Coach Tom Herman
Beyond the Conversation
10 years ago Coach Herman said one single word in a press conference that changed how we lead.
We finally sat down to talk about it.
These aren't coaching sessions or leadership seminars. They're honest conversations between Coach Herman and four leaders about what it actually costs to lead with love — and what it gives back.
Mo was two weeks out from the worst layoff of his career when he heard Coach Herman say it — love. One word from a football press conference sent him into the most honest reckoning of his professional life. What he built in its place reached 1,400 leaders across 10 countries. This is where love became a business strategy.
A year and a half of work. A town hall. Two hands raised out of a hundred. Mo thought he was transforming his company — he wasn't, not yet. This episode is about the gap between knowing love is the strategy and actually living it, and what it cost Mo to finally close that gap.
Mo spent a decade building companies around something Coach Herman said in a press conference. Coach never knew the full story until now — the books, the 1,400 leaders, the 46 nationalities. This is where Mo brings it all back. And where Coach finally hears what his words actually did.
Pressure isn't what you think it is. Coach Herman reframes it — and the distinction changes how you prepare your team, how you hire, and what you're actually asking of people when you demand performance.
The hardest question in leadership: how do you hold people accountable and still genuinely care about them? Jeff doesn't theorize the answer. He redirected $500,000 of his own raise to prove it.
Coach Herman opens by admitting he still struggles with imposter syndrome. Then he turns the question on Frank. What follows is the most honest conversation in the series — including what Frank shared about his own life that most of his team had never heard.
Until these conversations, Coach Herman had never heard what that one word actually did to us. We spent the next decade writing it down — the failures, the proof, the argument that love isn't soft. It's the strategy. Two national bestsellers later, here's where the whole thing lives.
A people-first consulting firm in the business of AI transformation.
Helping create high-performing people who work on high-performing teams.
Where all of our storytelling around what love can do in the world lives.