Author: Don Yaeger

Heading into tonight’s college football national championship game, the Clemson Tigers are undefeated and ranked number one. Still, if you listened to Clemson players and coaches in the last few days, you have heard how they are fueled by disrespect. You read that correctly. The number one team in the nation feels like the underdog. As ridiculous as it sounds, “No one believes in us,” has been a common comment from...

First, a Monmouth Hawk basketball player slam-dunks a basket on the court and the crowd’s attention immediately turns to…the bench! There, two backup players lift another player—who forms a basketball hoop with his arms—by the waist, allowing a fourth bench player to dunk an imaginary basketball through the makeshift hoop. The Monmouth bench collapses from the dunk, and the crowd goes wild. This circus of team support...

In a few days, you and the rest of the world will pen ambitious New Year’s resolutions…but only a fraction of people will ever accomplish them. We all know the numbers; according to the University of Scranton, 92% of people fail at these goals every year. Jesse Itzler, entrepreneur and author of the book Living With A SEAL: 31 Days Training with the Toughest Man on the Planet says that the fear of failure eliminates...

It begins like this: The Golden State Warriors—reigning NBA champs—take the court like phantoms, diving for loose balls and swishing pull-up jumpers; manic fans pulse the stadium with each scored point and, as the lead builds and defenses collapse, opposing coaches drain timeouts, their voices silenced by the frenzy of the crowd. And it’s only the first quarter. Golden State overwhelms opponents with passionate play,...

‘Tis the season to be…stressed. If you’re reading this blog, most likely you’re doing so on a smartphone while flying by the seat of your pants, trying to meet deadlines and end-of-year sales goals. Your email inbox is overflowing, and the pressure to plan (or attend) all those delightful holiday parties may be sending you to the edge. This is the uncomfortable truth: It’s normal to feel overwhelmed during this time...

The Great Teams in sports and business all know that cockiness precedes a fall, and that a modest approach to competition always breeds success. Southwest Airlines—the world’s largest low-cost airline and regularly ranked No. 1 in customer satisfaction by the U.S. Department of Transportation—thrives on humility. The airline stands out in a crowded field by remaining true to its values, which competitors have tried—and...

I’ve never understood why there is just one day called Thanksgiving. What if we were committed to being THANKFUL every day? Imagine what our lives–and our workplaces–would look like. My guess is that if we all expressed gratitude more regularly that we would all be happier. I know there are scientific studies out there that make this point. One of the hottest topics in sports and business is employee happiness. Research...

I’ve spent the past four years studying the greatest sports organizations in America—from the San Antonio Spurs to the Kansas City Royals—in a search for the shared characteristics of great teams. One of my business mentors on this subject is Bill George, longtime CEO of Medtronic—the world’s largest medical technology company—who currently leads an executive education program at Harvard Business School. After building...

As much as I enjoy studying sports and business leadership, I love the opportunity to delve deeply into what some of history’s greatest leaders can teach. They don’t come much greater than Thomas Jefferson, and the leadership moments don’t get much stronger than his decision to take our fledgling democracy into its first battle on foreign shores! Jefferson, who served first as George Washington’s Secretary of State,...