Came from a broken family. Dad was in the Vietnam War and came back broken and kind of led to challenging times. And a single parent, five kids, trying to navigate it without a dad and the whole deal, you know, not two nickels to really rub together. So playing youth sports and all that kind of stuff, it just didn't exist. And one day I was walking home, I went a different direction than the other, you know, staying on the busy streets. There was a drug deal going bad and I went a different direction and came across a football field and not having any boundaries and being enamored by it, I walked right down the middle of the field in the middle of practice. Guys were literally dodging me. And instead of that coach kicking me off the field, like he had every right to do, you know, he sat there and let me watch practice. That one split-second decision, I mean, he's never thought about that one time since, but that one split-second decision literally changed my life. Hey, it's another great day to get better. Welcome back to Becoming Undone, the podcast for those who dare bravely, risk mightily, and grow relentlessly. Join me, Toby Brooks, as I invite a new guest each week to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. Growing up wasn't easy for Ron McKefree. One of five kids growing up in a broken home, he had big dreams to become a professional athlete and to provide his future family with the emotional and financial security that he craved growing up. But without the guidance, the direction, and the mentoring, those dreams were unlikely. However, one day a chance encounter and a decision made by a football coach to give young Ron a chance and an outlet for those emotions ultimately led to an entirely different trajectory in his life. Since then he's gone on to become one of the most well-respected and sought-after strength coaches in the world and he was kind enough to share his story in today's episode number 47, Earned with Ron McKefree. This week we've got none other than legendary coach Ron McKefree. Ron's a longtime friend, probably the first real podcast I started listening to was his Iron Game Chalk Talk that he founded. Ron, great to have you. Yeah, it's awesome to be here. I appreciate you doing this. What a great topic and love what you're doing. Well, I appreciate that. Well, your resume speaks for itself, but you've been a head strength and conditioning coach at the University of Washington. You've definitely been around Division I athletics and professional football from Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Cincinnati Bengals, South Florida, University of Tennessee, Eastern Michigan, Fresno State, two-time collegiate coach of the year, best-selling author, sought-after motivational speaker. You do it all. And prior to that, you were an athlete. You were an all-conference defensive back. And my typical question to start off is, who did Ron want to be growing up? Well, he was definitely a professional athlete. I think it was probably a balance between pro baseball, pro football as a kid. But yeah, I think more than anything, I came from a broken family. Traditionally, dad was in the war, Vietnam War, and came back broken. And that kind of led to, you know, some challenging times and a single parent, five kids, trying to navigate it without a dad and the whole deal, you know, and you know, that's something I'm sure we'll talk about throughout this, but like, you know, those are things that I'm not proud about, but they were, they were kind of what makes me uniquely me. And, uh, so I, I'd be honest with you, the answer to that question is I just wanted to be a success. I just, I wanted to have a stable home for my wife, my future wife, my future kids. And, um, and so I was, I was really motivated by seeing like friends that had parents that were doctors or lawyers or things like that, that had resources, but were, you know, what were good parents, you know, and, and, uh, that's, that was really the goal. Yeah. Well, no doubt you've, you've accomplished that. And a lot of times the theme that's emerged in this show is a lot of us wouldn't have chosen the path that unfolded before us, but it really is what makes us who we are. And it's the stimulus that gets us to overcome and to grind and to do the extra work maybe that other people wouldn't do. And in this day and age, I mean, you see it firsthand. NIL is a thing, the transfer portal is a thing. If a kid's unhappy, you know, society would tell them, get in the portal. Like, you don't have to be resilient, just find some place to go. That wasn't really how things were growing up in our era. So, I guess, let's take it all the way back. You kind of touched on this, but start at the beginning, wherever that was for you. Yeah, well, we grew up single parent, five kids, inner city, Kansas City, and not two nickels to really rub together. So, you know, playing new sports, playing, you know, all that kind of stuff, it just didn't exist. And one day I was walking home, I went a different direction than the other, you know, staying on the busy streets, there's a drug deal going bad and I went a different direction and came across the football field and, you know, not having any boundaries and being enamored by it. I walked right down the middle of the field in the middle of practice, you know, and guys were literally dodging me. And instead of that coach kicking me off the field like he had every right to do, you know, he sat there and let me watch practice. I'm going to go ahead and squeeze in right here because after hearing this again during editing, it is crushing me. Ron grew up poor. He didn't have a dad in the picture and life for the family was rough. I've got friends who are teachers and coaches and athletic trainers who work with youth all the time, and consistently they tell me that the kids who act out the most rarely do it from a place of evil. They aren't trying to be