I recently interviewed Jason Taylor on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is an NFL Hall of Famer and was one of the best defensive players in football in his day. Jason Taylor is a six-time Pro Bowler, three-time First Team All-Pro, former NFL Defensive Player of the Year, and Walter Payton former NFL Man of the Year. Jason, thank you for joining us.

Jason: Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it.

Adam: Before you became Jason Taylor, Miami Dolphins legend, you grew up in the same hometown as another Miami Dolphins legend, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, home of your future teammate, Dan Marino. You played your college ball at the University of Akron, anything but a football powerhouse. And you were drafted by the Dolphins in the third round as the highest pick in the history of the University of Akron at the time. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What were the key experiences and lessons that helped shape the trajectory of your success?

Jason: It's a good question. There's a lot of things. Probably, I think, the overriding thing that when I talk about where it started and how I got to where I am, or people ask what drives you to that? How do you focus on that? It's always adversity. And from seeing what my mother did with adversity growing up, not having much money. We’d eat meals once or twice a week at the Rainbow Kids in their homestead. So, it was seeing my mother's struggle and not seeing much of her because she's trying to work two jobs to make ends meet. Sometimes that concrete jungle where you can't see outside of it, you learn to survive on your own. And I would do things as a third grader: walk home from school, change my clothes, go out and play, come home before the streetlights came on and make sure my homework was done. My sister would have food ready and go to bed. And I still want to see my mom because she's still working and having to carry the laundry to the laundromat. And then a weekend you spend the entirety of a Saturday at the laundromat. It's those times that I look back. There's times that I hated it. Shaking your head. You're complaining and griping about it. And because it's hard, it sucks. And when I turn around, look back in retrospect, that's really what starts to shape you. It's what serves to give you that little rough around the edges, getting comfortable being uncomfortable, trying to overcome adversity, staying positive, and trying to always find a way to come up with a solution. I always say people can always come up with problems, find anybody on the street and come up with problems. Let's create some solutions. Let's spitball solutions and get this figured out. And that's really what started that adversity and having to scrap. Not being a highly recruited player coming out of high school, going to the University of Akron, got a great opportunity there from Gerry Faus to play at the University of Akron, not being a first-round or second-round draft pick and going into the third round, which I was very blessed to get. But those perceived slights, those perceived disadvantages that were either real or they were fabricated by me to keep that fire going and keep that chip on my shoulder. And that's, kind of, it's where it all started.

Adam: I want to fast forward a little bit because you brought up the topic of adversity, which has been not only a central theme in your ability to make it to the top but is a central theme in so many of our journeys. Adversity is inevitable. You can't avoid obstacles, you can't avoid challenges. And throughout the course of your NFL career, you had so many devastating injuries that you somehow managed to battle through. You played on so many teams that suffered through tremendous heartbreak. How did you overcome that adversity throughout your career? And what advice do you have for listeners on how to overcome whatever obstacles they may be facing in their careers or in their lives?

Jason: I think it comes down to, it probably answers both questions as to how I was able to do it and what the advice would be to somebody else, it comes down to mental toughness. You've got to be mentally tough and again, it's easier said than done. And I think mental toughness comes with a few different things. It's understanding your situation, understanding that there's going to be adversity as you said, we all, everyone deals with adversity in your life. If you're not dealing with adversity, whether it's in your life, in your business, in whatever you're doing, you're probably, you're not challenging yourself. You're probably just on cruise control, sitting in the right lane, going five miles below the speed limit. You're not really pushing yourself and challenging yourself. I feel like when you challenge yourself, you're going to hit adversity because not everything is gonna be easy. If it was easy, everybody in the world would be doing it. And that's not the case. And that's what I always looked at whether it was growing up, whether it was trying to get a scholarship or to get drafted. I try to overcome some of these losses that I experienced in personal football, overcoming injuries, it's going to happen. And how I handle it is going to say everything about me. It is really, really going to determine my future trajectory. So it's having mental toughness, but that comes with being able to deal with adversity. Having a positive attitude about it. Being able to step back and not feel sorry for yourself. Being able to step back and really give a full assessment of a very critical self-assessment sometimes of where I'm at, where I want to be, what my goals are. Okay, and then how am I going to get there? How am I going to change what I'm dealing with right now? How am I gonna change losing three straight, four straight? We can't keep doing the same thing we've done for the last month because we've lost every time. So, what processes do we need to go through to change those with that positive mindset and great enthusiasm to get it accomplished? And then you start to come out of that hole. You start coming out of that adversity because it's so easy to get stuck in a rut. And I've been guilty of it too. When you get stuck in that rut of, hey, we're losing, we've lost four or five straight packs. I've been on a team that we were only 13, at one point, we lost 13 straight to start the season. And you see people start jumping off the wagon because there is a lot more room on that train because everyone wants to bail. That's the easy way out. And it's not going to fix anything. It's really going to make things worse. And I've always prided myself on being so mentally tough as having to deal with some of the things I dealt with growing up. And really, throughout my professional career, that was one of my like, it's a brag, I would always brag that I have a mentality. I always thought tougher than whoever I'm playing against. And whatever situation I'm in. Now, it's not gonna be easy to get out. It's not gonna be easy to change it. I'm going to have to do some things that are uncomfortable. You might have to speak to some people and have some uncomfortable conversations. But I never was one that would just accept the status quo. And I'm not going to accept that we're a little less talented so we're supposed to do these games. That's not the case. We do everything we can along this process to get the result we're looking for. You do all that and you do everything you need to do. And you go through that process and you trust that process. And you stay mentally tough and you try to overcome those things. And then, you still don't get the result. Well then, maybe, okay, yeah, well, I did everything I could. I was not very talented enough in certain areas that we’re lacking in coaching, and we're lacking in this, then I could accept the result.

