Molly Fletcher: Author of Dynamic Drive

Episode 581

On this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we are joined by the remarkable Molly Fletcher, Author of Dynamic Drive and Founder of Game Changer Performance Group. Molly, often called the "Female Jerry Maguire," has had an illustrious career representing over 300 of sports' biggest names. Today, she is a highly sought-after speaker and host of the popular podcast Game Changers with Molly Fletcher. In our conversation, Molly shares invaluable lessons from her new book Dynamic Drive, which provides a playbook for achieving sustainable success and avoiding the complacency epidemic that often plagues even the most driven individuals.
Molly discusses the seven keys to unlocking your Dynamic Drive: mindset, energy, discipline, curiosity, resilience, connection, and confidence. She explains how her experiences as a top sports agent in a male-dominated industry have shaped her approach to business and life, emphasizing the importance of continuous improvement and alignment with core values. Tune in to learn practical steps for fostering Dynamic Drive in your own life, overcoming obstacles, and achieving your full potential. This episode is packed with wisdom and actionable advice for anyone looking to elevate their game, both personally and professionally. You won’t want to miss a moment of this insightful discussion! Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be. I want to be you. Just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked out, knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control. Control. Hi everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs and really, some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Kara Goldin show. Super, super excited to have my next guest. Here we have my friend Molly Fletcher, who is also the author of the newly released incredible book called dynamic drive, which I have right here. I got the Early Edition copy, and it is so, so good. And Molly’s often referred to as the female Jerry Maguire during her almost two decade trailblazing career, Molly represented over 300 of sports biggest names, and today she’s a well known speaker and the host of the podcast, Game Changers with Molly Fletcher. But Molly’s also the founder of an incredible, incredible group that you have to know about called Game Changer performance group, and it leverages proven practices to unlock the next level performance in companies. So now her sixth book, she is the author of several other books, but this one dynamic drive is just a must, must read. So Molly’s going to talk to us a lot about the thinking behind the book and really what her incredible journey has brought her to including her story, we’ll recap that. We’ve had her on the show before, but she’s an absolute must need to know. So Molly Fletcher, nice to see you. Super excited.

Molly Fletcher 2:12
It’s so good to see you. It’s so good to see you girl, this is going to be this is going to be fun.

Kara Goldin 2:17
Super, super excited. So just to backtrack a little bit. You spent a big chunk of your career as a sports agent. What’s the number one thing you learned about the greats and how they approached their craft?

Molly Fletcher 2:31
Yeah, what was interesting and in part why I wrote this book, what I what I learned is what the world saw and what I saw was different. In other words, the world sees these moments of achievement right, like they see the trophies and the accolades and the drained putts and the drain free throws and the big contracts, and they see these big, big moments and essentially of achievement, because that, at some level, is when these athletes come on the world’s radar, in part, but I saw all the margins, right? I saw all the moments in the margins. In other words, I saw all the things between the achievements. What you know, it really sort of this relentless drive, laser focus, the doubts that would creep in, the the discipline that they had to unlock every single day, the the relationships that they needed, around their intentionality, around managing their energy, the way it built their confidence. So I saw, at some level, Kara the problem that the world sees the big moments, and so the world focuses on that understandably, because they think, Well, gosh, if that’s how Serena did it, or Steph Curry, or pick up executive or CEO, they sort of because it’s what they see the moment that tends to be what they focus on. But I saw all the margin and and truly breaks my heart when I see what happens when people simply just focus on the outcome and the achievement and not what I define in the book as dynamic drive, which is a different approach, and it’s just really important topic to dig into and talk about now, no question about it, because of the importance of pursuing better every day, And we can unpack it a little bit more. So

Kara Goldin 4:23
when you thought about writing this book, how did it differ from some of your other books? Because those were also quite excellent, but dynamic drive just really truly hit home for me. I mean, you don’t even need to be a, you know, Steph Curry, or an incredible athlete to get a lot out of this book, even if you’re not currently working, or you’re trying to figure out, how do you get to that next level within your corporation, or you’re trying to lead a corporation, as many of our listeners. Are facing. What would you say is kind of the biggest thing that kind of differs from your other book with dynamic drive?

