Divot

The hardest lesson a two-time NFL MVP ever had to learn had nothing to do with football. Steve Young, Pro Football Hall of Famer and author of The Law of Love, opened up on Divot about a pattern that shaped his whole life and only recently caught up with him: "Fear-based thinking is a liar. I was afraid of failure, so much so that I paid this price so that I could have success. I learned as an older person, that's a fallacy. That's fraudulent." "I'm not going to pay for success with my worry and fretting. Man, fame is a thief. Fear-based thinking is a thief. There's a lot of thieves in life." Being scared of failure can look like being driven from the outside. Steve says it took him decades to catch the difference. What are you paying for success with? Watch the full episode with Derek Andersen, link in the comments. #mindset #leadership #personalgrowth #authenticity #divotpodcast

Steve Young has been in rooms with presidents, Hall of Famers, and billionaires for four decades. His most admired list looks nothing like a résumé: "To me, the superheroes are the ones that have defied the natural state. The natural state is seeking credit. The natural state is selfishness." Steve, Pro Football Hall of Famer and 3x Super Bowl champion, on the two humans he calls superheroes: Magic Johnson and Arnold Palmer. The famous people who stayed grounded when fame gave them every excuse to drift. Who separates the real ones from the loud ones for you? Watch the full episode with Derek Andersen, link in the comments. #authenticity #leadership #mindset #personalgrowth #divotpodcast

"A plane can be built and be amazing, but can it fly?" Steve Young's answer for why great teams with great tactics still fall apart is the clearest explanation I've heard. "You can have great tactics. You could have great technology. You could have great product." "That doesn't have a chance to fly because it's rooted in something that's gonna rot." Steve, Pro Football Hall of Famer and 49ers legend, on what actually made his team unbeatable for two decades. Bill Walsh's mix: vulnerability, accountability, a sense of being in it together. That's what let the plane fly. Where does your team's culture actually root? Watch the full episode with Derek Andersen, link in the comments. #leadership #teamculture #culture #mindset #divotpodcast

Derek Andersen shared this on Divot: he met Magic Johnson backstage once for five seconds. Got a hug like they were old friends. He's been trying to figure out for years why that moment stuck. Steve Young named it: "Humans feel it. When it's authentic, it hits different." "That's why great leaders. It hits authentic." Steve, Pro Football Hall of Famer and author of The Law of Love, on why credit-seeking quietly rots relationships over time, and why the humans who don't get pulled into it are the ones you still remember decades later. Who's the most authentic person you've encountered in a room full of ego? Watch the full episode with Derek Andersen, link in the comments. #authenticity #leadership #mindset #personalgrowth #divotpodcast

80 of the top 100 highest-rated TV shows in America last year were NFL football games. Not sports broadly. Football specifically. Steve Young broke down why on Divot: "NFL has done what European soccer has done. It's generational now." "It's the most inelastic business." "The demand is always there no matter what." Steve, Pro Football Hall of Famer and longtime ESPN NFL analyst, on the shift from fandom to inheritance, and why the equity values on NFL teams keep climbing regardless of what happens off the field. Have you seen demand this locked in anywhere else in business? Watch the full episode with Derek Andersen, link in the comments. #nfl #business #sports #media #divotpodcast

The most disarming answer we've heard on legacy. Steve Young, Pro Football Hall of Famer and co-founder of HGGC, gave it to a 20-year-old who told him it was too easy for a Hall of Famer to talk about legacy. Steve's response worked at 20. Works at 45. Works at 65. Full episode with Derek Andersen, link in the comments.

New episode is live with Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Young. Two-time NFL MVP. Three Super Bowl rings. Also, in Derek Andersen's words, the most grounded person he's ever met at that level of fame. Steve joined Derek for a conversation on the law of love, the culture that made the 49ers unbeatable for two decades, and the mindset his dad, nicknamed Grit, drilled into him about hard moments most of us try to route around. This one goes far beyond football. It's about how great teams are built, what real legacy actually looks like, and why staying authentic under the weight of fame is one of the rarest skills there is. Who's the most grounded famous person you've ever met? Watch the full episode with Derek Andersen, link in the comments.

New episode is live with Pro Football Hall of Famer Steve Young. Two-time NFL MVP. Three Super Bowl rings. Also, in Derek Andersen's words, the most grounded person he's ever met at that level of fame. Steve joined Derek for a conversation on the law of love, the culture that made the 49ers unbeatable for two decades, and the mindset his dad, nicknamed Grit, drilled into him about hard moments most of us try to route around. This one goes far beyond football. It's about how great teams are built, what real legacy actually looks like, and why staying authentic under the weight of fame is one of the rarest skills there is. Watch the full episode with Derek Andersen, link in the comments.

The hardest leadership lesson Astro Teller had to learn. Astro is the Captain of Moonshots at Alphabet's X, the lab behind Waymo, Google Brain, and Wing. In this episode, he opens up about a delusion he carried for years. He believed that if he explained his innovation system clearly enough, loudly enough, stridently enough, people would simply adopt it. It took him a long time to accept that's not how humans work. People don't abandon their own success behaviors because someone asked them to. They abandon them when they feel safe. When they feel heard. The other piece he had to admit to himself was even harder. He might be world class at describing where a team needs to go and at holding the line on the container. But he's not world class at helping people actually get there. That's why he surrounds himself with better sherpas for the emotional journey. He holds up the torch at the end of the path. He creates the space so the team doesn't gravitationally fall back to normalcy. But he lets someone else walk people through the middle. Are you protecting your ideas or protecting your team's ability to grow? 👇 Watch the full conversation, link in the comments.