictive. Clark needs his guys to bring their unique personalities and their creative energy that makes it so much more fun, and it shows up on the field. Let me remind you of who we are and what we do and how we do these things and how it impacts winning. But then let me let you be yourself and bring your personality and help us elevate this program, not just be a part of it. "Coach, I look forward to coming to Vanderbilt to help you win championships." When Diego Pavia got off the phone with Clark after their first conversation, he said this in the most genuine way. Clark had spent a lot of time trying to convince a lot of people of what was possible at Vanderbilt, and that felt like the first time that someone was meeting him right where he was. "The world doesn't need a watered down Diego Pavia." When Diego's at his best, he's being himself. It's also important to have boundaries, and without conflict, there's erosion. So you have to fight for those boundaries. "We really are a group of misfits." Brian Longwell, one of their linebackers, commented during a team building exercise. A five star coming to Vanderbilt is not your typical five star. That choice in and of itself is the acceptance of a challenge. The misfit ignores the external and tends to the internal." As we elevate our people, we don't ever lose our identity. As long as they're true to who they are, the people they accept in this program will quickly get in lockstep with where they're moving. Reflection Questions What area of your life are you treating as separate from the others? Development in one area is development in all areas. How would this shift change your approach? Are you practicing hope or practicing belief? Hope is passive, belief is active. What would change if you made the shift? Do you have your skis up in the morning? What sacrifices do you need to make the night before to be what you need to be for others? More Learning: #062: Jim Tessel https://learningleader.com/episode-062-jim-tressel-coaching-ohio-state-president-of-youngstown-state-servant-leadership-quiettime/ - Servant Leadership Through Coaching #325: Ron Ullery https://learningleader.com/ulleryhawk325/ - Demanding Excellence & Delayed Gratification #503 - Sherri Coale https://learningleader.com/sherricoale503/ - The Art of Asking & Winning On & Off the Court Audio Chapters: 00:00 The Price of Becoming 01:10 The Turnaround at Vanderbilt 02:48 Coaching Network and Mentors 04:48 Winning with Academic Standards 07:48 Have a No Victim Mindset 11:56 Leaders Must Share Your Story 17:27 Relatedness Is Our Edge 18:44 Belief Is a Practice 21:30 Belief As Practice 23:13 Sacrifice And Suffering 24:30 Do You Have Your Skis Up? 26:05 The Head-Body Mantra 27:35 Leaders Must Align And Remind 31:53 Quarterback Diego Pavia 34:33 Misfits And Five Stars 35:48 EOPC

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

• 0:00Ryan Hawk?

  Quickly before we get to tonight's episode, I just want to say thank you so much for your support for the announcement of launching my new book, The Price of Becoming. It comes out in July, but we're doing a lot of work to help spread the good word prior to launch. I'd love you to be part of my book launch team. There's a lot of pre-order bonuses as well as additional things that you can get if you're a part of my book launch team. You can learn more about this at learningleader.com. We've moved everything to the homepage, learningleader.com to preorder The Price of Becoming, as well as take the extra step

• 0:41Ryan Hawk?

  to be part of my book launch team. Thank you so much for the support. Preorder The Price of Becoming. Be a part of my book launch team. Go to learningleader.com to learn more. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am your host, Ryan Hawke. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to learningleader.com. Now on to tonight's featured leader. Clark Lea was hired to be the head football coach at Vanderbilt after they had had their first winless season since

• 1:21Ryan Hawk?

  1890. That is right. They won zero games the year before they hired Clark. Fast forward to 2025. They won 10 games and beat six nationally ranked opponents. It's one of the most improbable turnarounds ever. So much so that I went down to Nashville to meet with Coach Lea in person, sit down in their locker room and figure out how he did it and how he's currently doing it. During our conversation, we discussed Clark's journey of going to college to play baseball, thinking he's going to become a pro baseball player, then ended up transferring twice before walking on as a football player at Vanderbilt.

• 2:02Ryan Hawk?

  And Clark talks about the importance of sharing his story with all of his players every year. I thought that part was really Really, really good. And then why a senior leader needs to be, quote, "the chief alignment officer" and "the chief reminding officer." All of us need to be better at this. And then the way Clark used belief. It is a daily practice. He went deep on this. Made me think differently about it than I ever have before. And I think it's something all of us leaders need to think about and then implement if we want to do something big like he has done. We talked about all of that and so much more. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Clark Lea.