Molly Fletcher 5:09
Well, I mean, I yeah, I’ve written five others, and this is hands down the best one I’ve ever written, from the perspective that it’s anchored in research, and I spent my life as a sports agent, and then the last 10 decade, or the last decade, interviewing guests on my podcast, speaking all over the world on peak performance. And so I’ve had this, what I feel really blessed and fortunate to have had this seat, if you will, court side seat to peak performance with great athletes and certainly leaders in business and beyond. And to your point, this approach to life that I call dynamic drive, it isn’t just reserved for, you know, a special class of people at all. It is for people like you’re describing. I mean, if you’re transitioning jobs, if you’re working toward a promotion, if you’re training for a marathon, if you’re navigating a personal challenge in your life, it is the problem that I saw at the most fundamental level, and the the reason it concerns me is that when people pursue goals in isolation, when they anchor that on an external motivation and an outcome, if you will, they are sorely disappointed in what happens when they get to the top of the mountain. And I think what happens, unfortunately, unintentionally, is the the is, is this unintentional rooting of complacency in areas of our life that we don’t mean for it to set in. There’s a lack of intentionality that can occur when we pursue goals in isolation, relative to compromising things in our in our lives that matter most, and it breaks my heart. And so this book is so important in service of ensuring that people don’t compromise the things in their life that matters most, while still going after big, hairy, audacious goals, but with a remarkable level of intention and and, and, candidly, it the cool part about so much of this is that when we focus on dynamic drive, as I define it, purpose and values are at the center, right, there’s burnout is at Bay. You can’t become burned out if you’re pursuing something that is truly anchored in your core values and your mission, right? When you’re when you’re focused on this pursuit of better every day, you’re really not focused externally, on the opponent, right, or the external narrative sometimes that can creep into our our heads and hearts relative to competing against others. In other words, Kobe Bryant didn’t wake up worried, you know, Serena Williams, or even, I would argue, some of the best leaders in the world. They have a lens into the opponent, but they’re not obsessed with it, right? They’re focused on what they can control and letting go of what they can, which, to me, is so rampant right now, right burnout, this external focus on extrinsic rewards, which we know won’t ladder up to feeling fulfilled, which I think is what most of us at the end of the day really want, fulfillment, joy, progress, alignment with what really matters to us?

Kara Goldin 8:42
No, it’s so it’s so true. Well, on that note, so you talked about complacency, but in the book, you talk about the complacency epidemic. So how do you not fall victim to this? But also, how do you pull yourself out if you start to feel like I’m not dynamic, I don’t have dynamic drive and complacency is my name of the game right now, and I’ve fallen into it. How do I get out of it?