troublemakers. Many of them are just acting out, carrying emotions and responsibilities that they shouldn't have to at such a young age. And as I listen to Ron recount his story, I find myself choking down some pretty painful emotions. To hear Ron reflect on how his coaches split second choice to give grace instead of discipline, it absolutely cuts me to my core. Let me explain. Without a doubt, when I reflect back, a low moment in my life happened when I was helping to coach my son Tay's Little League team. They were probably 11 or 12 years old. One of the kids on the team had a terrible attitude, and we had dealt with it all season. One at bat, after a strikeout, he was pouting and walking back to the dugout, and I heard him mutter some cuss words under his breath. These are 11 and 12 year old kids, so I called him on it, and he immediately fired back at me in a highly disrespectful tone. And I went off. I lost it. I let him have it. I told him right then and there in front of his teammates, in front of the fans in the stands, in front of the other coaches, that he would respect the game. We would respect our teammates. We would respect our coaches. And I threw him out of the dugout. Not physically, but made him leave. It's exactly the way I'd been raised. And in that moment, I thought I was justified in teaching him a lesson in respect. Years have gone by since then, and I've later discovered that that player, I'll call him Mike, that kid that I had coached right out of the dugout that night, he was from a broken home. His mom had her hands full, and she thought setting her son up for Little League would be a way for him to make some friends and get the influence of some men in his life. Mike later got into even more trouble, and I heard from another coach later that he got kicked out of school and he was being sent to an alternative school due to disciplinary issues and drug use. I'm not sure where Mike is today, but then I hear Ron tell his story. Ron McKefree is one of the most successful strength coaches in the world. He's been successful everywhere he's been, which includes stops in the NFL, several D1 colleges, as a speaker, as an entrepreneur. And all that happened because he was being disruptive and acting out and doing what kids who are troubled do, his coach chose not to go off. His coach made the harder choice to go in. He gave Ron a chance. And to Ron's credit, he took it. Who knows where Ron's life would have ended up if, in that moment, his coach had done what Mike's coach did. Me. What I did. I will forever be sorry to Mike. I squandered a chance that Ron's coach captured, and it's a powerful lesson for all. And it reminds me of this quote, what we do in this life will echo in eternity. That one split second decision. I mean, he's never thought about that one time since, but that one split second decision literally changed my life and gave me a passion for football that I didn't know that I had and you know that led me down kind of you know my mom still to this day buys me a Nerf football for Christmas every year because that was what I wanted that year you know and and so that's ultimately you know I did everything on my own that I could you know played football every single day in the backyard and finally had enough money as an eighth grader to kind of play, you know, use sports and play, you know, a team where I was the, you know, I was the B team, whatever, and the try hard kid and went to high school and was wanting to be, you know, that same day on that practice, they had the quarterback throw me a ball on the sideline. And, you know, he threw it from the middle of the field to the sideline. I thought it was a mile, you know, went right through my hands and in the nose and flooding my nose. And I thought it was the coolest thing in the world. You know, and so from that moment on, I wanted to be a quarterback. And so I go to high school, like you mentioned, and I'm the ninth quarterback. And when they said, who wants to go to what position, I was number nine, you know, and probably viewed that way. And, you know, long story short, I ended up earning, you know, starting job and ended up playing a couple, you know, starting a couple years in high school and that led to kind of me getting a college scholarship to go to Ottawa. Yeah, just football ultimately kind of raised me. Coaches kind of raised me. Man, two things there jumped out at me. First of all, the impact of a coach. Yeah. And mindlessly, really. I mean, if you were to ask him, he was just doing his job. He was just giving you a shot, but imagine the different path your life would have taken had you gone the other direction, literally and figuratively. So I'm sure that's a lesson you've taken forward into your coaching career. But secondly, I also, and I'm not going to let you get away without telling a story, how you went from the ninth QB to the starter. This is really, you know we're still just now starting to get it get into film and those types of things and you know when everybody was was taking snaps I wasn't in the top three so I wasn't getting the majority of the snaps right away but when everybody was going that you know the camera would catch me in the background going through the steps and and making the throw on air or carrying out my fake or whatever it was. And each day, the coach would just move me up a spot in line until I was getting those reps. And I think just the coaches in general want to see that you care as much as they do. I mean, that's why they do what they do and they're passionate about their sport. I wasn't, anybody told me that. I don't think so anyways. I just was like, man, I wanna take as many, I wanna try to be good. And so I did that, I put a tire up, found a tire that was in a creek bed that I dragged out and cleaned up and hung it from a tree and threw the ball every night, probably had a hundred balls through that freaking tire and had one