How Final Four Coaches Build Winning Teams | Title Agents Ep79
Episode Summary
Coach Jim Larrañaga, who led two programs to the NCAA Final Four, breaks down his leadership philosophy for building high-performing teams under pressure. He shares his three-pillar culture framework—attitude, commitment, and class—and explains how he uses Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits, Bob Rotella’s “train then trust” philosophy, and weekly one-on-ones to develop leaders, not followers. Title agency owners and team leaders will learn how to align daily routines with vision, measure progress toward goals, overcome adversity, and create cultures where every team member knows their role and executes it.
About Jim Larrañaga
Jim Larrañaga is a retired NCAA Division I basketball coach who led two different programs to the Final Four: George Mason University in 2006 and the University of Miami in 2023. Over his 41-year coaching career, he became the only head coach in Division I history to win more than 100 conference games at three different schools. He currently teaches at the University of Miami and hosts a weekly radio show on WQAM 104.3 FM in Miami.
Key Takeaways
- A leader’s first job is to create more leaders, not followers, by delegating responsibility and empowering team members to grow beyond their current capabilities.
- Culture is built by surrounding yourself with people who fit your vision, not just the most talented individuals—the wrong personality fit will undermine team performance.
- Weekly one-on-one meetings where you learn what matters to each team member enable effective communication, accountability, and targeted coaching that drives results.
- Goals must be process-focused and measurable—instead of “win the championship,” define the specific metrics (shooting percentage, turnovers, efficiency) that championship teams achieve.
- When facing adversity, leaders must look in the mirror first and ask what they’re doing right and wrong before addressing team performance issues.
- The “train then trust” framework means intensive preparation in practice allows you to remain calm and confident during high-pressure moments instead of panicking.
- Legacy isn’t about championships—it’s about whether you prepared people for life after they leave your team by teaching transferable habits and mindsets.
Episode Chapters
| Time | Topic |
|---|---|
| 00:00 | Introduction and Coach Larrañaga’s background |
| 03:45 | From 14-year-old coach to 41-year career |
| 08:12 | How to approach the start of a new year |
| 11:30 | Setting the tone: attitude, commitment, and class |
| 15:20 | Learning to delegate and develop leaders |
| 19:45 | Accountability through communication and weekly meetings |
| 23:10 | Building winning culture through the right people |
| 27:35 | Connecting daily habits to bigger vision |
| 31:50 | Process over outcome: goal-setting frameworks |
| 36:20 | Overcoming adversity: the 2006 Final Four story |
| 40:15 | Legacy, teaching, and preparing people for life |
Full Transcript
Show Full Transcript (6,885 words)
In a world where change is the only constant, Mo Shumil stands at the forefront, guiding title professionals to not just grow their businesses, but to master the art of innovation. With every episode, you're handed the keys to unlock unparalleled growth and stay ahead of the curve. Get ready for a transformative journey. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Title Agencies podcast. I am your host, Mo Shumil, and I'm very thrilled to kick off 2026 with an episode that's all about leadership, vision, and building winning teams, not just in business, but in life.
Today's guest is someone I'm proud to call a friend and someone whose leadership journey has inspired people far beyond the basketball court. Coach Jim Laranega is one of the most respected names in college basketball, best known for leading not one, but two different programs to the NCAA Final Four. First, for George Mason, the historic Cinderella run in 2006, and more recently, with the University of Miami in 2023. His ability to build team culture, develop leaders, and consistently deliver results in high-pressure environments is something every business owner, team leader, sales rep, escrow officer can learn from. In today's conversation, we unpack his leadership philosophy, how he approaches goal setting, and what it really takes to create a culture that performs under pressure.
Whether you're running a title agency, growing a business, in sales, in escrow, or just focused on becoming a better leader in 2026, this episode is packed with insights that will set the tone for your year and more years to come. Coach L, welcome to the show. I'm really thrilled to have you kick off 2026. You're an amazing human being, coach, leader. I mean, I could go on forever and ever, but I'll let you kick off the show and give us a background, your history, your background for those people that may not know you.
