E221 | Jack Crawford: A 10-Year NFL Vet’s Take On What Makes a Great Coach, Learning From Failure & World Travel

Jack Crawford isn’t your ordinary 10 year NFL vet… and this just might be one of the most interesting episodes to date. 

On today’s show, Jack takes us on a journey from his childhood playing cricket and the *real* football in the streets of London to gorilla trekking in Uganda (with a few stops in professional football along the way). 

We discuss everything from his unconventional views on good coaching to becoming self-aware at a young age, learning from failure, navigating politics on social media and even the experience of going to the same high school as Harry Potter (aka Daniel Radcliffe). 

Connect with Jack:

Via Instagram: @j_crawford58 

Throughout the episode Jack talks about the value of having great mentors throughout his career. That’s exactly what we’ve created with the Coalition; If you’re in search of a think tank or place where you can share ideas with other leaders, get real feedback and learn to grow personally and professionally, check out artofcoaching.com/coalition. 

This is a community we only run twice a year and applications for the next round start now! Come join us and get a professional community, clarity focused on community and building momentum. artofcoaching.com/coalition

Upcoming live events: 

• Speaker School – May 28th – Atlanta, GA
• Apprenticeship – August 13-14th – Sacramento, CA
• Apprenticeship – August 27-28th – Denver, CO

Today’s episode is brought to you by Dynamic Fitness & Strength. Dynamic is our title sponsor and our go-to equipment guys. If you need anything for your home or full-sized gym- they offer the most affordable, customizable, durable equipment on the market.

Brett Bartholomew  0:10  

Today’s episode is brought to you by the Art of Coaching Coalition. When I first started the art of coaching, I had a very specific problem. I couldn’t find a whole lot of people to serve as a think tank, a trusted Think Tank, people that would give me feedback, people that could help me learn more how to grow as an entrepreneur, and not only just professionally but also personally as well. It seemed like everything out there was about making millions of dollars flying jets wearing three piece suits, man, just some other form of extremism, when in reality, I just wanted a professional community centered on gaining clarity, accountability and building momentum, very much come as you are. And that’s what we’ve created. If you go to artofcoaching.com/coalition, you can learn more about this think tank of individuals that will help you get out of your own way. We have two sessions that we do every single year, both of which last six months. More details can be found at artofcoaching.com/coalition. And again, if you want mentoring at the highest level, you want people to share your ideas and to grow and get honest feedback from artofcoaching.com/coalition

 

Welcome to the Art of coaching Podcast. I’m Brett Bartholomew. And at a young age poor communication nearly cost me my life. Now, I help others navigate the gray area of social interaction, power dynamics and communication so they can become more adaptable leaders regardless of their profession, age or situation. This podcast is for everybody who is fascinated with solving people problems. So if you’re in the no nonsense type who appreciates frank conversations, advice you can put to use immediately and learning how others navigate the messy realities of leadership. You’re in the right place. I’m glad that you’re joining us. Let’s dive in.

 

Today, I’m sitting down with Jack Crawford 10 year NFL veteran. Now there are many reasons I want to have Jack on the show. Throughout my 15 years coaching Jack is one of the most interesting individuals I’ve ever come across. He can talk to you about everything from traveling around the world. And we’ll get into that this guy actually did gorilla trekking, he can talk about business, he can talk about nuances and perceptions of different coaching styles and how that lends itself to understanding leadership at a higher level. And overall, he is simply one of the most self aware individuals I know, because he has taken so many risks, and they opened himself to so many diverse experiences in life. So it doesn’t matter the field you’re in, it doesn’t matter your interests, there is going to be something here for all of you. 

 

And this isn’t going to be you know, like there’s so many episodes that you start to feel like oh, man, the longer it goes, I’m starting to lose it. Believe me, you do not want to tune out with this one. Because the minute you think you know where this episode is going, Jack threw a curveball. So turn the volume up. Listen closely. And I hope you enjoy this conversation with Jack Crawford.

 

So yeah, as long as we’ve known one another, there was something that I found out recently that you’ve been keeping from me, and I feel some kind of way about it. I didn’t know that you went to school with Harry Potter, like legitimately went to school with Daniel Radcliffe.

 

Jack Crawford  3:49  

Yeah. I thought we discussed this before.

 

Brett Bartholomew  3:52  

No, I mean, like, I’m not like a Harry Potter guy. So I don’t mean But Me neither. But like the fact that you went to school with Harry Potter is worth talking about.

 

Jack Crawford  4:01  

Yeah, well, okay. So back in. I forget what year in secondary school back in London. Daniel Radcliffe transferred to my school. And yeah, he was actually in my class. So, but this is as Harry Potter like first came up. So the first movie had maybe just been released. So the hype wasn’t as big as it is now. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  4:26  

Right? They didn’t know it was fresh. 

 

Jack Crawford  4:28  

Right? Right. Yeah, I was very it was fresh. So anyway, I didn’t know much about you know who he was and how big of a deal Harry Potter was and all of that. And so yeah, he was in my class, but it wasn’t as big of a deal as it is now. Like he’s on Hollywood billboards. And you know, he probably wouldn’t

 

Brett Bartholomew  4:47  

But it’s not saturated. I mean, this is where I have a hard time, there’s you which How tall are you? 

 

Jack Crawford  4:52  

Six-five, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  4:53  

your six-five how much you weigh?

 

Jack Crawford  4:56  

Right now 270.

 

Brett Bartholomew  4:57  

The fact that you and little Danny Radcliffe are The same age and went to the now.. And so tell tell me this, where you have an interesting background story in general, right? Like this is something that I loved about working with you is there’s you know, we always use a, quote, unconscious coaching that athletes are people first. And if you don’t understand kind of a lot about their background, you know, coaching them on the X’s and O’s doesn’t really have the same gravitas. Talk to us a little bit about where you’re from originally. I mean, you’ve moved to the States walk us through a little bit of that so we can get context.

 

Jack Crawford  5:32  

Okay, so, I grew up born and raised in London, England,

 

Brett Bartholomew  5:37  

not London, Ohio,

 

Jack Crawford  5:38  

not London, Ohio, or London, Ontario. I was born and raised in London, England. You know, in a city kids grew up my mom and my two older brothers, and, you know, played sports my whole life. It’s a different life, like growing up in a city, I would say now being out of that environment for about 15 16 years, like I grew up, you know, we didn’t have a car, you kind of walk places you get by public transport, stuff like that. You know, so, you know, anyway, kind of grew up in a city, London, England, played all the sports under the sun. My dad made me play cricket. I played rugby, obviously played football, the real football, soccer. And then, yeah, I played basketball growing up. So really good. I got pretty good at basketball. I played for the England team on a teams and under sixteenths team, we would travel across Europe kind of playing in tournaments and stuff like that, we would get worked by everybody would like Slovenia, like France, Italy, like these crazy countries just whipped us, they way better than us. But I eventually got kind of scouted to a camp in New Jersey, when I was 16. And I came to the camp. And at that camp, it’s like, similar to like, you know, a couple AAU teams there. They would have coaches from high schools coming to see these international kids. It was like in August of the year, and these coaches were coming to CDs, international kids play. And you know, if you’re the right age, and you’re good enough, like they would want to kind of bring you in as a kind of foreign exchange student type deal. Yeah. And that’s kind of the route I went through. So I was 16. I came when I was 15. And they wanted me but my dad wanted me to finish my GCSEs, which is like the SATs back home. And but it’s a little younger. So it’s, you know,

 

Brett Bartholomew  7:36  

so on real quick, two questions within that, do you feel like playing all those sports helped you a tremendous amount in terms of just growing as an athlete? Because this is something that’s talked about a lot, right? Like, if you look at the stuff that I nerded out in college, my master’s degree is in motor learning, right? And the concept of is, right, like, you’re gonna build a bigger motor skill cache, the more activities you do. Now, there’s some countries that believe more of a specialization approach. Now, you know, you we can always look to the research, the research is great, but I always like getting the perspective of the individual. Do you and your own experience feel like it helps you that much as somebody that went on playing the NFL? Yeah. Or do you feel like Nah, you know,

 

Jack Crawford  8:17  

I mean, you know, I would say yes, to both, you know, both points you’ve made and 100%. I mean, as far as just playing so many different sports growing up. It definitely gave me coordination in different ways I could see other American kids didn’t have, like, I just we grew up playing soccer on the street. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  8:40  

We don’t even have physical education here. 

 

Jack Crawford  8:43  

Pretty much so we grew up playing soccer on the street. You know, in London, we will play headers and volleys. We’ll play one touch football around the world. golden goal,

 

Brett Bartholomew  8:54  

everything goes in the graveyard.

 

Jack Crawford  8:56  

We played run outs, cops and robbers. But we, but we played Yeah, we played soccer growing up. I always had footwork, you know, and that doesn’t come in handy when you’re playing basketball, in when you’re playing American football. But if I’m just saying hypothetically, yeah, if you look at the rules and the style of the game, it doesn’t necessarily you wouldn’t think it helps when it comes to, you know, eye hand coordination, direction type of drills, but it does, and there’s just certain coordination. I think that if you develop from an early age, it will give you an advantage when you go to high school, college, and even the pros, because a lot of these pros, they don’t know how to move, like, certain ways. They’re just really good at specialization. They’re really good at very specific things. And that’s why they get to a certain level whereas if they could develop another part of themselves professionally, they would be able to go to another level that there’s always another level you can get

 

Brett Bartholomew  10:00  

Yeah. I mean, and so within that, the second question is where you built when When did you notice that you were just physically built different than some of these other kids? Like most people that play what you call the real football? I call, you know, we, I will talk about what I call that. But like, most people just aren’t built like you. When did you start noticing? I’m different

 

Jack Crawford  10:20  

man from a young age, man. I grew early. You know, I was pretty much fully grown. When I was probably 15. You were this height. 15 about probably about an inch shorter. Yeah. And I was big. So I was already just kind of, I grew quickly, I was always the biggest kid in the class. But I was always like, you know, the fastest kid in the class, I want them you know, and that’s what kind of gave me that. You know, I just didn’t lose much. When it came to like school sports, especially in London. The competition’s not like hitting America, American competition, crazy man. That’s like, you know, 10s of 1000s people come into high school football game, that’s unheard of in any other country. But, you know, it’s, you know, I was just bigger than a lot of other kids. And I could move well. And that was something that was consistent through every sport I played. And even when I came to the States, you know, when I went out for the football team, I was bigger than everybody still. And I could run, catch and move.

 

Brett Bartholomew  11:27  

Well, that’s what I was gonna ask is like, when do you? You know one. Did your Were your parents? Was it? How do I want to put this? Was it kind of a healthy relationship that they had with you in sports? Or did they like push you you got to do this? You got to do that. And then how did you get to America? Other than, you know, what, what was that journey?

 

Jack Crawford  11:46  

Like, with us? The complete opposite? Yeah, my mom just wanted me to be, you know, she just was very, she wanted me to be happy. She cuz she cared like how I did in school. My dad was very strict. He was very kind of academic. As far as academics, he was very strict. He wasn’t concerned with sports at all. Yeah, and I actually saw a funny skit. Earlier today, just on, I think it was on social media, but it was like, you know, if you really want your kid to be good at sports, then you gotta kind of abandon them, if you neglect them. Early on, if you neglect them, the better they’ll end up being in sports. Everybody laughed at because my parents didn’t care that much how I performed, you know, I would get, you know, a different coaches and stuff would give me accolades, compliment me on how well I did in rugby, or even in soccer. In sports, I was always kind of the sport kid, you know, but my parents didn’t care about that. They just cared about my grades. They cared about staying out of trouble. they cared about not building these bad habits. And everything I did in sports, like, I don’t think that my dad really I don’t think he really acknowledged what sports could bring to my life until I got my first scholarship offer. And that was like, that was like, you know, directly related to dollars. He that’s when he was like,

 

Brett Bartholomew  13:12  

he didn’t look at you He didn’t look like my son just read Smash, and everybody else around. He didn’t recognize it them. But the minute that there was like a monetary offer, he’s like, let’s go. 

