*Date: 8/27/2024* In 2005, an unknown assistant basketball coach from Texas A&M spoke at my high school athletics awards ceremony. He told a story of how he begged his way into his first coaching job by volunteering to sweep the gym floors and edit VCR tapes at a small junior college in east Texas. Twenty years and 350 wins later, he’s a two-time SEC coach of the year and now the head coach at Texas A&M after stops at Marquette and Virginia Tech. The coach is Buzz Williams. I sporadically followed Coach Williams’ career since that talk because when you graduate from a town of less than 2,000, and where graduating classes are regularly less than 100, there are only so many people who go on to do big things. Coach appeared in a two-part episode on one of my favorite podcasts – The Daily Stoic – last month and it caught my attention. Naturally, the first story he shared was another hustle story where he did slept in a hotel lobby to meet George Raveling – the man credited with signing Michael Jordan at Nike. Hustle is a hallmark of Buzz’s personality, but this was the first time I’d heard a few of the lessons below. **The work is the win**. In games where talent is table stakes, loving the work separates the naturally skilled from the relentless. Coach Williams uses weight loss as an example – “I can’t tell you how to lose weight, but I can tell you that if you skip breakfast and hit the treadmill for 200 days straight, you’ll see results.” It’s almost impossible to beat people who love to practice and love the work. Buzz calls those people, “everyday people” meaning they show up every day to put in the work regardless of circumstance. **Growth is the willingness to accept the truth.** Feedback is a gift. It might not always come in neatly wrapped packaging or places we want it to, but good, actionable feedback makes everyone better. > ”I think it’s directly proportional that my growth is based on the willingness to accept the truth.“ We will not grow if we’re unwilling to hear the truth or become offended anytime we get an opinion that runs counter to our own. **Leaders are proactive, not reactive**. We often think of great leaders as people who can respond under the pressure of stressful situations. But, Buzz argued that the best leaders process what can go wrong and plan for it early. It’s easy to see how this one translates to company building and investing. If you’re leading a company, seeing around corners and planning for what can go wrong is just as important as envisioning what can go right. **What Kind of Leader Are You** Buzz admits he’ll never be described as an “Xs and Os” guy or a tactical genius, so he hires assistant coaches who fill his gaps. His strength is in leadership and developing talent. It’s also clear that’s what he’s most passionate about. There’s a lot of humility in this way of thinking. At Energize, we often say, “accentuate strengths and neutralize weaknesses.” It’s important to recognize where you are strong and where additional skills can make the team stronger. This type of thinking raises the ceiling for an organization and is also a lot more enjoyable at the individual level since most of us like to work on the things we are good at.