Molly Fletcher 9:16
Well, I mean, number one, I think there’s several layers to unpacking that. But I think at the most fundamental level, we have to recognize that there’s internal triggers and there’s external triggers when we think about recognizing behaviors and habits of complacency. So in other words, we have to recognize, you know, the self talk that could be happening inside of us, right? Limiting beliefs, negative self talk. Maybe we’re complaining a lot. We’re blaming maybe we’re feeling unmotivated. There’s these internal triggers, and then there’s external like maybe upbringing or our environment, or maybe we don’t have a supportive network, if you will. Maybe we have a lack of resources, or we have doubters, or we have critics. So there. These, there’s these internal and external triggers that can keep us stuck. And I sort of frame it up that there’s phases to complacency. In other words, I think we sort of drift into it sometimes right, like we, we don’t even really know we’re headed that way, but then we sort of find ourselves a little bit off course, and when we when we pursue a life with dynamic drive, we can, we can because we’re pursuing better every day with this formulaic approach. And the seven keys that I unlock in the book because of that approach, we can recognize moments when we start to drift, and we can catch ourselves right. Because one of the things I talk about in the book is this alignment audit, which allows us to get really clear and align with the things in our life that matter most, in service of helping us when we find ourselves drifting, we can recheck and realign, but, but then I think we can get into where we start to decline, right? So we get to a place where maybe, you know, I had a friend who just every year gained about five pounds, and then he wakes up and, you know, seven years later, he’s gained 35 pounds. Now, if we’re kind of we get to that point and getting out of it is harder, right? It’s harder to get out of it and and sometimes we need new tools. We need a new set of of beliefs. We need a new story. We may need new external support, if you will, to help us tap into that and and I or tap into the shift that we need to make, and I talk about it in the book relative to the to the seven keys, mindset, energy, discipline, resilience, all of those I unpack and and and so and then we can find ourselves, Kara, in a point where we’re just it’s full on despair, where we’re totally unmotivated to pursue a better version of ourselves. And what I tell people to get to to the answer to your question is, where in your life are you maybe playing it a little bit small? And I encourage people to think about it, mentally, physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually, where are you playing a little bit smaller than you think you could? And then what’s at risk to make a change, and what’s at risk if you don’t, and I think often, that’s a heck of a place to start. And you know, one of the things that I you know kind of comes before this in the book that we unpack, is this idea of alignment. And so what I mean by that is like, if, if, if, Carrie, you said molly, I’m kind of kind of complacent right now. Like, I’m feeling a little and complacency, by the way, is such an interesting word, because people don’t like that word. It kind of freaks them out, right? Like, but if you ask somebody like, Man, are you a little bit stuck, right? They’re like, Shit, yeah. Man, yeah. But when you ask them if they’re a little bit complacent, they’re like, No, right? Because, like, complacency feels like you got to own that, whereas stock feels like you could, you know, push it out. So we have to pull back and say, what are the most important things, people, relationships, values in our life, how important are those things? And then, in service of that, how am I doing relative to the amount of energy that I’m pouring into those things that I’ve identified are really important in my life, those values that aren’t important? And then what people see as they go through this exercise, and as I’ve seen, because I’ve taken so much of this book and utilized many of these resources, both on myself to help me in life, friends, clients, so I know they work. And so then you can pull back and say, Well, gosh, if, if I say, you know, something’s important to me, but my energy isn’t laddering up to that, then I’ve got a gap, right? And that is a heck of a place to start, right? So if I say that my physical health matters to me, but I’m not prioritizing sleep or diet or exercise, so I give myself a 10 relative the importance of my health, but I’m scoring myself at a five. I’ve got a gap. So then we would say, Well, what’s what? What’s at risk to make a change, and what’s at risk if I don’t, and what’s the next right step in putting forward the effort to make the change? And then in the book, I unpack seven keys to do that in a way that isn’t linear, but is sort of this evolving nature that is life. Life is dynamic, right? It’s ever changing. So does that sort of yeah frame it?

Kara Goldin 14:53
Yeah? No, I think you did an excellent job of that. So I you know you talked about this. Seven keys and and one of them is resilience. It’s probably one of my favorite, favorite terms, but also it’s, I’m such a big believer that everyone has resilience. Sometimes we’ve we’ve allowed others to own resilience and versus ourselves, and I think it’s figuring out the importance of what you want to do and how important it is to you, and where is that resilience? But what role does resilience really play in maintaining this dynamic drive? Have you found?