Adam: Jason, I love it. And it reminds me of John Wooden's definition of success, which is, “Peace of mind comes from knowing that you did your best and you tried your best”. You left it all out on the field, whether you win or lose. If you give everything you have, you can go to bed at night knowing that you, in some sense, won.

Jason: Yep. I've been on the other side of it to where if you truly give yourself a critical self-assessment, and we call it self-scouting in sports. What self-scouting every week and self-scouting is, is looking at your game. Look at how you're progressing or not throughout the course of a year. What am I doing better? Okay, it's now Halloween. What am I doing better than I did? I wasn't doing very well in September. Okay, what was I doing? Well, September, then let me see where I'm at in October. Maybe I've gotten better, maybe I've kind of stayed the same. If you stay the same, you're really, probably, regressing a little bit. So it's easy to say that. But it's hard to really look at the film or look at yourself and look at your processes and look at your weekly schedule. And whether it be your workout regimen, your recovery regimen, your film, study all the things it takes to be at your best on a Sunday at one o'clock. It's really tough to look at that and say, you know what? I kind of cut a corner a little bit. I didn't get to massages this week or I was late getting out of the training room. So I did an extra two hours and film is not the typical three or four hours of film, you know, when you cut corners, and some of us will try to overlook it. And I was guilty of it too at times where you look back, you win a game. Maybe you play pretty well. You leave some plays out in the field and then when you're being truly self-scouting, you're like, you know what? I shorted myself Wednesday. I swear to myself a little bit on Friday and then I got here the earliest to spend an extra half hour in a cold tub. You then go back and you correct that process.

Adam: Jason, you're providing so much great advice. And I think that listeners regardless of what they're doing, you could play football, you could lead a company, you could do anything, and the advice you're sharing is so applicable. And when you played for the Dolphins throughout the duration of your career, you were the leader of the Dolphins. And you played on winning teams and you played on losing teams. You mentioned one of the teams starting off. Oh, and 13, you finished one in 15. But you played on teams that had great runs and went fairly deep into the playoffs. In your experience, what are the keys to building a winning culture?

Jason: I'm a firm believer in this, you know, I had a chance to play for Nick Saban, one of my favorite people on the planet. I love him to death and would run through a brick wall for him now. And I know some people were like, well, Nick Saban's a little, a little rough or tough or whatever. But we saw eye to eye in so many ways. And Nick always talks about it, in building a culture, building a football team, building an organization, building a household, whatever it is, it's as simple as getting the right people on the bus, and getting the wrong people off the bus. Because it's all about the people around you. We play a team game, a business, unless you're a single person business, you have people that are gonna have to work for you and work with you, that you're going to have to work for. It's all about the people around you. And when you have the right people in the right positions, you clearly define their responsibilities, you clearly define the expectations from them, and then you trust that you've hired the right people. You trust that your GM or your boss or your president has hired the correct people for those jobs. And you trust them to do their job. At the end of the day, for me, it's always about getting the right people on the bus and getting the wrong people off the bus. You've probably heard this before, people about their listeners have heard this before I’m sure, it's not always the most talented team that wins. It's the team with the right talent in the right places that is willing to do what is necessary to win games, or be successful in business, are the ones that end up being successful.

Adam: Who are the best teammates you played with over the course of your career? And what are the key characteristics of a great teammate?

