In this episode, Lance Tyson sits down with Mike Tomon, President of the Houston Texans, to explore what it takes to lead a world-class sports organization on and off the field.
Mike shares how his role spans sales, marketing, community impact, legal, HR, communications, data, event operations, and guest experience—all with one goal: enabling the Texans to deliver the best product on game day.
From his early start at IMG and sales stints with the Cleveland Cavaliers, Phoenix Suns, and Charlotte Bobcats to senior roles at AEG and Legends, Mike’s career is a masterclass in building teams, scaling organizations, and navigating transformative moments.
Key insights include:
- Crafting a clear vision, alignment, and communication across every level of an organization
- Rebuilding culture and productivity in challenging markets
- Lessons from global growth at Legends and premium revenue strategies at AEG
- Preparing for the Texans’ next chapter, including future facilities and fan experience
Whether you’re in sports, sales, or leadership, Mike’s journey is packed with practical wisdom on building strong teams, scaling with intention, and staying authentic as a leader.
Check out Tyson Group’s Open Enrollment Programs: https://www.tysongroup.com/openenrollment
Check out Lance’s Bestseller Books:
- The Human Sales Factor – https://tysongroup.com/books#thehumansalesfactor
- Selling is an Away Game – https://tysongroup.com/books#sellingisanawaygame
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Building Championship Culture: Leadership & Growth With Mike Tomon Of The Houston Texans
The Ohio Mafia: From Past To Present
I’m excited about this episode because this person I have a history with, and like me, part of the Ohio Mafia. Also, Ohio guys all stick together. Mike Tomon, President of the Houston Texans. I am so excited you’re here. It’s been a hot minute.
Thank you for having me on.
I certainly know what the president of a sports team does in a major market, just audiences, sales and leadership that reads this. As President of the Texans, talk about what your org chart looks like underneath you and day to day what hats you’re wearing.
Yeah, lot of hats. I guess it depends on the day, but at a real high level, it’s overseeing the business operation. Think about anything that does to make sure the team is focused on winning and putting out the best product on the field. How do we support all of that? Everything from certainly sales and revenue generation, sponsorships, tickets, etc., to marketing such a big play for us these days is one of the most important ways that we can expand the brand and get closer with our fans, all the way to community aspects.
Our Texans Foundation, we have big aspirations as an organization. We have our Lone Star sports and entertainment, how we bring world-class events to NRG, which we feel as our role as the Texans is important for the city of Houston. Certainly, when you start thinking about how you ultimately make the rest of the business work, and that’s everything from legal to HR, communications data insights, event operations, guest relations, etc. Really, the entire ecosystem of the business is my focus on the day-to-day.
What am I doing on a day to day and why I say a lot of different hats, we’re in a pretty special place here in Houston with the Texans. We have a business that we’re excited to launch. We feel the team’s in a great spot. We have some transformative moments coming our way. We’re having great conversations with what our training facility can be in the future.
We’re seven years out from our lease expiring at NRG stadium. What does that mean? That means you really get to think about what would be a world-class experience as the home of the Texans going forward. What does that look like? We spend a lot of time on all those fronts. A lot of different hats, I guess, is the punchline.
If some of the audience haven’t followed, you’ve been president now for how long? It sounds like you’re a seasoned vet, but how long have you been there?
The great thing is, sometimes some days it feels like a seasoned vet and some days I’m excited that I just know where the bathroom is. I’ve stopped counting how many days.
I knew you when you were running sales teams in the NBA. That’s a spread from legal HR all the way across the op. Is there a magnet part of the organization that you’re like, “This is just easiest for me to go here.” You either have to swing it over here because you get pulled. What’s the part that pulls you? Is it marketing
I think the great thing is I love the whole ecosystem because I think there are fundamentals in any business segment that, depending on what those fundamentals are, but if you can really get to the core of it, especially in sales, there’s fundamentals that just apply across the business. There’s not picking a favorite child it, but I can honestly say that I’m excited on whatever the engagement is. If we’re talking from communications to event experience to operations, to marketing partnerships, whatever it happens to be, really believe passionately in the fundamentals on how we operate and how they apply.
That’s something I think we get to too, because one of the things I learned from your early is I remember sitting in your office at the Cavs and you talk, you teach, and I feel I know a lot about management and leadership and fundamentals. I remember going through your pillars. I remember the day in the glass and you’re like, “Lance, these are my pillars and whatever we do together, they have to line up.”
