Teaming Up with Becky Sauerbrunn: Adam Grant

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

The one question I get most after all that football memory making we experienced across America this summer is, how do I keep the magic going? I'd start by saying, articulate what you love the most, and then build on it. First step, find the team that will most probably break your heart, and then add all the supporting necessities to build your weekend tradition, the key to so many of mine. It's Walmart, the place that has it all, the snacks, the coffee, the pies. But you can also get the TV at Walmart, the hoodie to wear on your couch. Get the couch if you need it, and wait, it gets better. Because their express delivery can get it right to your door, so you're all set for kickoff. Whatever your match day needs are, you can find them at walmart.com/soccer.

Delivery timing varies by order size, traffic, weather and demand, subject to availability, fees and terms apply.

Adam Grant (0:51)

The comment from our teenager was, women's soccer is better than men's soccer. Number one, the women actually dribble instead of just passing the whole game. And number two, the women don't flop.

Becky Sauerbrunn (1:02)

I mean, I can't argue with either of those things.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to Teaming Up with Becky Sauerbrunn, brought to you by The Women's Game. I am so excited to welcome today's guest, a New York Times bestselling author, organizational psychologist, podcaster, public speaker, professor, US. Women's National Team Consultant, and fellow introvert, Adam Grant. A team environment is a delicate ecosystem. You've got a collection of people from different backgrounds, with different experiences, with a variety of personalities and opinions, and you create a space where these individuals have to both compete with one another for roster spots and playing time, but also support those individuals when they win those things instead of you. It's a wild concept when you think about it, which makes it all the more impressive when teams can figure it out. But it takes work and vigilance and self-awareness and sacrifice, values that any person can struggle to provide on the daily. With sports teams, you hear a lot of athletes talk about protecting the bubble when it comes to the environment, because that's how delicate it is. A disruption from the inside or a distraction from the outside, and pop, there it goes. So when you introduce new people to that bubble, when you entrust them with the defining of the values that will make that environment safe, productive, and fun, you have to be damn sure that person is worth the risk. Adam has written a handful of best-selling self-help and psychology books that have been praised from filmmakers like JJ. Abrams and Knight Shyamalan, to athletes like Steve Kerr and Serena Williams, to geniuses like Yo-Yo Ma and Neil deGrasse Tyson. To put it lightly, the references were there, and yet we were a skeptical group. When Adam got in front of the team and pulled up an image with Ned Flanders from The Simpsons, Stewie from Family Guy, House from The Show House and Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars, and asked us which of these people we were, we all sat a little straighter in our chairs and thought, maybe this is the guy. Here's my conversation with Adam Grant.

Hi, Adam Grant.

Adam Grant (3:00)

Hey, Becky, how are you?

Becky Sauerbrunn (3:02)

I'm doing really well. I first met you in 2020 when you came into the Women's National Team environment to work with our team, basically to come in and help fix our vibe because our vibes were off. And you actually have a new book coming out called Vibe that touches on your time with us. And we'll definitely take a deep dive into that. But I first want to orient our listeners a bit to the incredible and secretly athletic person that you are. This is a soccer podcast after all. So you grew up playing soccer, correct?

Adam Grant (3:29)

Yeah, I grew up playing midfield and forward and I played, I think I played nine years of soccer, maybe 10 years. And several of those years were on a travel team. And so I thought I was halfway decent and I did not make the high school team and the writing was on the wall. It was time to find a new sport.

Becky Sauerbrunn (3:49)

Can we psychoanalyze that you are a midfielder and a forward? Do you feel like that fits your personality?

Adam Grant (3:57)

Well, I don't know what personality is supposed to be in those roles. Tell me, you're the expert.

Becky Sauerbrunn (4:01)

So I would say more of an attacker is like a goldfish mentality. Like you easily forget your mistakes. You don't dwell.