Jason: Some of the best teammates I've had, I mean, I've had some really good ones. I'm going to start off with a guy I actually saw not long ago, Tim Bowens. Tim Bowens is a guy a lot of people probably don't know about. Tim Bowens. Very, very understated. He didn't like to talk to the media a whole lot because he went about doing his job. But he was one of the baddest son of a guns I've ever been around and the absolute best teammate. I ended up with a lot of really great ones. And that's what made us good in the late 90s and early 2000s. I mean from Trace Armstrong, who is a power agent now coaches in college and the NFL. Zach Thomas. Sam Madison and Pat Surtain are both guys that I played with and I still talk to a lot. They're both coaches for the Miami Dolphins now. Obviously, Dan Marino. Dan Marino was an unbelievable teammate. And that the fact I got a chance to come in here - growing up a fan of Dan Marino's and having a chance to come into Miami - and play with him for three years, after the initial shock and awe went away of I’m sitting in the same locker room as Dan Marino and stopped worrying about getting his autograph. you just sit and you watch and you learn. And you see how he handles himself. And Danny was a, I guess, when I came in, Danny was a 15-year veteran going into his 16 year, or 15 or 16 years. So, you see an older player, by football terms older in the process as he goes through. And you can't understand him as a youngster. Because I'm 22 years old, I could play a game and feel fine. And in three hours, sort of, has gone to three hours where as you become a veteran, you understand that that, sort of, sticks around for five or six days. So you get a chance to learn from a distance and just absorb some of the things that Dan was able to instill, you know? So, those are some of my best teammates. I think what makes a great teammate is, number one, someone you can trust. Someone that I know I trust that I'm gonna get exactly this from this player every day. And what I get from him on Wednesdays and Thursdays can be different from what I'm getting from him on Saturday and Sunday. And that's okay, because that's what we need. But be able to trust that he's going to be available. He knows what he's doing. He's a professional about it, he's gonna do his job. And I can trust that he's gonna be there. Because remember, in football, that much like business, it's so much a team game. It's a very, very, very team-oriented game. And you have to be able to trust other people to do their job, to help them be successful, and to help you be successful. And then another characteristic I think of is that I have a great teammate, which I like to think I was a great teammate. We have heard some guys say good things and I haven't heard much bad so maybe they're just trying to be nice, but it is again being what I was talking to you earlier, about being that servant leader. You've got to be a servant to be a leader. You have to be willing to serve the 53rd guy on the roster in some way, help him out. Whether it's through development or sitting down watching film or sitting down and being an ear that he could have been for a while, because he's dealing with different things. And he's trying to knock and cut each and every week and you have job security and he doesn't understand the difference. And being there for the equipment managers that are taking care of the trainers or taking care of you. It's being that servant leader that makes a great teammate, and I had a ton of those guys.

Adam: Building trust, not only is essential to being a great teammate, servant leadership is not only essential to being a great teammate, these are key qualities to great leadership. Throughout your career, you are known as not only one of the best players in football but one of the best leaders in football on the field and off the field in the community. What made you so successful as a leader? And what do you believe are the essentials to great leadership?

Jason: This is probably going to sound cliche, but what made me a great leader, I think, is the people that I was around, the people that I learned from, the people that I was around on a daily basis. And really, the people that I was surrounded by understood their role. And we, everybody, understood the expectation for them. And I played for a lot of coaches that were very, very clearly defined what was expected. This is how we're going to do it and this is why we're going to do it. And we got to find the right person to do it. And so having good people, I like saying followers that you have, having good leaders, along with you, and that are under you, so to speak, make you make you a great leader. Because they're buying into what you're saying and they're buying into what you're doing. You're not just paying lip service to it, you're doing it, you're doing the deed as well. Sometimes you hear parents tell kids, don't do as I do, do as I say. Well, in leadership, you really need to, you need to walk that walk as well. Because what you do speaks so loudly. I used to tell people this all the time, what you do speaks so loudly that I can't hear what you're saying.

Adam: Lead by example. It goes back to what we were talking about before. Noone's gonna follow you if they don't trust you. What can anyone do to become a better leader?

Jason: That's a good question. And I think I'd have to say, challenge yourself. Listeners are probably starting to see, kind of, a theme. And they're not thinking this is just coach speak. But this is, kind of, that circle that we run as athletes, or at least I did. And in some of the great ones that I've learned from, do you know you kind of run that circle and it's all crazy when you run a hoop or you run that circle? Much like your wedding ring or anything around the tires, you're always going to come back to the same point. You come back no matter how hard you chase it, how fast or how slow you come back to that same point. And along that road are the same things that we always talk about. Trust, mental toughness, overcoming adversity, commitment, sacrifice, having pride. Having pride in what you do is so important. You can be proud of what you accomplish, not having an ego but having pride in what you do and having pride in the process of what you're trying to get accomplished. So, what makes a better leader? I think it's challenging yourself. When you start to challenge yourself and you put yourself in a situation where you can become uncomfortable. And then using that positivity, the effort in their relentless approach to overcoming whatever that challenge is, then you start to build that confidence, you start to build that trust, and people underneath you start to build that mental toughness. That is so essential, I think, to being successful in anything in life.