• 2:48Speaker 01

  I've become friends with a guy named Pat Murphy, who's the manager for the Brewers. And Matt Arnold's their GM. They've become like kind of professional development partners. I'm gonna go see them in Arizona and then I'm gonna go to LA and spend a day or two there with Chargers, Rams, kind of stuff. Yeah.

• 3:05Ryan Hawk?

  That's cool.

• 3:06Speaker 01

  Just to fill the cup, you know?

• 3:08Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 3:08Speaker 01

  Same, same stuff.

• 3:09Ryan Hawk?

  So are you, are you in Harbaugh buddies?

• 3:12Speaker 01

  So Jesse Minter.

• 3:13Ryan Hawk?

  Okay.

• 3:13Speaker 01

  It was the defensive coordinator. I hired him as DC here, year one. Jesse left here to go to Michigan to replace Mike McDonald, who had gone back to Baltimore. And so Jesse and I have become really good friends.

• 3:28Ryan Hawk?

  Wow.

• 3:29Speaker 01

  And so, and then the guy that just got hired to be the DC at the Chargers, I hired as an entry level assistant at Notre Dame, Chris O'Leary.

• 3:38Ryan Hawk?

  Oh, my God.

• 3:39Speaker 01

  I hired Jesse because Chris O'Leary told me that I should hire Jesse. And it all, it's just tangled webs.

• 3:46Ryan Hawk?

  And now the guys are everywhere and he's the head coach.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  It's really cool, man.

• 3:49Ryan Hawk?

  That is awesome.

• 3:49Speaker 01

  I'm kind of entering that phase of my career where I'm starting to see kind of the sprouting out of people.

• 3:55Ryan Hawk?

  Your tree is real, like.

• 3:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. Yeah, at least it may not be, it's a shrub, but it's like you see people that you care about having success, which is like.

• 4:04Ryan Hawk?

  I love it. Yeah. Thanks again for having us, dude. This is so cool. I actually went on a college visit here with my, one of my daughters. She's gonna go to Ohio State, but we came here and toured it. We know some of the basketball guys too, and we got to tour and see everything. It was cool.

• 4:17Speaker 01

  Where are you living?

• 4:18Ryan Hawk?

  Dayton, Ohio.

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 4:19Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 4:19Speaker 01

  That's so good, man.

• 4:20Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 4:21Speaker 01

  It's a good place here.

• 4:22Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 4:23Speaker 01

  We, the school's taken off, the city's taken off, you know, it's just kind of. Got a really cool chancellor who's super aggressive about what he thinks this can be. And the best part is athletics is within his vision, you know?

• 4:37Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 4:38Speaker 01

  And so Candace Lee, our A D, is phenomenal. Their leadership is kind of open and pathways for us. And it's cool to come to Vanderbilt now.

• 4:48Ryan Hawk?

  I was gonna say, we were talking earlier. I said, I would bet of all the places Vanderbilt would be maybe the hardest to win because of how good the school is. That's what's crazy to be able to do it so quickly at a place where you still have these super high academic standards. I know you went here, so there's a some of that as part of your heart. But that's the part to me that blows me away is how you're able to maintain the academic integrity as well as now win a ton of football games. It's nuts.

• 5:15Speaker 01

  Yeah, that is like, there are really critical partnerships there. First of all, the way the team stitches into campus is so important. We don't go out and recruit, you know, valedictorians. It's not that we don't recruit valedictorians. It's just the makeup of our rosters diverse and they have different backgrounds. The experiences with school are different and we have to be able to kind of flex the boundaries a little bit to field the best possible team. And one of our kind of core tenets is this idea that better people make a better team. And so kind of the idea is that what we're trained to think, like I think what the world trains us to see is life in separate lanes or bands.

• 5:59Speaker 01

  You know, so you think like I'm a coach here, I'm a husband here, I'm a father here, or I'm a student here, I'm an athlete here, my son here, brother here, whatever. So we think we can deploy excellence in those areas, interdependent of one another. The problem is when you live that way, you're in constant conflict because if I'm doing this, I'm not doing that.

• 6:21Ryan Hawk?

  But instead seeing each person as like a, it's like a circle, right? And all those roles define who we are. But development in one area is development in all areas. So to come back to the education part of it here, there's an area of established excellence that you become a part of and you belong to as a part of this team. We are in the business of training these guys how to engage on our camps at a really high level. And this is a big city, but a tight-knit community. So if you show up on time, if you turn your work in on time, and if you engage the resources that are here to help you, you're not just going to survive, like you're going to thrive here. The professors will know you by name. It'll be a beautiful experience.