 

Jack Crawford  13:22  

I remember my first offer was from Syracuse. And I was pretty much under the radar. Going into well, coming out of high school, my junior year, I remember it because I had zero offers. And then I had about 20 Come in instantly. But I was just under the radar, I guess. And whatever these databases already check, you know, high school kid. I don’t think I was on the board. I went from off the board to being ranked in the state, like instantly. And so it was, yeah, it was I remember Syracuse were the first team to call me and I was like, sir, that’s a big deal. And I didn’t even know if I wanted to play football in college. At this point. I was just like, Well, I kind of just want to focus on basketball now. Because I was going into my senior year in basketball, and my junior year was just okay. And, you know, I told him, I didn’t know if I wanted to play football. And they were like, you know, if you’re interested, you can come and play. You can try to go out for the bottle team. But we want you as a football player on this team and everything like that. I told my dad, and he was like, what he’s like Syracuse. Then he learned everything about Syracuse University, everybody who went there, everybody who achieves something go in there. The institution that academics, you know, everything like that. And yeah, he couldn’t believe it. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  14:37  

That’s not where you went

 

Jack Crawford  14:38  

I mean, I had offers coming in after that, I had choices and I also had become very close with the host family I had stayed with throughout my high school years, and I felt leaving London was a hot experience for me. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  14:54  

I just said there had to be hard. 

 

Jack Crawford  14:55  

It was tough. That’s what really got me to grow up quickly, I would say leaving at a young age. living out of a suitcase for probably over two years. Well for two years, I would say and then becoming really close with a host family who took me in Italian, Thai, Italian family while German Italian they got Irish and German and until but 

 

Brett Bartholomew  15:14  

how did you find them 

 

Jack Crawford  15:15  

like a son that well I went to when I first started school. I live with the coach now in New Jersey, I think in other states to a foreign exchange student can’t live with a coach because of obvious reasons, coaches that are just going to have a full house of justice. You know, just kids from all over the world. Yeah, it is a crazy sport trafficking house. So yeah, they gotta bring in kids from all over so they borrow coaches from having students hosting students throughout the school year. So I had to move I moved in with this kid. It was so awkward man, like he lived with his mom and his dad, they had set me up with this kid. And I live with the kids dad who was on his basketball team. I didn’t get along with the kid that wants anyway. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  16:03  

Why was he a weirdo? Was he like just

 

Jack Crawford  16:05  

it’s like, corny. Like, he was just very, like, it was like an obnoxious person to be around. It seems like if you could relate to the kind of person I might be talking about, but like it’s, you know, it just is very, you know, yeah, just not mature.

 

Brett Bartholomew  16:20  

And then there’s you swab from London when you know show this to the camera. By the way, the art of coaching easy’s you have on there, Shout out to Kanye doing the red black easy’s they’re an official sponsor. But yeah, I mean, I have to imagine you come in there. Like, I don’t even I’m trying to think and I want you to educate me on this. I’m walking in the door host family say, Hey, I’m Jack. Where do I put my stuff?

 

Jack Crawford  16:42  

That’s kind of helpful. Well, I mean, no, it wasn’t like that. It was I got close with the son first. So we kind of got along. He was an ear below me. But even to this day, I see him as a brother. And so we got along quickly. We clicked in school, and I ended up just packing my bags one night, at this guy’s house. This other kids dad’s house, packed my bags. And I was like, Hey, I gotta stay here. I remember talking about basketball coach, I gotta move on. Otherwise, I’m not. I’m just going back to London. And then. Yeah, I spoke to the kid, the family now, but really the son who I was friends with who have who have lived with. His name is Pete, Pete D’Andrea.  we became close. And I said, Do you think I could just move in with you for like, a weekend or a week? Because there was somebody else who said you can come live with us with just having our house renovated. And so I? He said yes, sure, sure. And they let me stay there. And then, you know, I was living there. But since we got along so well, they treated me like a son. And it was, yeah, I’m really forever grateful.

 

Brett Bartholomew  17:48  

And you still have a good relationship with everything. So you go on to play at Penn State. You do. How many years in the NFL? 

 

Jack Crawford  17:56  

10 years. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  17:56  

10 years in the NFL. Talk to me about that. How do you what was that next piece like, college football atmosphere coming from? You know where you did in London? About you want to talk about right? You mentioned high school games being crazy. I mean, big 10? Yeah, it’s different. So talk to me about what that kind of culture because that’s what’s interesting, right? Like people listening, whether they’re coaches or leaders of other organizations, they appreciate how people like adapt socially, to these kinds of things. Like what was that culture shock, like?

 

Jack Crawford  18:23  

Man, it was tough. At first it was it felt similar to leaving London. But I think you would like you would think that it would make me more prepared from leaving one country to live in from but just the host family I’ve been with for two years or three years to go into college wouldn’t be that big of a deal, because I’ve already left my family back home from London, but it felt almost like was it felt like I’m going through this again, of being comfortable, and then having to leave and go to a new environment where I don’t know anybody. It’s four hours away from where they live in New Jersey. You know, I think that there’s

 

Brett Bartholomew  19:04  

been crappy weather it has that in common with London. Yeah,

 

Jack Crawford  19:07  

maybe not as bad because it’s not as 

 

Brett Bartholomew  19:10  

better food in London. 

 

Jack Crawford  19:11  

Definitely not. But yeah, it’s just, it was a tough environment. I think that the fact that everybody else had come, you know, from everyone, I had that same feeling of the first day of school feeling, you know, so that kind of helps build bonds, like giving you kind of everybody’s coming into this together and stuff like that. But as far as football wise, playing in that environment. I remember the first game I played against, it was Coastal Carolina. And I remember just having a clear line to the quarterback. And then he pumped fake to me and I turn around and I fell for the punk punk fake completely. It’s something you don’t practice. In practice. You don’t hit the court, but yes, so now it’s like I’m getting pumped. clicked on my first game I remember like almost hyperventilating and seeing like 180,000 fans, 90,000 fans in the stands.

 

Brett Bartholomew  20:08  

Do you watch the replay you stood there. Just hands on the hips.

 

Jack Crawford  20:12  

I was so tire, I remember just like my heart was racing. And, you know, just like and as you know, when you get in competition, and you’re not used to that, your heart just goes out of control, you do start to hyperventilate a little bit, because you’re dealing with the crowd noise, you’re dealing with the fact that this is unscripted. This is not a practice drill. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  20:37  

Improvise 

 

Jack Crawford  20:37  

You’re on the line. Yeah. And so your mind knows that. And so your body reacts to it. And yeah, that was my first game. And even after my first year, in college, I thought to myself, There’s no way my career’s going anywhere, man, I there’s no way it’s like the learning curve. From high school to college, I felt was too big. And they were playing. It’s playing like 7080 plays a game. I was like, There’s no way I was, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  21:03  

how many would you average around that time?

 

Jack Crawford  21:05  

Oh, my rookie my freshman year was, I mean, if I gotta be like, 10 12

 

Brett Bartholomew  21:12  

mop up duty at that time? 

 

Jack Crawford  21:13  

Yeah, i was just fresh. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  21:15  

Did Coaches treat you different. Like, I mean, like, you know, you have to manage power dynamics and politics, no matter where you’re at in life. But what was that, like? You know, especially because that might have been your freshman year. But then clearly, you became, you went to the league? You know, I know, for me, I have nowhere near the level of like, celebrity you do, right? Like, but like, I remember one time I was offered a job. And the minute I was offered that job without even making it public, all these people wanted to be your best friend. Right? These people that didn’t even care about, you know, and there’s always somebody that wants something from you did the coaches like when you started off? And you were kind of just sorry, Jack, you’re kind of a scrub, you know, would you agree, though scrubby, scrubby, that’s rap name, and but then all of a sudden, you’re a prospect? What was that? Like? How did you adapt to the coaching styles? And, you know, do you kind of how does that make you interact with somebody that, you know, you used to treat me this way. Now, I kind of here I know where to put you, I know where to put you.

 

Jack Crawford  22:16  

you know, I think from what you said, is, honestly, it’s something that separates a lot of people from not going anywhere in their career, it doesn’t really matter if it’s sports, or anything else to get into the next level. And that’s when your pride or your ego gets in the way, right. So you have somebody telling you that you’re not you’re scrub, you’re little scrubby, right? Okay, so you have somebody telling you that, and from that point, a lot of people crumble, some people will come in in the league, you’ll see it as being self destructive, right? Because now you’ve been given your money up front, as a first round pick. And a lot of players they can’t handle the pressure of, you know, having that money and the expectation that when the coach calls them the scrub, they go into self destruct mode, they started drinking party and smoking and doing whatever they want to do, to kind of bring the house down around them. And I’ve seen that a lot. And I saw it in college too. And then you have people in all professions who kind of they, it hits them right, that they’re not as good as they thought they were. And that hits everybody at some point. But you instead of being self destructive, you kind of internalize it, you analyze it, it doesn’t matter, you might hate because I’ve met players who have hated the coach, because the coach has kept on them gets on them. But at the end of the day, they’ve been first round draft picks. And when you’re sitting there on draft day, and $20 million goes into your bank account, you find a way to set that hatred aside. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  23:57  

Yeah. Right. So

 

Jack Crawford  23:59  

you know, it’s a very distinct characteristic that you’re mentioning. I think it’s, something that separates a lot of people how you take criticism will ultimately shape how successful you can become because you have to be able to handle that criticism, and then grow from it. And sometimes the criticism is incorrect. Sometimes you do. I’ve for the longest time with making mistakes that the coach would call out. But my mistake was in a different part, like it was in my head, like I was thinking too much as opposed to taking the wrong steps. You know, and when you meet a coach who can unlock that characteristic or unlock that key of you, figuring out what the issue is, you get to the next level, and I’ve done that in every step of my sports career, I’ve always found what the problem was, and then hit that, you know, made a breakthrough as far as my performance, and this is from not playing The game the sport at all right? So made a breakthrough in my performance, and then hit another problem, because the responsibilities have grown with my performance. So I’ve got more playing time. Okay, now now I’m playing 50 to 60 plays, and I’ve got different issues I have to be able to play, you know, right. And so you see, you can kind of figure out, you know, how to get past get to the next level, but it’s hard because you just have to give everything you call. That’s the problem.

 

Brett Bartholomew  25:29  

Yeah. Well, and so within that, and kind of a meta question here. But it’s something that always gets debated, whether you’re looking at leadership, coaching, whatever people debate about what they feel like is effective, or really great coaching right now use the terms synonymously. And I think sometimes there is this myth that, you know, if you’re in the pros, or even if you’re a top tier college school, that the coaching has to be excellent. And that’s almost like saying that if you automatically just could you work at Apple and Google, then the managers have to be excellent, right? Like, that’s not that you can’t look at it that symbol,  

 

but to you very meta question, what is great coaching? What’s it comprised of? And I know, it’s, there’s a list here, but like, what do you think it’s comprised where you’re like, Yeah, that’s a great coach.