Well, Mo, it's a pleasure to be on with one of my great friends of all time. You became a very close friend and confidant when I was at George Mason. But to your listening audience, I grew up in New York City, in the Bronx. And I went to Archbishop Molloy High School in Queens. And in my freshman year, I was on a basketball scholarship.
And in my freshman year, we had a terrific team. We were 7-0. And after Christmas, my high school coach called me in, and he called me Larry, for short for Larry Nega. And he said, Larry, your coach quit, so I want you to coach the freshman team. And I said to him, Coach Kern, I'm only 14 years old.
And he said, yeah, but you'll do a great job. So I did. I coached the team. We went undefeated. We won the New York City Championship for freshmen.
And that was it. I wanted to be a coach from then on. I graduated from Archbishop Molloy, got a scholarship to Providence College, played four years of college basketball, got drafted by the Detroit Pistons. That didn't work out. And I started my coaching career at 21 years old at Davidson College, where Steph Curry made his fame at the college level.
And then I became an assistant at Virginia, and eventually the head basketball coach at three different Division I schools, Bowling Green State University in Ohio, George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, where you and I became acquainted. And then in 2011, after our George Mason team set the school record for wins, I left to become the head coach of the Miami Hurricanes in Miami, Florida. And I've just retired after 41 years of coaching in December of 2024. So I've been out now a year, and I've been doing some fundraising. I teach a class at the university, and I have a radio show.
So I'm still staying very active. What's the name of the radio show for those that want to listen to it? Well, it's a half-hour segment, the Hockman Crowder Solana Show. It's WQAM 104.3 on the FM dial. It's 3.30 every Wednesday.
And they carved out a half hour for me for the Coach L Show. And anybody that wants to listen, tune in. All they'll do is laugh. They ask me questions about basketball, of course, but we talk about so much more, and we have a really good time. That's awesome.
So 2026 is here, and a lot of our listeners are thinking about how to lead better this year. How do you personally approach the start of a new season or a new year? Well, first of all, you know, leadership is such an important part of any organization. And the leader has to create a vision, a crystal clear picture of what he or she wants the team to accomplish. And then the leader must have the ability, Mo, to inspire, to motivate, and then empower the members of the team to reach far beyond what they think they're capable of doing.
And then the members of the team, they've got to work together. They've got to know their role and execute their role. But not only that, they've got to know their teammates' roles and how to help them so you have great synergy. You have people who are really working hard and working well as a unit. That's what I did my whole life in coaching basketball.
You have a bunch of individuals, and you've got to bring them together to form a great team. And fortunately for me, I was able to do that at three different schools. Mo, I don't know if you know this or any of your listeners know this. I'm the only head coach in Division I history to win more than 100 conference games at three different Division I schools. So I'm very, very proud of that.
So my leadership carried from Bowling Green to George Mason to Miami. And my vision was always about teamwork and leadership, bringing people together. And I would tell my players, a leader's first job is to create more leaders, not followers, guys who know how to take charge and be involved and set the right example. And you are a master of creating that teamwork and also building a community. I remember what you did here in Northern Virginia, building a community around George Mason.
It was irrelevant, and then it became very relevant. And that's all thanks to you and how you build that community. It's kind of rallied around the team. Well, a lot of it is also my staff. I had great people around me.
That's why it's so important to have great teamwork. And then my coaches, all of them have been very successful in this profession. They recruited the right players. And then we brought on a large staff. We had managers and grad assistants.
And so my view of college athletics was to always be inclusive. So you know, Mo, you were part of the insiders at George Mason. We had so many guys and eventually women who supported our program. And the reason they did is they felt a part of the team. And that was always, I wanted to create a family atmosphere, not just for my team, the players, they'd come to my house, my wife would cook for them.
They cared about her. They would ask her for advice and guidance about finances, about dealing with girlfriends and all kinds of issues. So we were very much a family oriented program. What's something you do early on to set the tone for your team? Well, the first thing is I sit down with my coaches in the team on the very first day and we have a list of guidelines.
And I then also share with them the vision that I have. And the vision is created simply by three words, attitude, commitment, and class. We would tell our players, anybody associated with our program, coaches, players, anybody in the community, you always want to have a positive attitude towards everything. We tell them life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it. Second, to make a total and unconditional commitment to being the best that you can be.
