The Grind-Cast “The Winners Manual 2.0” Critics

Count money, man.

Money that grits is fine.

Tons of trouble trying to told them I'm a beast, but...

What's up, gang?

Welcome back to the Witters Manual 2.0 with Coach, President, Tresil.

And today we're going to have a conversation about handling critics.

And I think nowadays you'll hear some of the young folks bring up haters.

So they kind of same thing.

So we'll just say critics.

How in your experience have you been able to learn to handle critics mentally?

Because, let's say you're coaching at Ohio State or you're coaching at Youngstown State

and you're not winning some games or you lost...

I know at the higher level you lose two-three games.

They're already ready to fire you.

They're ready to kick you out the door.

What strategies or how have you been able to learn?

How has that progressed?

Can you think back to maybe when you weren't good at it on handling critics?

You know, I think the first thing that you have to do with handling critics is first assess,

are they right?

You know, sometimes we put our dukes up right off the bat because someone said something

maybe negative toward your performance or your opinion or your bottom line or whatever.

And I think the first thing you have to do is look in the mirror and say, is he right?

Is she right?

You know, I mean that's...

See if it's an opportunity to grow.

You know, it's again, you get your best ideas from outside.

You really do.

So whether it's from your players or your employees from outside of your little world, input is so important.

That's why you don't want to have that little circle drawn around you and no one's allowed to talk to you

or no one's allowed to give their opinion that you have nothing but people in your circle that is not in their heads and agreeing with what you say.

And then when they leave, they don't.

Or even the people from further out who maybe it's their interest in evaluating how you're doing or maybe it's their job like a journalist or a media person.

So I think the first thing is, is that self-reflection having that willingness to do that.

And then if indeed there is something where you say, you know what?

Probably right.

You know, then work on that.

You know, to me, that's the first thing.

The second thing I would say to you would be we used to always use the phrase, kill them with kindness.

You know, who knows what's going on in their life.

You know, and who knows what's got them feeling as if they need to denigrate someone else to feel better about themselves.

Because really, a lot of times when you see someone who is maybe a little bit out of line with their criticism, maybe spending more time criticizing than building up,

that there's something going on in their lives that they're not feeling good about who they are and pray for them.

You know, kill them with kindness.

But then at the end of the day, after you've evaluated yourself, saying, you know, I have to ask, is that criticism warranted?

I think, you know, right now, just you have in this conversation, I've already learned the difference between a critic and a hater.

You know, that there's the hater I don't think can ever really be a good critic because it talks about, well, critics may have some truth behind it.

And maybe the intentions aren't even just to hurt you, but just to keep it real with you.

And it just may not be what you want to hear.

That can be a critic that may be for your own benefit that you have to be open.

So, yeah, critics and a hater are not the same thing.

Yeah, well, I'm just, you know, I lump them together until we started talking on paper.

Okay.

A hater, you know, I think, has made up their mind.

Yeah, they're coming after you. They don't like you.

No matter what you do, they're not even going to consider and ask you, well, why, you know, did you go about it this way or what were you thinking or help me understand?

Have you ever had anybody like that?

Did you know you don't have to name the person or people? Have you ever had people or that just, no matter what, they just kind of, you know, not ones who like you?

Not ones that I spent time with on a, you know, like the media.

The media, you know, that you work with every day. Sometimes they write that zinging, you know, article and it gets a little personal and you're like, I just sit and talk with him all the time.

He's a good guy and, you know, you know, whatever. I guess he's trying to drive his numbers up or what, you know, kind of write it off.

The one you don't know, probably the best hater one I ever got, we had just beat Marshall for the second time in a row in the national championship.

And I got a FedEx. In fact, I still got it. It's in my basement. I've got a FedEx envelope. Now, that was back in 1993.

So people didn't do FedEx that often back in 1993. That was like a luxury, right? And so I get this FedEx. I opened it up. This was cool. I got, and it was from Hawaii. I'm like, wow.

So I zip it open, you know, and I'm open up and it was a little piece of paper. And then I didn't really see what was in the bottom. And I read the paper.