 

Jack Crawford  26:15  

I would say a great coach, honestly, is somebody who gets more out of you than you think you have in you. And that is, to me, what a great coach will do and I could go on for days, I’ve been across the board as far as coaching up and coach by playing in different coaches, even strength coach, like, there’s different types of coaches 

 

Brett Bartholomew  26:42  

Strength coaches aren’t intersted in life

 

Jack Crawford  26:43  

my head coach, there’s a position grew up as a strength coach, which are three completely different things. And then people have like mental clutter. Like there’s so many different types of coaching, there’s fashion coach, there’s rapid coaches, there’s coaching. But ya know, they have, you know, what makes a great coach, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  27:04  

or what, like, what skills within that, like, when you say they get more out of you than you thought you have? Like, how does that How do you?

 

Jack Crawford  27:09  

Well, it’s attention to detail, right? So I could go across the board, and, I’m gonna stay within defensive line specific actions, right? Because they, we have spent the most time with them. Sure. You know, I’ve had coaches who will not give examples, I have a coach who, you know, when I was in my rookie years, and I was thinking too much, you could see it on the tape, but you can see it from the mistakes. So I’m now I’m behind the ball, I’m getting blocked, whatever. The truth is, I wasn’t the game was too fast for me at that point. And so I was playing slower, because I thought that I was trying to see more happening. And the coach would often pause the tape in the middle of the play in front of all your peers, by the way in front of your defensive lineman and pull the tape and say, what the hell were you thinking, taking that step? Why would you do like, look how late you are. And then it just, it’s like a snowball effect. And then into the end, I can’t tell you how many meetings we’ve come out of the meeting where everybody’s just thinking like, because one guy is getting it so bad. One guy is getting, you know, the coaches coming down on him so bad, everybody leaves them in like, I wonder if he gon’ be here next week.

 

that’s just football, but that’s part of the skin in the game. The beauty of it, you know, it’s the pressure. And as much as people hate it when you’re in it. It’s what drives the system. It’s what drives the team. You know, it’s the pressure on everybody. But this coach would pause, plays thing just come down on me as a rookie, it’d be so hard on me. Crowd already hot. Yeah. And I was just playing so but I wasn’t getting it. I wasn’t getting better. It was just, I was just getting less snaps on the field. And I ended up getting released by the Raiders after my second year. My third training camp, luckily got picked up and 24 hours 

 

Brett Bartholomew  29:01  

 Who’d you originally signed 

 

Jack Crawford  29:02  

with the Raiders. So this was after two years. And then my third training camp, they released me during the cuts. You know, that was the hardest time I’ve been through. I remember going home, crying thinking to myself, There’s no way you know, I don’t deserve to be in that room. And I didn’t have a schedule, which was like, now, I don’t have anything to do the next morning. I’ll have a reason to wake up. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  29:25  

But you need that structure. 

 

Jack Crawford  29:25  

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I remember just being kind of like defeated, telling myself, I’m never gonna be in this position. Again. I don’t care what I got to do. So I got called, luckily by the Cowboys picked up within 24 hours had to move to the Cowboys. And

 

Brett Bartholomew  29:41  

 just say come on 

 

Jack Crawford  29:42  

Yeah, get all my stuff shipped, whatever. Luckily, I had a friend who did it. But yeah, I got to the cowboys and I met this new defensive line coach who for me, he helped me take my game to the next level because he took the thinking out of the game for me. He goes I want You have to get from here to here. It goes as fast and as hard and as low as you can. And I’ll fix the rest. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  30:10  

Yep. 

 

Jack Crawford  30:10  

And so once I heard that, right, but once I heard that, it took the thinking out of it for me, and you can’t play this game. You can’t play football, thinking, you have to shoot fast and react. And that’s it. And that’s how football works, especially in the trenches, you just have to go and then react the best players? they getting off the ball on the snap? Right? They’re not thinking about the micro step down, it’s gonna be a pass play? Is it going to be a screen draw all of these different things in football that people don’t think about? But and when you’re on the ground, and you can’t see from a bird’s eye view? You can’t see anything? they have to go. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  30:47  

I think that applies to a lot of professions, right? Like, where you like one, we can never separate logic from emotion. But you know, there’s so many professions, even whether you’re talking about like my father, as a stockbroker, like if you sat there and waited for every bit of information, you know, before making a trade Well, now everybody knows, or Jeff Bezos used to say, you know, at any point in time I maybe operate off of like, 70% of the information that I need, you know, you have to move.

 

Jack Crawford  31:11  

Oh, exactly. And that’s part of, you know, just what I’ve learned about many different things, as far as professions, but as far as like taking in information, you can get paralyzed by taking in too much information and get stuck in the learning stage. without actually putting yourself out there on the line and getting true experience. like experience is, you’re never going to be good at something immediately, right. But people are so afraid to fail, they want to do stuff perfect on the first time. And if you don’t take a chance for too long, you’ll be terrified of just taking that first risk. If you’re just one of those guys who just jumps from, you know, project to project and you’re just putting yourself out there doing random things, but you’re putting yourself at risk of being embarrassed, which is the key word embarrassment, then those people usually throw a lot of shit against the wall and something sticks. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  32:16  

Yeah, well I love that, quote, chaos isn’t a pit, it’s a ladder. And you have this idea of like, yeah, you have to, I mean, this is something that was gonna ask you, like, when coaches would break you down on film? You know, I have to wonder and elaborate, and then hit me with your answer. If you could ever turn it on them and be like, let me film you coaching, right? Because there’s so many coaches that mail it and like, and when you’re talking about embarrassment, and all these things like this is the reason like we started our apprenticeship workshops, like all the times I’d be out of town, you know, is like, alright, well, let’s get coaches here. 

 

Like you said, you can’t get we had coaches that thought they’re good at communicating. Just because every day they have the ability to, Oh, I communicate, therefore, I’m good at it. no, no, communication is a process, right? Like, we have to even right now we have to wonder like, What do you mean by that? How do I interpret that? And so we would film them and we like, hey, Courtney, look at your body language there. You know, how could that be interpreted? Like we had somebody at a workshop recently that he was going through an exercise, and he was like, I was stressed. And we went back and watched the film are like, Dude, you are smiling. You were like, smile? And he’s like, Yeah, well, that’s what happens when I get stressed out, I kind of smile and shut down. And so I asked for the room I go, how many of you would interpret that as this versus this? And you had a split room? Okay. Which is why as you know, like, right, multicultural, like communication, how you look, when you’re frustrated is not how I look at, you know, everybody’s got and so, it just seemed odd to me that coaches will do this to players, but they don’t always look at themselves. And that’s, you know, kind of our soapbox and what we’re trying to change,

 

Jack Crawford  33:49  

ya know, it’s funny, you bring that up, because that’s, you know, what you mentioned, it’s just not happening. And again, if I can, it depends on how much you get paid. You know, unfortunately, money is a key factor in the NFL in every room. And if you kind of turn it on the coach and say, Well, how about we film? Donald, then yeah, he could do that. Whenever, you know.

 

Brett Bartholomew  34:10  

But what I’m saying is if  you Could you would you?

 

Jack Crawford  34:14  

yeah, I’m sure there’s times I would have. I know, when a coach is bad, and I’ve had some great years. I’m just some bad defensive line coaches, but because, you know, I think honestly, because of butting heads with the coach. It’s just somehow unlocked something that I’ve kind of tapped into this, taking it to the next level, but it didn’t change the fact that I didn’t think they were a good coach coaching is, I mean, there’s so many different aspects of it that you have to focus on. And really, it’s public speaking, right? Like you have to be able to speak to a group and convince them that you believe in what you’re saying, you know, and that’s the key. And I think if you carry that with you, a lot of the other aspects Some of it will fall into place 

 

Brett Bartholomew  35:01  

Good point 

 

Jack Crawford  35:01  

if you really believe in what you’re saying. And I don’t want to get into politics or anything. But if people believe in what they’re saying, Enough, people follow them. People will follow them follow you if you truly believe what you’re saying, If you and you believe in it with conviction, then others will follow you. And you know, and so it’s Elizabeth Holmes, as far as

 

Brett Bartholomew  35:26  

a powerful step forward if you’ve been watching the drop out. But you know, about Elizabeth Holmes Theranos. 

 

Jack Crawford  35:32  

Oh, yeah, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  35:32  

she changed her whole voice.

 

Jack Crawford  35:35  

I don’t know she’s been.

 

Brett Bartholomew  35:37  

Yeah, I mean, the whole thing was, but like, she basically dropped her voice and made a baritone because she didn’t think people took her seriously. And she started wearing the same kind of turtlenecks as Steve Jobs did, because people will, but to your point, people for a while were like, I mean, she had Henry Kissinger on the board, George Schultz on the board. And there were some people that knew she was fraudulent. But you know, she had people go in for a minute. He think he history, there’s a million different examples in Charlotte, Charlotte 10s, are always gonna exist.

 

Jack Crawford  36:04  

Yeah. And there’s so many people out there who just want to believe someone to follow something. And it’s like, man, it’s like, you know, I think that that’s the, if you get stuck in that loop, it’s hard when you’re like, stuck in an algorithm you can’t get out of because you’re just following a lot of different voices. And you got to kind of step back and say, you know, well, what do I actually believe in? And most of us believe in pretty similar things. Like most of us don’t want a civil war, we don’t want certain things that are like, you know, dangerous. Like, we don’t want to have comfort, we want to have be able to raise kids in a secure, neighborhood, things like that. It’s like, nobody wants to stuff. But when you’re just constantly, like stuck in an algorithm, and you’re reading stuff, you just get like, so carried away with different things. But when you come across somebody who believes in themselves, you start to believe in it too, because you’re thinking to yourself, Well, how could they be so sure of this? How could they be so sure of this? And if they also showed this, maybe they know something? I don’t. So let me keep paying attention to what they say. And if they say enough of the thing, enough things that you agree with? You’re like, Alright, whatever he says, I believe in. And that’s kind of what happens today, in just everything. Podcasts, YouTube videos,

 

Brett Bartholomew  37:25  

you know, definitely all that. I mean, think about this way, right? Like you met me at what point in your career?

 

Jack Crawford  37:29  

I met you when I was here. In 2017. Maybe I was 18.

 

Brett Bartholomew  37:36  

Yeah, would have been like, yeah, I just moved here. So like with that, right, like, we didn’t have a history, I had moved from Phoenix and LA, most of the guys that I’d coach out there most of the jerseys on the wall of which you saw me what I mean, but that’s cool. I won’t, you know, he won’t have a legacy. You know, galley, which, by the way, you know, I have, I have this memento of you get that one for the camera. We may not always know what great coaching looks like. But we do know what top shelf acceleration looks like. And if you’re not seeing this right now, go to the YouTube. But what I meant by that is so you know, you met me late in the game, and I had to be able to like build buy in with you. Was it just the way I spoke then? Or like, what was it that you like?

 

Jack Crawford  38:19  

Well, you definitely have. I will say that you have developed your coaching voice up, you know, amongst the top people, I mean, you’re just good at combining a group, which is needed. You can’t have any doubt in your voice patient coach with athletes, especially path leads with a lot of money, because they will just walk all over you that you can’t have second, you can’t second guess yourself. You can’t be afraid to shout, you know, you’ve developed your coaching voice for sure, especially among football players. But I’m to be honest with you, I was probably one session that took for me to realize that you were a good coach, because you knew what you’re talking about. Like I said, I’ve been around a lot of coaches. So I’ve had the privilege of seeing the difference between a good coach and a bad coach. And when it comes to strength, and conditioning, fitness, everything like that. You know, you need someone who pays attention to the details. But you also need someone who understands what your goals are, and then they understand how the body works, to be honest with you. If you have an idea of how body works and how the weight room translates to the field or the basketball court or the boxing ring, then you know that to me is the most important quality a strength and conditioning coach can have and I’ve met some who I saw online Instagram. And I mean, I might have seen you on Instagram but I didn’t you know but I’ve met so you were Yeah, that was first and then I realized you coach 

 

But no, I was recommended to you refer to you sorry by a teammate. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  40:05  

Was that poe? 