• 7:05Ryan Hawk?

  And showing up on time, delivering on time, and engaging resources is what it takes to be a great football player too. So better people make a better team. Development in one area is development in all areas. It becomes a part of us building an effective program. You don't just flip a switch. That's the funny thing. You go to leadership development stuff and it's supposed to help you at work. And it ends up, because I do some of this, it ends up making you a much better, more present husband and dad. And this idea that, okay, now it's time to be a leader, that's an all-the-time thing. It feels like this is what you're setting your guys up for, for life, is to be leaders, to demand excellence, to have high standards, to get after it, to compete, to win, right? To bounce back from losing, to deal with the tough things. And that leads me to the, when you guys didn't make the playoffs.

• 7:50Ryan Hawk?

  I remember watching this video and I said it publicly, I need to talk to this guy. I need to talk to this. You said, "There's no one's fault except our own. We had our opportunities and we didn't do enough. We are not victims in this process." Which that was my favorite part. We're not victims because every other coach who didn't make it, I mean, crying, they're all about, "Look, this is not fair," right? And then the one guy, Clark Lea, saying, "We are not victims in this process." What was your mindset during, when all that went down? You guys didn't make the playoffs, but you're on the cusp.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Once you, I think as you've done this long enough, and I, you know, I'm 44. I'm 20 years in now. And so I feel like I'm really starting to develop some philosophical roots. You know, this is what I believe to be true about how we do things. Part of it that's central to me is that the idea that... The joy we can experience and this is equal and opposite to the pain we can experience. Meaning like what we do, and I'm talking about metaphorically or symbolically is like really dangerous. You're suspended between the pain and the joy and the depths of that pain can be excruciating. And I'm, I've experienced, and I'm talking about competitive pain. I've experienced that here. It can be personal pain too.

• 9:02Speaker 01

  On the flip side of that, the joy that we get to experience together in a shared way is like unbelievable. But the entry fee is the acceptance of that, right? I'm not guaranteed one or the other. And here's where the kind of philosophical parts come for me. I don't have control over it, but I am delivered exactly what I'm supposed to have. So I had spent a week leading up to that press conference pandering for my team. And that really is counter to who I am and what I do. I, it felt very, I felt disconnected from that and I felt, um, it just, it felt out of sync with how I communicate internally, externally.

• 9:44Speaker 01

  But I felt like it was important too, because I wanted the team to know that I was fighting for them. I do believe we had a playoff caliber team, you know, and I still believe that. But we did not do enough. And so that press conference came after a team meeting. That team meeting was bowl announcement. And so just like anything, I mean, we don't want to live two ways. The authenticity of this, you need to be able to cut yourself open and reveal yourself and the players understand exactly what to expect. And then when they hear you talk to the media or talk out in the world, it's the same message. And so driving into work that afternoon, I was thinking about what I needed to hear.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  You know, having gone through this experience of going out and politicking for our positioning, what is it that I need to hear right now? And it came back to this idea that this is actually exactly where we're supposed to be. Because there are no mistakes. So once you accept that, you say, okay, so then we're not victimized by this. This is, this is actually something that is meant for us and it's going to deliver us and it's going to drive us further. And then you think about the echo chamber that your team exists in, where everyone is telling them and teaching them.

• 11:02Speaker 01

  To be victims, you know, and again, I say that it's just the nature of the world, right? How have you been slighted? And so I just wanted to be really clear when I sit in front of the team that this is the ground we stand on. This is who we are. Let's be really proud of what we accomplished, but let's also acknowledge that we've fallen short and that is no one else's fault. And Vanderbilt football doesn't need to like complain loud enough to get someone to change their mind. We need to play better football. You know, that's been the object the whole time. So that was the message of the team. And then I just flipped around and said the same thing in the press conference. And the hope was that it set a tone

• 11:42Speaker 01

  for us internally, right? To have our rudder in the water and to be heading in the direction we want to go. We didn't cover enough ground to beat a good Iowa team in the bowl game, but I'm still really proud of that group. And, and I think there's just a lot to learn from all of it.

• 11:56Ryan Hawk?

