The Score That Matters

The Score That Matters Plot Summary

Introduction

Rain poured down as Coach Cupps gathered his team in the locker room after their devastating loss in the regional finals. They had been one shot away from making history—the first Centerville basketball team to advance to the state tournament. The silence was heavy, broken only by occasional sniffles from players fighting back tears. "I know this hurts," Coach Cupps said softly, "but I want you to think about something. What score really matters tonight?" The players looked confused. "The scoreboard says we lost by two points. But I'm measuring something different. I'm looking at how you fought together, how you lifted each other up when things got tough, how you played with integrity even when the calls didn't go our way. On my scoreboard—the one that truly matters—you guys won big tonight." This powerful distinction between external validation and internal values forms the foundation of transformational leadership. In a world obsessed with metrics, achievements, and public recognition, we've lost sight of what truly creates excellence and fulfillment. Throughout these pages, Ryan Hawk and Brook Cupps—drawing from their experiences as coaches, leaders, and perpetual students of human potential—invite us to reconsider what we're measuring in our lives and organizations. They reveal how focusing on the internal scoreboard—the values, processes, and character-building moments that often go unnoticed—ultimately leads to more sustainable success and deeper satisfaction than chasing external accolades. Through intimate stories, hard-earned wisdom, and practical frameworks, they illuminate a path forward that honors both achievement and the person you become along the journey.

Chapter 1: Finding Your True North: The Power of Self-Awareness

Alice stands peering over the edge of a mushroom in Wonderland when the caterpillar asks her, "Who are you?" She hesitates, then responds, "I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then." This moment from Lewis Carroll's classic tale mirrors the journey toward self-awareness that leaders must undertake. Like Alice, we often move through life without truly understanding ourselves, catching only fleeting glances in the mirror as we rush between meetings and deadlines. Self-awareness is the foundation upon which all excellent leadership is built, yet it's frequently overlooked. Brook Cupps discovered this reality seven years into his coaching career. His command-and-control approach had yielded decent results—his teams had won games and championships—but something was missing. The victories felt hollow, and the relationships with his players remained superficial. One evening, after watching his team go through the motions during practice, he realized he'd been measuring success by external metrics while ignoring the internal development of both himself and his players. He had never truly looked in the mirror to understand his own values, motivations, and impact. For Ryan Hawk, this awakening came through conversations with hundreds of elite performers on his podcast. He noticed a pattern: the most fulfilled and consistently excellent leaders weren't those obsessed with accolades or recognition, but those who had developed an intimate understanding of their strengths, weaknesses, and core values. One conversation with retired four-star general Stanley McChrystal particularly struck him. When asked about his most important leadership lesson, McChrystal didn't mention strategy or decisiveness, but rather self-awareness: "You have to know yourself first—your blind spots, your triggers, your values—before you can effectively lead anyone else." Fear often derails our journey toward self-awareness. Both authors confess to struggling with the fear of failure throughout their careers. Ryan recounts standing on the football field as a fourteen-year-old quarterback, terrified of letting down his coaches and teammates. That fear remained present throughout college and into his professional life. Yet he discovered that this fear could become fuel—not something to eliminate, but something to harness and direct toward preparation and growth. Cody Keenan, who served as President Obama's chief speechwriter, shared a similar perspective during his appearance on Ryan's podcast. Despite his prestigious position, Keenan constantly battled fears of inadequacy and letting people down. "I was always afraid of failing him," Keenan admitted. But rather than being debilitated by this fear, he channeled it into working harder—pulling all-nighters to perfect speeches and going the extra mile to honor the stories of ordinary Americans. The path to self-awareness isn't about eliminating fear or doubt—it's about developing the courage to face ourselves honestly. It requires asking difficult questions: What are my true motivations? Where am I compromising my values? What patterns keep appearing in my life? As we answer these questions, we discover our internal compass—the true north that guides our decisions and actions. This compass doesn't point to external validation or achievements, but to our authentic selves and the impact we want to have on others. Without this foundation, leaders may climb the ladder of success only to find it leaning against the wrong wall.