 

Jack Crawford  40:06  

The poe? Yeah, it was the notary po and dark Shelby senior Shelby. But yeah, he had, they had both said that, you know, he’s legit. And you worked with obviously API earlier in your career, which is no, they’re legit. And you know, you had experience. But I’ve worked with coaches who have kind of seen them on Instagram looking like, Man, this guy’s he’s doing handstand push ups and, like all this crazy, you know, I’m thinking he got to know something. And then I got to meet with them. And it’s just like,

 

Brett Bartholomew  40:42  

I mean, it sounds like Henry. You know, our friend Henry Anderson were admitted. He sees a new core exercise on Instagram, Henry’s like, Yo, can we let’s do our Henry voice. Yo, can you bring this? Can we do this? Just like the whitest voice ever? Henry. We know you’re listening. If you guys haven’t heard the episode, Anderson? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, he did a whole thing. I asked him what he does before 

 

Jack Crawford  41:03  

is on Spotify. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  41:04  

Yeah, it’s on this. It’s on Apple podcast. But yeah, I mean, you shouldn’t he starts talking about before games, he’d be in hot tubs. And you know, we talked about video games. He’s big gamer.

 

Jack Crawford  41:15  

I knew he knew he’s a gamer. Henry is always looking for a deal.

 

Brett Bartholomew  41:18  

Henry has always had a . And here’s the thing that most people don’t know about them

 

Jack Crawford  41:22  

He wants you. He wants to negotiate you to do something that you don’t want to do. And it doesn’t matter if it’s money. If it’s training, if it’s the commute.

 

Brett Bartholomew  41:32  

It’s a wheeler and dealer. You know what I loved about Henry though, he said when he ? And guys give you context, right? Henry was Jack’s training partner for a long time. And so they were they were a part of we talked about morning routines. These guys were my morning routines, right? Like, here’s just like three good friends getting together to get after it. And Henry goes, you know, when I was with the Jets I had, what was it? I don’t know, two to three years I signed for this much. parents didn’t make a big deal out of it. I get a one year deal with the Patriots for less money. They throw me a party.

 

Jack Crawford  42:01  

Yeah, but I mean, Henry complained about that, I

 

Brett Bartholomew  42:03  

think that was a fun thing about coaching you both is like, one thing for me that makes again, whether it’s coaching parenting leadership, is you got to have that agility to like, you know, communicate with you, and then Henry, and then another individual, you’ve got to code switch a lot, because what’s gonna work for you is in the same way, and like that’s the relationship part of it, right? Like, I think you got to, and you are very unique in that. You do your own education. I think you’re tremendous. You’re probably the most self aware individual I’ve ever worked with. And I wouldn’t say probably I’d say, you know, you are right, the only person I would say that, like reminded a lot of that is like Pat Chung. And that’s because Pat’s very open to different experiences to but like you would like and then self awareness, I think is another thing like communication that most people because they can’t see it, they devalue it. But do you think that you’ve grown up mainly because you kept putting yourself in these situations moving football, this that, like, you’ve always been kind of like, Yeah, let’s take this ego out of it. Let’s dive in. And you just kind of stripped yourself bare

 

Jack Crawford  43:02  

Hundred percent.  my career in football, even from college in from high school had been a roller coaster. Right. So I had been really bad. And then I became really good. And then I got to another level, I became really bad again. And then you kind of figure out what if you’re aware, you figure out what you did differently before, you had a great performance a great year. And that was something that I think just the awareness of it that you brought up is something that I developed early, because honestly when I moved country, I didn’t have a lot of friends. So I left all my friends behind in London, I didn’t have a lot of friends. So I became more introvert, more of an introvert more, you know, I would be just like shooting jump shots by myself for a lot of time. That didn’t translate well. Then when football came along, I was like, I bet. I put myself into football. But I did have friends. That’s the thing throughout high school, I had a bunch of friends. But I think I just learned to work on things myself earlier. And when I saw the results, that was that positive reinforcement. 

 

Back to what you said earlier, as far as being a coach and relating to different players, or sorry, different athletes. You know, I have mixed feelings on that. I think that yeah, I think that I hear that amongst a lot of coaches. And you’re not the first person to say that. I’ve heard that from the head coach level, down to a defensive line level. And you know, a lot of great coaches say that and they have that approach. I would say the most influential coach on my life, didn’t have that approach. And that might be personal to me, right? That might be specific to me. But the most influential coach that I’ve had, he didn’t take that approach as far as he didn’t tailor his message to different kids. And I think that that’s part of why I think that he is one of the best coaches ever. And probably as a man, I admire because he didn’t take into account anything as far as where you’ve come from, what you’ve been through, you know, anything to do with your background, or what afflictions you do what you’re dealing with,

 

Brett Bartholomew  45:30  

what if you didn’t want a certain skill a certain way, he wouldn’t switch his teaching style,

 

Jack Crawford  45:34  

he would just hold his standard. And he would say that, I want to see you pay to meet my standards, and I don’t care how much money you’re making, and I don’t care what else you’re dealing with, you have to reach my standard. And to me, that’s the most fair way of holding people accountable. But it also, I mean, he’s made probably more millionaires than I could name anybody else, because he’s gotten more out of you than you think you have in yourself. And to me, that was something that a lot of the greats, right coaches, they kind of had in them, a lot of them were in college, or even if you look at like even boxing, you know, you kind of get guys to, once you deal with the pride, the ego, and you realize, and you let them realize where they truly stand. You, kind of all, like all the front is out the window, right? Oh, the fakeness the image.

 

Brett Bartholomew  46:35  

Do you think tailoring your message is fake, because when I’m talking about tailoring your message,

 

Jack Crawford  46:38  

I mean, as far as the athlete, it’s like their personality is out of it. Like there’s certain players, and I just want to be clear about the example. It’s like, there’s certain players who have had a rough life growing up. And they’re very confrontational, you know? And if the coach caters to them, because they can’t handle criticism, or a message or the coach says, you know, like Hawaii, we’ll get it next time. You’re not helping that 

 

Brett Bartholomew  46:38  

Oh, no, yeah. To me that’s not tailoring. That’s a lie. Tailoring should be like, That message is a fit for that kind of person. So like, we would call that example unconscious coaching the Wolverine, somebody that’s just like, No, you definitely like you can’t go out and head on. But you also can’t like you said he can’t play him with kids gloves. You know, like, there’s gonna be certain people that just require a little bit more time than others. And so you gotta it’s like, okay, I need more data. Right? If I saw somebody not buying in, it’s not a time for you to be like, Oh, my God, I need to earn this period, I need to earn their love, I need to earn their respect. It’s like, Hmm, let me throw it a variety of different things at them and see what they respond to. It’s like tennis, it’s constantly tennis,

 

Jack Crawford  47:40  

 a lot of coaches take that approach, man. And I have to say, like, I’ve seen great coaches take that approach. But I’ve also seen players with a huge ego, and a lot of pride. being coached by coaches has, like how I’ve mentioned the one who’s had the impact on me. And he’s taken them to another level, not just as a professional, not just financially but as a man. Because they’ve received criticism, they’ve, like you said, Maybe we shouldn’t come at that guy head on. While they came at that, that player head on. And now the player realize that he is mortal, that he’s not some big huge brand that Instagram has created, you know, he doesn’t have the weight of his whole family, friends, his neighborhood on his back, Making excuses. Every time he makes a mistake. When the coach comes to him head on. It’s like, you know, I’m just a man. And maybe I’m not as good as I thought I was. And maybe that criticism is what takes him from being a good player to being a generational talent, you don’t know.

 

Brett Bartholomew  48:42  

And I’d argue that message tailoring because you’re coming out. You’re

 

Jack Crawford  48:45  

The coach never tailored any message to anybody. And he just says, and the key what I think what coaching is, this is what I think the biggest part of coaching is, if you show something to me on tape, like if you show to me that the quarterback, right? It’s right here. Or let’s say we’re having a competition to make strength and conditioning, right? Like we’re having a competition, and me lining up against Henry. And you see, and now there’s skin in the game, right? There’s our pride. Now we’re racing against each other in a certain drill that you’ve set up here. And you’ve seen us Yeah, in the Raptor, we hooked up the cables. And you’ve seen us, you’ve seen me give 100% sprint, speed, change the direction, whatever drill we’re doing, you’ve seen my 100% and then a different day, we’re doing another drill, but it’s not competition. And it’s just competing with yourself, right? You’re trying to get better. And now you remember what my 100% looks like. And that’s something which coaches struggle with. A lot of coaches don’t understand what this guy is. 100% looks like what that guy 100% look like with that guy 100% Like, they either like it or they don’t and there’s a lot of players who were more athletic who get away with given 90% And then there’s other guys who you know all as athletic, who follow that player’s footsteps, or they’re gonna give 100%, but that player is gonna get a lot better, a lot faster than this player. And that’s what helps build people up. That’s what helps people get to the next level. You know, that’s to me, what a great coach is capable of measuring. 

 

And if you’re going to tailor your message, never tailor it to the personality, tailor it to the effort to the exertion of the athlete, tailor it to how much what does your 100% look like? And if you’re about to pause out on the floor, you know, that’s bad coaching, and you’re gonna have a player just exhausted, you know, you have to be able to do that. But I think that that’s easier than keeping players accountable every day to that 100%. And that’s what that coach did for us. And when we got to the games, it was easy, because we were so gassed in practice, we would go into the game, sometimes busy with the Cowboys, and we would just run teams out of the field, because they couldn’t keep up with our conditioning. And they couldn’t keep up with our mental toughness of being uncomfortable. And it goes as far as being an athlete or being in any job, that’s you just keep digging, keep digging. And you have to kind of be the coach for yourself sometimes.

 

Brett Bartholomew  51:18  

So with that, and once a quick question, and then we’re gonna get back into the social dynamics and a segment that I would call the roadmap to Jack within the training, because you brought up conditioning, do you think that in your experience, and this is your perspective, right? Do you think people a lot of strength coaches that, like, do you feel like that people make training harder than it needs to be? Or more complicated than it needs to be?

 

Jack Crawford  51:42  

Yeah, yeah, definitely.

 

Brett Bartholomew  51:43  

I mean, you’ve done you’re talking about structured organized workouts from college all the way through the pro you’re very consistent. You know, what about that? Elaborate on that a little bit? Because I know we’ve shared conversations on that before the thing that made me know, it was time to get beyond us and see, and I loved it. But just like anybody, they kind of continue to move on to different things, right is, man, there’s only so much I could Are you? It just every year, you had to have the same debates, this versus that. Hey, Coach, what do you think it is? And you want to be like, Guys, yes, this is something that physiology Biomechanics is very intricate, but this is not rocket science. No, you do not need the newest and latest and greatest all the time, right? It’s very fundamentals, not fluff. What is your perception have been over the years on that stuff?

