- Hi, I'm Shawn Brown.

Ever wonder where some ofthe most successful people

get their leadership qualities?

Are they born with them?

Are they just acquired over time?

Can anyone attain them?

We'll find out on today'sGoing the Distance.

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♪ I'm always ready with a stage sign ♪

♪ Hustle in my blood, Ima make mine ♪

♪ Where I'm tryna go,it's gonna take time ♪

♪ You can earn yourrespect, Ima take mine ♪

♪ A minute later I'm onmy own, I'm in the zone ♪

- Hello and welcome to Going the Distance.

You know leadership is a concept

often confused with power or position.

Just because someone is in charge

doesn't necessarily mean they're leading.

You know my wife Dayla once told me

that a good leader can lead from anywhere,

Even from the back of the line.

They just need the right qualities.

And I'm sure NBA executivePat Williams would agree.

He recently announced hisretirement after spending

over 50 years in the front office

of the Philidelphia 76ers, Chicago Bulls

and the Atlanta Hawks.

Then, in 1986 he co-foundedthe Orlando Magic.

Where he's served ever since.

So, he's seen his share of leaders,

and he's written severalbooks on everything

from leadership to parenting.

In his 110th bookCharacter Carved in Stone

Pat highlights 12 core virtues

of West Point MilitaryAcademy that build leaders

and produce success.

And he stopped by to talk about them.

- Pat it is really good to be with you.

You have been inprofessional sports since,

at least per basketball since 1968.

- That's right

- As an executive.

So, you've learned a lot of things

about leadership I'd think.

If there was one nugget that you could

contribute, or say that you've learned

about leadership what would it be?

- Well, leadership alwaysstarts with vision.

Great leaders are visionaries.

They see the future before it gets here.

They see farther downthe road than others.

They see in a wider scope than others.

Ronald Reagan once said,

"To grasp and hold avision is the very essence

"of successful leadership."

So, if a leader doesn't knowwhere he or she is headed

well, nobody's gonna follow them.

- Wow.

And that makes perfectsense looking at your career

and the teams that you'vebeen involved with,

76ers, Chicago Bulls, Orlando Magic

I mean you've brought some great players

into the organization.

Including my favorite all time player

prior to Michael Jordan,

Julius Erving, Dr. J.

Just a quick flashback,

getting him into Philly, did you see

where that was going?

- Well, the merger of the two leagues

had taken place that summer.

The New Jersey, or the New York Nets

were one of the ABA teams

that were coming to the league.

However, Julius was in a contract dispute

with their owner, a man named Roy Boe,

and he did not go totraining camp that September.

So, I stayed in touchwith their General Manager

just to find out if Julius at any point

might become available.

The answer was no, butabout two weeks later

he called me back and said,

"Our owner is in needof cash we'll sell him."

And I said, "How much cash,

"what are we talking about here?"

He said, "Well, $3,000,000,

"our owner needs $3,000,000."

Which in 1976, was staggering.

And then I said, "Well, how much is it

"gonna cost to sign him?"

and I was told another 3,000,000.

600,000 a year for five years.

Now, today that isconsidered chicken feed.

But, back then 3,000,000 and 3,000,000,

my math wasn't great, butthat came to 6,000,000.

We had a new owner of the 76ers,

I had to go to him and explain

what was going on.

And I explained the amount of money

and Mr Dixon said to me,

"Tell me Pat, are yourecommending this deal?"

And I said, "Yes sir, I am."

And he said, "Well then, go get it done."

And that's how Julius became a 76er,

and for the next decade

he was the heart andsoul of our franchise.

And really the heart andsoul of Philidelphia sports.

That's the kind of impact he had.

- Wow, that's fantastic.

You've seen a lot of greatplayers over the years.

Could you name two that exude

just great leadership ability?

That you can think of.

- Well, Michael Jordan wouldcertainly be one of them.

He lead those Bulls teamsjust by his demeanor

and just by his practice habits.

He cleaned things up in the locker room

when they needed cleaning up.

So that they never even gotto the coach Phil Jackson.

He never even knew about 'em.

Because Michael got them attended to.

I think that's what great leaders do.

Every coach is longing,

if your best player is your best leader.

The other would be Larry Bird,

with the Celtics.

Larry was a tough no nonsense guy.

He set the tempo

for those great Boston teams of that era.

He set it first of all

simply with his work habits,

his practice habits.