Chapter 2: The Foxhole Friends: Building Your Inner Circle

Jim Collins, author of the seminal business book Good to Great, offered Ryan Hawk a perspective that fundamentally changed his approach to leadership development. During an interview for Ryan's podcast, Collins interrupted Ryan's enthusiastic description of his business pursuits with a gentle challenge: "Whoa, slow down for a minute, Ryan. All of those things you're talking about are great, but the single greatest determining factor in your long-term success or failure is your who," Collins emphasized. "Who will be your mentor? Who will be your friends? Who will be your spouse? Who will you spend your time with? That is what will help you get to where you want to go more than anything else." This insight prompted Ryan to reconsider the people in his life not as a single undifferentiated group, but as playing distinct roles in relation to his journey. He identified three positions people could occupy: those ahead of him who had accomplished what he aspired to, those beside him sharing his growth-oriented mindset, and those behind him whom he could help elevate. The middle group—those beside him—became what Brook Cupps calls "foxhole friends," the people you can call at 3 AM who will show up without question. Brook shares a vivid example from his college days when his car broke down miles from campus late one night. His first call was to his roommate of two years, who politely declined to help, citing a prior commitment. His next call was to a basketball teammate who immediately said, "Sure thing, no problem," and not only picked him up but also helped tow his car to safety. "Those are different relationships," Brook explains. "Foxhole friends are the people in your life you can count on, no matter what, regardless of what's going on in their lives. Your relationship is a priority to them." The importance of surrounding yourself with the right people is illustrated in the story of Jimmy "Mr. Beast" Donaldson, now one of YouTube's most successful content creators. As an aspiring YouTuber struggling to gain traction, Donaldson connected with four others sharing similar goals but experiencing similar frustrations. They formed what they called a "daily mastermind," meeting via Skype every day for one thousand consecutive days. "Some days I'd get on Skype at 7 AM and I'd be on the call until 10 PM, and then I'd go to bed, and I'd wake up and do it again," Donaldson recalled. The group engaged in "hyper study" of successful viral videos, analyzing what made content resonate. When they began this collaborative effort, each member had between ten and twenty thousand subscribers. By the end of their thousand-day journey, each had channels with millions of subscribers. Building your inner circle isn't merely about finding people who support your ambitions. It's also about finding people who share your values and challenge you to grow. This becomes especially important when we consider the concept of mimetic desire, which author Luke Burgis explored on Ryan's podcast. "Human desire is part of a social process... we learn to want things because other people wanted them first," Burgis explained. Without intentionally choosing our influences, we risk adopting the desires, values, and metrics of success from those around us—regardless of whether they align with our authentic purpose. The people we surround ourselves with shape not just our opportunities but our very desires and definition of success. Ryan witnessed this phenomenon when a newly promoted colleague purchased an expensive sports car despite having no particular passion for automobiles. The desire wasn't intrinsic—it was borrowed from society's image of success. As author Morgan Housel wisely noted, "You might think you want an expensive car, a flashy watch, and a huge house. But you don't. What you want is respect and admiration from other people, and you think having expensive stuff will bring it. It almost never does." Our inner circle serves as a reinforcing steel structure for the foundation of our core values. With intentionality about who occupies that space, we create an environment where our authentic aspirations can flourish, undistorted by society's often shallow metrics of achievement. As the saying goes, we become the average of the five people we spend the most time with—making the careful curation of our inner circle not just a nice-to-have, but essential to living by the score that truly matters.