Molly Fletcher 15:38
Well, I mean, you know, resilience is integral. Because here’s the thing, if we’re pushing ourselves to get better every day, which is at the most fundamental, highest level, this approach, which is different from the traditional definition of drive, right? We’re pursuing better every day. We’re pushing ourselves into what I call a kind of a stretch zone. So we’re a little bit uncomfortable. We’re stepping into, sometimes a little bit of change, a little bit of an unknown. We’re not always going to nail it right. Like every buddy that you and I have both ever met or know that’s achieved any level of success in their life, they have failed a ton, a ton, a ton, and the reason we know about them is because they recovered, right? They they laddered back up, not just to where they were, but they laddered back up better. And so it’s remarkably important. Resilience is sort of a muscle, right, like and so the more that we step into discomfort, and then we find ourselves sometimes where it we don’t nail it, it doesn’t work perfectly. That’s okay. That’s an opportunity. I always say, don’t waste a challenge. Don’t waste adversity. That, in fact, is a moment that we can show up as a better version and strengthen our resilience muscle. And I would say, not go back to the watermark of where we were, but above it and so, and that’s why all these seven keys, again, threaded through the lens of purpose and values, are all intertwined, right? Like, because, who am I to say? Hey, Kara, here, here’s where you need to start this journey, right? You, you may have the the mindset piece nailed, but you really have a hard time with resilience, or you may lack in competence, but you do an incredible job of managing your your energy, or you may have an incredible amount of discipline, but no relationship sort of in service of that. So all of them are integral. And certainly, resilience is an enormous, enormously important part of, part of the pursuit of better because, like I said, every every buddy that you and I both know, they’ve had some hiccups. And here’s the thing about resilience too, I would say, when we know why we do what we do, it helps us recover. In other words, if what we’re going after in life is anchored in our values, the recovery at some level, is a little bit easier because we know why we’re grinding. We know what it’s for, right? But if we don’t know why we need to recover, and it’s not anchored in something personal and deeply relevant to our core values and the legacy we want to leave. Discipline will wear off. Motivational wear off, right? So we need to keep that that that sort of clear purpose at the center of all of

Kara Goldin 18:43
it is there ever a time commitment that you make to either the entire process of achieving or kind of getting through these steps before? And what do you do when you just cannot get traction. I guess. You know, I loved the seven steps, and I know that you use it a lot when you’re working with organizations, too. But at what point, like, what do you do? When? How do you, how do you measure that? I guess this is the how do you measure it, and how do you if you are getting stuck in those steps too, you know? How do you get through those?

Molly Fletcher 19:27
Yeah, I mean, and it’s a, it’s a great one. And, you know, a sort of analogy that I’ve used recently a little bit as, let’s say, let’s say you want to run a marathon in six months. And let’s say, in a traditional sense, sometimes we’d say, I’m going to run a marathon in six months. And when I run that marathon, my goal is a time of this. And so that’s pretty common, right? Set a goal, identify what that goal is. And at some level, you identify that goal in kind of isolation, and then you go achieve it, and you put the metal and the spikes. That you ran in, up on the wall and you check the box. So the problem, though, with that traditional approach, as you set a goal to run a marathon in X amount of time on X date, is as you wake up every day and train, it’s going to get hard. There’s going to be days when you don’t feel like you want to do it. There’s going to be days when you’re unmotivated. There’s going to be days when you don’t feel you don’t feel like it where. And so when we create milestones along the way in that pursuit, and at some level, we acknowledge our effort in the pursuit, we release dopamine in our brains along the way, and I call it the dopamine effect in the book, which in fact, increases our motivation and actually physically inside of our body, helps us continue to put forth the effort that it takes to pursue the mission of the of finishing the marathon. And so what’s been so interesting to understand is that there are so there is so much data, and we talk about this in the book and research around acknowledging our effort along the way, and not just the the outcome, not just the achievement and the goal that we’re going after that’s six months away, because otherwise, when it gets hard, it gets easy to get stuck right and and not have the tools and the the wherewithal, if you will, to stay focused. And sorry I’m pausing.

Kara Goldin 21:43
No, I love this, and because I think that that is so key, like so often, to your original point, when you talked about, you know, focusing on this end goal versus actually focusing on these steps along the way, I mean not that completely speaks to that. So, so when you think about what role does mindset really play in achieving and sustaining dynamic drive, and how can one really cultivate this? Maybe they don’t think they’re so resilient anymore. Maybe they’re stuck and but what is kind of that one thing that they can say to themselves, here’s how I’m going to get this mindset into play.