football, so I had to go get it every time. But yeah, I think, you know, and, you know, working at something, working at your craft, even when nobody's looking, I think is the ultimate message there. And whether that's coaching now or podcasting or whatever you choose to do with your hands, being, you know, finding a way to, to do it when nobody's looking, I think is a critical part of the success equation. Right. Now, this is a thousand percent a compliment, but you're not built like a quarterback these days. You are a strong mountain of a guy. When did the weight room come into the equation for you? Yeah, again, I think early on in high school, we were fortunate. We had a weight room, and we actually put some effort into strength and conditioning. I was 120 pounds, a freshman, and just wasn't built like everybody else and you know and so trying to try to develop every get every ounce of athleticism out of my body I saw that the weight room led to success I saw the people that were the fastest and strongest that were getting the playing time were the biggest you know the guys that were working hard in the weight room and and so you know I did that I think I was really lucky I had a Jamie coach that was also a wrestling coach that you know was you know was really adamant about the weight room and you know looked up to him and and you know it's kind of came natural and then you know when wrestling season came around and I was trying to figure out what else I could do to get better at football they kind of threw me into wrestling and learn learn pretty quick that you wanted to be strong in that sport so so yeah I thought that was good and it really led to the part of it was just performance and trying to get better. Part of it was vanity at that age, right? Just trying to look good for the girls and whatnot. But then, you know, as I went into college and I originally went to go be a physical therapist or a doctor, it was the choices that I was headed towards. I graduated with a biology degree. And it wasn't really until my senior year that I knew that even coaching, being a strength coach, was a possible, something that you could do and so you know I just you know I saw the success of the weight room and the and how that applied I had a you know interest in the science part of it the anatomy physiology part of it and we're just what thinking about going physical therapy and and or med school and and figured out that all sudden I could combine my love for sport and football with kind of the science nerdy kind of what I was Learning about and enjoying became a no-brainer Yeah, I think there's there's that moment of clarity when it clicks for many of us where sport is such a critical part of my life growing up and coaches were the athletic trainers and a lot of us that stick around it even well beyond what would have been our playing days. And for you, you extended that career from high school, you were an all-conference defensive back. And then at some point, you kind of hang the pads up for the last time. What was that transition like out of football for you? Really hard at first, really hard. I've cried three times in my adult life and walking off the field in my last college game was one of them. And really, I mean, I had some excitement in that knowing that I was gonna go into coaching and then I was trying to make that happen and already had some things lined up potentially. So there was definitely some excitement with that, but when something's such a big part of you and you know that kind of daily motivation that daily kind of accountability all sudden gets taken away from you and now it's not ultimately it is you you know you uh there's a little bit of trepidation there but I think you know fortunately for me I stayed in coaching and I think that that was that's probably cheating staying in as close to the field as I could get. Right. Well, certainly you found success and continue to parlay that at the next level. Up to that point, when you completed your undergrad career, what would you say your relationship with failure was? Was it all just success and just climbing the ladder or were there setbacks along the way? And if so, what did they teach you? A hundred percent setbacks along the way. I mean you know I mean my whole life really was not you know was nothing was nothing was given everything was earned and just wasn't those kind of opportunities. I mean it wasn't on the travel teams I wasn't getting any kind of extra training or anything like that and so fall on my face a lot of times and and I think I've never like For whatever reason whether or not it's because of the way I was raised or it's just innately in me But I never viewed failure that way like it was just there was another way You know, I have this conversation with my wife all the time where not she's she's been not to my nominal So don't take this out of context, but like sometimes it's a wall, you know, she'll throw her hands up and it's like, okay, there's a wall there and like what do you want me to do? And for me, it's like, okay, there's a wall there. So now let's back up Let's say I'm either gonna go to the right or I'm gonna go to the left or I'm gonna jump over that thing or if it Comes down to it. I'm just gonna back up on a run through it, you know, and I've always kind of viewed those obstacles as Overcomable if you're willing to work at it and I find the method, I think, just look and you see people that have had any kind of success and it's always been a part of the equation. So it's never easy going through, it's easy preaching, tough living, right? But to me, it's a part of the process. No doubt about it. You've taken those lessons and you've applied them to the next generation, whether that's athletes who have worked under you, whether that's coaches, your coaching tree is phenomenal, you've got coach of the years who have trained under you. What do you think the lesson or the