Adam: Such important advice and clearly so central to your journey, not only as a star football player but as a successful human being, as a successful leader, has been the successful leaders that you have been around. You mentioned Nick Saban, who was clearly an impactful part of your life. The man who inducted you into the NFL Hall of Fame was the first coach you played for in the NFL, a fellow NFL Hall of Famer and a legend, Jimmy Johnson. And he wasn't only your first head coach, but he was a true mentor to you. And I wanted to know if you could share with listeners what made Jimmy Johnson such a great leader? And what were the best lessons that you learned from Jimmy Johnson?

Jason: They're really good questions. And yes, Jimmy Johnson is that guy to me, and if you make a Hall of Fame, you could pick anybody in the world to present you to the Hall of Fame. And, like, for me, it was pretty easy. He was the one guy that took a chance on me, gave me a shot, believed in me, all the things you need to do as a leader. Having that trust in me and belief and seeing me as where he thought I could be, not where I was at that time. Which is development, which is player development, which is personnel development, whether you're in a business or in sports. But what made Jimmy so good, is he was so hard that he is exactly what I needed in 1997. As a rookie coming into the NFL, a third-round pick, in football terms can barely walk into GM at the same time. As far as understanding what I needed to do to be successful in the NFL. And one of the greatest things he did for me early on, is he simplified things, you know? You get this base playbook. I don't know how many pages. A couple hundred pages in the playbook of adjustments and checks and blitzes and pressures and different coverages and perceived pressures. And all these different things, and all these tabs and this, and he really simplified it for me. He literally told me to get wide. And when the ball snaps, go tackle the football. It will teach you everything else and will coach it up. But when the ball snapped, go kill the man with the ball. That took a lot of the thinking out of it for me, which ended up taking some of the anxiety and stress out of it. You're thinking less and planning faster. And it was just that belief that he had. I mean, now, Jimmy was very, very good. And he was, I think, a psychology major. And he was very, very good at making you uncomfortable. A common theme that I keep coming back to, he wanted to make you uncomfortable because it pushed you and challenged you. It made you go outside of what you think you can do. And sometimes we put these mental steps that are on ourselves, that I can do this to this point. But I can't do that, I can't take that on. But really, you can. You just need someone to believe that you can do it. And in turn, build that belief in yourself in a new way that you can do it. Now, Jimmy was very, very difficult in training camp. He was very demanding. Things had to be done a certain way, at a certain speed, a certain tempo, with a certain physical exertion level. And then we're gonna do all the same, we're gonna do it all again in three hours. So, you put your body through such a strain. It's such a stress that it forces you to either conform and grow, or you get left by the wayside. But he also had a hand, he had a very good knack for knowing when you were pushed to the limit. He kind of put his arm around a little bit, gave you a couple of good words or pushed in a different way. He was very good at pushing in a product and figuring out what works for each player. And it was just, I thought, masterful. And I would sit there a lot and just watch him. This guy obviously had success in Dallas before he came here, and won a couple Super Bowls in Dallas. So he had that aura about him. And just anything he said, I just wanted to hang onto every word.

Adam: I love that. To highlight a few points you shared, Jason, great leaders have the ability to simplify. It's a theme that I've heard from other great leaders who I've interviewed, push your comfort zone. Great leaders have the ability to get the best out of others. And when you're thinking about how to become a better leader, take the initiative, challenge yourself, take on things that might make you uncomfortable, but that will allow you to grow, that will allow you to become better, understand who the people are that you're leading. And this is important, no matter what context you're leading in. I teach a class at UCLA and I actually brought in a former NFL player, he won a Super Bowl with the Rams, not this past year, but back when the Rams played in St. Louis. And one of the things he spoke about with my students was exactly what you shared when you spoke about what you loved in regard to Jimmy Johnson, which is what makes a coach great is understanding who the players are on your team. And more broadly, understanding who the people are within your organization. Who are the people that need you to motivate them by pushing them? Who are the people that need an arm around them? Sometimes on Monday, you need to push, sometimes on Tuesday, you need to put your arm around them. And it truly comes down to understanding the people around you, being flexible, listening, not coming in with a preconceived notion that there's only one way to do things. It's my way or the highway. But being flexible in the way you think and being flexible in the way you lead.