Chapter 3: Embracing the Process: Excellence Is Mundane

Muhammad Ali once said, "The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses—behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights." This profound truth about the unglamorous nature of excellence is consistently missed by those searching for quick fixes and life hacks. After delivering keynote speeches, Ryan and Brook are frequently asked about shortcuts to better leadership or winning more games. Their answer—that excellence comes through the monotonous daily work of mastering fundamentals—often leaves questioners visibly disappointed. Sociology professor Daniel Chambliss captured this reality perfectly in his paper "The Mundanity of Excellence," writing: "Superlative performance is really a confluence of dozens of small skills carefully drilled into habit and then fitted together in a synthesized whole... There is no secret; there is only the doing of all those little things, each one done correctly, time and again, until excellence in every detail becomes a firmly ingrained habit, an ordinary part of one's everyday life." This philosophy aligns perfectly with legendary NFL coach Bill Walsh's approach, who wrote in his book The Score Takes Care of Itself: "I directed our focus less to the prize of victory than to the process of improving—obsessing, perhaps, about the quality of our execution and the content of our thinking; that is, our actions and attitude." The unexciting truth is that there are no hacks or shortcuts to excellence. Instead, there are daily actions stacked over time that lead to improvement. This mindset is exemplified by Eric Adams, the current mayor of New York City, who overcame extraordinary adversity throughout his life. As a fifteen-year-old, Adams was arrested for criminal trespassing and beaten by police officers while in custody. For a week afterward, he saw blood in his urine but kept it secret, ashamed and traumatized. Years later, he would join the very police force that had victimized him, eventually retiring as a captain after twenty years of service before entering politics. Adding to his challenges, Adams discovered in college that his lifelong learning difficulties stemmed from undiagnosed dyslexia. Rather than using these hardships as excuses, Adams developed a philosophy that guided his path to becoming mayor: "I knew that I would never beat you with brilliance. I am going to beat you with endurance. I'm not going to surrender. I'm going to continue to fight." This commitment to persistence over natural talent is what separates those who achieve sustained excellence from those who fall short of their potential. Tennis champion Rafael Nadal, winner of twenty-two Grand Slam titles, expresses a similar sentiment in his autobiography: "One lesson I've learned is that if the job I did was easy, I wouldn't derive so much satisfaction from it. The thrill of winning is in direct proportion to the effort I put in before. I also know, from long experience, that if you make an effort in training when you don't especially feel like making it, the payoff is that you will win games when you are not feeling your best. That is how you win championships; that is what separates the great player from the merely good player." This truth about excellence extends beyond sports into every area of life. Consider the parable of the pottery teacher who divided his class into two groups: one focused on quality, trying to create a single perfect pot over thirty days; the other focused on quantity, making one pot every day. At the end of the month, judges selected the best pots—and every winning piece came from the quantity group. By repeatedly practicing their craft, receiving feedback, and making adjustments, they developed skills that the quality group—paralyzed by perfectionism—couldn't match. The pursuit of excellence requires embracing the mundane, repetitive aspects of mastery that society increasingly devalues in favor of overnight success stories. As author Kara Lawson eloquently told her Duke basketball players: "We all wait in life for things to get easier... It will never get easier. What happens is you handle hard better." This perspective shift—from waiting for ease to embracing difficulty—is what allows excellence to take root. The path forward isn't about finding an easier road; it's about becoming someone who handles the inevitable challenges with greater skill and resilience.