Develop a great work ethic, develop a great, to become a great teammate. You want your players, the greatest compliment your fellow players or team can have, fellow employees is, oh, I love working with them. He's a great teammate. And then third class is always behave in a first class manner. Be a great role model in your community and on your team.
Set the example. And then we would go through the seven habits of highly effective people by Dr. Stephen Covey. That was always something that was foremost in my teaching. I've always seen myself as an educator and I try to teach my players the seven habits that I learned from Dr.
Covey. And that was always on day one, the attitude, commitment and class. is always behave in a first class manner. Be a great role model in your community and on your team. Set the example.
And then we would go through the seven habits of highly effective people by Dr. Stephen Covey. That was always something that was foremost in my teaching. I've always seen myself as an educator and I try to teach my players the seven habits that I learned from Dr. Covey.
And that was always on day one. The attitude, commitment in class and the seven habits of highly effective people. This podcast is brought to you by Struggling to set appointments and generate leads? What if you had a team working behind the scenes to help you book more meetings and close more deals? At Alltech National Title, our dedicated inside sales team help you find your pipeline so you can focus on what you do best, building relationships and closing business.
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Visit alltechnationaltitle.com or DM us today to start the conversation. What's something you learned early on in your career that still shapes how you lead today? Well, very early in my head coaching career, I tried to do everything myself. I had the experience, the knowledge, the know-how and I had a very small budget to hire a staff. So one of my assistant coaches, I hired him at $13,000.
So he had no experience. He just got out of college. I was trying to educate him and teach him how to be a coach. But what I found as a leader, the most important skill you can develop is how to delegate, how to give them responsibility so they can grow. Because as I said, your first job as a leader to develop more leaders, all my coaches wanted to be head coaches.
So I had to teach them how to be a head coach and then they had to work with the players to help them become better players in a better team. And now I follow all my former coaches. I have Chris Caputo at George Washington, Eric Conkle at Tulsa, Adam Fisher, Bill Courtney and Michael Ugar are all at Temple. Scott Cherry, he's at Central Michigan. So I've got guys all over the country who are pursuing their coaching career.
And Tony Skin at George Mason. And all I was gonna get to him, Mo. And then my most proud protege is Tony Skin, who was a player for me at George Mason University. And he got hired by Eric Conkle at Louisiana Tech. So that was one of my former assistants hiring one of my former players.
He developed Tony into a terrific coach. Tony then went to Seton Hall, Ohio State, Maryland and is now back at his alma mater at George Mason University and leading them, I believe they're 11 and one or 12 and one. 11 and one. 11 and one going into conference play. And he won the A10 championship last year.
He tied with VCU and they went to the NIT. That was the first post season since I left in 2011. So that's a great accomplishment. But even more impressive was he won 27 games tying the record for wins in a season. So he's got that program really headed in the right direction.
I'm so happy for him and his family and his players. How do you approach the challenge of holding people accountable while also keeping them motivated? Well, I think the biggest thing is communication. For me, I wanted to meet with each of my players at least once a week in my office, one-on-one. No one was at the meeting, just the two of us.
And I like to get to know them. I have a slogan called learn the learner. So if you get to know the player, if you get to know your employee and you sit down with them once a week and you find out what makes them tick, what's important to them, and then you can direct them correctly and that'll always make them accountable. If they've said to you, and I'll give you an example. I had a player named Kenny Kaji who was 6'11", 270 pounds.
And when I first met with him, he told me, I asked him, what position are you? I think he's gonna say, I'm a five man, I'm a big guy. He said, I'm a stretch four. I said, a stretch four? Do you even know what a stretch four does?
And he says, yeah, it shoots threes. I said, well, at your previous school, you played two years, how many threes did you make? He said, none. I said, how can you be a stretch four and not shoot any threes? He said, the coach wouldn't let me shoot him.
Please, Coach L, will you let me shoot him? And I said to him, I have only one rule, shoot the shots you can make. Can you make threes? And he said, yes, absolutely. Mo, he made 75 threes that season.
So at Miami, right? At Miami. Yeah, right. He was in my first group at Miami. He made 75 threes.