You brought those pillars to all the places. To me, that’s the fun. Those pillars are always the fundamentals that you exposed me to. Now I’m going to ask, this is what everybody wondered when I said this in the pre-game. How did you get here? How are you now there? Bring us through your journey a little bit. Coming out of school, first job. What’s all that look like?
From Intern To Law School Drop-Out: The Unexpected Path
I think the high-level cliff notes would be, I’ve been really fortunate. I have had the chance to work under and with some of the best leaders in the business. Candidly, Lance, as you know, when you’re 22 years old or however old you are when you get out of school and you really have to start thinking about a career, you don’t have the real influence to actually pick your leader. You could try. “I’m going to work with this person.”
I was really lucky I had great leaders all the way out. I came out of school, knew I wanted to be in sports knew I wanted to be successful. That was about it. That was as crystal as the vision was at that point. I do a lot of learning real time as I was going through that. I would share, I went through a little quarter-life crisis right out of the gates when you’re like, “What do I want to do? How do I want to do it?” I know I want to be successful. I know I’m going to put everything against it, but what is it? What am I putting it against? I came out of school. I interned at IMG which turned into some tiny payments to stay on longer. That was great too. I had a chance to see that side of the world and learn.
Was the IMG headquarters in Cleveland at the time? Is that where you got the internship from? You’re originally from Ohio, but Cleveland, correct?
That’s right on all counts. The world centers around Cleveland. I was joking with Cal, our owner, because we have a number of people from Northeast Ohio here, including our GM. We always joke on, at least I joke, that it all comes back to Northeast Ohio. Cleveland, it was where I was with IMG and there was two pieces of advice I got at that stage, one which I took and one which I have took and then turned away from.
The one that I took was get some sales experience. Whether you’re going to be in sales or not, understand how commerce works, understand how the business works and if you can be associated with driving the business from a growth standpoint, it’s a great thing. Learn that. I was like, “Great, I’m going to go get sales experience. I’d run out the door.” The other thing they said was, “Go get your Law degree.” I like to tease our general counsel here that I like to remind him that I went to three months of law school. I have that.
Where did you go? Three months, though. Where was it?
Cleveland Marshall.
I was going to go Case Western or Cleveland-Marshall. I was right there.
Case started later. I took my LSAT. Case started later. Cleveland-Marshall started earlier.
I did not know this.
That was when I was working for the Cavs in sales at the same time. I was doing both. When I talk about being fortunate to have great leaders, I had a leader at that time, Chad Estes, who really afforded me an opportunity to go do both. He was like, “If you think you can handle both full-time, we’ll let you do it full-time.” I set off to go do that. When you put that type of pressure on, you usually get to an answer quicker. That really expedited, “What am I really trying to do with this?”
More importantly, as I tell anybody, is the why. You have a goal in your mind. It’s interesting, if you really try to dive into the why, sometimes you find out it’s like, “Maybe that’s not the right goal,” because once I got to the why, it’s like, that’s not what I was trying to accomplish.
It’s interesting if you have a goal in mind. If you dive into the ‘why,’ you sometimes find that it’s not the right goal.
The why is the fastest way to get to a vision. Interestingly enough, too, a side note for everybody, if you don’t follow sports all, I think you were working at IMG when Mark McCormack was actually still alive. It was right about that time.
He wasn’t working there, but he was alive. Yes, right around that time.
For everybody, that’s the guy who figured out how to get the Rolex watch at Wimbledon. One of the first people in sponsorship at the end of the day. I think that’s almost it.
It obviously is a Hall of Famer from a sports industry standpoint. He went to school with Arnold Palmer, and that’s really where they started.
If you have ever looked up his books, he has great titles. That’s why they always sold so well. There’s one with something with a pig in it. It was can’t put lipstick on a pig or something. I can’t remember the title.
What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School.
They were just great titles, bestselling titles. From there, did you go to the Cavs? Was that the next drop for you?
Yeah. I was moving through and, as I shared, I was set on getting my Law degree. I was at the Cavs. I was getting the sales experience. I was really fortunate because I didn’t seek out the calves. I was going to law school and there was only so many sports teams and I was able to get in and get some a sales role. I thought I was really fortunate on the process I learned and how to go about it and how to conduct a sales process at a high level.