 

Jack Crawford  52:29  

Well, you know, funny, just low in you over the past couple of years, you’re definitely a bigger picture person, you’re a big picture person thinking, like, in my opinion, as someone who you got from coaching is a very, you have a glass, you have a ceiling above you, that it’s very hard to break through and reach a lot of people. And coaching is very, it’s somewhat of a dead end industry crabs in a bucket. It’s crabs in a bucket. But it’s like the bucket is like, you know, you have no way of brushing of branding out unless you reach more people. And you’ve always been that type. So it doesn’t surprise me that you want to get away from that because you’re in a box. Once you start strength and conditioning, your success depends on how much somebody is willing to learn. And you can only reach one person at a time. Or if you’re working in a football gym, 90 players at a time. But still, It’s hard. It’s a hard business for you to kind of branch out and go in different directions. I get what you’re saying.

 

Brett Bartholomew  53:35  

Coaching is a bigger piece of that, right? Like for us, it was like, there’s a lot of leadership lessons here. I think, you know, you look at this bookshelf, there’s so many lessons from other people and other okay, I was in the military, I was in the medical side. And I kind of felt like you know what, to your point. I over my career coaching, I met a lot of different individuals, a lot of different backgrounds, a lot of different egos a lot of the, like, why don’t we talk about this stuff, you know, and I think for me, it’s a different meeting. Because my hospital story, I knew what it was like to be talked out as like a nameless, like faceless symptom. But like that, that makes me think back to you and social dynamics of it because there’s gonna be people listening, that whether they’re a CEO, or whether they’re a strength coach, or anywhere in between. They’re trying to figure out how to manage conflict with people they’re trying to figure out how do I read and know when somebody’s upset? Now this is just for you. So you don’t have to worry about pontificating for others. You know, you do a good job of corralling your emotions. 

 

But let’s say you’re legitimately mad at me, you’re mad or you’re skeptical. How would I be able to tell that if I’m just getting to know you, you know if this is a new coach, new leader, and they’re like, I can’t get a read on this guy, right? Like what are some things that you do? Just N equals one you Jack Crawford do that if somebody watch more carefully read between the lines, they’d be like, Yeah, they’d see that I’m not bought in what do you telegraph?

 

Jack Crawford  54:57  

Well, like what do I do if I’m mad at you.

 

Brett Bartholomew  55:00  

Yeah, or just like, you know, if you’re not bought in, because there’s a difference between commitment and compliance, right? Commitment, you feel really good about what we’re asking who’s asking it. What I’m saying is if I’m looking at a group, and I’m like, you know, Liz, I feel like the whole team is locked in. But Jack just seems kind of ? How would I read that?

 

Jack Crawford  55:19  

While you know me, right? I mean, when I’ve trained with you, I’m always asking questions. So I’m asking questions to the point of like, if I don’t understand something, I will ask questions, until the whole room understands that something doesn’t make sense

 

Brett Bartholomew  55:35  

to you only ask questions. If you don’t believe in some? 

 

Jack Crawford  55:38  

Well, I’ll ask, yeah if I’m confused about something. If you’re asking me to, you know, I can, I’m thinking football. Yeah, that’s fine. But like hold the hold the 320 pound guy with one arm, and then make a tackle with my left arm, you know, it’s like, I’ll get to that point through questioning. You know, like, I would say to the coach, will you want me to do this? And do that. And he’ll be like, yeah. And then it’s very evident at that point where everyone was just like, laugh and be like, okay, he’s just saying stuff just to say it, right. That’s not a realistic way in which football works.

 

Brett Bartholomew  56:22  

A quick break in the discussion here with Jack just remind you, if you didn’t hear before, be sure to go to artofcoaching.com/coalition. Our applications are now open for our most intensive mentoring program that we do every year. It’s only open twice a year. It’s welcome to everybody. It doesn’t matter your age, your profession, your background, your experience level, this is a think tank of like minded individuals that want to help you gain clarity, serve as an accountability piece for you and also help you build momentum. So if you have ideas in your head that you want to get out, if you want to make a bigger impact, go to artofcoaching.com/coalition. Now

 

Jack Crawford  57:07  

if you’re asking me to, you know, I’m thinking football. But like hold a, 320 pound guy with one arm, and then make a tackle with my left arm. You know, it’s like, I’ll get to that point through questioning. You know, like, I would say to the coach, will you want me to do this? And do that? And he’ll be like, yeah. And then it’s very evident at that point where everyone was just like, laugh and be like, okay, he’s just saying stuff just to say it, That’s not a realistic way in which football works. As far as reading it from a coach’s perspective, or if you know, if I didn’t buy into a strength and conditioning coach. You know, it’s tough man. Like, I think that it’s like, well, how do you tell that your kid isn’t happy? How do you tell you that your dog is unhappy? How do you tell it’s your responsibility to figure out what my emotions are as a coach. And I think that worrying about that will, affect your coaching to some point, you know what I mean?

 

Brett Bartholomew  58:15  

Get out of your rhythm trying to earn Yeah, but coaches are still going to do and that’s why I’m asking we get these questions from the audience, right.

 

Jack Crawford  58:21  

And that’s like,  if somebody else do that  tell them, Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about that. Just don’t even think about it. Don’t concern yourself with how somebody else thinks about your style of coaching. And, you know, like, you can gather the important parts from the people who respond. And if you’re like, Oh, for 100, right, just maybe it’s just not meant to be or maybe you the next person coming is gonna respond to you. But you’re gonna have to go back and do some evaluating of yourself. But if you’ve got some people responding, and others not responding, don’t worry about the people not responding, they’re going to come along, when they see the success. Eventually, there’s so many issues, you would have to deal with so many variables that you don’t know that you’re not in control of as a coach, it’s not worth your time to go down that road of wondering what the hell else is going on in this person?

 

Brett Bartholomew  59:16  

But Do you take that approach? Then, you know, because you have to assimilate into these locker rooms. You get traded. You go here, there are some people that hey, I’m gonna go to the game, you know, I’m gonna gonna go to practice. I’m gonna do the game. I’m gonna get the hell out. But you can’t really do that. You got to still be in somewhat with your teammates. So do you handle that there too? 

 

Jack Crawford  59:34  

There’s some people who they will go have the best game ever the worst game ever? They’re gonna go into the locker room they’re gonna be changed by the time before we even break it down. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  59:41  

Is that you? 

 

Jack Crawford  59:41  

And they’re going home? No, that’s not me. I’m always my emotions take time I’m celebrating we’re doing you know, dancing in the locker room if we win just sitting there yeah I got my mind. But yeah, it’s, you know, it’s, you know, people are different People are different. And that’s part of the beauty of the locker room. You know, people come from different backgrounds, different environment, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:00:06  

You can’t cater to that can’t tailor do 

 

Jack Crawford  1:00:08  

not at all that’s not the, everybody’s, if you want to win, everybody’s gonna figure out how to make a win. And that’s all we care about. And you know what, there’s people who are very antisocial. In a football

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:00:24  

super antisocial.  She’s sitting on a hardwood floor. Can you turn the camera? Can we show this? My wife is over there sitting on the hardwood floor, with her knees in some kind of pretzel wide position, sitting there  like she’s doing Arie  goal. You know, like, what do you got on the line right now? Is it kid 3% of whatever deal? You’re working out there. Lots of deals

 

Jack Crawford  1:00:46  

above it. But yeah, man, it’s never about that man, the best locker rooms. They corral the group of very different individuals to believe in fight towards one thing, one common goal. And you probably have people in that locker room who don’t get along with each other who come from such different backgrounds, that they couldn’t sit down and have a conversation, you’ll never see him talking to each other. But after you win that playoff game, or after you win a game, they’re going to be in a locker room hugging each other dancing because you’ve won something. And that’s where the that’s where, you know, a lot of the coaching comes into comes into effect. You know, if you’re a good coach, you believe in the one goal, focus 100% of your energy on the goal, and people will follow you. If you’re worried about all of the moles and the people talking behind the scenes, the team like who’s blaming who for what on the team, what the media is saying, which a lot of coaches do, this is a real thing and professional level of coaching in the NFL, at least, then you’re never going to make any progress and people are going to start to lose faith in you because you’ve been distracted by what you’ve been caught up in distractions. on the team or inside like you always think oh, man, we need to get these people out of here. Like I mean, it happened recently right with the with Urban Meyer. I think like he kind of went down a weird, and I don’t I’ve never been coached from I don’t want to speak about

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:02:20  

oh, no, whatever you want on here you can go 

 

Jack Crawford  1:02:22  

but just as a plus I don’t like talking bad about people and naming names. But it’s just seems like environments like that. It’s where a lot of fingers start getting pointed around. And it happens, right 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:02:33  

Well there’s a trend, right? Like, if something happens, like none of us have no, there is not one of us that that doesn’t have like a skeleton in the closet. Right? And imperfections. I wouldn’t trust somebody that does you know what I mean? No, chance. You know what I mean? I think it’s but like, and we’ve talked about this, I think it’s ridiculous that we have a country that like, if you want to run for president, you better hope that you never send this kind of text or this that like you know, but the point being

 

Jack Crawford  1:02:58  

that kind of development, I don’t blame one single group or persons for that kind of phenomenon. That’s kind of coming. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:03:07  

We take it out of context. 

 

Jack Crawford  1:03:09  

It’s out of context, but it’s like I think the overreaction to that it’s becoming more toxic. Like, it’s hard to explain, but I think that just the world we live in now, man, it’s so like, it’s social media, right? Has it a big presence. So then a lot of companies are being like, I don’t know, in politics, you can just gather what’s being said, what’s being tweeted what’s being shared via this via that that machine? That it seems like outrage is there? most people, like I don’t think that he should be held accountable for a tweet, he sent 10 years.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:03:49  

Well, and you can’t like that’s a game you can’t win. Like, for example, 

 

Jack Crawford  1:03:53  

you can’t keep going that way.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:03:54  

 We run a small business, like what what kind of things? Should I speak out? You know, and somebody’s like, oh, you should tweet about this, or you should sound off on this. And I remember hearing Tim Cook from Apple say, somebody asked him, you know, how do you know whether you guys should sound off on something? He goes, Well, does it intersect with our core values, which I think is tricky. Like for us, we run a company based on communication and interpersonal. So theoretically, any racial issue any gender issue, but it’s also not like, here’s the thing, I don’t view myself as important enough that the world needs to know every view, right? But now we live in a time it’s funny, like 10 years ago, if I would sound off on some somebody, you’d be like, oh, you know, like, but now if you don’t sign up, they’re like, Oh, you have a responsibility. You know, you had a platform as an athlete. Now, like, what did you feel like? Did you engage in any of those reindeer games?

 

Jack Crawford  1:04:39  

No, never, never did. I never did and I would have very strong opinions about some of the issues that come up that came up, but I would never, you know, put myself out there. As far as you know, making a statement or or putting my like political ideologies in the forefront of trying to win a football game? You know, like it just to me was, you know, it’s kind of funny because at the time, all I cared about was football. And I had strong opinions about things, but I would never put in public because I just thought that that was stupid. Yeah, at the time. And I’m not saying that people who did it are stupid. I just thought to myself, why open myself up to any form of like, controversy? Not being an American citizen? Like, if I took a knee? Like, I don’t think that’s a great look, because I didn’t even have a green card at that point. I don’t want to take it and get deported right off the game. But it’s, no, I just thought to myself, a lot of the issues that have come up, especially worldwide, but in this country, especially the, you know, some of them have strong beliefs. And I definitely love to get into that. I think that as far as making that statement and you expressing how you feel like having your voice and having to stand up for this and not stand up for that. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:06:12  

You can’t win it all. 