You know, he never mailed it in.

He out worked everybody,

even though he was already oneof the leagues great players.

But, he just never let up.

That set the pace for thoseCeltic teammates of his.

They had to play at Larry Bird's pace

or they were gonna get left behind.

- Wow, thank you for sharing.

Those are great stories.

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- You've written 110 books?

- That's right.

- A 110 books!

I remember one time,

we were talking and Isaid you were writing

an average of two books a year.

Your latest book,

Character Carved in Stone,

I've been through it,

there's some great, greatcontent in this book.

Why did you want to write this book?

Tell me about the story behind it.

- Well, Shawn here's what happened,

I was invited to speak

up at West Point,

to the Army men and women'ssports teams and their coaches.

That was a great experience,

but a greater experience was when they

gave me a tour of the campus.

Which is powerful,

very moving.

Well, we ended up at a little park,

on the edge of the campuscalled Trophy Point.

It looks out over thehistoric Hudson River.

And as I was workingthrough that little park

I noticed there was a bench sitting there,

which is nothing unusual,

but then I kept lookingand I saw more benches

and I counted them.

There were 12 benches

kind of wandering through the park.

And I thought, well, that's kind of,

kind of nice looking.

But, then for some reason I decided

to look more closelyat one of the benches.

I'm glad I did.

Because, I saw on the end of that bench

a word that was carved into the stone

on either end of the bench.

And I thought, well, let'sgo look at another bench.

And sure enough,

there was another wordcarved into that bench.

And as I checked all 12 benches

there were 12 differentwords carved into the stone.

The West Point class of 1934,

on their 50th anniversary, 1984, donated,

and gave those benches tothe school as a class gift.

And they decided

what words to carve into the benches

because they felt those words

would be motivational andinspirational to the cadets.

Words to live by and to lead by.

So, the publisher said,and I talked to them,

I said, "Let's do a chapter on each one

"of the words, and then let'ssee if we can figure out

"a West Point graduate whobest modeled or exemplified

"that particular word."

And we found them.

And we wove them throughthe different chapters.

Mike Krzyzewski, the Dukecoach is West Point grad,

so we asked if he would do the foreword.

And he agreed to do that,

which absolutely delighted us.

And then we featured Mikeunder the word responsibility,

because Mike has said many times

that he learned that trait

while a student at West Point.

- One of the things Ilove that you point out

is that no one's bornwith these 12 virtues.

You have to acquire them.

Over time.

How can someone incorporatethese virtues into their lives?

- Shawn, I don't think thatwe come out of the womb

with these character virtues

just coursing through our system.

I think initially these qualities are

taught and caught at home.

Parents, grandparentshave a huge responsibility

to model good characterand to talk about it.

To teach it.

To remind our children,

if they step over the line or something

this is why this is important.

And they teach it.

I think there's a greatobligation of later on

of teachers and coaches,

Youth workers, Pastors to do the same.

Because, these character qualities

need to be paid attention to everyday.

- If you're at that point

where you're on the cusp of success

how do you dig deep enough to get

across that line to success?

Because, it always gets tougher

right at the cusp,

right when your nippingat the heels of success.

How can you cross the finish line?

- Well, Shawn let mejust share this with you.

Over the years I've had theopportunity to study closely

who we admire so much for being winners.

Fascinating to study them.

I refer to them as extreme winners,

because they're not normal.

Those people.

For example, all of themare extreme dreamers

They've all had big dreams in their life

from the time they were small.

Secondly, extreme in their preparation

they never let anything slip.

They're on top of every detail.

Third thing I can tell you

is extreme focus.

These extreme winners are locked in.

They don't get diverted.

They don't get off on the side roads.

The next thing I can tell you is

is called extreme passion.

The extreme winners are excited everyday,

they're enthusiastic,they've got enormous energy.

A lot of zip to them.

Get up and go.

The other thing I would tell ya

is called extreme work.

They put their work shoes on everyday.

They never mail it in.

They're constantly workingto improve and to get better.

I can tell you another one iscalled extreme goal setting.

The winners are veryconscious of having goals

that they wanna achieve.

Midrange and further down the road

and long term goals are important

to these winners, these extreme winners.

So, when you get downto the five yard line

as you asked Shawn,

all this stuff I just shared with you

is gonna get you through thelast few yards of any endeavor.