And what made him accountable is he knew, I understood him of what he wanted. Now, if he couldn't shoot the three, I certainly wouldn't let him shoot it. But he was such a good three-point shooter just leaving him inside because he was big and strong and athletic. Yeah, that would be good for the team, but it wouldn't be able for him to expand his game because he wanted to play in the NBA. My point being is communication is the whole key.
Whether you're an employer, you need to meet with your employees, get to know them, what's important to them. I really picked up on this when I read a book by Matthew Kelly called The Dream Manager. And that's what I recommend everybody in business to read because it really explains how important communication is as to what's important to your employees, or in my case, what's important to my players and coaches. This podcast is made possible by our sponsor. You have worked so hard to build your business.
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Yeah, the hardest thing is, and everybody uses the word culture. The way I view culture is people. Surround yourself with people who fit your vision. There are a lot of really good players that wouldn't fit my program. In fact, we had a terrific player visit us a couple of years ago and in our discussions, I asked about his personality and his dad said, my son is crazy.
I said, what do you mean by that? He screams and yells at teammates. He yells at refs. He'll yell back at the coach. And I said to him, well, your son's a great player, but I don't think he's gonna fit in here.
And so he went someplace else. He's now in the NBA, but he would not have enjoyed that success playing for me because I'm all about behavior. I'm not gonna allow any one player, any coach to swear at teammates, to swear at coaches, to be vulgar, just because that's my approach. Some other coaches are fine with that and that's where he should go and that's what he did. He picked the perfect coach, had great success in college, and now he's playing in the NBA.
That's awesome. So culture is about finding the right fit of, okay, I'm gonna hire coaches who not are yes-men, but are coaches that think the way I do about how to build a program, how to build an offense, how to build your defense, how to be inclusive and bring people into practices. And we would have the band come in. You know, Doc Nix and the Green Machine and George Mason, we became best friends. We started raising money together to help the band travel.
They went to Orlando. They went to San Juan, Puerto Rico to back the team as we played. So culture is about surrounding yourself with like-thinking people. And then, be inclusive and bring people into practices. And we would have the band come in.
You know, Doc Nix and the Green Machine and George Mason, we became best friends. We started raising money together, right? To help the band travel. They went to Orlando. They went to San Juan, Puerto Rico to back the team as we played.
So culture is about surrounding yourself with like-thinking people. And then encourage each other, motivate each other, inspire each other to be better than what you are. So I always say, I wanna hire coaches who are smarter than me. Smarter in technology, maybe smarter in research and what have you. That's my idea of what culture is.
How do you connect daily habits and routines to the bigger vision for the season? Okay, Mo, so everything's about habits. First you build your habits and then that's who you become. And I'm a great believer in routines. So what players need to understand right away when they come and play for me, whether it's Miami or George Mason, that the first thing we started doing is the meetings.
Okay, we had meetings. I met with the players. Let's say I met with the players Monday through Friday, three or four players every day. And the routine was after lunch. So someone came in at one, someone came in at 1.30 too.
And then at a practice, we always met in the video room. We watched a video, only 10 minutes. It was a teaching point. Then on the court, we met on the court and we always met at the circle. And I always explain to them, the significance of the circle is there are three levels of growth, Mo.
The first level is dependent. When you're a child, you depend on your parents. The second level is independent. You become a teenager, you get a driver's license. You think you don't have to pay attention to anybody.
It's on you. But when you become an adult and you're in the workforce at any level, you have to become interdependent. And interdependent is everybody has a job and we have to do our own job very well and we work together. So the significance of the circle that we meet as a team, that routine before every practice was, we're all in this together. There's no top, there's no bottom.
We're all equal. If you're the star of the team or you're a walk on at the end of the bench, you all have a job to do. And the better you do that job, the better our team will be. The better a teammate you are, the better our team will be. And so when you're developing routines, they become the habits that you build on.
That's why in basketball, we do a lot of drills to learn the habits we wanna do on the court. And one of my great friends, Mo, you're a golfer, aren't you? Yes, I am. So one of my great friends is Dr. Bob Rotella.
You know who he is if your listeners know. Dr. Bob Rotella is the foremost sports psychologist in the country working with all the major golfers and all athletes. And he taught me three words that I use all the time, train, then trust. So my job was to train, to develop the habits in practice.
