A few weeks ago I made my annual sojourn to visit my old friend Danny in Arizona. We'd spent previous trips on his land — hanging out in his RV, hiking, riding — but this time was different. His beautiful home was finished, and he and his wife had moved in a couple of months before. His eldest son was there. And my son Larsen, who had just turned thirty, came down from Montana for a few days.

We were sitting around talking about the house — specifically, the contractors who kept not finishing it.

Danny had been frustrated. Getting to the finish line was arduous — contractors who disappeared, work that stalled. Larsen, who manages large commercial construction projects for a living, nodded. He'd seen it a hundred times.

Larsen said he'd never been comfortable bossing people around — didn't think it worked anyway. So he took a different approach. Softer. More connected. Get to know them, get them to like you, earn their respect. Give them yours.

That opened something. The three of us — all former attackmen, team guys to the bone — recognized a shared truth we'd each arrived at separately. That the way to lead is to appeal to someone's innate humanity. Even if that humanity has gone quiet for a while. Even if they've become jaded, or slow, or hard to reach. And even if that's not their fault.

Dreams fade. People settle into lives of “quiet desperation” as Thoreau once said — not because they wanted to, but because that's just what happened. They're just people. And sometimes, when someone shows up and actually sees them — believes in them —something stirs. They're reminded of who they want to be.

But it requires something from the leader first. Belief. Genuine faith in the person in front of you — the kind that can't be faked, because people always know. When a leader shows up that way, something shifts. The work stops being about finishing. It becomes about who you are when you do it. That's a different kind of motivation entirely — deeper, more durable, and I think, more essentially human.

Danny told us about a guy on one of his teams. No fancy credentials. Not the most decorated guy on the team coming in. Not the one you'd necessarily pick first. Just a person who wanted to do good work and be part of something that mattered. Danny saw that in him, believed in it; helped draw it out. That man's work was eventually recognized at the highest levels. What he had was humility and a deep desire to give his best for others. It was always there. It just needed someone to believe in it first.

Somewhere in all of us, that same desire lives. We just need a leader willing to find it — and patient enough to let us manifest it. Sometimes we need to be our own leader.

Danny carried that understanding into work I won't name here, in some of the most demanding environments imaginable. It served him extraordinarily well. My own years on the sideline taught me the same thing. Larsen is still building his own record.

A few days later, I brought Danny into a meeting with a college team I was working with — on performance, on leadership. I asked him to tell them what he'd told us. The room went quiet. Best I could tell, they were mesmerized. His approach hit the spot in a way that no playbook ever could.

Coercion gets compliance. Connection gets everything else.

— Pete

Notes arrive on Sundays and some Wednesdays

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If these shorter notes resonate, The Practice is where I go deeper — longer essays on the same terrain. → here

About me, and Practice Notes → here
About Integrative Coaching → here
About my book, The Why of Sports → here