Kent Svenson:
Welcome to the trusted leader show. I’m Kent Svenson producer of the trusted leader show. And for this week’s episode, we feature an exclusive clip from the 2022 trusted leader summit where award-winning broadcaster. Joe Schmit sat down with Rebekkah Brunson 5X WNBA champion, Minnesota Lynx assistant coach, broadcaster, and entrepreneur and Gable Steveson 2X NCAA wrestling champion, Olympic gold medalist, and WWE wrestler, to discuss their unique perspectives on how to build trust in a team. So sit back, relax and enjoy the show.

Joe Schmit:
Well, Rebecca let’s first. I I’m gonna first ask you because obviously great success in basketball. Where did you grow up? And when did you get your love for the game?

Rebekkah Brunson:
Well, yeah. I’m originally from Maryland, so right outside of DC, about five minutes outside of DC, that’s where I’m from. And you know, I loved basketball since, since I picked up a basketball, really, it gave me an opportunity to compete. I have a twin brother, so naturally competition was always there. So I had the opportunity to compete. And then, you know, after that, I didn’t get into organized basketball for a while until I was 12 years old. And if anybody has any child, children who are athletes, you know, that’s very late to the game. I mean, kids started at 5, 6, 7, so I was a little bit late to it. As far as being playing organized, basketball was concerned, but as far as my love for the game, I mean, as soon as I touched a basketball and started playing started, dribbling started shooting. I loved it immediately.

Joe Schmit:
And Gable, when did you get your love for wrestling?

Gable Steveson:
My love for wrestling came. I got older brothers that wrestle my dad wrestled too. So it was kind of just blood for us. But we tell the story about came out the womb where wrestling shoes on. It’s just the easiest way for me to tell you guys how long I’ve been wrestling and you know, with, with sports like these, you gotta get ’em to ’em quick and you gotta adapt to ’em really well. So just taking my time with it and leading to this point has been really special

Joe Schmit:
Rebecca to win all those championships. Obviously you had to trust your coach. Yes. You had to trust your teammates. You had to trust in your own abilities. Talk about how trust helped you win the only person to win five w NBA championships.

Rebekkah Brunson:
Yeah, I mean, that was key. I think we always talk about that as a organization about trust being something that we really hold strong. But before you get to the trust, I feel like it’s really about the relationships. If you don’t have a relationship with someone, then you cannot trust them. So that is beyond just going to the gym and playing that is beyond just going to your meetings that is beyond just going to practice. It’s really ingraining yourself and your teammates lives and your coaches’ lives. Having conversations with them, being there for them before we’re in the thick of things, because once it’s hard and you’re trying to figure out how to trust somebody it’s too late. I don’t trust you when it’s easy. Why am I gonna trust you in these difficult moments? So to be able to compete at the highest level and to win championships, it first started with forming the, the simplest of relationships with each other and then building from that. So when it was hard, when it was game five as a series and we were down and we had to really regroup and you had to start holding people accountable and saying the things that maybe they weren’t doing right with the things that they were doing wrong, then we already built that trust. So it was easy for us to compete when those championships and do it together. As a group

Joe Schmit:
Gable, you are in more of an individual sport, although you wrestled for the university of Minnesota where did trust play into your training, working with your team and your coaches?

Gable Steveson:
I think first of all, you gotta you have to trust in yourself. You gotta love what you do, and you gotta have a deep burning passion to keep winning and keep pushing forward. You know, you don’t win so many titles by just showing up and think you’re just gonna go through the motions. You gotta trust yourself outside of the, the resting mat or the basketball court. You gotta trust who you’re with. You gotta have a good solid foundation. Whether it’s moms, dads, families, coaches gotta be on 0.2. Just being able to understand that there’s more to your sport and there’s more to who you are than just winning and losing game going out there and putting on a good show for the people too.

Joe Schmit:
I wanted to could we queue up that video tape? I, I wanna show a videotape of Gable’s last amateur match. It was the NCAA championship. He was going for a second in a role. And if we can run the video tape we’re gonna talk it over. First of all, who are you up against in this match?

Gable Steveson:
I was up against a multiple time Greco world team member and world champion too, in the junior age group level, which is eight, which is 20 and under. So he was a stud big guy kind of a grizzly bear, like, so you’ll see he has a video plays.

Joe Schmit:
Yeah, I remember I was watching it. So if we could roll that video tape, we’ll take a look at Gable, Steven Stevenson going for his second national championship. Now you went all the way through the tournament where you did not give up a point, unless you let the guy escape, right? Until this championship match.