Man, this guy was a hater. He was, you know, he was just killing me. And I had never met him and so forth. And then he said, you are a perfect a whole.

And then I looked, I looked in the FedEx thing and there was a tube of preparation H. And then I was like, man, there's nothing I can do.

Oh, my to help me with him. But, you know, you have to be willing to take criticism. You have to be willing to withstand hate.

You have to try to, if you are going to have an ongoing relationship with someone and they're a critic or maybe even a hater, you're going to have to, you know, maybe bring the situation down in my mind by killing them with kindness.

But, expanding any emotional energy with all that you have to do on someone else's opinion rather than you trying to get better, I'm not sure is a good use of time.

Now, we all do it because we all, you know, read that article and you're like mad. And you know, someone's beating on you, you know, constantly, you know, but like in the scripture, it says be angry, but do not sin.

So, don't go to that point. You're human. Someone, you know, happens to have decided there's nothing you can do that's very good. You know, you're allowed to be angry about that. You're allowed to be sensitive about that.

You said you still have this letter. I still have that preparation age. You probably, you know, just for some day when I write my book and when someone says that chapter is on the haters, I'm going to bring, I'm going to take a picture of the picture.

Of the preparation age and put it in there. Yeah. Oh, I was saving it for today. I should go dig it out. We would have a live on on areas agencies. The grind.

If it, well, I know if it was permanent, we would have need for those bottles. He was in a big, big old buddy.

So what, what? Perm is an OG though. He's on his way there. He's on his way there. Yeah. I think once you start crossing 40, you start becoming eligible to send an application. Yeah. Yeah. To be approved by gentlemen like yourself.

We, I know for, you know, for me, I don't want to spend much time on me. I'd rather introduce people to the wisdom that I've been able to pull, you know, from you.

You know, but I, I would say, and I've had a couple of experiences, not a lot, where, you know, I look and say, well, is this my wife, my mother close friends, people close to me that really know me and care about me giving me honest criticism.

Or is this person no matter what? They're just goal in life is to, and you'll see that hate coming from people that are, you know, they're coming from sometimes other countries and they're just killing people, you know, for that they've never met before.

And, you know, I think, you know, for me, I had that experience and I kept my letter too. I had, I had some people in, outside of my agency, which, you know, we were together for this.

I was kind of pulling some wisdom from you throughout this process. And, but really for the first time in my life had, you know, I've had people pop up as haters before, but never really to this magnitude or have I ever felt this undeserving of it.

Well, as you started moving up in the world and the ranks and all that stuff, you know, what do they say? The higher you go, the more your rear end is exposed.

Yep. And that's just the way it is. And, and it's, but, you know, to invest the time into allowing that to steal your time and steal your mind and so forth.

And, you know, we have to know that, you know, people aren't always going to agree with what we do. And we have to know that everything we do isn't perfect.

And so you have to move on with it and, but it's not easy, especially in this day and age, gosh, now a social media. And, you know, they talk about young kids with the bullying on the social media and all that.

I mean, you know, the lessons learned in that feeling good about yourself.

Yeah. More than ever, I think people need to build themselves up to a point of stability, mentally, spiritually, physically, exercise and stay healthy because, you know, people have access now.

I think what's become the game on social media and I watch some of these people that are highly successful.

You know, way above, you know, I mean, just people that are that have millions of people following everything that they do.

And I look at a, you know, a LeBron or I look at a musician or I look at somebody or the president of the United States, you know, I told my mom when she started to get upset from people starting, you know, over time with throwjabs, you know, that are undeserving.

And, you know, as a parent now having my own children, I'm thinking, man, that'd be harder for me to deal with that stuff for them than it is for me. I don't mind.

You know, I said, my, you always used to tell me, you know, you say, man, Simon, I think you could be the president of United States one day, you know, your mother's.

And, and, and, you know, I said, mom, you know, half the country's going to hate me if that happens.

No matter what. That's right. You know, on one side of your, you're wearing this color, you know, or you're representing these people 50% of the country or so.