value of that failure has been for that next generation, whether they be coaches or athletes? How have you used maybe things that weren't ideal for you to inspire or encourage those that you work with? Yeah, I think, I mean, I think you got to challenge people. The fundamental principle of strange condition is overload, right? To adapt, it has to be pushed past its present capacity, right? And so I think I'm just taking that same principle to almost every aspect of my life, whether it's parenting or being a husband or coaching coaches or, you know, things along those lines. And so challenging those people that you're tasked or that you're blessed with to be able to work with, putting them in those environments and giving them enough resources to continue to find their own path and success. And then being an encouragement when they do fall and help them pick themselves back up, but also be there to be encouraging and to push them back in the right direction. I think that's why I love what I do. I mean, come every single day, I think that's, these lessons that we're developing in the weight room, you're working with teammates, you're allowing yourself to, you're dealing with success every day, you're dealing with failure, you're motivating the person next to you, you're allowing yourself to be motivated. These are all things that, you develop those skill sets, you're gonna be successful in a lot of things, and it happens every single day in the weight room. And so, one of the reasons why I was drawn to this profession so much, you know, because it's a daily process and nothing happens overnight. It's something that's, you know, all of a sudden you've put a lot of time in and you look up and you're like, man, like freaking out, gain 20 pounds, I'm running faster. And you know, it was, you know, every little day stacked on top of the other. Yeah. So you've spent your entire career in strength and conditioning, but certainly you haven't just taken a job and stayed there. It's kind of the nature of the business that you tend to bounce around. And not just you, but to make it to that next level, there's always kind of that pressure. And if you align yourself with a coaching staff and they either get fired or they get promoted, I mean, it's just, it's a tumultuous industry. So what did you tell yourself or even your family during those many moves as you were pursuing your own professional goals and aspirations? Yeah, it's crazy because even though I have moved quite a bit in this profession, it seems like I was at South Florida for 10 years, I was at Tampa Bay for three years before that. So I was in Tampa for a long period of time between NFL Europe and Tampa Bay and University of South Florida. I never really felt like we moved that much, but I think the answer to your question is that we looked at everything like an adventure. I just told the story to our interns earlier today. I have friends, my wife has friends that have never left Kansas City, never ventured outside of that realm. They're just not very worldly when it comes to seeing the world a different way or those types of things. And so we get a chance by, you know, by working in the Southeast and now the Pacific Northwest and California and Michigan and Cincinnati and these, all these different places. Like we've gotten a chance to experience a lot of different cultures, a lot of different ways. And I think it's made my kids more resilient. It's made our family more resilient. And so we've gotten to the point where it's just part of the process. It's part of what we do and we accept it and kind of look forward to the challenge. It's not easy for sure like buying and selling houses is never fun, moving is never fun, building relationships and then kind of going on to the next one is never fun. You are leaving people that you care about but you know it's a part of you know it's a part of this this this career and I think just in general whether or not it's training conditioning or you know interacting or interacting with coaches or players or administrators, faculty, whatever. There's going to be people that you like and you don't like. There's going to be things that you agree with and you don't agree with. But I always try to find the good in everything. And I try to find the good and leave the bad. And I think by doing that, finding the good in every situation, and kind of leaving the bad in every situation, I think it's resulted in us being excited about those next steps. Absolutely. There's another story of yours that I, it's a sidebar in one of the books we worked on together. I edited it, I think, I don't remember which one it was, but you tell a story of when you were working in the NFL and it was draft day, and we're not far removed from draft day, and the team had one pick remaining, and it was your job. Tell me that story, because I love the message behind it. And I think it's so inspiring for people who feel like sometimes we're just toiling in obscurity. Why bother? Why try today? Right. Yeah, I was in NFL Europe. So we had a draft, you know, in NFL Europe, it was an allocation draft and then it was a draft. And, you know, I'm a young coach, probably 22 years old, 23 years old at the time, 22 years old actually. And you know I'm in the draft room you know and you know it was nothing more than a hotel or whatever that we were you know kind of made in the draft kind of war room and this is still VHS days and the defensive coordinator was trying to decide between two defensive ends and so he said hey Ron you know go over and get me, you know, X, you know, X player and X players video. And I was, you know, I was a strength coach. I'm in a draft room. I don't have really anything to do with personnel. I'm a young coach. So I'm kind of the, you know, I'm just kind of the gopher guy, you know, in that setting. And I go over to the box, you know, and there's 12 VHS tapes of each of these guys' games. And