And then once the game came, to trust that the players had learned the lessons. And then I'd be on the sideline and you know this, Mo, I'm not screaming and yelling and I'm clapping, I'm cheering. I'm evaluating, I'm talking to the players, trying to inspire them and cheer them on. So when you're setting goals with your team, where do you start, with the outcome or with the process? Everything is about the process.
There's a book I would encourage any coach to read, but even someone like yourself, Mo, you run your own, by Bill Walsh, San Francisco 49ers Hall of Famer. He wrote a book called, The Score Takes Care of Itself. And in that book, he explained all your preparation is what leads to success. So they'd win these games where they had to come from behind and he said, well, we practice these two minute drills every day. So it became second nature to their players.
So a guy like, who was it, Joe Montana and Jerry Rice, connecting at the end of games when they're down, down six or seven or what have you, and they need a touchdown and there's only a minute and a half to play. These guys knew exactly what they were gonna do. So the idea of developing that mindset of preparation, you know, they used, it's not just the preparation for tomorrow is to do a great job today. And it's not the will to win, it's the will to prepare to win that's most significant. So as you know, this is the beginning of the year, 2026, and people start talking about yearly goals or then, oh, I lose a 20 pounds or, and the focus in 20 pounds, the focus on process, like how many cardio sessions, how many training sessions, how much calories are you gonna eat?
And they're breaking it down to like daily, weekly, to get to that level instead of looking at the bag, the number 20, 30, whatever pounds it is, and they're just, you know, chunking it down and building those habits or processes that will get you there. The whole key with goals setting and achieving is about the planning and writing everything down. It's easy to say something, but, and I'll use an example. My wife has been on a mission to lose 10 pounds. So I told her, this is what you have to do.
You have to write it down. You got to look at that goal every single day. And then you've got to weigh yourself. You don't like weighing yourself, but you get on the scale every single day and see how you're doing, because the goal has to be measurable. You have to see how you're doing.
With my team, what I would do is I would ask them the question, what are our goals for this coming season? And they might say, when, at George Mason would be when the CAA, at Miami, when the ACC. So I'd say, okay, how do you do that? And then the goals would become, how many points do we need to average? What should our field goal percentage be?
How about turnover rate or rebounding? And we would go to a website called ChemPOM, and I would bring up the teams that made the NCAA tournament that won their conference and compare them to our team and say, okay, if we're going to make the NCAA tournament, if we're going to win our league, we have to be in the top 50 in offensive efficiency. We have to be in the top 50 in defensive efficiency. We've got to be in the top three or four in rebounding in our own league. And we have to be in the top two or three in the fewest number of turnovers and the fewest number of fouls committed.
So that was a clear picture. And then we'd measure it after every game. And in our meetings after the game, we would say, okay, here are our goals. Here's how we did in this game. And we'd point out the things we needed to improve in.
Just like I would tell my wife, get on the scale and see how you did, and then go back and visit what you did the day before, the food intake you had, the number of calories you ate, and figure out which things maybe you should eliminate from your diet that are causing you to gain weight and focus on the things you ate that allowed you to lose weight. You've got to learn how to achieve your goal. What's your advice for leaders who need to realign or rebuild their team culture? Yeah, I think one of the things, if you struggle and things aren't going well, you got to first look in the mirror. You have to look at yourself and say, what am I doing right?
What am I doing wrong? What are my coaches doing right? What are my coaches doing wrong? And I'll give you an example. When I first started, I was struggling as a head coach and a friend of mine recommended I take the Franklin Daily Planner Seminar.
And I did that. It completely changed my organizational skills and was terrific. I then read the book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. So I was learning. The thing, anyone that's living and breathing, you need to keep learning how to be a better parent, how to be a better husband and father, how to be a better employer, how to be a better employee.
And I try to do that throughout my career. So it becomes a matter of working at it, improving constantly. As Sibutakabe would say, sharpen your saw. Yes, sharpen your saw. This podcast is proudly sponsored by.
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So every team and every business faces adversity. How do you help your players push through tough moments? The tough times. It is amazing. The teams I've had that have had to overcome some major obstacles.