You know, I think you're at least 40% and then the other, if you're on the other side and then have the country don't like you or they don't believe in what you're in there talking, you know, bad about you.

So I feel bad for for some of these people, but I also try to prepare for if that moment ever comes, you know, for, for me, how am I going to handle it?

I look at them and I think the thing has become to if I, if I can be a decent basketball player and I just start bashing LeBron on a social media page, I can get people to look at me and because it's LeBron, if he comments back anything, it's so that no matter how good you look at some of these things, people always have someone under there making these negative comments.

So the higher you go, I think the more that those come now from a social media platform because the game becomes to be, how can I get all eyes on me?

Well, when there's just a newspaper or just text, pages, you know, whatever, just telephones, that's just neighborhood stuff.

When, when people can get a platform to say, you know, if somebody gets on here at any point and says, you know, I found Jim Trussell was in the, you know, park a lot of this play,

and what some lady just, even if it's not true, just to get some, now people all of a sudden, I'm going to look up this crazy man talking about who is this guy, Brian Jones, and that so that becomes a strategy, you know, for, for people.

What advice would you give to the people that are younger people?

Right.

Not seasoned enough to know how to deal with this stuff, but a kid in high school or a kid in college that's getting all of these emotions and criticism, if their level of play is up, and then you're going to have these, what advice would you give to those people on handling it?

You know, our friend John Maxwell, who we talked about earlier today, I remember in one of his books, he talked about being successful at something.

You need to decide early, you know, how you're going to handle things and what you're seeking and so forth.

I think you have to decide early that it is important how the people that you have spent time with, and that you've been around, and you've worked with, or hung with, or whatever, it is important how they feel.

And the ones that you've never met, it's really you have to decide early, I am not going to allow that to affect me.

Just anytime anyone would say anything negatively about me and so forth and so on, if it was someone that I worked with, it would have really bothered me.

You know, like one of my players or a coach I was with, or maybe someone who I had spent a lot of time with, that would affect me more than someone, you know, from the whatever media outlet, writing some opinion page based upon, I guess, what they thought, or what people they could dig up, you know, to say something negative, and then they made that story.

And so you have to decide early, you know, whose opinion is important, and it's most especially important the people that you have had interaction with, you know.

I think that's helpful. It doesn't mean it will alleviate any of the pain or any of the sensitivity,

any of the people who are in freedom of speech. They can say whatever they want. And that is

hurtful. And you hurt for the people who the second tier it hurts, your children or your

coworkers or whatever. But if you can try to draw the line between someone who knows you and

someone who doesn't, I think that could be helpful. I think, you know, we talked before about

we don't have to name the position, but there was a couple players that maybe you had to move

somebody in front of them in football. And you know, you don't think that they would be your

biggest fans, you know, maybe today or we're at that moment at least. You know, I think, you know,

for me when you mention the families and stuff like that, you know, I'm in a business in an industry

where it's probably much like, you know, I say it relates to football a lot because a lot of our,

not all of my positions, there's, I have tons of salary positions, hourly part time positions,

but the big base of what we do is I'm running commission salesman, salesman and saleswoman.

And the amount of lives that have been changed because I was taught early by Jim Sarace,

my mentor who we're going to have a chance to meet, to try to make that, I've watched him make

that environment, that business more than a business, but he used it as a way to fulfill his

mission of helping people. And because you're on a stage or a platform, then the people are open

to you just helping him and he really just ends up trying to penetrate their life from the inside

out. And so I've tried to model, I've tried to model that and I've watched a lot of young people

and people that I've been blessed to coach that are older than me have a lot of success outside of

business, not just financially, but just business, just success from the father that they've turned

out to be. I look at the core group of leaders that have been with me for a long time and I'm looking

back and I'm proud of them, you know, there's, they're not out there cheating on their spouse and

they're, you know, they're doing, they're doing great things as parents. And I've watched them transform

right before my eyes, pull up with no experience and a little beater car and now they're, you know,

get married in Italy and donate money to charities and first person to back me if I need anything to

buy bikes for kids or stuff like that. And I watched all the lives that have been impacted.