I have to tell you, Lance, I just loved it. It was like the first time I got bit by the bug on the team side of the business. I love the team atmosphere. I love the competition. I love that it’s merit-based. What you put in is what you got out of it. Those things really stayed with me. It started me looking at the team side of the business versus the player representation side. That was the first jump on that side. I was going in with the Cavs, learning that side.
Pre-LeBron Cavaliers: Building A Sales Foundation In Challenging Times
That was pre-LeBron, though. I just want everybody to know. You were blue seats when you started, yes?
Blue ugly seats, I would like to say.
It was done too for all you people out there. It was like pre-LeBron everything.
It was a 32-win season and then a 17-win season. There’s a way that I like to take credit for my presence being there for getting LeBron. You had to be that bad to be able to get the draft pick.
I tell a lot of reps too. I was like, “It’s not hard to sell the Golden State Warriors where they’re winning. The hard thing is to figure out how to sell when they’re not with it.” How long were you there? How’d you do in sales? What’d you learn about your sales was and what was the length of time you were there?
I was probably there about a little over a year, under 18 months, 14 months, somewhere thereabouts because I had started out in Suite Services and then went into sales. I think one of the bigger takeaways for me was actually the next time I got fit by the so-called bug was I had gotten promoted. I was back and forth 1 and 2 from the entry-level sales. I’m pretty sure I ended on one. Troy Tuck might say he was one and he might be right, but I was right in there.
Neither of you were competitive. Knowing both of you, it’s not like either of you were competitive. You need a competitive person.
If his car is here at 7:30, I’ll be there at 7:15. If his car is there at 7:15, I’ll be there at 7:00. You need that. It was such a great partnership. I think the world of him and he is doing so well now. It’s fun to talk about those things. I think going into it, I went onto the senior level sales staff and I just remember there was a person that I really wanted to have joined the senior level sales staff. I went into the VP’s office and I was like, “We’ve got to get him on our team. He is exactly what we need at senior level.” Great leaders. He gave me the feedback on the things that he thought that person was missing.
The “Management Bug”: Discovering A Passion For Growth
I left his office set out to go work on it with him. “Here are the things you need to get better on. By the way, my day is from 7:00 to 8:00. If you’re willing to work on it before 7:00 or after 8:00, I’m willing to spend the time with you.” Credit to him, he was, and he did. I just remember walking down sales row and I was walking past him and he was doing the one technique we were talking about, and it worked. It was almost like I could see a glow. I could see the light go off for him. That was the next time, Lance, I got bit by the bug. I was like, “I love this.”
Whatever this is, if it can be an actual job, an actual role, then I’m all in. That was management. That to me was how do you put your energy into someone else and see them grow. I really started focusing in on I want to be on the management path. I was lucky enough to go from the Cavs and get a management job with the Phoenix Suns and start their entry-level sales staff. I was there for about 4 or 5 years, grew my responsibilities from entry-level sales, senior-level sales.
Did they have an inside team before you got there or did you just build it out? You were right around those crews. Inside sales wasn’t around for a very long time. I’m not saying it was brand new, but it was starting to get through the NBA a little bit. There’s more inside teams, right?
You’re exactly right. It was really brand new. It had existed the year before. There was a season before and we came in and took a fresh look at it and again, just had great leaders there. It was a great time. We grew the sales business. I took on service and guest relations. I also was lucky enough to take on some responsibilities with the Mercury. Little known fact that I was president of the Phoenix Roadrunners as well. True story.
Great story. I was sitting in my office, I think I am like 24 or 25 years old, sitting in my office. The Roadrunners just had a playoff game and right before the playoffs, we had gotten rid of the president and our coach. I’m really running revenue and I have some operational responsibilities and service. The owner, Robert Sarver, pops in my office, sits down and he’s like, “Mike, what’d you think of the game last night?”
I think he’s asking me revenue numbers. I’m pulling up my arctics and I’m pulling on audit and I’m like, “I thought it was great, Robert. We beat budget by this. Our drop was this.” I’m just going through the stats. He’s like, “Yeah, no, not that. What’d you think of the game?” I was like, “I thought it was great.” He’s like, “Yeah, I did too. What do you think if you ran the whole thing?” I’m like, “Uh.”
He like, “Yeah, you run the whole thing. You run hockey, you hire the coach. You already do a lot on the business side. You just put everything.” One of the smartest things that I ever said at that moment was like, “Robert, I don’t know the first thing about hockey.” He just gets up and he slaps me on the back and he is like, “That’s okay, you’ll learn.” He walks out the door. It was a great experience. We had great leaders there. We had Drew Cloud, John Walker.