Jason: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. It's funny how it applies. It's why I always think that football and really sports in general, a lot of team sports in particular, are just a microcosm of what it takes to be successful. Whether in society and in your home, in business or whatever now, and it's the excessive testosterone levels and the brute force and all that. But their real core principles that you just talked about, are so translatable across any field, or any walk of life, that no matter what, if you're male or female, Black, White, or anything else, it translates for everybody. And every aspect of life. I believe so many of the principles that you just talked about, and that is really ingrained in athletes for so long, is applicable in all those walks of life. And another thing, I always actually have it written down in my locker that the school coach says, “They don't care what you know until they know that you care”. And somebody told me that when I first took a job in high school football coming out of the NFL and made the Hall of Fame. Some people think, okay, well, this guy, he must know it all because he's a Hall of Famer. And it doesn't matter how much you know. So, you go in there, and you develop that trust. Again, come back to that, where you develop that trust, and that comfort level with it, with the kids and trying to coach to where they trust that you care about them. That you care about them as people, not just players, not just taking some reps off of them or conditioning them less because they're banged up. When you truly care about them as people and you're interested in getting to know them and their family, or being there for them, or trying to be a mentor to try to help support and feed kids that don't have money to get fat or, or taking kids home after practices, they don't have rides. When they know that you care, then you'll start to be able to instill what you know. It's hard to be able to teach the kid and mentor the kid or anybody. And not just kids, it's adults as well. Because we all have a guard up at first. I think it's natural. You meet somebody new, you don't know them yet, you can't really trust them yet. We have to build that trust. We communicate with each other. Build that comfort level, make sure we're like-minded in how much this person really cares. This person is using me to make plays on Sunday as this person is using me to make a bottom line or to sell a product or to run a division or to see or do. They really care, don’t they? Do I feel like they care about me as a person? And I always believe that when you do that and go so much further, you get so much more on people when they feel like they have a vested interest in winning. Whether it's a scout team player, or it's a janitor in a building of a business, when they feel like their job is the most important job to making that business successful. Or that scout team player does his job and the job he does on Wednesday and Thursday is so important that we will not win the game without him doing his job at a high level. You've empowered him that much or you've empowered them that much. It's not that you start cooking with gas. But, I think, you really started getting stuff done.

Adam: Jason, I really loved that. Something that I've learned and that's been continually reinforced through all these interviews, the core principles of effective leadership are universal. What you hear from the most successful business leaders, what you hear from the most successful military leaders, what you hear from the most successful leaders in sports, and politics, everywhere, the themes are universal. And what it takes to lead a football team, what it takes to lead a unit in the army, what it takes to lead in the boardroom, you have to care, you have to love people, and you have to have the best interests of others top of mind. If you don't, you're in the wrong field. You're never going to be successful as a leader. What can anyone do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Jason: Challenge yourself. Bite off more than you think you can chew and you'll be surprised how well you can chew it. Challenge yourself to do something that's out of your comfort zone, out of your wheelhouse. Maybe you feel like you can't, definitely can't, lead a division or I can't, I can't lead a unit. Or maybe I'm not the right general manager or I'm not the right manager at this restaurant, or there's a promotion out there and I really don't want to apply for it. I don't know if I will take it or if I can do it. Maybe it's too much for me. I might fail. Don't be afraid to fail. Because if you're afraid to fail, you're never going to succeed. You're never going to do anything. You're never going to get outside of the lane you're already in. So I pride myself on being a left-lane kind of guy. Get in the left lane and try things and try to bite off more than I can chew. And oftentimes, I find a way to figure it out because that's where your mental toughness starts to kick in and you start to overcome the adversity. And you build that self-confidence because I take pride or you take pride in what you do and how you do it. You fall in love with the process of being great. And all of a sudden you get that accomplished and you're like, wow, maybe I should try this now. And as you do that, you start to challenge yourself more and more to build that confidence. You build that trust within yourself and among the people around you, whether it be on your team or your in your organization or in your household. And then it's crazy how they start to believe in you, they start to believe in themselves more, like wow, we actually could all do more. We could all be more successful. And maybe you're making 10 million a year. Your bottom line is trying to get to 15. It's a 50% increase. It's probably too much. Give it a shot. Next thing you know, you end up at 14 and a half million like wow, we could actually do this and then everybody comes for more, become more empowered. Challenge yourself. Don't be afraid to challenge yourself and get comfortable. Be comfortable being uncomfortable.

Adam:  Jason, thank you for all the great advice and thank you for being part of Thirty Minute Mentors. 

Jason: Thank you for having me.


Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities and non-profit organizations.

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