The Action Catalyst
Leadership Is Worthless, But Leading Is Priceless, with Dr. Thom Mayer (Sports, Ukraine, 9/11, Medicine)
Tue, 03 Sep 2024
Author, speaker, and physician Dr. Thom Mayer explains how a magical series of serendipitous circumstances took him west, the tragic event that led him (back) to the NFL, putting relationships over resumes, finding where your joy intersects the world’s needs, leading the NFL through the concussion crisis, sucking down vs. sucking up, working at the burning Pentagon on 9/11, the Boss vs. the Leader, innovation at the speed of trust, making failure your fuel, and the virtue in thinking of yourself less.Mentioned in this episode:Learn more at SouthwesternConsulting.com/Coaching/StudentsSouthwestern Student Coaching
Full Episode
You fly in and you think, oh my God, these are the gates of hell. I mean, you see the Pentagon of all things burning. Couldn't even see that there was any remnants of a plane and the Southwest wall was completely on fire. But the gates of hell take you to some pretty interesting places.
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Today's guest is Dr. Tom Mayer, an author and keynote speaker who's been a leader in times of crisis for over 25 years. He's the medical director for the NFL Players Association, served as a command physician at the Pentagon on 9-11, led a mobile emergency team in Ukraine, and has authored the new book, Beatership is Worthless, with Leading is Priceless.
It's my pleasure to introduce Dr. Tom Mayer. Tom, great to meet you. Good to see you. I actually want to know a little bit of your backstory. Where did you grow up and then how did you end up where you are now?
Well, I grew up in a small town, Indiana, Midwestern, classic Midwest way to be raised. One of those factory towns that feeds or fed General Motors, 70 miles northeast of Indianapolis. And a football player, a lot of people play football in order to go to college. I went to college in order to continue playing football. And
you know dreams of playing in the nfl and aside from i did play in college uh was a all-conference linebacker and you know the old saying as you know the longer ago we played the better we were did have a chance i'd broken my leg my or i didn't break it somebody broke it for me in my junior year a pretty bad fracture so i couldn't play my senior year
But I was invited to training camps with the Vikings and the Bears and thought, hey, let's give this a shot. And discovered that, what did they tell me? They said, aside from my side speed, strength, and talent, they said I had no talent. Other than that, I would have been a perfect linebacker in the NFL. So- How nice.
Yeah, decided to go to, I was in at Duke's Medical School and I thought no matter how nasty the professors at Duke were, they couldn't be any worse than the guys trying to take my head off with the Vikings and the Bears. So became an emergency physician.
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