I look back at them. I'm like, hey, coach, which, which tape do you want me to grab? He's like, I don't care, just grab one of each. So I could have grabbed the second game, the 12th game, I don't even know which game I grabbed from each guy, but I just grabbed two videos. And he popped it in and he literally watched one play of each player competing. And the guy that had the better play is who he ended up drafting and There's a ton of there's a ton of work that goes in though to watching these guys and they're both, you know Maybe you know, I don't even know what round it was. I think it was actually early that might have been our first pick So, you know both guys were good we were gonna win either way, you know with with the guy that we got but There's a good lesson to kind of take around like you don't know what to play. The coaches are watching, it could be any, the eye in the sky, right? And it goes back to the story of me doing the things in the background, right? Of whatever you're doing behind the scenes, your resume is your effort. And his effort on that one play got him drafted, and the other kid got drafted too, I'm sure, but that made a decision. And it taught me a lesson just in that moment to make sure that like you're always being evaluated. You're always, you know, you're, you're, you're always inspiring. You're, you know, you're always being watched. And so try to live your life in a way that can be both inspiring and motivating that people can, that you can be proud of. And I talked to our interns a lot of times about coaches and my coaching staff of, you know, if we watched the workout through a glass and they couldn't hear you coach and they couldn't hear your technical cues and all those types of things. Or your athletes for that matter, would they be able to know what they're doing and be able to execute and move around? Can that room function without you see coaching on in that environment? So coaching would be dynamic and moving around and demonstrating and you know a high-five here and a fist bump there. Like you want it you want to make sure that people can see that you're coaching even if they can't hear you. Right, that's such a powerful message and the little things become the big things and no plays off. I mean there's a lot of coaching cliches that go into this but it's so true and it doesn't matter if you're playing football or in a boardroom. Attention to detail is the difference between maybe getting that promotion or not, getting drafted or not. So I think it's a powerful lesson. You never know who's watching, you know, and that, and you don't know who's going to lead your next job or your next opportunity. And so making sure that, you know, you leave an impact on everybody in some positive way is, is, it's only going to pay dividends in the end. Yeah, absolutely. So it's definitely been a storied career, not to focus on the negative, but the whole point of the show is normalizing failure. What would you say has been the low point of your journey and what did it teach you? Yeah, I think two points come to mind when you say that. One is, when I was coaching NFL Europe, I'd just gotten back, there wasn't an immediate job right away, that was only a kind of a seasonal job. And here I had been at Tampa Bay and NFL Europe at this point, Kansas City Royals, expecting to be chased after for a job and nothing kind of coming and just being kind of a little defeated, you know, not defeated, I shouldn't say that. Just really frustrated with the lack of opportunity at that point, it seemed like. And I kind of always tell people, I tell our athletes, I tell our coaches that like it's always darkest before it's light. And so there's going to get a moment in your career, in your life where things are going to get really, really dark, you know, but like, just like the sun comes up every day, it's darkest before it's light. You just got to try to, you got to be optimistic. You got to keep plugging along and putting one step in front of the other and it'll lead to positive things. So that's one time. The second time would be when the head football coach at South Florida got fired. We had built a program from scratch, essentially, at the University of South Florida. We went from working in trailers and one AA non-scholarship to, at that point, five bowl games and a number two ranking at one point. I'd been named strength coach of the year the first time and all these things, all the success and had only one losing season that entire time to where also the head coach gets fired for something that didn't happen but also like things outside of our control and so that kind of put everybody's job in jeopardy and mine included and the new coach came in I feel like they were kind of forced it kind of told to keep me even though I was obvious I wasn't his guy and he wasn't mine necessarily and got really really bitter really frustrated with the profession not feeling like I had a lot of control and that was really a tough time for me and I did not handle it the right way I was ugly to the people around me I definitely didn't put my best foot forward as a coach so that they could see me in a different way and give me a chance to be evaluated you know and it was just kind of a hard thing to kind of swallow up that your job was kind of out of your control. I would be lying if I said that that hasn't completely still still frustrate me to some degree but same type of thing, you know, we've had losing seasons before, we've had us fired at the University of Tennessee because that coach got fired, definitely handled it a lot better the second time around and just realized that it again it wasn't a personal thing, it was just people have relationships people have trust You know ultimately I had a little bit more confidence in my own abilities to be able to bounce back from those types of situations and so it was Yeah, you know I just handled it a lot better