If those extreme principleshave been built into your life,

and practiced and put into use

your gonna plow through those

last yardage issues andget into the endzone.

- Awesome.

- Every time.

By the way.- Every time.

- [Both] Every time.

- There was one time you shared with me,

I said, "How are you doing?"

You said, "Eh, I'm tired.

I could say I'm about 30% right now."

I said "30%,"

I said, "well how do you do it?"

and you said, "Well Shawn, if all you have

to give is 30%, then give all of it."

- Well, Shawn I think,and I remember that,

I had been diagnosed,

over eight years ago now,

with cancer and I was able to keep going.

I was on medication and all

but I continued to conduct myregular life as best I could

even though on particular days

I may have felt like 30%.

But, 30% will stillallow ya to keep going.

And so that's what I've done

through these eight yearsand that cancer battle.

The good news is thedoctors are telling me now

that they don't see any signs of this

multiple myeloma in my blood system.

I'm grateful for that,God has been very good.

But, I'm also thrilled that I feel good.

I'm now operating closerto 100%, rather than 30%.

I'm determined to live to a healthy 100.

- Please do.

Pat, thank you man.

It is such an honor to have you.

Thank you for taking time out.

Character Carved inStone, very proud work.

Thank you so much.

If you don't exemplify going the distance

I don't know what does.

- Thank you, sir.

- Thank you.

- God bless, all the best.

- Same to you.

If there's anything that stood out to me

in the book and in the interview.

It's that leaders aren'tborn, they are made.

Which means anyone can lead.

Those virtues: compassion,courage, dedication,

determination, dignity,discipline, integrity,

loyalty, let's not forget about

perseverance, responsibility,service and trust.

No one person I born withall of those qualities.

They are acquired.

The quickest way to success

is one foot in front of the other.

And if you can pick upthese virtues along the way.

Success is assured.

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The question Is, are youup for the challenge?

We'll be right back, after this.

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Welcome back.

Over the last few weeks

NFL teams have been moving and shaking

trying to figure our howto bolster their rosters.

During the draft and now post-draft.

Which includes coaching staff

and some organizations seemto do it better than others.

Take for instance thePhiladelphia Eagles in 2016.

When they hired DougPederson as their head coach.

Many critics didn'tunderstand the decision.

But, in two seasons hehad proved that he had

a lot of those leadership qualities

that we spoke about earlier.

Like compassion, courage and dedication.

As he led the Eagles to their first

Superbowl championshipin franchise history.

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(crowd cheering)

- [Narrator] When thePhiladelphia Eagles upset

the New England Patriotsto win Superbowl LII

it shocked the football world.

How could a team with so much adversity

pull off a miracle?

It was the ultimate underdog story.

- When you hear Doug Pederson,

head coach, PhiladelphiaEagles, Superbowl champion.

What goes through your mind?

- I still gotta pinch myself everyday.

It's amazing, you know.

It's why we get into athletics

to win championships, you know.

And, did I think it was gonna happen

quite this fast, in year two?

Ah, probably not.

- [Narrator] Two years, whichis quite impressive for a guy

that's been an underdog his entire career.

He spent 14 years as a backup quarterback

behind QB's such as DanMarino and Brett Favre.

He played with five teams,

and was cut six times before

shifting into coaching in 2005.

He coached in high school for four years.

Then made the jump to the NFL in 2009.

Then, after seven seasons as an assistant

under head coach Andy Reed

in Philly and Kansas City,

he was hired as head coach

to the Philadelphia Eagles in 2016.

- Philly's a tough town.

It is a tough city.

What's going on through your mind?

When you're the guy.

Do you feel the weight?

Do you--

- You know what.

I don't, I don't feel the weight

because this is a place

that I've come to love.

This is a place, I played here in 1999.

I worked for coach Reedfor four years here.

This is my third timecoming back to Philadelphia.

I have an idea,

the passion of the city,

the fans here in Philadelphia.

I have an idea what the media is like.

So, it was very comfortablefor me to come here.

- [Shawn] But there were a lot of critics

that felt he wasn'tqualified and wouldn't last.

- You know, not manypeople gave me a chance.

That I was gonna be aone and done type coach.

Maybe, two years, evengoing into the 2017 season

there were comments made that

I was one of the worsthires in NFL history.

- [Shawn] But instead of focusing

on the opinions of critics

Coach Pederson got to work.