And then because of the rate of turnover, you know, anything that's hard to do is going to come with

a rate of turnover, whether it's sports, you know, I remember I received a scholarship to play

in college football and I would say 60% plus of the people that I that received a scholarship to play

did not graduate playing the game of football with me as a fifth year senior. And it was like

mind-boggling, you know, to me, how somebody can you, they can pay for a lot of your education and still

not want to play the game because of early morning running or someone took your place or you maybe

just temporarily they took your place and you have to earn it back and they're all upset and

disgruntled and so they transfer and they leave or, you know, whatever happens. And, you know, for me

in the, in the as many people as I've seen successful, I try to not stop my mind from recruiting a kid.

You know, I use this example of, you know, a coach maybe has two running backs that are good

that he loves, cares about. Does it stop him from recruiting Maurice Claret coming out of high school

because that person may come out and be to starting freshmen running back which is going to leave me

with a couple people that I cared about, love that sweat on his field. Maybe they're not the starter

in the national championship game in the in the in the how hard that would be as a coach because I know

how much loyalty means to you, but you got to play the game to win and put the best available in there.

And so because of that, you create some, so for me, I've had my own, you know, family say,

man, is it true? What do you mean is it true? You know, it says it, you know, there's some people

that say that, you know, it's a scam. I'm like, oh man, I've been doing this for 14 years. I promise

you they didn't scam. But what, what, you know, people get out and you start performing on straight

commission, you know, it's like sports, you know, you don't get a chance to, in sports, you don't

get a salary of, of plays. You have to, you earn the position, you earn your playing time and in

school, you get grades, ABC, D E F based on how well that you do. And it just seems like more often

than not. It's the players that don't play sometimes that say that the coach is no good or think

the coach is no good. Or it seems like sometimes the students that are getting the lower grades are

the often if I pick who don't like to teach her, it ends up being not the ace students. And if it is,

that's when you really got a problem. The people that are really at the core believe this about you

or if you're a students or best players believe this about you, then you probably, but, but, you know,

I've had that come up, you know, before. That's why you go back to it. We talked a little bit

earlier about expectations, constant evaluation. Everyone knowing how good we want to be. And so,

it's your responsibility if that running back comes in and can meet those expectations a little bit better.

On an evaluation standpoint, can is evaluated as just deserving more plays. You know, there's no such thing as

inheriting playing time. I mean, that's, that's just not the way it is. Now, I used to always tell my guys,

that seniority is an important thing if it's a tie. I coached 38 years and never saw a tie.

Play, not, not, doesn't mean the other guy won't have impact, but I think when you have to make those

difficult decisions and knowing that they're sensitive and they're personal and so forth, you know,

one of three things is going to happen. The person's either going to realize where they need to get better

and try to get the job back or more playing time or whatever happens to be, or they're going to,

not understand it, you know, and just think you're wrong. And maybe the third one,

they're going to feel as if you weren't fair. Every one of their family is going to feel like you

weren't fair. And never again, you ever have their respect because in their minds, that wasn't the right

thing and it was your fault. Have you ever had any of that? You know, I haven't got any letters from

anyone, you know, recently that said, you know, oh, by the way, but you know, you know, Timmy Terell,

the head coach, Hoban, former Ursula and Grayson, four straight state championships. He always teases

me to this day that I made a mistake moving them from quarterback to tight end, you know, but we have

fun with it and so forth. But you know, I think if they know you're trying, it goes back to that old

phrase, it's not that hard to be fair because evaluation, especially in your business, it's black and

white. Okay, so it's really not that hard to be fair. What's hard to appear to be fair? To appear to be

fair. And you have to work at it. Yep. Next, when I'd ask you is in the transition of, you know, you

went from Youngstown State to Ohio State, went on a run and then there were some things that happened

that caused you to no longer be the head football coach at the Ohio State University. In that transition,