and now I Try to make it to where I eliminate do things better. You know financially do things better just with preparation to where I'm working because I want to work somewhere not because I have to work somewhere. Right, yeah. We're about the same age so we kind of grew up through that GA-SHIP model. A lot of places have gone away from that in sports medicine and to a certain extent strength conditioning but man I'll never forget the first school I applied to and I won't say it out loud but I still hate that school. They didn't interview me. I thought for sure I was a lock for the job, I didn't even get an interview. Sometimes that rejection, I cling to that, and sometimes tap into that. It can be fuel. Sometimes those failures can be the motivator, the kick in the pants that I needed, so that the next time it comes around, I'm gonna do it better. So I love the fact that you've been in this business long enough to understand that it is a business, and sometimes it's just not your door, and that doesn't have to undermine who you know who you are as a professional and as a man. It was funny you say that. I had a board in our little apartment in Kent City. It was a tack board, probably the biggest one I could get, but it literally had all the rejection letters that I had. Every rejection letter I got, I put up on the board and definitely fueled me. It definitely fueled me and it was good. I kept those letters for a long time and it was fun later on coming back around people that rejected that all of a sudden now are in your sphere, you know? And I think again, it's just, I think what I've probably learned more than anything is that timing and opportunities that they, they don't always match. Right. And so what might not happen right now could very well and how you handle yourself in those times definitely goes into the second time around a bit about how you're considered and I think that's a big part of it. Yeah, one of the GAs I worked with in Arizona, she was from Purdue and she said there was a bar in West Lafayette if you brought one of those rejection letters in you got a free beer. But yeah, we had I think there was an establishment in Tucson where you could bring them in and the whole wall was plastered with people's rejection letters. So what do your days look like today? Yeah, I think the role of a strength coach, especially at this level, has changed quite a bit. I mean, even so in the last two years, it's changed quite a bit because of some of the things you mentioned, recruiting and IL, those types of deals. So we're a morning training team so we practice or we lift kind of in the morning for the most part so I'm in the work by 5 we're we're setting up we've got workouts starting at 630 or 7 go pretty much non-stop training you're on your feet very physical job very demanding from you know 637 to about 11 30 12 and then throughout the day, our staff, myself, you know, we have guys that come back and do what we call blitz packages, where they're coming back and working on things that they need to individually work on. So we've got those things going on. I'm looking at some right now out the window. But then the other part of my job is, you know, in a lot of ways, I'm a coordinator and assistant head coach. And you know, I'm a part of all the staff meetings, I meet with every recruit that comes on campus, I make recruiting calls, and just the operations, the logistics of running 120 people in the same direction, type A personalities in the same direction, it takes a lot of logistics and admin. A lot of the rest of my day is caught up in being almost like an assistant football coach. And so our staff is even structured in a way to where I'm the head strength coach when I'm on the floor, but then kind of the rest of the day, my top assistant becomes the head strength coach, and I kind of go become a football coach. Right. I think this era has certainly turned the profession of strength conditioning somewhere on its ear. And there was a time when you're late for a workout, you know, punishment runs. And there were real strong disciplinarian toughness, middle toughness, that's part of what it meant to be a strength coach. And I can certainly see how people wrestle with the idea that if you don't just recruit a senior in high school as a freshman, you have to recruit your roster year round. Every athlete on the team almost has to be re-recruited every day because if they get unhappy they're in the portal and they're gone. So how have you seen maybe the personal touch or the emotional connection with your athletes maybe morph over the span of your career in this era? Yeah it's a good question. I think the NIL and the one-time transfer and all that, I mean you really, I think I've been very fortunate with the fact that I had an NFL career as well. I mean, I think in the NFL, you got guys that have a pretty strong opinion as to what they think is right and wrong from the training that they've done. They've all had college and performance facilities and all these types of things, and so they have an idea of what they want to do. So in the NFL, it's more about tricking them how many different ways can you get this guy to squat, right? Without telling them that he's squatting or the creativity of that. And I think the transactional side of that where it kind of kept everybody at arm's length, because you didn't know if you were going to be there as a coach or if they were going to be there as a player. I think that kind of prepped me for this time in college athletics. Now what I love about college athletics is exactly what you're saying, the relationship piece, the having an impact in their life beyond just the football field and it's getting more and more challenging to do that because I think the sport and Where things are headed is become more transactional in that way but it's all the more reason like deep personal connection and relationship kind of