  How much of your personal story do you talk about with your team? Former baseball player, transferring, walking on here. You're a fullback, which is like the least exciting job in the world, right? Even the left tackle gets all the money. The fullback's just kind of like, ah, don't know where to put that guy. Let's just have him go ram his head into linebackers, right?

• 12:15Speaker 01

  Appreciate that, yeah.

• 12:16Ryan Hawk?

  So, but how much of your story and feel free, like, I'd love to hear your mindset as you go to college to play baseball.

• 12:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:24Ryan Hawk?

  Leave and eventually find your way here as a walk-on, earn a scholarship as a football player. Now here you are back running the show as the head coach.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  I share all of it. How do you coach a team and make sure that your personality shows up on the field? How do you coach a team, ensure that you can have impact? They have to know who you are. Because as a position coach, it's really easy. You know, you got 12 to 15 guys and you're, you control the echo chamber, right? As a coordinator, it's a little more complicated. As a head coach, it is near impossible. So.

• 12:55Speaker 01

  I never wanted to be a CEO head coach. There are CEO elements in my job. But being open, honest, and exposed in front of the team is essential to my leadership philosophy. So they know my story. I do an intake meeting with our new players every year. And that meeting usually runs right at an hour and a half. And I go, the first image is of me as a kid, you know, and I take them through high school to college to- Wow, really? Oh, yeah. I want them to know who I am and where I've come from. And then I take them through my career journey. And it gives me a chance to talk about where I met my wife, you know, where we got married,

• 13:36Speaker 01

  where my oldest son was born, where my daughter was born, where my youngest was born, the experiences along the way, the highs, the lows, all of it. And then the kind of third part is, and then I came to Vanderbilt. And I talk about the state of the program when I got here. I've got images that kind of describe that. And we go team one, team two, team three, team four, team five, all the lessons. I show an interview after Kentucky game year two, team two, where we won our first SEC game since returning. I had inherited a losing streak that continued on in my first season. And I'm in tears after the game. But by the time we get to that image and I've talked about the program that I took over,

• 14:21Speaker 01

  there's an understanding around the emotion. Now we get why that was so powerful, a moment for you. So it's really important to me that these guys understand how personal this is. And truthfully, I think the gift of it all is, is, and this job in particular, it's been personal evolution for me that's allowed for program evolution. I mean, and I had to change. And change is hard, change is painful. These are things we talk about all the time. Are you willing to go to the hard places? Well, I don't know that I knew about that until I took this job. But I want, I want the team to understand exactly what makes me tick. And I share my family with them.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  I mean, my kids are around all the time. My wife comes out to practice. We talk about things in an open and honest way. And I think that that's a gateway to really meaningful relationships. And that's kind of been the bedrock of this program build.

• 15:22Speaker 01

  As far as the actual pathway I took, I thought I was going to be a major league baseball player. That is what I thought God intended for my impact in the world to be. So like any kid, I was chasing that. And to be honest, what happened to me, I went to Birmingham Southern my first year. It's a really great program. I made great friends there, great head coach. We won the NIAIA World Series, but my skills were diminishing. I was a catcher and I was losing the ability to receive the ball. I wasn't hitting very well. You know, I think in reflection, we didn't talk about this back then, but what I was experiencing was a yips. I mean, it was a mental block.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  And part of that is because I was holding it too tight. So it's like when you get so obsessed with the long-term goals, you leverage the moment in such a way that makes it impossible to breathe. And so I, I thought, you know, I gotta have a fresh start. So I transferred to Belmont here in Nashville. And as it turns out, you know, the lesson there was even though you change places, your problems will follow you because the, the skills diminished even further. And it, it really felt, it was humiliating and it was really challenging to my identity. And I think that year was a really difficult year for me. And when I put that picture of me in the slide up in front of the intake group, I'm going to get emotional talking about it because it's hard.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  I see the pain of a 20-year-old who has no idea what's going on around him. I had a coach there, Dave Jarvis, who had the courage to sit with me and say, you know, you have one shot at this. I want you to, to never have a regret. And he allowed me to go and come to Vanderbilt and walk on. You know, as a fullback, you don't have those fine motor skills. You're not dealing with throwing, catching. But like you said, as a fullback, you run, you run through a wall. So I was actually decent at that. And that's what got me here. And, and the gift of Vanderbilt was self-discovery. I kind of found myself here and that kind of set the course for my coaching career.