Gable Steveson:
I got taken down in the quarter finals actually in the

Joe Schmit:
Quarter final. I was, I was, that was the first time you got taken down all year, right? That

Gable Steveson:
Was the first time I got taken down like three years.

Joe Schmit:

Gable Steveson:
I was just, I was just trying to have fun and trying to enjoy myself. You know, you get so caught up in, how are you gonna win? And I feel like if you’re trying to win, you’re gonna lose. You’re gonna give us some, if you’re trying to score points, you’re always gonna get that end factor of winning.

Joe Schmit:
All right. We’ll get to that video, I guess, as soon as we can, do we have it one minute? Give, give you one minute to get to the video. So there are some perks in winning a championship when Rebecca won her fourth, w N B a championship with the links you get in a nice ring, correct?

Rebekkah Brunson:
Yes. Gorgeous.

Joe Schmit:
Gorgeous. Okay. Okay. But I think you had one of the more unique moments anybody’s had talk about the special party that the team went to. Oh, after you won this title.

Rebekkah Brunson:
Yeah. Well, when we won our actually this was our, our third championship that we won. And when we were playing, you know, we could hear some like murmurs on the bench. You look up in the suite and prince was at the game. So we were like, okay, that’s pretty cool. Prince is here, you know, all right, don’t look, just keep playing everybody. So we played the game and we got through it. We won. That was our, our third championship. We were excited. We were celebrating. And then we got a message while we’re in the locker room. Hey guys, first don’t drink too much champagne. I know it’s celebration, but prince just invited us to go to his house.

Rebekkah Brunson:
Oh, okay. So we all pile up. We get on our, our buses where we get dressed. We, we look nice. We go on the princess house. And when we get there, you know, the, the sad thing about it is there are no phones allowed. So, you know, thinking back in hindsight, we wish we would’ve had footage of this. We walk off the bus, we go in to, to Paisley park and we just walking in the back door and you hear somebody just on the stage is strumming the guitar, super casual. We walk past the stage and we look up and prince is just hanging out, playing the guitar. So the whole team, the staff, the coaches, we got to go to our own concert at Paisley park that night. I mean, we were like doing the electric slide on the stage with prince. It was amazing.

Joe Schmit:
So you had basically a personal concert with prince. How about that for winning a championship? all right. We got the video ready. I wanna, I wanna show you just how special this is. And there are a couple of very special things I want you to recognize when we look at this video, he has a signature move that only, maybe the only 260 pound gold medal winning wrestler in the world can do. So let’s look at this video, you winning the championship. All right. So there you are getting you ready. Are you nervous at all? There you go. You get the takes out. You get another take down. You’re starting to add up some points and there, when the championship, and then here comes the signature move, coming up, look at that.

Joe Schmit:
Where did you come up with that? And then at the end, at the end, I should point this up. Before we talk about that. A wrestler who is retiring from amateur wrestling takes off his shoes and leaves him on the mat. What was that moment like

Gable Steveson:
Hard to describe a lot of feelings, a lot of just different things that you can think about, like what’s gonna happen next. What’s your reaction to it? I think going into WWE, this had to like happen. This had to be my stopping point, just because amateur wrestling can only bring you so far, you know, you have to get to the next level. And the next level for amateur sports is get to the pro. And my goal is to get to the pro and be the best I can possibly in any spot possible.

Joe Schmit:
And let’s talk about this signature flip. How did this evolve? And I also have to say something, you were the most confident wrestler I’ve ever known. One of the most confident athletes. He was not afraid to tell his opponent he was gonna win. And guess what he’d do, he’d go out there and win. So that confidence obviously showed, but you were able to back it up and then you would do the victory flip

Gable Steveson:
The flip game. When I was really young, I just, my mom bought us a trampoline in the backyard when me just live in Indiana. So me and my brother would see how many back flips we can hit and taking the kids consideration. I’m probably like five to like 130 pounds. So I’m a little thick on the thicker side. And she would take me to gymnastics class all there, moms and dad would be kind of like weary of how I was flipping, just cuz I got hurt. And I did a back hand springing one day, but I got too big and I didn’t wanna land on my wrist. So I just did a whole back flip and that’s just how it came.

Joe Schmit:
Everybody should have a signature role. Impressive. Right? Impress. That’s fantastic.

Rebekkah Brunson:
I feel I don’t have a signature. Right? What have I been doing with my life?