Phoenix To Charlotte: Rebuilding Cultures And Teams
You’re in Phoenix for 4 or 5 years. You get a hold a lot of the ticket revenue and you’re running their minor league property. What was your sales philosophy when you were selling and you moved quick in the leadership? Talk about how you started to form that management leadership philosophy.
One of the most important things is alignment. I’d even start before the philosophy, and we talk a lot about that here at the Texans. Great companies, like the truly great ones, are aligned. There’s a clear vision on where we’re going and there’s a clear communication and conversation on how we’re going to get there. Everybody in the entire organization knows when they show up, here’s how I contribute to that. The why. Why is that good for me? All this works together. When you can get there across the board, you can do something so special. You just separate yourself as an organization.
You don’t necessarily have to agree on everything to be aligned either, which is so critical. We’re all in the same direction and it’s not going this way or this way. It’s this way.
If you think about it, you need friction to move. If there was no friction, you wouldn’t be able to move. You just got to float. To be able to have that dialogue on here’s our lighthouse, this is where we need to go, but how do we get there? That’s really important. That was the leadership philosophy at a really high level was where are the lighthouses? What are the pillars you referenced? What are the things that we value?
You need friction to move.
Once we establish what the things we value are, it’s important. You need the friction. It’s important to make sure that people can make it their own. People are very smart. If it’s not authentic, then it’s not going to influence people the way you want because they’re going to see that it’s disingenuous and there’s going to be a break on how well you can influence. Here is what the pillars are, here’s what the values are, and las long as they’re aligned, let people authentically interpret it so that they can take that out. Certainly, in my opinion, that is one of the most powerful ways.
You referenced that you’ve got to see the value in people to get alignment because if you’re burning through people, then you’re never going to get the alignment. It’s so critical.
I think in any business, you say, “I have to identify what my best asset is.” Following that, once you identify what your best asset is, you’re going to put the most amount of energy into it because it’s going to give you the best return. I believe very much that people are our best asset. You put the most amount of energy into it, you’re going to get the best return.
We had a huddle, which is our entire organization getting together and talking through at that moment where we’re going. I want to make sure we have connectivity and there’s transparency. We talked about one of our big rocks as an organization is the people big rock. If I was putting on the business school hat, you call it human capital management, but it’s the people big rock. We just shared the thoughts. If everybody just gets a couple of percentage points better now, there’s a multiple behind that because if everybody did that across the organization, think of the map on the productivity.
It’s compounding interest on it too. You go from Phoenix to where? Where’s the next trip for you?
I’m at Phoenix and get an opportunity to go to Charlotte. I’m going to date myself. Bobcats. They were the Bobcats at one point. I went to Charlotte to oversee their sales service operations and database marketing.
You were leaving Phoenix and getting in Charlotte. Was it night and day? Did they need a lot of work? What was the impetus there?
Night and day. I was leaving something in Phoenix that was established as a real best practice factory in a lot of the different facets that it touched. It was humming. It was a fun car to drive. I think you’re coming to Charlotte, that’s a rebuild. It’s a tear down and a rebuild in a lot of respects, not all respects. That was a different experience to go in and say, “We have a culture we don’t like. We have a culture that needs to change.” How do you go about doing that?
It was one of the best times in my career, spending time on going through that process, rebuilding a culture, getting it to a great spot, having the productivity finish it, and again, had some great leaders there as well. I had had Fred Whitfield. There’s a guy named Michael Jordan. Michael and I weren’t going through business plans every day.
Did you have Mark Jackson there too at that point?
My team was stellar there. We were stellar. We had Mark Jackson, Bill Fagan, and Jake Reid. We had some athletes, which was so important, to find, and in a lot of those cases, bring in. To find that alignment, had people who understood the vision, believed in the vision, and had the ability to go execute. One of the things I like to say is there are two components when you’re assessing a new org. One, do they believe? Do they buy in? Assuming you’ve done what you need to do, do they believe in, do they buy in? Two, can they make all the plays? You also have to be able to make the plays as well. We had that. We had a team that bought in.
How long were you there? Three, four years again or shorter?
A cup of coffee.
It was a quick move.
I think that was definitely under two years.