Chapter 4: Trust as Currency: Vulnerability's Transformative Power

When Bob Romeo, the CEO of Anaqua, needed to make a quick decision about closing the company's Boston office, he called Keith Hawk, Ryan's father, who was leading a thousand-person sales force at the time. After a brief ten-minute conversation weighing the pros and cons, they decided against the closure. When Keith relayed this decision back to the real estate team just fifteen minutes after their initial inquiry, they were stunned by the speed of the process. "How did you guys decide so quickly?" they asked. Keith's answer was simple yet profound: "Because we trust each other." This story illustrates what retired four-star general Stanley McChrystal calls the transaction cost of trust: "Trust decreases transaction costs." In environments where trust is abundant, decisions happen faster, meetings run shorter, and the need for excessive documentation or verification diminishes dramatically. Warren Buffett demonstrated this principle when Berkshire Hathaway acquired McLane, a $23 billion subsidiary, from Walmart. The entire process took just twenty-nine days and involved only a single two-hour meeting between Buffett and Walmart's CFO. "We did no 'due diligence,'" Buffett later explained. "We knew everything would be exactly as Walmart said it would be—and it was." The value of trust extends far beyond just speed and efficiency. Research by professor Paul Zak at Claremont Graduate University found that people working in high-trust organizations experience 74 percent less stress, 50 percent higher productivity, 13 percent fewer sick days, 76 percent more engagement, 29 percent more satisfaction with their lives, and 40 percent less burnout compared to those in low-trust environments. These aren't marginal differences—they represent transformative improvements in both performance and wellbeing. Building this kind of trust requires vulnerability—something that many leaders mistakenly equate with weakness. Brook Cupps confronts this misconception head-on with his high school basketball players, who initially believe that vulnerability means exposing weaknesses to be exploited. "Without vulnerability, a team has no shot of reaching its potential," Brook explains. "Until you build trust with your team through vulnerability, you'll only be a fraction of what you're truly capable of being." The willingness to show vulnerability first as a leader creates the psychological safety necessary for teams to excel. Mark "Wit" Fogel, a former Air Force fighter pilot, described how this works in fighter squadrons—environments where trust is literally a matter of life and death. Despite the military's hierarchical structure, during mission debriefs, the person who leads the feedback session is the flight leader for that particular mission, regardless of rank. This means a young captain might critique a general's performance in front of the entire team. When asked how this was possible, Fogel explained that in the fighter squadron culture, "You check your rank at the door... The subculture is you check your rank at the door." What matters isn't maintaining appearances or protecting egos, but achieving the mission and growing as a team. Vulnerability creates the foundation for what Fogel calls "the most effective team on the planet." It allows members to move fluidly between leading and following based on expertise rather than position. "You are constantly code-shifting," Fogel noted. "We all have gaps in our knowledge... And where you've got that gap... you've got to take a step back, be humble, and recognize that's not your strength. Those that know about it, give them the keys to the car, give them the power and say, 'I'm following you. I'm learning from you. You've got this.'" This dynamic illustrates the difference between transactional and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership relies on simple exchanges: you do this, and you get that. It maintains the distance between leader and follower. Transformational leadership, by contrast, is built on relationships of mutual growth and trust. It acknowledges that everyone—including the leader—is continually learning and developing. By modeling vulnerability first, leaders create an environment where everyone feels safe to take risks, admit mistakes, and grow together. The beauty of trust-based leadership is that it creates ripple effects throughout an organization. When leaders model kindness, even toward those who might not "deserve" it, team members feel safer being vulnerable themselves. As Brook observes, "If you choose not to strike back and instead show kindness, you pull your people in closer. They'll know that if you're going to be kind to someone who doesn't necessarily deserve it, you will probably be kind to them, too." In this way, transformational leadership doesn't just change organizations—it changes people's lives.