Molly Fletcher 22:30
Well, and mindset is the first key in the book, because it’s absolutely paramount to trying to make a shift. In other words, it’s saying to ourself, what is the story that I’m telling myself that’s keeping me, maybe a little bit stuck, maybe, maybe at whatever point inside of this complacency, sort of journey or epidemic that we might find ourselves in? What’s the story that I’m telling myself and what’s the shift I need to make to tell myself the right story, if you will, the right self talk, so that I can make the shift to take me where I want to go, and then we’ve got to create really intentional systems by which we can keep that shift front and center inside of our daily lives, so it’s in front of us, so that we can create At some level and change the habit, if you will, of what we’re potentially telling ourselves, we have, like, 70,000 automatic thoughts a day. And so if we aren’t intentional about shifting a automatic thought, potentially that’s been occurring for a period of time to something that’s more positive, and taking us where we want to go, those automatic thoughts will just keep flooding our brain and telling us something that’s that’s keeping us stuck, that’s keeping us sort of in this place. And so I have, you know, what I encourage people to do is, I call it a total mindset reset, which at the most fundamental level is recognizing what is the self talk that’s keeping me stuck? And then, in other words, we find ourselves saying, I can, I won’t. Why me? Right? And we want to begin to tell ourselves something I can, I will. All of those, again, very pretty obvious. And then we want to say, How can I replace it with something that’s more more suitable to where I’m trying to go? And then how do I reinforce it? Yeah, and so maybe it’s a screensaver on your phone, on your computer. Maybe it’s in a, you know, on a mirror in where you get ready in the morning. Maybe it’s a note on your desk, but we have to reinforce it. Maybe it’s people that that you’re surrounded with that helps support that new self talk and that new story. And this was one Kara that I saw all the time. I played tennis in college, and then, of course, working with athletes when we go after a better. Version of ourselves every day when we which generally means inevitably, that we’re opting into change. Essentially, it’s uncomfortable. And when we step in to those moments, we have an opportunity to say, What am I doing? I’m crazy. This is just a disaster. Or we have an opportunity to say, I’ve prepared for this moment. I’m good. I can deliver. I I’ve done this, prepared for it. I’ve practiced. We can tell ourselves something that’s going to take us to the outcome that we want, so that we and and, and I saw that all the time. I mean, if, if, if a player steps up on the free throw line and goes, this is a disaster, I’m going to miss both of these. I mean, it’s, it’s obvious. And again, this isn’t brain surgery, but, but the mindset component is a big, big part of beginning this journey, into stepping into the change that we need to make in any area of our life, physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally, spiritually.

Kara Goldin 26:05
So we focused a lot on the individual, but I also want you to touch on how organizations can really implement these principles of dynamic drive to improve employee engagement performance. And I know this is a lot of what you work with groups and companies on as well, but I’d love for you to kind of sum that up or play that out for people.

Molly Fletcher 26:34
Well, you know, it becomes a bit of a language. It becomes a way in which an organization or a team navigates obstacles and change at some level. So often, people view obstacles as as something other than, in fact, an opportunity to say what’s possible inside of this moment that you know they and inside of dynamic drive. What I see with organizations that deploy this approach is that there’s a huge mindset shift relative to obstacles. Are, in fact, opportunities. There’s a level of intentionality around who and what they focus on in their pursuit of the outcomes and the goals they want. In other words, we live in a world that’s there’s highly there’s a high level of distraction that is coming at all of us all the time. And so if we aren’t remarkably intentional about who and what we give our energy to our focus to who and what we prioritize, it’s huge. So it creates an opportunity for organizations to align around energy, around resilience, and recognizing, obviously, the component of that, I think what we see with organizations too, which is powerful, is curiosity is lifted. And we know that curiosity is a linchpin. Whether we’re in sales, whether we’re a leader, our ability to get curious about the gaps in the lives of the people that we lead, the gaps in the lives of the people that we are calling on selling to want to work with curiosity is a secret weapon as a leader and better understanding and aligning with the the people in our life that we, that we, that we sell to our work with. So I see, you know, mindset, resilience, connection. I mean, when we think about teams and leaders, it’s interesting. Kara, I give about 100 keynotes a year, and inside of every single one, I do a pre call with the leaders on the team. And one of the things that I always ask is, are relationships integral to their ability to do what they do, whatever that might be, sales team leaders, absolutely. Molly, I mean, relationships are everything, and so what we see is I take people through what we call the curiosity edge and a bridge to connection, which are tools that teams and organizations can deploy in service of driving greater connection internally but also externally, because we know relationships are integral to any team winning in a way that is sustainable, right? And that, I think, is one of the things Kara that’s different too, about this is that when we think about drive at some level, in the traditional sense, when we think about what the world sees, which is these moments of isolation and achievement, organizations and leaders don’t necessarily want their teams to hit their first quarter goals. They want them to hit second and third and the annual priorities and goals and the numbers that are imperative and so if people are in. This pursuit of better every day. What happens is, after you’ve achieved q1 goals, maybe halfway through q1 you don’t stop. You want to, you want to continue to elevate your game. And what we see in the traditional sense, because the world has sort of taught us this unintentionally. As you achieve your goal and you hang up your spikes, you got your quota halfway through the month. Chill, yeah, but that’s not what leaders want. And so this is a is a formula to support leaders in what, what I believe every leader at the core wants, which is sustained high performance. And I think we live in a world today where people aren’t just demanding high performance professionally, but people want to be in an environment that supports high performance in all areas of our life.