• 17:27Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah, I can see why I was a, walking through the locker room and looking at things you have hanging up. V U, F B, warrior, discipline, respect, spirit. There's all of them I want to get to, but one of them was relatedness is our edge. What does that mean?

• 17:43Speaker 01

  Brotherhood is the most overused word. Family is overused, I mean, in weird ways, you know, in sport and you see this.

• 17:49Ryan Hawk?

  Sure, sure.

• 17:50Speaker 01

  And so in the times we live in right now, one of the issues is we don't actually see each other. We don't take time to know each other. We don't take time to love each other or care about one another. And relatedness is this idea, this shared experience we have. It's a sense of belonging and community. It's a deep respect, like a foundational respect. That's relatedness. And Martin Shaw wrote a book that I read a couple of summers ago that really kind of changed my life and my perspective on this. But that's what we're cultivating here. So, once we learn how to see each other at that depth and understand one another and care for one another and fight for one another,

• 18:34Speaker 01

  we carry that as an edge in our performance. But it's really not so much about performance as it is the depths that we'll be willing to go and sacrifice to get where we want to go together.

• 18:44Ryan Hawk?

  And belief is a practice. And I sense this when I've, again, I've been watching you coach for a while now and you've been someone I wanted to talk to because it seems like that is the type of coach that I would have wanted to play for when I went to college. And what about this belief that it feels like you, your players believe because their head coach believes?

• 19:06Speaker 01

  So, this one's been really important to me. The guy who was crazy enough to, you know, I don't know, four years ago, say that we're building the best program in the country. And I think everyone laughed at me, except for the people that were here internally. Like, we spent a lot of time on...

• 19:21Ryan Hawk?

  Did you believe that when you said it?

• 19:23Speaker 01

  I did, of course. I would not say anything that wasn't...

• 19:26Ryan Hawk?

  Sometimes you say something because you want, it's aspirational. It's not, doesn't mean you're lying, but as a leader, sometimes you see some CEOs or whatever, they'll say something because they want it to be true. They believe it could be true someday, but is it actually? Nah, I don't know. But at the moment, you said, "This is actually real. This is happening as we speak."

• 19:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think the phrasing is important. "We are building the best." And so that means it's, you know, we're early stages. But I think it's really dangerous to... To try to speak things into existence that aren't on your heart, you know? And what I'd learned over the course of my career about really good football programs is it does take a lot. You can't do it on your own. There has to be, and I mean, I've learned, you know, a lot since being in this role about how important leadership is ahead of me. But yes, I believed it. I knew that we were on our way in some ways, but also that there was going to be some obstacles ahead of us.

• 20:24Speaker 01

  So one of the great challenges, and even for you to walk the hallways here and see these slogans, and I don't want to be that kind of program. You know, relatedness is our edge. Well, relatedness is not words on the wall. I mean, that is a powerful dynamic between humans where it's going to be painful and it's going to require you to let your guard down and to strip away your facade and to be seen for you, who you are. And as a man and a young man, there's nothing scarier to us than to say, what you mean, I can't hold up this facade anymore and I have to be seen for who I am?

• 21:06Speaker 01

  And the best moments of sports are the ones where, you know, whether you're pushing sleds or whatever it is, you're stripped away of all that. You can't fake it anymore. Now we're getting somewhere. So that's not a slogan. It's a way of being for us. The same is true belief is a practice. And I think what I'm trying to kind of get at here is you have to go beyond the words. And I think belief, again, is a word that's overused. As the head coach at Vanderbilt, I can't take people into this program that don't believe in the shared vision of what could be. That means I don't spend a lot of time recruiting. I want to be super transparent and reveal who we are. And I want to make sure the person coming in, whether it's a coach, player, staff member,

• 21:50Speaker 01

  knows how hard this will be and that they agree to it. Now that forms a powerful covenant.

• 21:59Speaker 01

  Belief is not something you feel. It's not something you visualize. It's not something you say. It is a practice. So belief will show up in your actions, habits and behaviors. There's no one that's gonna say to you, "Oh, I don't believe in it, coach." But I can watch you and I'll see the level of belief that you have. Take this and apply it to the individual and say, "All these guys wanna play in the NFL and they should, you know? And I wanna be the best coach to have ever done it, okay? Whatever." I mean, we all have those egos and those aspirations, but what are the things that I'm doing that reveal the level of belief I have as a player, my ability to reach the NFL?