I know for a fact that you had some people that were hating on you, you had a lot of support,

but you also had people that were media outlets, you know, talking bad about you. And then you

talk about it affecting your family. So, you know, I know the relationship you have with your son and

how you do the wood shop and that planned time with him, that's quality time. And your daughter that

went to Bourbon that I spoke to on the way up to the Hall of Fame. And I know that those people

probably get hit a little bit from that too, you know, probably get more upset than you. You know,

the main is especially your support, you know, Youngstowns and Loyal, so you know, they're probably 99.99%

all. That's, you know, don't talk bad about him, but you have that moment where in that transition,

you have some people that are talking negatively about you. How do you handle that as a person,

just using that example from you? Sure. So, other people can relate to it, but how would a person

handle that type of, because that could cause a lot of people to really be emotionally down. And

I'm sure you weren't, but I don't think you were that down. You know, especially in a visible

situation like that, Ohio State's very visible. Probably the way what I came to the conclusion that

was the healthiest thing to be feeling and thinking was to reflect back that I had 10 years

as the head coach of Ohio State. I mean, how many people can say, you know, that they had 10 years.

And, you know, did I want to be there for the 11th year? Yeah. But I had 10 years. And to me,

I would constantly reflect back. And then I go back to that scripture we talked about a couple

minutes ago. You can be angry, but do not sin. Any emotional energy that I would spend, be moaning,

what was fair, what was unfair, evaluating the critics. Okay. Any emotional energy I would spend

on that would preclude me from moving forward. And, you know, there was no amount of angst or

anger or anything else that was going to turn back the hands of time. So, what are you going to do

now? You know, we used, how do you handle what you can control? If you remember coming down the

concourse at Stanbos stadium, we had a big sign and it said there, what are you going to do now?

Which we wanted that coming off the field at any time to be the question, it's half time and

you're down by 10 points. What are you going to do now? It's half time. You're up by 10 points. What are

you going to do now? Practice is over and you got to test tomorrow. What are you going to do now?

Practice is over and it's Thursday night and the OGs are out there, you know, getting ready to go

spend some time. What are you going to do now? So, the same is true when you have those adverse moments

especially when the critics are involved and you know it's forever because regardless of how far

we've removed it is, there's always a line in the story whether we just got a $2 million gift

at YSU for an engineering chair or whatever. If it happens to catch some acclaim somewhere in there,

former coach fired from Ohio State, you know, that's part of the deal. I mean, so where are you going

to invest your emotional energy? What are you going to focus on? Yeah. What you can control. Yeah.

Can't focus on what you can't control. You know, one of the pictures I use for this,

explaining this to people is the, you know, Michael Phelps is the swimmer. Yeah. I'm not that much of an OG

man. Well, so they're swimming. Yeah. And he's swimming in one of the, when he won a bunch of gold

medals in the Olympics. Yeah. One of his, what do they call them meets, right? Swim, swim.

Swim meets. One of his meets, they caught a photo of whoever was in second place and whoever was

in second place when they were swimming, they caught him looking at Michael Phelps. And in the photo,

it had Michael Phelps just, yeah, focused. Right. And he won by a fraction, you know, racing and

tracking stuff. It's like it's never a long mark. No, no, no, no, no, it's fraction. So he wins.

And I go back to saying, you know, I think that sums it up. That the people that focus on either

something bad happen in the person that you're looking at what you can't control instead of

focusing on winning your race, playing your game. You start to move in a bad direction. I know

we used to say that about in the course of a game. Every play that happens, there's a certain

system we had in place. The minute the play ends, you evaluate your performance. Did I take the

right angle? Did I do that with whatever you assess the situation? Is it third night? Is it whatever?

And you look to the sideline for the call because you gotta be ready for the next play.

And this is the same with life. You assess the situation. What could I have done better?

And every particular thing that comes up, you can go back to it. What can I have done better?

Okay. What's the situation? Now I gotta get my focus on where I'm going. And that's what's great

about the game of football. I think that it teaches you. That's great about the game of golf. I don't

play golf. Ellen plays all the time. She plays enough for both of us. Okay. And you hit the ball.