Joe Schmit:
Now Rebecca, when you played for the links, you played with a lot of great athletes, but three very exception. You were the, the fab four. It was Maya Moore who was simply one of the most amazing winningest athletes ever. Lindsay Whelan, who just went into the, is going into the basketball hall of fame. And there’s Simone Augustus who was a pre all star and one of the best players in league history. And then there was you, you all had a role, but you all have egos. You could have scored 20 points a night. I’m sure if you wanted to, how did you go into this? Develop a culture where it was team before? What I could do

Rebekkah Brunson:
That is one of the biggest things that allowed us to be successful because you know, you talk about being a competitor. All of us were ultra competitive, but the goal was always the same. We wanted to win. So we all could not do the same thing. If we had five players on the court that only wanted to shoot, then everything else would not get accomplished. You need somebody. That’s going to be able to cover all of the bases. Somebody that’s going to be able to add something. You have an elite score. You let them score. You have an elite rebounder. You let them rebound. You have an elite passer. You let them pass. So we all were able to just understand what we, what we could do that would be most beneficial to the team. And you know, it started when you talk about these players, the thing that is so amazing about them is their character first.

Rebekkah Brunson:
And that’s why we’ve been so good as an organization is because when we go out and we pick players, it’s character first who is going to buy into our common goal, who is going to sacrifice that ego as big as it might be to allow us to accomplish what we want. And I mean, as a organization, that means that we have had to let some very good athletes go. I mean, some people that can play the game at the top level, not be a part of our team because they didn’t buy in. And I’m sure that’s probably some of the situations that you all go through. You have to pick people that are gonna buy into what you want to accomplish as an organization. Even if they’re they’re really talented and really good if they don’t buy in, it doesn’t matter.

Joe Schmit:
Now your coach with Cheryl Reeve and Cheryl Reeve is a tough coach. she? She is a, I guess, kind of a Vince Lombardi, more coach than maybe a coach that will hug you. Although she could do both. How did she earn the trust of the team? How did you believe everything she said, because I know there were times where maybe that wasn’t the case.

Rebekkah Brunson:
I mean, she, what you said first, she is a great coach, but she is going to do whatever it takes to win. But what I said initially, when I got here up here is it’s always about the relationship first. She’s the person that’s picking these players that are gonna buy in. She’s the person that’s making those decisions to ensure that character is at the top of the list. And she has a relationship with all the players too. Yeah. When we’re playing, when it’s between the 94 feet, it’s a different beast, then we’re competing and then we’re playing for something. But she will ask you, how are you doing? How’s your family doing? How is your day, how this goes. She remembers everything. That you’re a part of everything that you care about. Those are the things that you don’t necessarily see. Because when you talk to her, you ask her about basketball.

Rebekkah Brunson:
You ask her about the team, you ask her about her accomplishments, but the reason she’s so great. And the reason that she has so much buy-in as a leader is because she cares about us as people. What she make sure that she lets us know that. So when she is screaming at us, we know that it’s just to get to where we wanna be. It’s not because it’s about me. And she feels this way about me. It’s like, no, I already trust you. Cuz I talked to you before. We have a conversation in a relationship.

Joe Schmit:
And Gable I know at the university of Minnesota, you did everything you could do to help you were a leader on that team too. How did that role go? You were, you were the guy who got all the attention and, and, but yet you had other teammates that worked just as hard as you did.

Gable Steveson:
I think one thing we gotta understand is like, when you get all the attention on team, you have to diversify it and make sure others are doing the right thing too. I didn’t wanna, this year, I kind of focused on what can I do to help the program and what can I help do to make myself the best like person possible. I didn’t want to have me winning in a national tournament and me winning the Hodge, trophy, me winning Olympic gold and so many other things. And just having all eyes on me, I would rather have all eyes on a program and I hate to, to go places. And people respect me so much just because of the accolades that I have, but people don’t understand like the foundation that has CU came with it. You, like you mentioned, there’s coaches that remember everything about your day and Brandon EGA, Mar Hey coach. He’s been with me every single step of the way since I was in seventh grade. And just to commit to him and you gotta buy into your team, you gotta buy into yourself is the most important thing. If you don’t, if you don’t have that burning passion, the win and love what you do on and off the, the field, the mat, the court it’s it’s hard to become the person you wanna be without having that leadership and guidance too.

Joe Schmit:
So Gable went from winning the NCAA championship to about a week later, made his WW E debut in front of how many thousand people at Jerry stadium.

Gable Steveson:
I think it was 78,000,

Joe Schmit:
78,000 people were at Dallas cowboy stadium. You are now a WW E superstar. Talk about next.