Chapter 5: Leading with Purpose: Navigating the Internal Scoreboard

Brook Cupps stood with his basketball team in the locker room before the 2020-2021 season, facing a whiteboard filled with their reflections. Instead of setting the typical goal of winning a state championship—something no Centerville basketball team had ever accomplished—he posed a different question: "Imagine a ten-year-old boy and his dad are sitting in the stands watching our team play. After the game, what do you want them to say about our team?" The players' responses were revealing: "We want them to say that we play hard, we care about each other, we love the game, we're tough, we're smart." From these aspirational qualities, they identified the behaviors needed to make them reality. Their team goal became process-oriented rather than outcome-focused: "Attack every opportunity with purpose." This approach represents a fundamental shift in how we think about goals and success. Traditional goal-setting focuses on outcomes we desire—championships, promotions, financial milestones—but provides little guidance on how to achieve them. Worse, research from Harvard, Northwestern, Penn, and Arizona suggests that results-focused goals can actually harm performance by increasing unethical behavior, reducing intrinsic motivation, decreasing cooperation, and encouraging irrational risk-taking. The authors likened goal-setting to "prescription-strength medication that requires careful dosing, consideration of harmful side effects, and close supervision." Process-oriented goals, by contrast, focus on behaviors within our control rather than outcomes that aren't. When Centerville's basketball team committed to attacking every opportunity with purpose—whether in routine drills or facing the top-ranked team in the country—they freed themselves from the pressure of chasing a specific result. Instead, they trusted that consistently performing these behaviors would lead to their best possible outcome. The approach worked beyond their expectations. That season, they became the first Centerville team to win a regional championship and went on to capture the school's first-ever state championship. JJ Redick, who played fifteen seasons in the NBA after a storied career at Duke University, exemplifies this commitment to process over outcomes. During an interview on the Knuckleheads podcast, Redick described his meticulous approach to his craft: "My offseasons were harder than the season. My offseasons were six days a week, two or three workouts a day. Saturdays off, Sundays make 342 shots exactly, every Sunday in the offseason for the last thirteen years." Even his recovery routines were precisely calibrated: "I started cold tubbing for twelve minutes and twenty-five seconds. Just to give myself some wiggle room, right?" This level of dedication extended to every aspect of his preparation, from meals to nap schedules to pregame routines. What drove this extraordinary attention to process? As Redick put it simply: "I loved the process. I loved everything that went into it." His focus wasn't on becoming a Hall of Famer or even being the best shooter in the league—it was on becoming the best version of himself through daily disciplined action. The results—a fifteen-year NBA career as one of the league's premier shooters—followed naturally from this process orientation. Toto Wolff, who led the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 team to eight consecutive team championships, demonstrates how this focus on process extends to organizational leadership. When Wolff first visited the Mercedes team factory, he noticed a crumpled newspaper and old coffee cups in the reception area. Despite being told by team principal Ross Brawn that such details "don't make the car quicker," Wolff insisted that attention to these seemingly insignificant elements was crucial: "For me it does. Because it means a sense for the detail." This commitment to excellence in even the smallest details extended to every aspect of the team's operation—including the cleanliness of the bathrooms at race events. Wolff personally showed his newly hired "hygiene manager" exactly how he wanted the toilets cleaned, the soap bottles arranged, and the floors maintained. When asked why he devoted attention to such matters rather than focusing solely on engines and aerodynamics, Wolff explained: "The point is that I want to set the standards in what I do." His message was clear: excellence isn't about the glamorous, visible aspects of performance—it's about the consistent, meticulous attention to process in every detail. The internal scoreboard measures our adherence to process rather than our achievement of outcomes. It asks whether we lived our values, followed our systems, and gave our best effort—regardless of the external result. When we shift our focus to this internal measure, we find greater fulfillment and, paradoxically, often achieve better external results as well. As Brook discovered after winning that elusive state championship: "The feeling of satisfaction and pride in the arrival is not as impactful as you might think." The true reward was in the journey, in the process they had embraced together.