 

Jack Crawford  1:06:12  

Yeah, but you can win today and lose tomorrow, right? The worst part? It’s like you could say something I think you just have to do you do have to be consistent with whatever.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:06:23  

I think that’s the biggest one,

 

Jack Crawford  1:06:25  

I think if you’re consistent, right? And I think to me, consistency, a lot of it is reflecting logic. So what logic Do you share as a person, if you come out and kind of make a lot of hypocritical statements, people are going to lose faith in you. That’s something you can’t fake like humans, you know, a lot of humans are irrational, right? But we’re very good at sensing disingenuous people and someone who doesn’t really believe in what they’re saying, humans are good at that. And they you can be fooled right, by algorithm by social media by very influential people. But at the end of the day, one thing you say contradicts another thing. You say, Well, what are you saying, you know, it’s, the consistency is important. But I also think that if you express your logic with which, whatever you decide to say, then I think it’s, you know, I think that ultimately, that’s a safe way to go about something, as far as you know, not saying something that you can’t take back, like, it sucks that you would have to be so careful. But this is the real world. And this is how business operates. These are how people choose to spend their money spend their time listening, and if you decide to say something that’s completely off the wall, just because you know, you’ve kind of thought about it, or you thought that maybe it made sense for one second. And, you know, then you are opening yourself up to finding

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:07:52  

tie to your point doesn’t make it an authentic when we’re pressuring people in a platform. It’s like, oh, you’re this so you should sound off on that. Right? It’s like, No, I mean, like, most people don’t have a problem expressing things that they feel pretty animated about. Right? You know, it’s like you can’t sign off every minute on Okay, now this and then that’s, and then what’s funny is even if you do, I found that people have a short memory, so for example, like even before, like the George Floyd thing, and everything, my neighbor right across the street, Greg Baker, we had him on, what was it like? 2019? Do we have him on the podcast? There’s one of the first years of the podcast. Yeah, and one of the first like black police chiefs in the outskirts of the city of Chicago has a really unique story. We did an episode on him and how he got into the police force and how it had to do with a friend of his getting shot. And he’s like, Yo, instead of getting, you know, all riled up about this, I joined the police force, and he kind of talked about why he did and whatever. And I remember one day somebody hit us up and they’re like, Yo, why aren’t you talking about this on the podcast, right? And I go, Oh, you mean like episode, whatever. Before everybody started doing it, just to do it. Like, you know, but what I found is it’s never enough for those people like the people that want to villainize you. They’re not paying attention. 

 

Jack Crawford  1:09:00  

What did he hit you up on? 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:09:02  

This was just somebody that said that we should be doing more podcasts.

 

Jack Crawford  1:09:06  

Well, apart from what the text was a tweet was, 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:09:08  

oh, this is just He was probably somebody that it was somebody I didn’t know who was like on social media. So I tweet, you know,

 

Jack Crawford  1:09:14  

yeah, I only asked that because I think that, like, even referencing a tweet, or a comment, or even like a wild text from somebody, it’s not I don’t even count that as being said, like, to me, somebody tweet something like, that’s not even that’s not, you know, Dave Chappelle said, it’s not the real world. It’s this is the real world, not Twitter. Twitter’s not real, . It’s not real. I don’t listen to everybody. If everybody on the street started talking to me, I won’t listen to any of them. And I won’t listen to anybody on Twitter or anybody on Instagram, Facebook, any kind of platform, even YouTube comment section. It’s so anonymous man, but there’s zero face to face interaction with that they can say whatever they want

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:09:58  

people a lot of and then you know what’s funny is you’re like Yeah, what are you doing? You know what I mean? Yeah, like one time  when we cut we portion of the proceeds for conscious coaching goes to the Alzheimer’s Association, whatever somebody’s like, Yo, show me a picture of the check. And I’m just like, you’re not playing this game, dude. 

 

Jack Crawford  1:10:13  

That’s why I’m afraid of spending time on these platforms, right? Like, I got set like a limit to how much I can use Instagram. So I said, like 45 minutes a day. And then Twitter is like an hour a day and stuff like that. And now I used to go past the limit. And they would say, on the iPhone, like, you know, you can set a limit for these apps on an iPhone, they would say, like, Oh, you’ve reached your time limit, do you want to continue whatever like that. But in my head, it would reinforce that I’ve been damn I’ve wasted an hour I;ve wasted 45 minutes on 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:10:44  

something that femoral 

 

Jack Crawford  1:10:45  

Yeah. And the more you spot time you spend on it, the more weight you give these individual comments, these posts, these stories, these, whatever, man like crazy. And it’s yeah, the more time you spend on it the more you give to negative feedback, which is unachievable to what you’re saying? You’re saying that, like, it’s never enough? Well, what do you want me to do you want me to turn around my whole platform, I’ve built my whole life and, you know, turn it into some kind of BLM, you know, property, like any whatever just informational site like it doesn’t,

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:11:27  

you’d be hopscotching to the next thing. And you’re not bringing value. You know, it’s like, that’s why we started doing the podcasts a big reason for it is, you know, this is a more context rich medium. Yeah, you know, you can actually have what people don’t know how to have any more conversation, you know, and I find like, what was one of the most relieving days for me is when somebody was like, I tweeted something, and somebody was like, oh, yeah, elaborate on that. I don’t believe that. And I go, actually, we’re going to do a podcast on it tune in next week. And I was just like, No, no. And it was, oh, you’re just trying to get downloads, and I go, and you’re trying to get me to argue with you on Twitter, right? I go if you want to have an edgy and he’s like, Well, are you in an educated or discourse are different I go, right. So let’s have an educated discourse over a more context rich medium, which is, you know, this because you can hear the tone of my voice, you can hear the pace, you can hear the stories you can it’s not 120 characters, you know, 

 

Jack Crawford  1:12:17  

so let me ask you,  what do you think is the purpose? Or what was your purpose for starting the podcast? Or what was what do you think the purpose are for podcasts in? 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:12:31  

Well, those are two different things. 

 

Jack Crawford  1:12:32  

Right, like, yeah, that’s why I kind of wanted to figure out what you think of both of those things. What’s your purpose? And what do you think the purpose of podcasts are? In general? 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:12:41  

Right? So for me, obviously, I love I’m just gonna answer for me. I love teaching. I didn’t really have a mentor. Like I had situational mentors. We all have, you know, mentors, but I didn’t have a formal mentor in my life. Aside, you know, you have your parents and all that. We’re not gonna get into that. Hold on? Let me answer the main question before you go. Sigmund Freud. Yeah, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. Remember that. But the podcast did a lot of things. It allowed me to say, this is how I express myself best Some people love to write and blog that brings clarity of thought, clarity of thought, for me as conversations, it also allows me my brain works so quickly move away more quickly than my hands and everything else, which can be a detriment if you don’t monitor that well. But for me, this is a comfortable context rich medium to share complex ideas, which, again, our whole company is about human interaction and power dynamics and the nuances. The other thing selfishly, this is more related to family is someday when I’m gone, my son will be able to listen to these, you know, like Twitter and Instagram may disappear, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. These are in the sound waves forever. And so, being somebody that now we all know how that works out, my son won’t really give a crap about him But when he’s 30, or 40, if you want Sunni misses that, you know, like I think about, like when I when I lose one of my parents, right, like, you’re gonna call and you’re gonna hear their voicemail while there’s gonna be a time you want to hear their voice. 

 

And even if he doesn’t, the fact is that I started realizing the power of this. We started doing the podcast in like late  or early 2019. And when people came up, and they were like, Yo, that really helped me. That was enough. So it was cathartic for me. Yeah. Because I didn’t have to fit everything I wanted to say into some little text box. that was devoid and stripped of any personality, any nuance, any broader range context, I could go in more depth because like you, man, I didn’t want to spend all day on social media explaining myself, right. Like you type something. Somebody be like, Well, what about this, like, one time I even I posted a video of you guys. It was like when we were like 14 or 15 of us were at pious and you guys were doing single leg pliers on the concrete steps. And the idea is right as we went up those ascending steps, the impact even though it’s concrete is less than less, because one those steps are coming to you right? You’re not falling from a tremendous height. And two, we were doing quick response plyo All right, we weren’t trying to like, just do tremendous magnitude or II centric landings or anything like that was quick. Yeah. But somebody was like, talk to me why you do that? And how does this fit in your program? Well, for years, that was me then being like, Okay. When you want a business, you have to do these things. Now, it’s like the podcast I can do. It took me an hour on social media,  right. And unlike a lot of these other people, I mean, now we got David recording this, but I didn’t, you know, I’m not Gary Vee. I don’t have an intern filming me all the time. And so we didn’t have like social media to do that, like everything we did is us, the newsletters, the podcast. So yeah, just context for rich discussions. And then the last thing would be, we get asked a lot of the same questions. Hey, somebody the other day goes, How can I self promote without feeling a certain way? We got a podcast on that. How do I become a better listener? One was like, how y’all

 

Jack Crawford  1:15:54  

This is what I’m interested in. So people were asking you these questions constantly. He said, How can I self promote without feeling 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:16:00  

because you have coaches that want to build something for themselves, 

 

Jack Crawford  1:16:02  

they don’t want to be like,  that the gram guy like a social media and

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:16:07  

Instagram, they just don’t want to be looked at as you got to understand. When I first started in strength conditioning, it was just told, if you have a brand, then you’re a sellout. And that was very much a thing like you would get blacklisted if it seemed like you were, but it’s silly, right? Because the dentists down the street in the restaurant, they all got to promote, everybody’s got to promote to get their information out. And so there’s, like Roy’s self promoting in some way, there’s tasteful ways to do at nine. But then there’d be other people would ask questions to like, Hey, how come you know I’ve given this person all this information, yada, yada, yada, they still don’t listen to me. So we take the most meat, like the questions that we get the most common questions and do in depth dives on them.

 

Jack Crawford  1:16:47  

That’s pretty interesting. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:16:48  

You’re pretty interesting. 

 

Jack Crawford  1:16:49  

Well, I think you know what you said about mentors? You know, because I’ve thought about it, too. Like, how often do you listen to a podcast, and change any action or decision you’re gonna make that day? After listening to that information on the podcast? And my life? It’s probably 0%. I never listened to a podcast and say, Oh, I’m actually going to do this now. Or, you know, I didn’t think about that. Let me go. And like, usually, for me, I podcasts kind of serves as motivation. Like I would listen to the news podcast we used to joke about I would listen to different news actually Yeah, no free shout outs. But I would listen to different news podcasts. And, you know, you figure out after a while, I’m like, Man, I just want to listen to music that

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:17:33  

somebody influences you. I mean, look at what you wear, and what you buy. What does influence you?

 

Jack Crawford  1:17:37  

 Well, there’s a lot of things. I can’t necessarily 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:17:41  

Yeah, but what’s the biggest one? 

