Don Yaeger is a New York Times best-selling author, award-winning keynote speaker, and leadership coach whose clients include executives in the banking, tech, and entertainment industries.

After graduating from Ball State, Don worked as a newspaper reporter before he was hired as a writer and associate editor for Sports Illustrated, the world’s most popular weekly sports magazine. Don parlayed his career at the magazine into a successful second career writing the life stories of some of the biggest names in sports.

In this episode, Don talks about how his youth took him from Hawaii to Muncie, Indiana, about the Ball State professor and staff member who were instrumental to helping him chart his life path, and what it was like to see his byline for the first time in the pages of Sports Illustrated.

Don shares the meaningful experience of writing the autobiography of his hero, Walter Payton, and what inspired him to start his own podcast, “Corporate Competitor.”

He also reveals the characteristics of greatness that he’s witnessed in many of the athletes he’s interviewed along with the advice he’d give to Ball State students pursuing their own fulfilling careers.

You can learn more about Don at https://donyaeger.com. You can follow Don on Twitter at @DonYaeger and President Mearns at @PresidentMearns. 

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