• 22:43Speaker 01

  How far am I willing to sacrifice? If the belief isn't there, your tolerance for sacrifice won't be there. You know, you're gonna see kind of the base level, the entry fee, and you're gonna hope that it happens. When we take belief into a practice, you make it happen. And so I don't need people to tell me, "We don't need to be the best at talking trash about, you know, where this thing's at." We need to be the best at actualizing it day in, day out in the way we work.

• 23:13Ryan Hawk?

  What are some of the things that you sacrifice to hopefully become like the greatest who's ever done it?

• 23:20Speaker 01

  Well, I wanna be careful with that because I won't become the greatest who's ever done it. And I just hope to become the best that I can be at this. And I really, deeper than that, I wanna, I wanna be a part of something that's meaningful and purposeful and to form meaningful partnerships along the way and relationships. But anyone who is on an aspirational journey makes any number of sacrifices. And so I don't know if this is unique to being a leader. I mean, this is about growth, about challenge. Are you willing to go to the hard places? You know, I don't have to... Be bigger, faster, stronger in my role anymore, but I need to suffer.

• 24:01Speaker 01

  So, you know, what is my intolerance for suffering with respect to getting in the weight room and training with respect to my eating habits, my social habits? Am I willing to sacrifice? You know, when you get to the point in life where you can do what you want after hours, what you'll notice really quickly is if you spend too much time socially in the evening, your morning is compromised. Well, for me, did you have a water ski?

• 24:31Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Okay, I went twice in my life and this is like, I never lost this lesson. So like, I remember like you get in the water and if this is wrong, maybe we can just scratch it.

• 24:45Ryan Hawk?

  I'm kind of literally on the edge of my seat because like, where's he going with this?

• 24:50Speaker 01

  So literally this, I don't know, I was like eight years old or something. I get, you get in, you jump in the water.

• 24:54Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 24:55Speaker 01

  And you put the skis on and they're like those rubber boots.

• 24:59Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 24:59Speaker 01

  Okay. Once you have your skis on, you're buoyant. So you can actually be in a seated position there. They throw the rope in, you grab the handlebar and they pull the boat out and the line's taut. And then you put your thumb up and they rev the engine and here you go. And like the thing I remember so vividly, my dad saying to me is make sure before you give the thumbs up, that you get your skis up. That if they're parallel or pointed downwards, the image is so clear. Like you're going to go up and over those skis and just be dragged in the wake of the boat. Well, there can be nothing more true about a leader because once I get in the building, my time belongs to everybody else. So I have to have my skis up in the morning.

• 25:44Speaker 01

  If I'm late at night and drinking and whatever, you know, I'm not going to be able to have that time in the morning to prepare myself to be what I need to be for others. There's sacrifice, right? All of this stuff to me is a part of it and. It's also joyful, you know, I don't see sacrifice as something that I have to do. It's like, man, this is actually what makes us special.

• 26:05Ryan Hawk?

  What's the head, body, head, body? What does that stand for?

• 26:09Speaker 01

  Yeah, so this is Mickey Rourke. So the movie The Fighter.

• 26:15Ryan Hawk?

  Yeah.

• 26:16Speaker 01

  But beyond the movie, like if you look, and I had to go back and look at some of his fights that were represented in the movie. I mean, it's amazing, a guy that was counted out time and time again and was able to find ways to win. Well, he was a really effective body puncher and some of his knockouts came from just fierce body shots. We forget sometimes that body shots accumulate, you know? These guys know this so well, the team does. There's a scene from the movie where he goes into his corner and he's being reminded by his brother, the plan, the plan, his head, body, head, body. The sequence is just saying, you're getting your ass kicked. Don't deviate from the plan.

• 26:59Speaker 01

  Don't forget, you know, like how we prepared for this or what we planned for. Head, body, head, body. So we use it as a, and as an expression. It's a mantra for us that puts you in the present. It says, no matter what's happened, I'm not going to focus on what's come before. We're not going to forecast. We're going to be right where our feet are and we're going to remember the plan. Head, body, head, body. Body shots accumulate. You can't knock the opponent out one punch. It's meant to build this presence and then this resilience. And so it's a really important part of our competitive attitude.

• 27:35Ryan Hawk?

  We were talking before about your coaching tree and one of the guys, I actually saw a video this morning, I wanted to ask you about it, is Coach Mike McDonald. He just won the Super Bowl. And he said, two of his primary roles, there's lots of them, but two of his primary roles are chief alignment officer and chief reminding officer. What do you think when you hear that?