The Lonely Road Of Leadership: Embracing Change And Confidence
What did you realize really quickly there? Am I accurate to say your next move was you were back at Cleveland again? You came full circle from there. In Charlotte, you realized what? From a leadership, entrepreneurial, and executive standpoint, what’d you realize there?
That leadership is lonely, especially when you are changing things. It is making sure you have the confidence to sit with yourself on the decisions that you know need to be made. As you go through it, the leaders or those who are aspiring to be leaders, when you have that moment, when you’re feeling lonely, embrace that. That means that you’re probably doing something that needs to be done. The reason it needs to be done is because it hasn’t been done before.
For aspiring leaders, embrace moments of loneliness; it often signifies you’re on the right path.
You might not be the most popular person either. That’s part of it because it can go several ways. I met you in Cleveland. You’re then right back full circle. You’ve done this. You’re on the spin. You’re about a decade into it at this point, by the time you get to Cleveland, maybe a little bit less?
Yeah, that math sounds right.
You come in Cleveland and now LeBron’s there for a little tiny bit and then you decide to get rid of them again. You get to Cleveland, talk about that, and then you make some really quantum leaps in your career because then you go to a really big brand and then you go to the startup that’s become this monster that you helped build. Now you’re the president of an NFL team. How long you in Cleveland? What was that role?
I was in Cleveland probably about four years, SVP, essentially more the revenues on the Cavs. Sales service, operations data. We would scale our operations to touch on the monsters. I think one of the best experiences that I had there, and again, just staying true to the theme, I had great leaders, it was my introduction into true entrepreneurial approach to the world. It was like an introduction to my little mini M&A. We acquired Flash Sheets ticketing.
I spent a year or two there. We also acquired the Canton Charge. We bought a D League team and brought that to Canton and I was responsible for the overall operation. How do you get that standing up? How do you get a basketball team running there? That was such a great experience just to be in those conversations and go through and see what a vision is, bring it to life, how many times you stumble and then bring it to fruition. As you probably remember, we even did like the political thing for the casinos.
I remember sitting in a room with you guys when there was going to be a lockout and we were war gaming how we were going to handle a lockout, just planning budgets and what to do with the staff? Remember that whole thing that there was going to be that lockout that year? We were just sitting in that big room with Len.
There was the lockout, there was LeBron leaving. I remember being in the training facility that night with Chris Grant and some of the front office guys there. We walked out after LeBron made his announcement decision on TV. There were two things. I remember walking out, and it’s lonely. It’s dark. We were walking in the parking lot. Carrie and I looked at each other and we smiled. We’re like, “Let’s do this.” We showed up the next morning.
I remember talking to Nick Barlage, who’s now the CEO of the Cavs. It was those guys who were relishing in the fact that this is going to be earned. Everything that we do now is going to be earned. We got the group together the next morning and I just credit that group so much. The energy was there. People turned. We put up some of the highest watermarks to that point that had been posted that following year. It was a great experience there.
I got a call from Shervin Mirhashemi about this little project called Farmers Field, which was AEG’s approach to have the NFL come to Los Angeles. I remember saying, “I appreciate it. I’m good.” If you have ever met Sher, one of the best revenue generators out there. One of the best executives out there, but one of the best revenue generators. He was like, “Just come to LA. We’ll have lunch. We’ll get a chance to meet. What’s the harm in that?”
In Cleveland, it’s freezing cold. It’s February. I’m like, “Yeah, what’s the harm in that?” Ultimately, I went out to AEG to oversee their global premium revenues for global partnerships, including the NFL asset, which didn’t come to be. That was my first real approach to managing a platform. We had multiple assets internationally. There were like ten P&L assets that we had. They operated in a disparate fashion.
I remember you traveling all over the place. That’s where you introduced me to a Brazilian necktie. To paint the picture for everybody here, you had venues or P&Ls all over the world. You had your jewel, which is now Crypto.com. They had all these other venues and your group sold all the assets in inside those venues, correct?
Yeah, that’s right. I can’t thank you enough because when I talk about alignment and having fundamentals, you came in to help get us our fundamentals on our sales approach and process, and we talk about leadership. It was really important when you have people coming from different geographic regions and different overall business cultures, different culture period, coming together to find a baseline is really important.
How did you have to change your philosophy or your leadership for that? What was the adjustment you had to make?