Gable Steveson:
What’s next is just, I like to say things one day at a time, you look, you look too far forward, you kind get lost in the, what you’re really supposed to be doing with yourself. I, my goal is to, I wanna be like the rock. You know, the rock is the, the biggest name out there. And he’s brought so many eyes to movies, WWE and so much other things, you know, to, to have to be in a business that he went through and guys like rock Lesner. And so many other people I went through and been successful and even makes like my fire burn even more. And so I just wanna be the best man possible, be the showman that people wanna see, whether you’re watching a movie and you’re watching it with your family on Netflix or on TV. And then maybe the number one selling movie out there, you never know. It’s just, I wanna be a part of something big and I wanna lead the, the next group of kids that are coming up to have that dream too.

Joe Schmit:
All right. That’s gonna be fun to watch. Watch that blossom cuz you’re what 23 now,

Gable Steveson:
21, 21 21,

Joe Schmit:
Babe. He’s tall. Good looking. And soon to be very rich. I’d take any one of those for three minutes with him. What I wanted to do here was go down the seven pillars of trust and ask you how they impacted your career. We’ll start with clarity. Dave has seven pillars of trust. We’re gonna just kind of talk about clarity. Does that word ring a bell? Does that word mean anything to your career and success?

Rebekkah Brunson:
Oh, absolutely. I think as a player and, and as a coach, you know, as a teammate, you have to be very clear in what you want to accomplish and what the goals are that you want for everybody else around you. You know, that’s part of the communication that allows you to be successful is making sure that you draw things out of a specific way. For me, I always had to make sure I understood what my goals were. Very, very well defined goals so that I could work to make sure that I kept myself on track to achieve those. So clarity is key.

Joe Schmit:
I’m glad that somebody gave, gave a book. Dave’s gonna charge him 25 bucks. Come on, Dave, loosen up a little bit. Gabe gave will the clarity. When do you have clarity, obviously part, part of your clarity had to be, you were a showman

Gable Steveson:
It’s my clarity would probably be most definitely showman. Most definitely the heart that you put on the mat. What’s what’s most important about wrestling is it’s it’s two guys battling out for one championship. Like it’s not, there’s no one else to blame if you lose and if you win and you think you wrestle bad, you blame yourself just because you think you can, you, you had more to go in, go out there and do. And so it’s clarity is definitely a big step. Having that heart is a big step too. And being a showman for making nobody really wants to watch heavyweight wrestling, but I hope that I went out there and made people wanna watch 260 pound guys like go head to head and put on a good show.

Joe Schmit:
Oh, I know you didn’t show any compassion to your opponents. so maybe we should go to Rebecca for compassion.

Rebekkah Brunson:
Oh, I didn’t show any compassion to my opponents either. So

Joe Schmit:
That’s right. You did.

Rebekkah Brunson:
Let’s make that clear.

Joe Schmit:
Yeah. These guys are too competitive to have compassion. Okay. Let’s go to character. You’ve talked. They wanna bury you. You’re gonna be the kind of, you’re gonna be the kind of parent that’s gonna beat your kid in checkers. Aren’t you they

Rebekkah Brunson:
Gotta learn

Joe Schmit:
Everything. Character talk about how character is important character. When you had to work out hard, you had to work out alone. There were times where you had to dig deep.

Gable Steveson:
I think character is key. One thing about this is with, with wrestling, you’re kind of like breaking someone’s spirit to win. And it’s like, it’s weird for me to say like, you have to go out there and you have to dominate that person. I think when, when I was a freshman in college, I was also worried about how good I can look and how good I can make myself look. And as the years went on like maturing and being able to understand that there’s more to it than just you was the biggest character jump for me. And it made me understand how to mature quick and how to respect everybody. Even if you’re gonna go out there and you’re gonna beat somebody by 15 points, you’re gonna win a w N B a championship. You have to understand that those, those people out there are the same goals as you, and you have to respect the, the person that they are off the, off the court and off the mat. More than you respect them on the mat.

Joe Schmit:
I think we can pass competency. I think you guys were fairly competent. talked a little bit about connections. Connections with your teammates, connections with you, the people you train with. I, I, I thought about this Gable. You had to trust the people you worked out with. You had to trust your opponent, that you didn’t wanna get hurt. We all know that they grab an ankle. They can twist that ankle. You know, they can, they can do some things to you. So you had to trust people.

Gable Steveson:
It’s not really a trust factor. It was like, just don’t get in that spot. it was cuz like the, the person wants to go out there and he wants to beat you. And if you get put in a bad spot, you blow your ACL out. You’re done for six months. And if you’re coming up the core and you’re dribbling in, someone follows you and you fall wrong. You’re done for nine to 12 months. It’s, there’s so much trust and commitment to trust yourself to, if you get put in that spot, you know how to get out of it and you know how to maneuver and be flexible and be nimble and be the, be the person that you train yourself to be too.