stands out and You know in that kind of space, you know when everybody's been transactional if you're really You're deep and you have an understanding of what they want to do when they're done with football, if you have an understanding of what their hobbies are, you find ways that you pour time into them. We talk to the athletes all the time about like, we got to be a part of your life. That's how the two hours that you're in the weight room and those are the 22 hours that you could possibly mess up everything that we just did, you know, and so, so we find And we embrace the things that most guys our age fight to adapt and to grab hold of, like social media and video and all these different things that a lot of coaches are resistant to try to make a part of their day. Those are things that we're actively trying to find ways that we can get in front of our players, be it social media, be it video, be it whatever, to kind of get some of those educational issues across or build relationships and create some of that social proof. You know, because, you know, you talk about like Amazon and some of these things where it's instant gratification and it's shopping for the best deal and kind of, you know, making it to where it becomes, you know, the loudest voice in the room wins or whatever. Like you've got to, you've got to present your case. You've got to create some of that social proof to where not just you are saying it or your staff is saying it, but there's other people that are saying that you know what you're doing. Having a strong brand, for lack of a better word, in strength and condition helps out with your athletes, but again, you've got to be able to back it up. Yeah, no doubt. That instant credibility is there. I'm sure looking around your office is proof that a lot of your athletes could see that, hey, this guy knows what he's talking about. So it's been a great journey to this point. What's left undone? Yeah, I mean, for me, it's finishing my PhD. I think that's just a life personal goal for me as well. I think, you know, I don't have many things that I feel like are undone. I think I just, I keep challenging myself to find new and creative ways to challenge myself. And, well, you know, I have a white belt mentality. So whether that's mountain biking or jujitsu for me, or it's a different hobby of some sort, finding some way to kind of have that white belt mentality or to not be the smartest guy in the room, you know, I think is, I'm constantly trying to find ways to kind of put myself in those types of situations. You can't help but be in awe of the humility that you hear in Ron's words right here. On one hand, he has a resume that many in his line of work would kill for. He's trained some of the most elite athletes in the world and worked with some of the biggest coaching names in the business. His credibility and his pedigree is decidedly black belt caliber. But Ron's a student. He's actively pursuing a PhD and his reference to that white belt mentality is in line with the idea that success doesn't come from where we've been, but rather where we're going. The lack of complacency that we can learn from a leader like Ron is the template we should all aspire toward. This job at this level, you know, there's no shortage of things that I got to do to kind of stay ahead of the curve. So this is a lot of it this kind of stage in my life, but I think it's important for those that are listening to understand that you go through different stages where you're gonna have time to like pick up new skills like podcasting or something like that, where you can pick that kind of stuff up and really, really grow and learn and get better. By having these types of conversations, you're going to naturally get better. I love that white belt mentality. I've discovered if I'm afraid of it, I probably need to run at it. It's probably something that I need to tackle. and there's never a harder one than the first one until the next one. So this has been a learning process for me, but kudos to you. I mean, you are a big inspiration for this, just seeing the platform you were able to craft and build, not doing it full time. I mean, you've got a message to share and you touched on it. A lot of this younger generation, they will respond to something a little bit. They'll listen to your podcast while they're working out, whereas maybe they're tuning out if you're telling a story before the workout, something like that. So finding creative ways to connect with people through technology is a great thing. If you were to pick a song to represent your life, what would it be? You're talking to the worst guy in music in general. I mean, it's gotta be like the Rocky theme song or something, you know, like just, and you know, that montage, like, just, I, yeah, I, I, I really, I don't listen to much music to be honest with you, but, but I think anything that is fine in a way to like, to, to challenge, like I think what people's perception of what I should be, I think it's probably one of the song that represents that would be what it is. I mean, there's, I think that's why you go back to that coach story that I talked about at the very beginning, like it's so strong. So, you know, anybody that has the opportunity to work with young people or people in general, you know, you don't know what act is going to change somebody's life, you know, and, and something as small as letting you watch a football practice can change a person's life. You got that opportunity each and every day. And so just likewise, there was a lot of people in my life, teachers or whatever, that because I didn't come from the best home life or didn't have the cleanest shirt or whatever, would automatically kind of close doors. And for me, that fed me but there's a lot of people even in my own family that you know that that was that was debilitating you know and so I think that that is so important to kind of surround yourself