I think you have to go to your core. You might get caught on some pieces that you’re like, “This is what we’re about.” It might not be what you’re about. You might have to go back more towards the core. You’re dealing with, as I said, different cultures, different time zones, etc. I was a very control all your controllables, make sure you dress a certain way. You have to appreciate the different business cultures on people, how they function. If you get too focused on some of those things, you’ll miss the big picture. The big picture is be prepared and make the conversation about the product and the customer, not yourself. That was paring it down. It had nothing to do with like how to dress.
The Entrepreneurial Masterclass: Scaling A Global Business At Legends
It goes back to this core of those fundamentals. I knew when I was interacting with you there, I was like, “This guy’s gone from being buckled up in Cleveland to now he is this global workforce.” You could be going all kinds of different directions, but I remember when you had that big summit that day, you said, back to what you said before, “Here’s our why. Here’s our fundamentals, our pillars, whatever we’re calling them. Here’s the core. We got to operate out of that center first.” Interesting enough for everybody reading, it’s actually very stoic. If you follow any stoic philosophy, control your controllables, be proactive. That’s the first creation. That’s what it’s all about because I remember the big summit you put together.
I think I still have notes from it. I keep all my notes for years. I have my Evernote. You go from there, have success, and now, there’s some quantum leaps here. Smaller team Charlotte gets a lot more responsibility. You said you got some M&A experience in Cleveland and watched LeBron walk out, and then he goes to a global stage. After that, you make another move, which is interesting. Everybody’s like, “How do people get from here to here to here, get the job done and stay networked?” Where do you go?
I think the first thing I’d always emphasize is get the job done. Stay focused on the job. If you can just stay focused on the job, then other opportunities can come. You can decide you want to look at them or not. At that point, actually, Shervin, who was my leader at the time at AEG, left and he went to Legends, which was a smaller third-party service company at the time. It was predominantly food and beverage for the Cowboys and Yankees and had sales. We had just gotten San Francisco
It was like a little bit of Rose Bowl there. They were the first two projects maybe Rose Bowl and San Fran.
I was really enjoying AEG. Another big takeaway from that was learning how to be scalable. How do you scale the business? Got a call from Sherv and as we started talking because we’d always talk, but then talking more about what Legends was doing, and it was like one of those things where every step leads to the next one.
Every step leads to the next one.
As I’d gone through that process, I really got to understand, I really like the entrepreneurial spirit. I like the growth engine. I like seeing a landscape not for what it is, but what it can be, and being empowered to go after it that way. I really felt that with great ownership, they had a great cap table. They had great people I knew all like Chad, Drake. There are just so many great people over there that was like, “Yeah, I want to go do that. Let’s go grow this thing.”
For everybody reading that knows some of the names he is dropping, a couple of those names were people we worked with in Cleveland when Mike started his career. It’s not who. It’s who wants to know you. Things come full circle with people that you’ve worked with. It ends up being a small business world. Shervin brings you in, and then you’re reconnected with Chad, who was with you in your second job. That business grows. Just give the trajectory. You ended up being the president of Legends, and talk a little bit about the growth. This is pretty well documented if you want to look it up, but the growth was with good people, but also good product and great names.
I was really fortunate. It was a great run. Jokingly, it was like Sher and I, and there were others of course. We were in Century City. It was like two of us, an assistant and a fish. We were able to grow it. We grew it. I think we’re like $12 million to $18 million EBITDA at the time. After eleven years, we became a global company in the hundreds of millions of dollars of EBITDA.
You and I still look exactly the same as we did fifteen years ago.
By the way, this is a serious comment. Maybe you’re a little more gray. I know my forehead was not this big.
My forehead’s always been this big. I’ve always had a billboard. When you start thinking about that, what’s a leadership lesson in those eleven years? How did you evolve as a leader? Assume back to your core, everything was always about your core. Even when I was doing negotiation work, like, “Here’s what we stand for,” when you brought me in for that, what evolved in your purview or what did you add to the toolbox there?
I think a couple of the pieces that pop to the top are, one, I was so lucky in that stage because our team was a number of top-level executives. You really had presidents managing different segments of a business. The way that I wouldn’t even say you manage, I’d say you partner with someone of that level is different. Everyone engages differently. Can you be approachable for everybody at that stage?
The communications, the cadence were all different with all of them. There are always fundamentals on how we did things, but the one-to-one connection is the most important. Being as genuine and authentic, you always want to do that. I think from a legend standpoint, that was put out in the front. I would say it was a masterclass and being an entrepreneur in a corporate structure.