 

Jack Crawford  1:17:43  

That influences me? 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:17:44  

Yeah, like everybody, everybody, like,

 

Jack Crawford  1:17:45  

what was probably, you know, for me, it was the biggest influences I’ve had on my life are individuals that I see in person that are doing something that I wish other while I’m not capable of doing, or I’m not brave enough to do in person. And that goes a long way. So I see somebody, maybe putting themselves out there right on the line, like maybe seeing you talk to 200 or 300. People, wherever is the largest number that you’ve spoken to. That’s a different skill set that a lot of people don’t have. And you might take that for granted now, because you’ve been given a lot of talks. But I think most of the people that come to you with that with a question about whatever. Probably many of them haven’t got past that step yet Yes, speaking in front of school is a very tough, tough thing to do. Very real skill that you could probably translate across a lot of different industries. Because people don’t have that kind of courage. They don’t have that confidence, right. That’s why it doesn’t surprise me that you went from being a strength conditioning coach to creating a podcast, a lot of strength conditioning coaches, with bathtub podcast, saying, I’m not going to sell out, I’m not going to become an actor or become a client, I don’t want to get

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:19:04  

This is selling out, you can’t win. It’s just like, I

 

Jack Crawford  1:19:06  

just got to create whatever excuse right? I don’t want to be that person. But you kind of took the step of being willing to put yourself in a different light, being willing to accept any form of being not unexperienced embarrassed, whatever feelings you want to put out there. And taking criticism from people you don’t know, early enough to the point where okay, it keeps building and keeps building then you just keep going about your way don’t get consumed by the other shit on the outside. And you just keep moving forward. But that initial putting your self out there is the skill that is what people lack. And so people are going to ask you a million questions before they take one little chance of putting themselves out there in fear of embarrassment that they’re never gonna get anywhere until they actually just do it. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:19:57  

Oh, we saw this list like right this was somebody that said they’d seen like, or listened to eight of our ads or whatever, until they finally came to a live event. Because we did like three main events that are open to everybody, right? They’re not strength coach centric, anything. One is our speaker School, which is all about that, right? How do I everything from narrative to communicating just in front of a crowd holding their attention dealing with nerves, that’s one and then another one’s Brand Builder of, hey, I want to create something of my own, that allows me to scale my impact, and I want to do it in a non schemee salesy way. And then the apprenticeship which is like, how do I deal with conflict? How do I deal with people that generally like that old ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure? We’ll see people that will, we’ll come to those things only after, you know, an intensive mainly be it’s funny after something went wrong. Okay, you know, so but we want to that another profession is that it tends to just be the performance community. So like, you know, we’ll get people that it’s part of their daily life that failing, like, whether it’s highway patrol or whatever, they’re easy cells, because they get that aspect and they get the stakes in the game. Yeah, yeah. And and trained coaches just don’t want to have you know, that. They don’t have it even like, think about you guys, you go through some form of media training, you know, to the point is you get exposed to something, something, you have to get used to our immune system does not get stronger without exposure to you know, some kind of right, so people cannot become more of who they are without exposure to some kind of stress and

 

Jack Crawford  1:21:21  

tension. That’s what it is. It’s like, people have a fear of having the attention on them. And they don’t want to blow it. And I see even at the coaching level, right? They get no, like, I can see when it coaches, it’s their game day when they given that one shot to make the team yourself meeting. Yeah. And then sometimes they have guys who aren’t, they just, you know, position coaches who’ve never had to talk to an entire team before. And it’s a motivational thing, which kind of goes back to my whole question about podcasts, but they get so amped up before this one team meeting they’ve been given that they you could see them tend to not sweat, and they kind of go on over pages. And I’m like, once you see that, you’re like, Oh, this guy’s nervous as hell yeah. He’s talking to a bunch of paid athletes who don’t give a shit about what he’s about to say, Yeah. And now he people are looking at him, like, Oh, my God, people are talking while he’s talking and stuff. It just, you can sense it, right. But that’s the initial step. And you can see that in coaches. And it’s not a very common skill to have. It’s not a very common skill to have. And I think it’s probably one of the most valuable skills you can have as a adult who wants to as a professional adult. I asked you to question about podcasts because I only see podcasts as motivation now. Like, there was a quote about, you know, motivation hasn’t been emphasized as something you should take in every day. And or something is that you kind of listen to motivational speeches all the time. But it’s, you know, they say, but hygiene you shower. Exactly. It’s all Yeah, it’s all across, sorry, I butchered it. But it’s basically saying that motivation is like high just like hygiene, right? You need to everyday humans need motivation every day. That’s just the key. Like, that’s what keeps us going. And we under underestimate the power of it, right. And when I would listen to a podcast that would affect me the most, it usually wouldn’t have anything, it wouldn’t change any of my actions or anything that I you know, did that day, but it would change maybe my attitude, as far as how much I focused on something. Yeah, right. And it’s kind of like meditation in some ways. But you’re listening to somebody talk to somebody who might come across as making sense to you, but they put it in different words. And that’s what something I got from, you know, different people on different podcasts from like the old TED Talk podcast. I used to listen to you, Joe Rogan. Yeah.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:23:52  

Now the NPR podcasts and kind of just like,

 

Jack Crawford  1:23:54  

well, some of them are because there are a lot of them are very trying to trying to bring awareness to a lot of issues right now, we’re very saturated. But it’s also like, I can only care so much about some every, you know, and it’s like, I can’t care about this, that and I like I’d only have so much my energy on carry. Whereas you listen to a professional who might work in a completely different industry to you. And they’re talking about something about a bio biology or evolution or something. And somehow in your head, you can tie that to what you’re doing. And it’s crazy that we have that ability, but that’s what podcasts do. And so for me, the motivation was what podcasting is now it’s motivational speaking, but it’s also a different form of, you know, truth is, you know, you just speak in your life, and certain people might hear something bang, and that relates to me, that might be the smallest thing to do.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:24:51  

You gotta remember that. That’s another thing. It scales right like we on average, like when this drops, you’ll get five to 10,000 downloads within a year that’ll be at 100,000 or more And that’s wild to think about. And so that was a huge impact. For us. It seemed like, Whoa, how many downloads did that get? You know, like even episodes that we did a year ago might still get 359 downloads, you know, on a certain day, or, you know, that brings me to my final question for you. And then you can get the last word. You talked about a wide range of skills, you have a wide range of skills, you’re talking about having a variety of interests and life experiences all these things for its football, is done for you right now. Yeah. Okay. So then what’s next? Given how, I mean, you got a voice for a podcast, you could probably do one. You know, if you want to get in maybe be a co host. Every now and then we can put people in the hot seat. But what’s next for what’s next for Jack Crawford?

 

Jack Crawford  1:25:40  

I don’t know, man. It’s tough. You know, it’s tough because there’s definitely a transitory period of, you know, getting out of a professional sport.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:25:49  

What are you doing right now? You’re going to Africa 

 

Jack Crawford  1:25:51  

just working out? Yeah, I’ve been traveling now. I’m trying to just save money. work out.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:25:56  

This goes ask him about when he went to see the gorillas.

 

Jack Crawford  1:25:59  

Yeah, that was a crazy experience. Oh, my God. Oh, well, interesting. I went gorilla tracking with my girlfriend, in Uganda. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:26:07  

Is this like the movie Congo where they have like lasers, and they talk and they’re like, Amy.

 

Jack Crawford  1:26:15  

 it was an unreal experience you would never offer in any developed country, man. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:26:21  

Liz you want to do gorilla tracking. 

 

Jack Crawford  1:26:23  

It was so dangerous. Oh my gosh, girl is one thing.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:26:26  

How did you find how did you fall? Like when one says, I want to go on vacation and I want to go do something like we thought were cultured. We’re going to Greece here in a little bit. But you’re going where do you look at as gorilla trekking.com a thing if they say we need a sponsor? Yeah, we need that sponsor.

 

Jack Crawford  1:26:41  

Yeah, bro. it was all Megan, my girlfriend, Megan, she did all of it. And she had done it years ago. She had looked it up because I want to go gorilla tracking. I didn’t know 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:26:50  

They’ll rip you apart. Jack. 

 

Jack Crawford  1:26:51  

I didn’t know existed. Yeah, I know. I can tell you from firsthand experience that they would easily

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:26:56  

that’s like you, and those kids wouldn’t let you and Danny Radcliffe to bring it back to the beginning.

 

Jack Crawford  1:27:00  

Yeah, it’s even more outrageous than that. That’s the most powerful living thing I’ve ever been around

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:27:08  

Did you guys. Touch one. What did you do? 

 

Jack Crawford  1:27:13  

I’ll tell you what’s weird, because they’ve been habituated, meaning that they’re used to humans, but they get stressed out and if they’re gorillas, right, so you see gorillas up close in their natural habitat. The weirdest part of it is that you’re looking at them, right? And the gorillas, but when you look at them in the eyes, it’s like looking at human in the eye. And I saw a lot of animals. Exactly. So it’s not a lot of animals where you get that feeling. And it’s a different feeling than I can explain. It’s not like looking at a dog. A dog is always looking at you like it’s like, when’s the next treat, whether next I just like the dogs always thinking about, you know, getting your attention. But as a dog, when you look at a gorilla in the eye, he kind of looks at you. And then you look at him. And he’s like, Is there a problem?

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:27:57  

And it’s kind of, I feel like I should be doing what you’re doing. You’re a stupid human. I think we could do this better.

 

Jack Crawford  1:28:03  

He’s looking at you like, your hair is likeYeah, I know. You want to take pictures. If you’re staring at me, then you will look away because obviously, that’s no problem. I have zero problems. Right? But they look at you a certain way that you look at the if you stare at a human, you’d get the same reaction. And that’s what’s freaky at the beginning of it, because you’re just like, wow, yeah, these animals are powerful. And I’m the prey? So we did it two days, we originally booked one day. And we liked it so much. We went the second day. And the second day, we thought that they were going to kind of make it a little less challenging because the hike we went was about two and a half hours up.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:28:48  

So you lost about a quarter sweat. you’re like me, you’re a heavy sweater.

 

Jack Crawford  1:28:52  

I you know, I’m a heavy sweater. So the next day we did it, and man, it was the scariest experience probably probably in my life. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:28:59  

What part of Africa was that? 

 

Jack Crawford  1:29:00  

This was in Uganda, and we were walking up a mountain. And it was so steep. It was like it was a joke. It was like the path was about as wide as both of my feet side by side so I couldn’t step I couldn’t just stand still I had to keep moving because I always had to be one foot in front of the other and the drop was just unreal. I was hanging on just grabbing these bushes that I later found out was poison ivy. Yeah, on the side of a mountain just just like not looking down I was scared because Megan was behind me. And you know at first I was saying we were saying I should go back right because if I fall in everyone’s gonna fall Yeah, right. But then for some reason you have these like the you know the port like the porters were the people who kind of the chaperones you know the like the people who take you on Mount Everest, the sharpest type so they’re used to kind of be in on the mountains for them. They can just run up and down like it’s nothing

 

 For like for most people coming in, it’s like extremely scary to be on such a steep cliff, steep mountain. So I’m grabbing poison ivy. I’m scared that I’m just gonna hit my girlfriend’s making voice behind like, ah, I was terrified, that steep. By the waivers as you just sign, as long as your money goes through, you’re gonna see gorillas, they’re gonna make sure you’re gonna see some gorillas. They have a carry guy going up behind us. I don’t know how it happened because I couldn’t look back. But they called some villages from the bottom of the mountain who ran up, they had to wait 45 minutes, we kept moving. And they had to carry this guy up, which I don’t understand how that physically worked. He would have had about six people carrying this guy in this old this old way. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:30:53  

It would only take one gorilla. 

 

Jack Crawford  1:30:55  

The gorilla was they kept moving up because they just didn’t want to have any regrets. 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:30:59  

The gorilla’s like leave me alone. 

 

Jack Crawford  1:31:00  

Yeah, they just wanted some some peace. So they kept moving. And so they were like, No, we’re gonna see these gorillas.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:31:06  

How close were you get to him? 

 

Jack Crawford  1:31:08  

As close? 

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:31:09  

As close as you and I are? Which  I could reach out if you’re not watching the YouTube, which you should we reach out and extend hands. Yeah, that’d be like a very picturesque thing. I think that’d be a moment. Yeah, why don’t we meet halfway?