• 27:55Speaker 01

  First of all, Mike's amazing and I feel grateful to be connected with him in very kind of orbiting ways, but I just, I'm so impressed with what he's done. I saw that, that was sent to me and I think that is so profound and deep and so embodies what these positions are. And we use the spear as a, as a representation of alignment in our program. I think it's a visual of. The spear has to move in one direction to be effective. And in particular, one of the things I I kind of recognized early on, which was really hard, is it didn't matter what I said as a head coach in the team room.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  That environment's not powerful enough to inspire action. Do you have kids?

• 28:44Ryan Hawk?

  Yes.

• 28:44Speaker 01

  Okay, how old are your kids?

• 28:46Ryan Hawk?

  Nineteen to eleven.

• 28:49Speaker 01

  So we're thirteen, ten, and eight. And one of our experiences in schooling is

• 28:56Speaker 01

  the culture of a school is defined in the classroom. So no matter what is on the wall, or what the tuition is, or what the campus looks like, the culture's gonna be defined by the classroom experience, period. Good teachers make for good experience, poor teachers make for challenging experiences. For me, as the head coach, I can say whatever I want to say. If that is not taken into those tightest echo chambers, the classrooms, the position groups, and reinforced, and then driven into behavior, we're gonna lose alignment and lose focus as a program. That's a watered down. Now, I've got to be really clear in setting expectation. And what I say in that room becomes really powerful when the players know

• 29:41Speaker 01

  that it will be taken to the position rooms, you know? There's nothing worse than the feeling of what I'm saying isn't showing up in the behaviors. It feels fake, and then you realize the reason for that is because the players aren't being held accountable to that day in, day out in those rooms. So the chief alignment officer is like, man, that is A1. And the reminding part of it is how tired you, I guess you can never tire of driving the standards and behaviors in. I think the skill becomes, can we focus on the thing? We say the mission's winning. Can we focus on the things that impact winning?

• 30:23Speaker 01

  So I think I had this idea in my mind of being a head coach where like everyone walks the same, everyone talks the same, everyone wears the same stuff. And I think we, you know, in our era, we celebrated coaches that had these, it's like the military uniformity is kind of how we grew up. Like in the South, it was, football was part religion, part military, you know?

• 30:44Ryan Hawk?

  Mm hmm.

• 30:44Speaker 01

  But that's not actually performance. Now, we can eliminate distraction by having standards and expectations, but you know, why do I care about length of hair? Why do I care about whatever, what shirt someone's wearing? What I care about are their habits, behaviors, and what they're willing to invest. The balance to me of the reminding part of this is, let me focus on the things that are most important and let me be relentless in making sure those show up. And that means I'm reminding coaches, players, staff, all of it. And I'm, I'm helping them and guiding them into driving accountability within their spaces. And then what I can't do is not let the program breathe a little bit.

• 31:26Speaker 01

  So, performance can't be tight, it can't be restrictive, I don't think. And so, I need these guys to bring their unique personalities and their creative energy. That makes it so much more fun and it shows up on the field. And so, let me remind you of who we are and what we do and how we do these things and how it impacts winning. That is my job. But then let me let you be yourself and bring your personality and help us elevate this program, not just be a part of it.

• 31:53Ryan Hawk?

  One of those personalities is your quarterback. And all this stuff's great, but if you don't have a good one of those, it makes it a lot harder. And you know, he's gone now, going on to the NFL. But what was it like at the beginning of your recruitment? Or at least the, the conversations you had with Diego Pavia when he decided to, you guys both decided like, yeah, you're going to come here and potentially be our starting quarterback?

• 32:15Speaker 01

  Diego's one of my favorite people in the world. I'm so impressed with him as a person, him as a competitor. When I first were speaking to him about the opportunity here, I told him he was gonna have to compete and earn the job. And really, I mean, he was actually kind of the second transfer quarterback we took in that class. To his credit, he never flinched. That did not scare him at all. The first conversation I ever had with Diego, when we were getting off the phone, he said to me in the most genuine way, "Coach, I look forward to coming to Vanderbilt to help you win championships." And you go back to belief as a practice. I had spent a lot of time trying to convince a lot of people of what was possible at Vanderbilt, and that felt like the first time that someone was meeting me right where I was.