You guys had to. You were inventing markets. You’re in so much uncharted territory and you had a pull in that mothership of F&B, and then you’re yanking in global sales. That’s a monster and it’s a complicated business too, because the operating environment for a lot of the business you were doing, it’s inside a time capsule. A lot of the work you guys had to do is in a 48, 72-month, and you guys got to operate and you’ve got to move it. It’s a fast-paced business if you’re what a case study on movement and a big ship moving quick.
I think, one, it’s a cultural thing. As you think about your business, what do you want to be? We really wrapped arms around being anti-bureaucratic and being nimble, even though when you get 70,000 employees, how do you do that? I think the other side that was a great takeaway for me at that stage of my career, not just at Legends, is your vantage points that you have going through your career, they can really separate you. Unique enough coming into Legends, living on the team asset side and the platform asset side, and then going to the third-party service side, you could sit there and say, “What was the customer thinking? What did I think when I engaged third party service provider?”
As you guys grew it, though, the front line of introducing Legends, you executives were always pitching Legends. It’s not like you ever really left the grind of selling something. From Atlanta to Notre Dame, you guys were all pitching all the time. You were operating, but you guys were all pitching at all times too. It was a sales job all the way through.
As I went to the beginning, like when we first started, just learning commerce and understanding growth, that is key in it in any facet.
Landing The Plane: Core Principles, Success, And Yacht Rock
As we bring this bird down for a landing, so, one, didn’t go to law school, which did not how to sell. Two, all of this back to the core, and every single time you got somewhere else was back to that core. What I took out this and there’s a couple of stops I didn’t even realize you made. At some level, by keeping to the core and keeping it to the why, maybe this is overstated, that’s where simple is genius. You don’t have to get over complicated. If you got your North star, like you talked about the lighthouse and the pillars, what’s the guide link? What’s the why? It’s amazing. I got three questions for you. Ready?
Ready.
All right, here we go. First question. You’re going into close a big deal. Think about whatever you got going on, coming up with the Texans, big naming rights, you’re going to go pitch, you’re in a new market. Getting out of your car, good news is Mike and I both went through midlife crisis so we both had big pickups at one time in the same exact one. We won’t go into what it is. We’ve sent pictures to each other. Getting out of that big truck of the big car you got, big pitch, what song is blaring as you get out of the car? What are you playing to get ready to go?
I’m so eclectic on my music. I’ve been listening to yacht rock right now. It just depends.
Fleetwood Mac or something?
You get a little Doobie, you get a little Christopher Cross. I would say the way that I actually think about it, because I would be playing whatever, is making sure, one, my music’s not blasting, and two, that I parked in the back so they can’t see me look all awkward getting out of the car.
The Philosophy Of Happiness: More Than Just Balance
All right, second question. I know you have kids, but say you have your niece or nephew and they’re like 7 or 8 years old and you’re sitting on the edge of a dock, the nephew’s on one side and the niece is on the other side. They go, “What does it mean to be successful?” What do you say?
I was actually just thinking which niece or nephew might ask that. I would say it’s to be happy. I think one of the ways that you really achieve happiness is, it’s not through balance, because I think balance, people are like, “That means take it easy on this side.” It’s understanding. I got this, again, great leadership of out my life from a high school coach.
The human spirit is capable of everything. Anything and everything. You can be great at everything. You can be great at your family, you can be great at your work, you can be great at your social life, you can be great at your spiritual life. You can be great at all those things. I think when you are able to use all your talents all the time in all those spaces, you can find real happiness.
The human spirit is capable of everything. When you use all your talents, all the time, in all spaces, you find real happiness.
Last question. Besides my books, if you were going to gift a book, what book would you gift or what good book do you gift?
I gift them your number. I’d probably go Outliers and I’d probably highlight the chapter in Outliers called 10,000 Hours. I’d highlight that one in my card on why I sent you this. There are a couple of main takeaways. Control your controllables, basically, and you’ll be successful.
Michael, it’s been awesome. Thank you so much for being on. I’m so glad I finally got you on and good luck with everything at the Texans and a lot of the lessons here. I have a whole page of notes. I was taking down what you’re saying, so that’s how I write my notes. It was fantastic. I appreciate it.
Lance, you’re the best. Those notes look like a beautiful mind.
Thank you, sir. I appreciate it, Michael.
Thanks for all you do, Lance.
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