with people that are gonna lift you up and then you try to be that person for somebody and there's a song that represents that you probably know better than I do that would be my theme song. That's awesome. Well we're on your best-selling author you've got a couple of books, several books out, and been in the podcasting space, sounds like maybe starting another one. How can listeners connect with you and the work that you're doing? Yeah, at RV Key Free, it's probably the easiest way. I'm saying this to sound like a pompous jerk, but I do get a lot of messages. I do try to respond to everything, and so whether it's email or social media messages, I do try to respond to everything but it's just usually at three o'clock in the morning when I can't sleep or something you know and so that's probably the easiest thing I think stage is the wife this is a big big job up here Washington and so I'm not doing as much from the writing standpoint of the podcast and things like that but but you know I think anybody that's in the Seattle area that wants to come and watch a training session or come hang out with our staff or just kind of be a part of us for the day, you're more than welcome. I think the proof's in the pudding. I think what we do, I can get on here and I can say anything I want about how motivating I am or this environment is or whatever but I think you got to see people in action and so hopefully that comes out if you come watch us train. Yeah, well for the strength conditioning folks listening, you just launched a new internship, right, with the sports science bent. I think I saw that drop last week. I don't know if that's accurate or not. Yeah, it's performance analyst position. So just trying to, you know, I think you're limited in NCAA with the number of strength coaches that you can hire. And so partly because of that and trying to continue to build opportunities but also because of the emergence of sports science and analytics in our in our space trying to create some staffing in those roles and it bleeds in the strength conditioning of course you know but it's but yeah I think you know I'm just trying to do my part to help grow the profession. Yeah well Ron I know you're a busy guy I sincerely appreciate you taking some time to chat with me today. It's been a pleasure. You are an inspiration and have been and continue to be. I told you I tell those two stories to pretty much every student I ever have. And I credit you when I tell them. I love them both. And the message that you're communicating by telling them. So if there's ever anything I can do to return the favor, you know where to find me my friend. I appreciate man thanks for doing you know this too I know how much work goes into setting these up and producing them and putting them out there and and I know everybody appreciates it and again if you can take one or two things away from every one of these episodes and practically apply them each and every day you know it accelerates your learning curve as a coach so appreciate that. Awesome. Ron McKeith, thanks so much. Thanks, buddy. Ron couldn't be more spot-on here. On one hand, I'm a bit embarrassed to even release this episode. And it certainly isn't because of Ron. His part was gold. The audio came through loud and clear. His point that you learn something new from every conversation and every attempt to publish an episode It's coming from a place of experience. The show he founded, Iron Game Chalk Talk, was at one point on iTunes' Top 100 rated podcast and, as Ron alluded to, since taking over his spot at Washington, he hasn't had the time to commit to writing and podcasting as he once did. He since handed the show off to Isaiah Casalia, who's carried it on in spirit in Iron Game Chalk Talk 2.0, which is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere else. Check it out. But the embarrassing part for me is that after we finished our conversation, I realized that the microphone that I thought I was using when we chatted was actually off. Instead, my audio was picked up by the onboard mic in my laptop. So if you thought I sounded like I was recording from the inside of a drainage dish this episode, it's because I failed. And as I learned in episode 46 with Tim Kite, failure is feedback. I've fixed some things since recording this episode with Ron, and I've resolved to never let something like that happen again. So my apologies this week for the terrible sound quality on my end, but I'm forever thankful to Ron for sharing his inspirational story and dropping some serious knowledge on us. I look forward to calling you Dr. McKeefree very, very soon. For more info on today's episode, be sure to check it out on the web. Simply go to undonepodcast.com backslash EP47 to see the notes, links, and images related to today's guest, Ron McKefree. If you've enjoyed the show, I've got just one simple request. You'd be so kind as to share it with someone else. I'd really, really appreciate it. I know there are great stories out there to be told and I'm always on the lookout. So if you or someone you know has a story that we can all be inspired by, tell me about it. Surf over to undonepodcast.com, click the contact tab in the top menu, and drop me a note. Coming up, I've got original American Gladiator Darren Malibu McBee, cancer researcher Phil Anton, and Dr. Garfield Bright, one of the original members of the iconic and award-winning 90s R&B quartet, Shy. So stay tuned. This and more coming up on Becoming Undone. Becoming Undone is a Nitro-Hype Creative production written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for Becoming Undone, contact me at undonepodcast.com. Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn at Becoming Undone Pod. And follow me at TobyJBrooks. Listen, subscribe, and leave us a review at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Till next time, everybody, keep getting better. Thanks for watching guys!