Joe Schmit:
Rebecca, I want ask you about contribution because you, as we mentioned before, could have scored more points. Did you actually get to the point where you were happier getting a rebound than you were scoring a bucket because that was your role on this team and nobody in the history of the league did it better?

Rebekkah Brunson:
Yeah, I think that that pretty much came early on. When you take, when you start to evaluate yourself, I think you figure out your strong suits rather quickly and rebounding and being athletic was something that I had, you know, as soon as I started playing. So I did understand that that was my way of making sure that I can continue to do something that was gonna benefit the team night and, and night out. So whatever team it was, I was on no matter where I was playing, whether it was in Europe, whether it was in Sacramento, where I first got drafted, whether it was with the links, that was something that I could always do. And that was something that my teammates understood that they could rely on me for. So it was easy

Joe Schmit:
Consistency. You’ve been the most consistent heavyweight wrestler in the history of the United States of America. I have. Yeah, you have. I looked it up. I, I looked at on Wikipedia. I know that. But, but talk about consistency of training, consistency of rest, consistency of diet, all those things that play up to you, competing at the highest level.

Gable Steveson:
My consist, my consistency really came when freshman year I lost twice and that was my only loss to my, my collegiate career. I went 86 and two throughout the, my collegiate career. And I lost a guy from Penn state. He did everything right. And you can tell he did everything right? Cause when I lost to him, I was, I feel like I was a better wrestler. He was just a better person that ate. Right. He slept at the right times, he got up early, went in practice. He stretched out more than me. He did, he did everything better than me that year. And as the years went on, I wanted to be that person that did everything better than, than everyone else. And I wanted to eat. Right. And I’m gonna sleep. Right. I wanted to have the right group of friends around me, the right foundation. There’s so much that comes with consist consistency of wrestling. It says feeling the feeling the moment too, you gotta be able to understand that there’s gonna be people. There’s gonna be a target on your back. Every single time you gotta be consistent. You gotta be that person that wants to keep winning and keep going forward.

Joe Schmit:
And if I recall one of the guys that beat you, you went back and took care of him a few times. Right?

Gable Steveson:
He unfortunately graduated.

Joe Schmit:
Okay. that’s one way to take care of him.

Gable Steveson:
someone got

Joe Schmit:
To all right. Rebecca consistency. What, what did it mean to you? You had a long career and I always, I covered professional sports for a long, long time. And I always say, whenever you see somebody around for 10 or more years, there’s one reason they’re around. I mean, it’s not just athletic ability. It’s, they’re a pro and they’re a pro at getting their body ready. They’re a pro at getting their mindset. They’re a pro at being a good teammate. Otherwise you don’t survive.

Rebekkah Brunson:
Oh no you don’t. I mean, you see the turnaround and professional sports is, is really quick and people’s careers don’t last that long. But you know, just like Gabe just talked about it’s about everything else you do before you start to compete. What are you eating? What are you putting in your body? Are you resting? Are you training? Are you recovering? Are you doing all of those little miserable things that no one else wants to do? The extra cardio? The skipping of that dessert looks real nice, but I can’t have that tonight. Those are the things that you do for your body, but you also have to, you know, consistently show up mentally, you have to consistently be a good teammate. You can’t bring everything that’s going on into your life and, and lay it on people. You have to be a good person.

Rebekkah Brunson:
You have to consistently communicate. You have to do so many things. There are so many things that go into the product of being an elite athlete that nobody sees of being an elite teammate that nobody sees. It’s all the work that you do behind closed doors before you get there, that allows you to show up because at the end, consistency is about showing up, showing up for yourself, showing up for your teammates, showing up for your family, showing up for your friends, all of those things matter. So, you know, just making sure that you put yourself in the, the right head space to continue to do that. And another thing again, we just said was surrounding yourself with good friends, people that are going to keep you in check people that are gonna make sure that you continue to do those things. Cuz we all need somebody that is going to make sure that we stay on our path. So surrounding yourself with good quality people that want the best for you. That’s all consistency, consistency.

Kent Svenson:
That’s it for this week’s episode, be sure to check out trusted leader, show.com for all the show notes and links and information from anything mentioned in today’s episode. And we are so excited to announce that the trusted leader summit is coming back next year, November 7-9, 2023 at the jw marriott mall of america here in minnesota. To find out more information and to register head to trustedleadersummit.com. And if you haven’t already, we would greatly appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcast as this is a great way to help support the show and help others to discover it. But in the meantime, that’s it for this week’s episode. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time stay trusted.