Kara Goldin 30:54
Yeah, I totally, totally agree. So if you could have readers take away one thing from your book, dynamic drive. What would it be?

Molly Fletcher 31:06
Well, I think to your question, kind of at the beginning, which is, I think we are in a complacency epidemic. I think that burnout is higher than ever. Employee engagement isn’t where we want it as leaders and burnout, complacency. People are stuck. You know, I was with a friend the other day that said 52 years old. He said, I’m almost there. I mean, at 59 and a half, you know, everything sort of hits and I’m and I’m like, man, right? Like, because you It breaks my heart. And so I think the main thing I want people to take away is that that, and you kind of smiled when you thought about you know, this feels hard and and it but hard in alignment with our core values, hard in alignment with our purpose, hard in alignment with the legacy that we believe we can leave and we want to leave, or or hard In alignment with what, in fact, matters most to us, is not hard the way the world has often viewed it, which is a grind that is potentially misaligned with what matters most to us. So for people that go, Wow, this sounds like a lot, here’s what I would challenge people to do, identify an area in your life where you feel like you might be playing a little bit small, but more importantly, recognize Imagine, imagine a day and a world where you feel more connected than ever to the relationships in your life that matter most. Imagine finding yourself in obstacles and telling yourself the kind of story that’s going to take you where you want to go inside of that obstacle and challenge, you know, imagine having the kind of energy, physical energy, mental energy, to focus on the people and the things in your life that matter most, right? You know, imagine knowing that talent isn’t enough, that discipline in this pursuit is is, is the anchor to our ability to continue to pursue better. You know, imagine being deeply connected to the relationships that matter most versus what I think we find ourselves in this world today, highly transactional unfortunately, which which can impact in a negative way, our relationships. And I think most importantly, recognize that achievements in life don’t bring fulfillment purpose to us. And when we get clear and get aligned with that, and then we ladder up these seven keys in that pursuit, we find ourselves living with fulfillment and joy, and it’s a journey. It’s a process. And so what I would say to people, do the next right thing, right take that next step in service of where you feel like you might be playing small and and what you’ll find is this becomes a part of not just this doesn’t become something that you do. Dynamic drive becomes your way of life, and that unlocks a life without regret. It unlocks a life where you have the right people at your 90th birthday party, right you’re putting on your tombstone. What you were remarkably intentional about putting on that tombstone, and that isn’t in service of why I wanted to write this book. I want less people to find themselves wildly off course and to catch themselves as they as they find themselves off course sooner, in a way that’s formulaic and easy to deploy in service of their values.

Kara Goldin 34:55
Well. Molly Fletcher, author of dynamic drive. Thank you so much. Everyone. One, we’ll have all the info in the show notes. But again, dynamic drive is is a must, must read. And thank you again, Molly for writing this and also for joining us today. Really, really appreciate it.

Molly Fletcher 35:12
Okay. I appreciate you too, girl. Thank you for having me on.

Kara Goldin 35:16
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit. And of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast, just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms. At Kara Goldin, I would love to hear from you too. So feel free to DM me, and if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book, undaunted, where I share more about my journey, including founding and building. Hint, we are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening, and goodbye for now. Bye.