When a coach goes to a team

they have to have some kind of mantra.

What was the mantra?

What was your thing?

- We use this phrase all the time.

Keep chopping.

Keep chopping.

Keep chopping.

Keep plugging away.

Keep studying the film.

Keep practicing hard.

Good things are gonna eventually happen

to this football team.

Chopping that wood, man.

You know, it doesn't takeone swing to chop a tree.

It takes multiple swings,

and that's what we did.

- One of the swings Coach Pederson took

was drafting rookiequarterback Carson Wentz.

Within two seasons he managed

to turn things around on the field.

But there were alsosome unexpected changes

happening in the locker room.

- The guys know that I'm a man of faith.

They know that I'm a spiritual believer.

They know I spend time everymorning reading my Bible,

my devotional book, andthat's how I start my day.

I think the spirit of God just kind of

works itself through certainmembers of your team.

And then eventually, it just,

it's gonna end up in the locker room.

I truly believe that the powerof God and the Holy Spirit,

sort of, brings everybody alittle bit closer together.

- The team relied heavilyon their spiritual bond

throughout an injury plagued 2017 season.

Especially during week 14

when their startingquarterback got injured,

and they had to lean on backup Nick Foles

to carry them through the postseason.

Coach Pederson desperately needed

to find a way to liftthe spirit of his team.

The answer came to himin the form of a picture.

- On the wall behind us

was a quote on the wall.

And it read, One mancan make a difference,

but a team can make a miracle.

I looked at all the injuredguys around the room,

I says, "One man can make a difference,

"Carson made a difference for us,

"Jason Peters, you madea difference for us.

"Jordan Hicks, you madea difference for us.

"Chris, you made a difference for us.

"But, it's not about one man, you know,

"it's about the team."

I just kind of poured myheart out to the guys.

I said, man, let's go.

You know.

Let's go.

Nick Foles, you're the guy.

We're behind ya a 100%.

Let's go.

- [Shawn] Doug Pederson led his

underdog team to Superbowl LII

with Nick Foles his backup quarterback,

to face a team very fewbelieved they could beat,

the New England Patriots.

Coach recalls meeting Patriots head coach,

Bill Belichick, before the game.

- We shook hands andcongratulated each other

on our season, his season.

And in my mind I'm thinkingwe're gonna win today,

while I'm standing theretalking Coach Belichick.

He doesn't know what's about to hit him.

We're gonna kick his tail today.

- With that confidencethe team made a statement

early in the game with one of the

gutsiest plays in Superbowl history.

It was 4th and goal and theEagles had the ball at the one.

The play, Philly special.

Which was not suppose tobe a fourth down play.

The play was executed flawlessly.

- Plays like that just don't happen.

One, if you don't work 'em in practice.

But, you gotta have belief,

first, that their gonna work.

You can't go all right it worked,

now I believe in it.

You gotta believe it's gonna work

before it happens.

- [Shawn] On the arm ofhis backup quarterback

Doug Pederson and the PhiladelphiaEagles achieve a miracle.

Their first Superbowlchampionship in franchise history.

In his book, Fearless: How anUnderdog Becomes a Champion

Doug Pederson shares how he,

along with his team

accomplished one of the most

memorable Superbowlvictories in NFL history.

And he hopes to share the message

that through Christ all thingsare possible if you believe.

- I've had to fight and scratch and claw

for everything that I've gotten in life.

Nothin' was ever handed to me,

and I learned that from my Dad,

you need to go earn it,you need to go take it.

You need to go create yourown success, so to speak.

You know, the Bible talks a lot about fear

and overcoming fear, itcan't be a part of your life.

I'm not gonna coach with fear.

I'm not gonna live my life in fear.

I'm gonna trust...

I'm gonna trust Christ, number one.

I'm gonna trust my family.

I'm gonna trust the guys around me.

And it's something I'llcontinue to lean on,

not only the rest of my life,

but as long as I'm head coachof the Philadelphia Eagles.

- Wooooh, the Philly special.

Watching that play never gets old.

I know the Patriots came back this year

and won it all again.

But in 2018, it was thePhiladelphia Eagles.

We'll be right back after this.

(laughs)

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Well, I'd like to thank you for joining us

and hey, leaders aren'tborn they are made.

And you can lead from anywhere

so go out there and make a difference

because life is short,

go the distance.

See ya next time.

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