Chapter 6: Handling Hard Better: Turning Adversity into Advantage

Rain poured down as Ryan and his wife Miranda hiked through Zion National Park, reaching the notorious West Rim Trail with its seventeen treacherous switchbacks. In the February chill, narrow passageways up the steep mountain had become completely iced over. As they attempted to climb, they kept slipping—a dangerous proposition with a sheer drop awaiting any misstep. Other hikers warned them to turn back: "It's way too icy up here, man. You can only do this if you have spikes." One woman with proper equipment admitted, "I've been slipping the whole time, and I have spikes. You should turn back; it's too dangerous." Ryan and Miranda exchanged glances and made a decision: "Well, we've made it up a few of them. Let's see if we can do the next one." After completing that switchback, they thought, "How about one more?" They discovered that the only way to gain traction was to crawl on their hands and knees. As better-equipped hikers passed by with questioning looks, the couple persisted—crawling up when necessary and sliding down on their backsides when that proved safest. Despite looking foolish to strangers, they eventually reached the summit. This story exemplifies what Duke University women's basketball coach Kara Lawson calls "handling hard better"—not waiting for things to get easier, but becoming someone who navigates difficulty with greater skill and resilience. During a summer practice session, Lawson challenged her team's mindset after hearing players say they were looking forward to getting through the grueling summer workouts because "it would get easier" once the season started. "It will never get easier," Lawson told them. "What happens is you handle hard better... Make yourself a person that handles hard well. Not someone that's waiting for the easy. Because if you have a meaningful pursuit in life, it will never be easy." This perspective shift—from avoiding difficulty to embracing it as necessary for growth—is fundamental to excellence. Ron Ullery, offensive coordinator at Centerville High School and one of Ryan's most influential mentors, built his coaching philosophy around this principle: "I'm a firm believer that most people 'live up to or down to your stated expectations.' And I also believe most young people set their expectations for themselves way too low." Ullery designed practice methods specifically to push players beyond their perceived limits—running plays repeatedly until all eleven players executed perfectly, conducting 4:30 AM workouts, requiring forty-four forty-yard sprints, and implementing challenging conditioning circuits. When players complained that they could never complete such demanding tasks, Ullery removed the option of failure. "If we took all excuses away from the players, by accepting none, we felt the decision became theirs. Raise your level of effort and results above what you're willing to give, or we will continue until you do." This approach wasn't about cruelty or unreasonable demands—it was about revealing to young people that they were capable of far more than they believed possible. The transformative power of embracing difficulty is illustrated in the classic 1992 film A League of Their Own. When star player Dottie Hinson decides to quit the team before the World Series, manager Jimmy Dugan confronts her: "This is chickenshit, Dottie! Sneaking out like this? Quitting? You will regret it for the rest of your life." When Dottie protests that "it just got too hard," Dugan delivers the film's most memorable line: "It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard is what makes it great." Brook Cupps experienced this truth firsthand with his team during the COVID-19 pandemic. Facing unprecedented disruptions to their season—games canceled, practices prohibited, players quarantined—the team adopted what they called an "advantage us" mentality. Rather than using these challenges as excuses, they viewed each obstacle as an opportunity to separate themselves from less resilient competitors. "When we were shut down and not allowed to practice as a team multiple times during the pandemic, our guys didn't flinch," Brook recalls. "They found ways to go running, ride bikes, and do workouts regardless of the situation." Remarkably, when they finally returned to court, the team was more connected and committed than before the separation. "The time apart literally had been turned into an advantage for us," Brook notes. This mindset fueled their historic season—winning the school's first-ever state championship during one of the most challenging years imaginable. The capacity to "handle hard better" ultimately becomes a competitive advantage in every arena of life. Whether climbing an icy mountain, building a championship team, or navigating a global pandemic, excellence emerges not from avoiding difficulty but from developing the capability to move through it with purpose and resilience. As Brook's team discovered, the leaders who make the biggest impact aren't those who shield us from challenges, but those who show us how to grow through them—transforming what could be excuses into the very fuel that powers extraordinary achievement.