• 33:00Speaker 01

  And so that set a course for what became just such an amazing relationship. And I learned a lot from him. You know, he has helped me learn how to be myself and not hold it too tight. He has challenged me in ways where I have to really think about what's most important. Because the world doesn't need a watered-down Diego Pavia, you know? And when he's at his best, he's being himself. Now, it's also important that we have boundaries and that to be effective, we have to... Without conflict, there's erosion. So you gotta fight for those boundaries. And there were times where we had to come to an understanding about certain things.

• 33:45Speaker 01

  And we did that, and he always, always was respectful in those moments. But yeah, what an incredible person and what a just amazing part of the story of this program's growth has been his competitive fire spirit. And maybe most importantly, and the deepest impact made with his ability to make connections, the quiet connections in the locker room.

• 34:06Ryan Hawk?

  And I read that he played a role, because you guys are like these scrappy upstarts, right? Gritty, but he played a role in getting, is it the five-star who's coming in?

• 34:14Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 34:15Ryan Hawk?

  Right? And trying to get his potential replacement. That guy's still gotta earn the job.

• 34:19Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 34:19Ryan Hawk?

  Right? But so like, you guys initially, when you get here, are these scrappy upstarts? Who knows what's gonna happen? You know, you have belief, but the outside world doesn't. Now, five-star quarterbacks are saying, "I wanna go to Vanderbilt when I could go anywhere in the country."

• 34:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:31Ryan Hawk?

  I mean, what a journey that is.

• 34:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, we use the word "misfits" around here. And we do that intentionally, like, and that came from some team-building work we were doing in the summer. From Brian Longwell, one of our linebackers, when as you know, we were kind of story sharing in smaller groups, he commented that, oh, wow, we really are a group of misfits, you know? But I would just, I would say this, that a five-star coming to Vanderbilt is not your typical five-star. And what I mean by that is, that choice in and of itself is the acceptance of a challenge. It's the acknowledgement of certain things that are really important, other things that aren't as important. That sounds like a misfit to me, you know? The world will judge the decision based off what could have been other places. The

• 35:17Speaker 01

  misfit ignores the external and tends to the internal, you know? So as we elevate our people, we don't ever lose our identity. And as long as we're true to who we are, the people we accept in this program will quickly get locked up with where we're moving.

• 35:34Ryan Hawk?

  Awesome. Coach, I really appreciate it, man. This is amazing. No, I appreciate you having me on. This is so much fun, man. Thank you so much.

• 35:40Speaker 01

  Oh, you kidding me? Like, this is such an honor, man.

• 35:48Ryan 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 with Coach Clark Lea. A few takeaways from my notes. Be the chief reminding officer and the chief alignment officer. This is not a one-time conversation. People have busy lives. They forget. They get distracted. They're doing all types of things. The culture erodes without constant reminding. What's the one thing your team needs to hear again and again and again that you only say every once in a while? This is also some stuff that Dan Coyle writes about in The Culture Code.

• 36:31Ryan Hawk?

  In fact, you should say it so many times that your team makes fun of you. That's actually a sign of a really good culture. And then, practice belief. You don't necessarily have to wait to believe until you see results. Clark talked about how belief is a practice, something you do daily, especially when others don't see the potential yet. Which is something you're building right now where you need to practice belief before you have the proof. That is the job of a leader. And then after going 10 and 2 and missing the playoffs, Clark said, "That's no one's fault except our own. We are not victims." Vanderbilt had legitimate reasons to feel slighted.

• 37:15Ryan Hawk?

  They beat six ranked teams. They had one of the best offenses in the country. Their quarterback, Diego Pavia, finished second in the Heisman voting. The committee could have put them in, but they didn't. And Coach Lea refused the victim narrative because victim mentality, even if it's justified, kills progress. The second you say, "Ah, they screwed us." You give away your power. You stop asking what you could have done differently. You stop getting better. He chose ownership instead. Quote, "We didn't do enough." That keeps the locus of control internal. That keeps his team focused on what they can control for the next time. And I love that that's how he handled a really tough situation.

• 37:59Ryan Hawk?

  Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, "Hey, you should listen to this episode of the Learning Leader Show with Coach Clark Lea. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, rate the show, hopefully five stars, subscribe to it. Write a thoughtful review by doing all of that. You are giving me the opportunity to have such cool events like going down to Nashville and talking with Coach Clark Lea and doing what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.