 

Jack Crawford  1:31:21  

So no, yeah, man. But that was, you know, I not to get too far off topic. I’ve just been traveling, you know, now I’m trying to budget and work it out, trying to stay in shape. You know, I take all of the information I see from a lot of other retired planners, and I try to take in the good and then avoid the bad because once you’ve been playing football, you know, for long enough, once you’ve been in the professional sports league long enough, you’re going to retire with a lot of money, and not a whole lot to do. And pretty much zero motivation,

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:31:59  

 really easy to get comfortable.

 

Jack Crawford  1:32:00  

It’s so easy to get comfortable. If you came out of college, if you gave every college student a million dollars or $5 million. there’s nothing.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:32:09  

I remember even when we you know, Liz, I don’t think you know this. We actually got married while working at an NFLPA event in Hawaii. Oh, yeah. And so but like I trained a number of guys. So the NFLPA in a previous agreement they had with an old employer, and you’d have to train them year round, because the NFLPA through this agreement with the company gave them free training. And I remember seeing guys that played in like the 1996 Fiesta Bowl are there. And they’re, like, 330 pound, they were a defensive that 

 

now granted, like, some of that’s going to happen, right? Like, I’m not out on the floor every day coaching like I used to. So even my energy expenditure goes down, you know, what I mean? And, you know, like, you’re, so that’s gonna happen inevitably. But you see what happens in the context of like, you said, a lot of them got a lot of money, they got, you know, they’re trying to very comfortable, 

 

Jack Crawford  1:32:56  

very comfortable man and comfort kills man. And it’s, you know, to what you said, as far as what you’re doing now, you know, you’re focusing a lot of energy on your brand on your business, on your company, on your vision, right. So you have that taken up all your energy. And so you might not have as much energy to expend in the weight room, or as coaching guys and things like that, that’s inevitable, but that, to me is part of the goal, right? To find something that consumes all of your energy, to the point where you’re kind of now you’re kind of forcing yourself to get into the weight room, you’re forcing yourself to do extra, because it’s important, you know, it’s important, it’s important for your mental health. But when players retire, they don’t have that goal, they don’t have that goal of becoming a better player of becoming a Super Bowl winner. So now they , you know, they lose that drive to be in the weight room, and they don’t have a goal, and they have money. So you can live off your money to play video games, you know, play in eSports leagues and stuff. And, you know, you can do that for a long time, or to have a lot of stress. But that’s when usually people go down a dark path of not feeling valid.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:34:08  

Yeah, no, I agree. I agree that and you see that, and I think too, like, some of them would say they try to get back into their old training routines, like, you know, for us. It’s about like, you’ve got to have more to yourself in that, like, I know, now that I’m a dad, or that when I travel, I don’t try to like, do the same kind of training. I look at it like a movie role, right? Like my job now is to be a CEO of a company. And we will have to go into organizations, whether it’s tech, medical, military, whatever, and we will help them with interpersonal stuff, communication. We’re kind of like we’re kind of a pseudo director of comms for these folks. So between running events and doing in services, whatever, I have to think of like, alright, if that was an actor, this wouldn’t be some like holdout dude, because he’s on the road all the time. You know, and also like, if I’m going out, and I’m like, busting my ass the way that I’d always do these crazy workouts when I was a strength coach is because you’re committed then but I can’t run after my son. because I’m so sore from quote, unquote, you know, yesterday’s, like, that’s not really like, that’s not a fit for my job today. 

 

And so like, you know, I still absolutely get after it. But there’s also days like, today’s gonna be a great example. We got three more meetings after this I got a pack for a trip. Well guess what my workout is gonna be about an hour, you know? And so like, it’s just consistency beats intensity, and trying to help these guys and anybody guys being inclusive term, of course, like, realize that, like, you just gotta be consistent find something that works.

 

Jack Crawford  1:35:29  

Yeah. And it’s, it’s really the purpose behind everything, right? It’s like, you know, as far as the training, like, I have realized how it like how much of an integral part of training physical training is in my life. And so as soon as I had realized that I wasn’t gonna play another year in the league, or I was gonna hang it up. I started doing I just started working out, I started doing like, I started doing CrossFit. I know, man, it’s like, against everything I’ve ever done. 

 

Yeah, I just love doing I love working out. For more for the mental impact. I don’t want to get fluffy, I don’t want to get out of shape, I still want to push myself, I think that that’s an very important trait to keep, as far as being physically active. But the purpose is always looming over your head. As a retired athlete, it’s always there. And I’ve always told myself that I didn’t want the NFL to be like, the highlight of my professional life, like people kind of carried around with them as being like, you know, I played I’m a former NFL player and this and that, and it’s a cool stat to have right in your in your resume.

 

It doesn’t really bring a lot to the table. You know, if you’re a Jet if you’re like a Tom Brady, or, you know, Aaron Rodgers and JJ Watt, Henry Anderson, like, you’re always gonna have that notoriety as far as what you did in the NFL, but you don’t have a lot of skills to offer. Outside of that, just I mean, a lot of coaches. Yeah. And it’s so to me, it’s looking back or looking at the NFL. Now, when I’m not in it. It’s very boring to me, because I know the inside of the game, right? On the outside of the game, it’s all speculation. It’s like so boring to watch, and talk about and think about, and, you know, speculate over, because to me, the inside is where the action is that you’re on the inside, you know, you’re working, you can have a breakout year, there’s stuff on the line for you, when you’re on the outside, you can’t it just gets repetitive. It’s like, Man, I just like how you said with coaching, it’s like you get stuck in autopilot. And you can kind of just talk about this stuff, too. Even your head goes numb, but you just don’t. It doesn’t satisfaction and players are addicted to the adrenaline that the sport gave them to the unpredictability, the risk, the you know, having skin in the game that the game has actually brought them that they I think that they lose that. Yeah. And I will tell you right now that 95% of football players are miserable for 99% of the year. 

 

So yeah, they’re miserable, because I can’t remember a time during the season. When I was genuinely excited to go into work. If I was happy, if I wasn’t feeling ridiculously sore. Like you know, no, I just felt so like playing football is not a glamorous sport, that people might think it is a tough game. It is a man’s game. And that is a lot of like just physical just trauma from the game that you come in that the physical pain now starts causing your emotional Outside of the game, you’re just sore. Yeah, you know, it’s always tired. You always sore you just can’t wait your plan for the offseason. Like you know, if your team doesn’t have a chance of making the playoffs you like just man, you’re counting the days you’re like, alright, we got about three more Wednesday, practices left. Everybody in the league will understand that joke. But we got about three more Wednesday practices left. We actually have the pads on until the season’s over and people have their stuff booked. They have their moving company ready. They will have their trip to Hawaii. Go get married ready. They’ll have everything wait if you really try me beats people are just ready to relax, right? Because it’s so hard. You’re there at the facility almost every day. And you’re always criticizing yourself and you’re taking criticism from the coaches. 

 

That you know most people in the league they’re not enjoying it. But when you don’t have that anymore. Funnily enough, that’s kind of what you miss most about it weird way how things work in life, right? Were you the thing, whatever you hated the most, which was generally in the NFL was the pressure, which is what gets to you the most. Because even if you have the best game in your life, you just realize you got to do that again next week, right? And otherwise, it’s a fluke. So it’s the pressure, which is what gets the people in the league. And once you’re done playing, at first, you’re like, Thank God I don’t have to deal with that is no more of just worrying about every small detail. But then you realize, that’s the biggest thing you miss is having that pressure on your shoulders, and nobody cares what mistakes you make anymore. Whereas everybody cared in this building, if you made a mistake, a year ago. And so it’s, that’s the tough thing that I think players have to translate even myself. And I know, kind of moving forward, that there are certain jobs that I think won’t work for me. And I think there’s certain jobs that will work. So a lot of players go into like real estate, and they want to become like, they basically just want to protect that money. And if you make every decision you make, if every decision you make is based on money, or preserving your money, then you’re never gonna have enough money  you’ll never have enough, right? Because that’s the game. If you can figure out a trade right or something that’s, that gives you the ability to compete with others, that you can go and say, I have, you know, my score, I’m doing better than him. You know, and I just thought I’m doing better than him. Or he’s doing way better than me, I wonder what he’s doing different. You know, she’s doing way better than me, you know, whatever. And so, if you can find something that brings that out of you, like, for me football did or sports, then in general, then that’s the kind of job I think that most football players would find some satisfaction with some fulfillment, and it’s, you know, we can’t go sit at a desk and kind of get any satisfaction out of that not after being in the stadium and second, Tom Brady, and, you know, come out and then go into work for an insurance company, like, you can’t sack Tom Brady sitting at a desk, you know, typing all day, so it’s, you know, that’s what people miss man, and that’s what football gave me. And that’s what the pressure brings is when people counting on you, you either gonna not do the job, but you’re gonna get the job done. But, you know,that’s the feeling.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:39:47  

Yeah, well, I appreciate that perspective. I mean, I think it’s multi faceted. It’s definitely straight. It’s definitely true. You know, and speaking of what you mentioned, what the game gave you as we sign off, and we’ll definitely have to do a part two, but somebody gave me man is, you know, I got into coaching to work with people like you people that are introspective, want to get more out of themselves and want to face obstacles and understand that, like, it’s a longer term relationship, that these things aren’t transactional. And you again, trusting me during some of the craziest periods of my life as we’re transitioning and going through IVF, with our son, and, you know, all these things, just the trust and the friendship and the camaraderie he gave me, is immeasurable. So I want you to know, I appreciate you.  this conversation now immortalized? Yeah, so you know, when gorillas run the world, you know, 3000 years from now they’ll listen back and be like, Jack got it? You know, Jack got it. And and so I just want to thank you for everything that you Yeah, I want to tell you how much I appreciate you being in my life.

 

Jack Crawford  1:43:30  

I appreciate to man and I would say the one thing that has stood out about you that I’ve always admired is that you’ve created often something out of nothing, right? That you just started out as a good coach to me, then we became friends, I would say, well, in my but then I would say that, you know, you’ve always kind of looked to create something out of out of nothing, which I think is the beginning of what most successful people, they take that first step. And so you know, I would say that your your ability to do that has been definitely inspiring, like you always seem busy, right? And I’m jealous of that now, because  trust me, I keep hearing that from people. But staying busy is a skill, especially. Especially being in my position. I ain’t got nothing to do I’ve got nothing to do, right. Yeah. But is it worth my time?

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:44:32  

made great out of nothing. Is that right? It’s worth your time. 

 

Jack Crawford  1:44:35  

But you’ve created something right? I do. And I’ve always said that about your brand and the brand is you. Right, because you’ve always pushed it. You’ve been the face of it, how you diversify that. You know, time will tell but I’m not. If I wasn’t investing in a podcast, or if I wanted to listen to something. I would listen to you because you have done it. And I’m not listening to somebody else telling you what to do and somebody else who just tells me how to make a podcast. That’s what you kind of find these days. So, you know, I would just say on my end, you know, it’s been definitely inspiring. Watching you kind of continue forward and not look back, because looking back will get you killed.

 

Brett Bartholomew  1:45:19  

Yeah, why? You’ll fall down that ravine. And there’s no I appreciate it, man. Definitely still feels like we got a long ways to go. But you know, it’s inches by inches, right. And so I appreciate you again, we’re going to do a part two, for those of you that enjoy this episode. Make sure to rank it, review it that is not just some pat on the back for us that helps other people via the algorithms find out what we do. So please share it with a friend, please read this others. I mean, you get an uncanny uncommon opportunity right now to listen to one of the NFL is best from a wide range of perspective. So I don’t care whether you’re in business, I don’t care whether whatever field you’re in. If there’s not at least five to 10 take homes you could get from this, then you weren’t listening closely enough and I urge you to challenge yourself more for Brett Bartholomew Jack Crawford and the art of coaching, signing off peace