And if it's in the woods, okay, what did I do wrong? Okay. You know what? I let the whatever.

Okay. What's the situation? Is there a tree in the way or whatever? And where's the flag?

And if you spend any time be moaning something that happened whether or-

The shot that already happened. It's over. We're here. The ball's here.

The ball's here. And that's- And don't spend- Don't get tricked into spending. Don't let the critics

trick you into constantly reliving that or getting you to a moat about that. If you allow that,

your progress is going to be further slowed.

I think that's a big one for people and I hope people really get that.

I watch a lot of people get upset in life for whatever reason.

And it's the people that learn to let go of what they cannot control and focus on what

they can control to me.

That seems to be the happiest.

I didn't come from an environment of a lot of forgiveness or everything that I was

around was, and I'm not saying this about, I've had great grandparents, I've had my

mom has done a phenomenal job with the hand that she was dealt.

But I've been around a lot of hot tempers and we won't speak for five, for three years.

So if you do something wrong to me, I ain't talking to you for four years.

And nobody able to ask for forgiveness and to forgive easily.

And then playing a sport that I fell in love with, that was actually probably the third

best sport.

I was probably best at baseball.

And everybody wanted me to keep playing baseball.

But you couldn't hit the curve ball.

I could have crushed the curve ball.

You crushed the curve ball?

I was killing the curve ball.

I was controlling them.

And I remember playing in the, they had the punt pass and kick of baseball.

I did that in, or for football, I did it for baseball.

And I remember winning first place here somewhere in Youngstown and two of the people that were

next, both of them went on to play in the major leagues.

This was as a young kid.

So baseball was my best sport.

I didn't like it.

Basketball might have been my second sport, but I was physically short, challenging.

Vertically challenged.

But I was good at it.

But I love football the most.

And I thought that, and I went all in for football, knowing that that would probably be my

option to play at the next level, based on overcoming size and the gifts that I was given

and the gifts that I wasn't given.

I felt like it was going to be football.

So football, the position that I played especially as a violent sport.

I know Lombardi said something about it's a violent sport.

Ironically Vince Lombardi's grandson, Joe Lombardi was my coach at Mercyhurst, offensive coordinator.

I see him on all the AAP commercials now doing something with the saints.

But it's a violent sport.

And so I was a safety.

And as little as I could remember being, I was always a hitter.

That was I was either lying back or safety every coach I played for would say aggressive.

And so I learned that you have to take a step back and not be aggressive.

Because your first instance, my first instance think is to be aggressive.

That's why the play action past worked against you.

You were down in the box.

Coachable.

Film, I was the film, I'd watch film, film, film, film, but that's another subject.

For me, I had to learn myself to forgive people, to let it roll off a little bit faster than

most people.

And those end up being the happiest people that I find.

How could we not be a forgiving person with all that God has forgiven us?

I mean, come on.

If God wasn't forgiving, I'd be in trouble.

That's right in the Lord.

That's what Jim Sirace used to use on me.

He said, right there in the Lord's Prayer, it says forgive us.

As we forgive those who trust pass against us.

Pretty simple.

So you talked to me about the mistakes you've made, Simon.

If you want somebody to forgive those, you have to be able to forgive people.

That's right.

And the same token you're able to forgive others is the same way that you're going to be able

to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to be able to

be able to put you in the game.

I'm going to forgive your sins, but you're going to have to get better at those.

Or if it's the outside critic, I'm not going to give you any of my emotion.

And I'm most certainly not going to sin.

I'm not going to do something silly.

And it's all related.

Thank you for your time.

Yes, sir.

On that topic, appreciate everything that you do for others in the world, everything that

you do in the city of Youngstown.

The amount of inspiration that people have pulled from you, from coaching to leadership,

to your heart, in the way that you've served, the way you respect others in the military

and go out of your way for everything that you do.

I appreciate you having you on.

Thanks.

We're blessed.

trying to tell them I'm a beast, but...