But the whole key is the foundation that you have. So in 2005, we had Bob Rotella come in to talk with the team and he asked them how good they thought they can be. And the players said, we think we can get to the final four. So that's a very lofty goal for a mid-major program because it hadn't been done in 30 years. So then the season starts and we lose at home to Creighton by 22 points.
And I know everybody was thinking to themselves, oh no, this is going to be a disastrous year. We're one and two to start the season. We had such high hopes. But the great thing about losing that day is it set the stage for all our future success. The next day we sat in the locker room as a team and we went over the video, over and over again.
And I'd show a play and then I'd ask an individual, what happened on that play? And that player would see himself and say, I didn't run back on defense. That's why they scored. And then the next guy showed another play and said, I took a really contested shot. It was a bad shot.
I shouldn't have shot that. We did that move for three days. And then I'll ask one question. Is that who we're going to be this season? Or can we correct it, be the kind of team we expected to be?
And all the players then made a total and unconditional commitment to be the kind of team we wanted to be. And we went through the season. We won the regular season championship. We won the state championship. We won the national championship.
And we went through the season. We won the regular season championship. We were ranked in the top 25 for the first time in school history. But then we faced more adversity. We lost to Hofstra in the CAA tournament.
And everybody expected we weren't going to get invited to the NCAA. And I told the team, no, we have earned our way into the NCAA. We will get invited. I kept things positive. I kept practicing knowing that, hey, we're going to be in the NCAA.
We're going to be in March Madness. We're going to be in that big dance for the first time in a couple of years. And when we got invited, then all the adversity we had faced had put a chip on our shoulder. So when the experts said we didn't belong, we didn't believe them. We believed in us.
You have to have faith. You have to believe in yourself. You have to believe in your teammates. You have to believe in your coaches. And in the business world, it's the same thing.
The owner, the president of the company has to believe in his employees. And the employees have to believe in each other. That's the only way it works. And you know then we went on a run. We beat Michigan State, Carolina, Wichita State, and the number one seed, Connecticut.
And made it to the Final Four for the first time in school history. And the first time that a mid-major had been there in almost 30 years. And it was like breaking the four-minute mile. Like Roger McManus today. Because nobody had done it in a long time.
How do you personally stay grounded and focused when the pressure is on? Well, that goes back to my meetings with Dr. Otella. He has always told me, if you've done your job in practice, then you can understand that during the game, if you want your team to remain poised, you have to remain poised. If you want them to be cool and calm and collected, you need to be cool, calm, and collected.
The coaches that scream and yell and go into the negative, they often panic, miss free throws, and have turnovers at critical times at the end of games. You want your team to be at their best when their best is required. You've mentored so many young athletes. What do you hope they carry forward from their time with you? Well, as I said earlier in the show, I'm an educator.
I tell my players all the time, if all I ever did was teach you how to dribble, pass, and shoot, I wouldn't feel like my life was very worthwhile. My job is to prepare you when you're no longer in college and no longer playing basketball. And I can't tell you the number of players, past players, that stay in touch with me via text all the time asking me for advice and asking me. I just got off the phone with one just prior to our podcast and asking me. He's a very bright young man, but he's just starting out his professional career.
And he's asked me some questions as to the best way to interview, the best way to put together a resume. And how to get a good job. And I've done that throughout my life, including my own sons. My son, Jay, is an assistant coach in the NBA. My own son, John, is an entrepreneur in Washington, D.C.
And both of them played for me in college. So they understood about developing the right habits and making a total commitment to being the best that they can be. How do you think about legacy now compared to earlier in your career? You know, people, not me, not my wife, others talk about legacy. I really talk about teaching.
I look at it as, okay, if you're a teacher, let's say you're a math teacher. Did you help your students learn math? Did they know addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division? Did they know trigonometry? Did they know calculus?
Did they know geometry? Because if you gave them that foundation of math, that'll last them a lifetime. If you're an English teacher, did you teach them the English language? My job was to help prepare them for that same thing. Basketball was the tool, was my subject.
But my goal was to prepare them for life. And so, if others want to think of my legacy, is that I did prepare kids to be successful. You know John Vaughn. Of course. One of the terrific players, scored over 1,200 points at George Mason.