Chapter 7: The Narrative Steward: Cultivating Excellence in Others

In the midst of the 2004 Olympic basketball tournament, the unthinkable happened. The United States team of NBA stars, expected to dominate international competition, suffered a devastating 89-81 loss to Argentina in the semifinals. It marked their third defeat in the Athens Games and eliminated them from gold medal contention—a shocking outcome for a nation accustomed to basketball supremacy. After the loss, players were inconsolable. Tim Duncan, the two-time NBA MVP, lay flat on his back between garbage cans, hands covering his tear-streaked face as people stepped around him. The dream had turned into a nightmare. Four years later, Team USA prepared for redemption at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. During their training camp in Las Vegas, a critical cultural shift began to take shape. While most players enjoyed a night out on the Strip, returning to the hotel around 5:30 AM, they encountered Kobe Bryant in the lobby—but he wasn't coming in from partying. He was on his way to the gym, already drenched in sweat from an early morning workout. "This guy's really dedicated," observed Carlos Boozer. The impact was immediate. "Next thing you know, it goes from just Kobe going at five thirty in the morning to LeBron and D-Wade," Boozer recalled. "By the end of the week, the whole team was getting up every morning and we're on Kobe's schedule." Bryant raised the standard not through speeches or mandates, but through his actions. He showed rather than told his teammates what excellence looked like. This approach to leadership—what Scott Belsky, chief product officer at Adobe, calls being "the steward of the narrative"—is among the most powerful ways to cultivate excellence in others. "As the leader, you are also the steward of the narrative," Belsky explained on Ryan's podcast. "If you are not narrating the journey for your team, if you're not telling them the milestones you're passing, the state lines you're crossing, if you're not merchandising the progress being made, you can't expect the team to stick together long enough to figure it out." Brook Cupps embraces this responsibility with his basketball teams. "I can close my eyes and see how I want our team to play and how I want them to act. The role of the coach, or leader, is to make this a reality," he explains. His approach involves three essential elements: reflection, reminder, and reinforcement. First, creating space for the team to reflect on where they are versus where they want to be; second, consistently communicating the team's commitments; and third, reinforcing the narrative through standards derived from core values. The power of consistent narrative stewardship is evident in Brook's experience with his team's "Breakfast Club"—voluntary 6 AM workouts for skill development. Initially, when attendance was mandatory, players complied reluctantly with minimal enthusiasm. When Brook shifted to a compelling leadership approach rather than commanding participation, attendance initially dropped. However, those who chose to attend demonstrated greater engagement and development. "As they continued to attend, they became more and more engaged. Others witnessed this growth and began attending because they were compelled to do so, not because I had made them," Brook recalls. Over time, participation grew from a single player to more than thirty—all because the narrative of excellence and growth became compelling enough to overcome the comfort of sleeping in. This transformation from commanding to compelling leadership represents a fundamental shift in how we cultivate excellence in others. As Brook discovered during his first seven years of coaching, the command approach—"If you can't compel, command"—produces limited results. "With my approach to leading, we did have a ceiling. But it wasn't a ceiling created by the talent of our players. It was one I had installed myself by the way I had chosen to lead." The distinction is powerfully illustrated by the "Don't Mess with Texas" anti-littering campaign. In the mid-1980s, Texas was spending over $20 million annually cleaning up roadside trash, with littering increasing by 17 percent each year despite being a criminal offense with substantial fines. Traditional anti-littering messages focused on environmental concerns, but market research revealed that Texans who littered simply didn't care about that argument. As organizational storyteller Paul Smith explained, "It turned out what people in Texas really care about is Texas." The resulting campaign connected litter prevention to Texan pride with the slogan "Don't Mess with Texas." This compelling narrative, launched during the 1986 Cotton Bowl with Texas blues legend Stevie Ray Vaughan, resonated with Texans in a way that commands and threats never could. Within a year, roadside litter decreased by 29 percent, followed by another 54 percent reduction the next year. Four years into the campaign, litter had declined by a remarkable 72 percent—all because the narrative shifted from commanding compliance to compelling action aligned with Texans' values and identity. Excellence cannot be commanded; it must be cultivated through a compelling narrative that connects daily actions to deeper purpose and values. Leaders who master this narrative stewardship—whether in Olympic basketball, high school sports, or statewide initiatives—don't just achieve better results; they transform the people they lead. As Brook discovered after transitioning to compelling leadership, "Our teams at two different schools have set school records for wins multiple times over. We've had winning streaks in the forties and won numerous championships. Of course, those achievements pale in comparison to the quality of the deep relationships we are now able to build with our players through the collaborative nature of compelling leadership."

Summary

Life presents us with a fundamental choice about what we measure and value. Society trains us to fixate on external scorecards—championships won, promotions earned, wealth accumulated—while our souls quietly yearn for something deeper. Through their masterful weaving of personal stories and leadership insights, Ryan Hawk and Brook Cupps reveal that true fulfillment comes not from chasing society's definition of success, but from living in alignment with our internal scoreboard. The journey begins with honest self-awareness, continues through building meaningful relationships with others who share our values, and manifests in the daily disciplines of embracing process over outcomes. The path of the internal scoreboard isn't easier—in fact, it's often harder. It requires the courage to be vulnerable, the discipline to show up consistently, and the wisdom to value the mundane work that excellence demands. Yet as we've seen through stories of championship basketball teams, innovative business leaders, and ordinary people facing extraordinary challenges, this path leads to a more sustainable form of success and a deeper sense of fulfillment. Whether you're leading a team, building a career, or simply trying to live with greater purpose, the invitation is clear: shift your focus from the external metrics that society celebrates to the internal values that truly matter. Define your own standards, embrace the process of growth, and measure yourself by how well you're living your values rather than how you compare to others. In doing so, you'll discover that the score that truly matters isn't displayed on any public scoreboard—it's written in the character you develop, the relationships you nurture, and the impact you have on those whose lives you touch.

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Ryan Hawk

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