Mike Neighbors is the Head Women's Basketball Coach at the University of Arkansas. He is a father of four (Abby 26, Alec 20, Bowen 2, Barrett 9 months), a husband to Jayci, and a coach to 277 former players. For the last 29 years he has been paid as a Coach, but if you ask his lifelong friends and family, they will tell you he has been doing it since he was 9. So, he has really been a Coach for the last 43 years.
Whether it was a neighborhood backyard game of tennis ball or the Final Four in 2016, he has approached every game as an opportunity to compete, learn, and grow. He has remained a learn-it-all/share-it-all ever since a life changing heart attack at 29. Before then, he was a know-it-all/hoard-it-all.
He hopes those in our orbit learn for the experiences we share.
Mike had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include:
“Had [I not had that heart attack at 29], I was probably heading down the wrong path… I think I was lucky” (6:45).
“Those processes that I learned to survive [when I was younger] have helped me to survive in this very competitive world of college athletics” (16:15).
“Get out of their way when they don’t need you” (18:00).
“That’s one of my favorite parts about coaching. They don’t need you for the celebration, they need you when we lose” (18:40).
“Only when they need me are you going to notice me” (23:50).
“Without the heart attack, without those experiences, I probably would’ve been using ‘I’ a lot more than ‘we’” (24:05).
“You don’t have to be relatable with somebody to be inspired by them” (41:10).
“I wanted to believe as many true things as I possibly could” (48:30).
“’It depends’… I say that all the time” (50:20).
“You need to be compelled to be great at what you’re doing” (1:00:50).
“We create better basketball players when they find that there are other things that basketball is going to create for them” (1:02:10).
“I worry about being wrong” (1:06:40).
“Until you’ve done 40 hours of research on something, I don’t want to have a conversation with you about it” (1:09:00).
“[I envision myself coaching] forever” (1:16:45).
“I probably wouldn’t take a job where all it was was win at all costs” (1:21:35).
Additionally, make sure to follow Mike on Twitter @coachneighbors and to check out his website coachneighbors.com!
Thank you so much to Mike for coming on the podcast!
I wrote a book called “Shift Your Mind” that was released in October of 2020, and you can order it on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Additionally, I have launched a company called Strong Skills, and I encourage you to check out our new website https://www.strongskills.co/. If you liked this episode and/or any others, please follow me on Twitter: @brianlevenson or Instagram: @Intentional_Performers.
Thanks for listening.
Julien Smith on Building Breather and Practice
Joanne McCallie on Mental Health and Coaching Basketball
Joe Ferraro and Brian Levenson Host vs. Guest--Whose Responsibility is it Anyway?
Carole Robin on Connectedness
Wil Reynolds on Having Enough while Constantly Growing
Jesse Cole on Uniquely Creating
Rand Fishkin on Cultivating Chill Work
Zoe Chance on Influence
Nick Hill on Building Championship Culture
Dave Phillips on Developing Golfers and Business
Mike Deegan on the Joy of Coaching
Gavin McClurg on Risk Taking
Grace Aduroja Kolker on Achievement and Fulfillment
Celeste Headlee on Speaking of Race
Todd Kashdan on Curiosity and Insubordination
Sian Beilock on Performing Under Pressure and Leading Teams
Nick Tasler on Decision Making
April Dunford on Positioning
Dan Grunfeld on Hope and Thriving
Ethan Kross on Chatter
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Coach Carvalho Podcast
From Corner2Corner
Golf Podcast: next on the tee
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
The MeatEater Podcast