What is my relationship with him? Well, I'm so proud of him because he's been a hugely successful businessman. What about Tony Skin? Well, he's a hugely successful college basketball player. What about my two sons?
They're hugely successful adults. But I could go down the list of hundreds of kids that I've coached throughout the years long after your playing days, if you apply the seven habits and you develop the philosophy of having a positive attitude, make a total commitment to being the best that you can be and always carry yourself in a first class manner. Today's episode is sponsored by Stop wasting time digging for answers or waiting on an email or callback from your underwriter. With titlegpt.ai, you get instant, reliable answers to your title questions fast. No more delays, work smarter, close faster and keep deals moving.
Try www.titlegpt.ai today. That's awesome. We're getting very close to the end of the show and I always ask this question. What is a favorite quote? Well, I have so many.
Let me give it because I have so many different mentors. I'll give you one. It's very different than you might think. My high school coach, when he found out I was going into coaching, he said to me, Larry, that's what he called me, understand this. A coach's job is to serve.
Serve your coaches and your players. Help them become the best that they can be. I'll give you give you one that it's very different than then you might think my high school coach when he found out I was going into coaching he said to me Larry that's what he called me understand this a coach's job is to serve serve your coaches and your players help them become the best that they can be help them to realize their dreams because that's what a coach's job is it's not about you it's about them so it's not an exact coach I mean an exact quote but it basically means serve your players what's your old quotes it's an original one is that Zach yeah it is Zach hey Zach I like your Miami gear man that smile on your face thank you so this is my son Zach show me all it is gonna actually we're gonna have a bonus session here and basketball is that gonna have any questions you have for coach is 2006 the best season you've ever had with any team that you've coached or or the 2023 season too okay both in 2006 and 2023 we both teams made the Final Four here's what I would say about what I loved both those teams I love both what they accomplished because they got they got the goal that they had set themselves to get to the Final Four but in 2006 we were such an underdog we were the 11th seed and it had been so long since an 11 seeded haven't made the Final Four in fact I was at that that Final Four in 1981 so from 1981 to 2006 no no no team had made the Final Four from a mid-major league or from an 11 seed the 2023 team they were the shortest team to ever make the Final Four and since 1965 the tallest starter was six five and a half but they were a fifth seed so not quite all the upsets that we had in 06 but both teams I loved them I loved coaching them working with those guys and I loved the coaches that that helped us to accomplish that goal so this year you've seen at least one game of our GMU team how do you think we'll make like the Final Four or like anywhere in the or anywhere in the tournament well I think this George Mason team is built to win they're already 11 and 1 but they go into league play where teams are very familiar with you and so it's far more challenging I have my fingers crossed if they win the the regular season championship I don't even know if that will be enough to get them an invite to the NCAA because there are new metrics that how the the committee selects the team so I'm hoping they have a great regular season but even a better Atlantic 10 tournament and is the team that cuts down the nets because once they cut down the nets and they have that kind of confidence they'll be a hard out in the NCAA tournament because they play great defense and that's what's wins championships the only thing is about that team is like slow starter a strong second half better than being a fast starter in a slow second half that makes that was only like that like we played really good against VT except that was the only issue yeah well coach I'll thank you so much for your generous time and uh you are one of my favorite people on the planet and one of my favorite people and my son as well he wants to go to Miami because of you like it was visit us Mo you and Jen your lovely wife and and I love you guys and stay in touch Wow what an incredible way to start the year huge thanks to coach Larry Naga for sharing not only his leadership insights but also the real-life mindset behind building teams that succeed year after year if this episode fired you up for 2026 make sure you subscribe share with your team and leave us a review a five-star review it helps more top professionals and entrepreneurs find a show and grow with us and thank you Zach again you're welcome and that's a wrap on today's journey with motion mill from the title agents podcasts reminding you that mastering the art of innovation is key and the title industries fast-paced world if you're finding it tough to keep up with the changes and challenges remember you're not alone our calendar is open for you find the link in the show notes and let's connect make sure to hit subscribe to not miss out on strategies that elevate and insights that empower together we'll navigate the future of the industry I look forward to our next meeting in the upcoming episode
