Latest / The Junto Podcast / E47: Shoresy, Grit, and Glory - Hockey Lessons in Leadership

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E47: Shoresy, Grit, and Glory - Hockey Lessons in Leadership · The Junto Podcast

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Hello, America. Welcome to the Juneto podcast, where we promote the practical
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applications of critical thinking and bold creativity.
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I'm your host, Edgar Mills. Thank you for.
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Hello, good people. Welcome back to the Junto podcast. Thank you so much for staying with me.
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So some of you may know, I don't know, I was never really a big sports fanatic.
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I'm, I don't follow, I don't follow sports that much. I don't track other dudes
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statistics or their careers.
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I never cared much for the, like the organizational drama.
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You know, there's always drama in the, MLB and NFL.
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And I don't really, honestly, man,
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to the woes of the millionaire players,
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you know, they're not making enough millions or the billionaire club owners
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who, you know, get taxpayer dollars to build their multi-million dollar stadiums
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and then move to another town, you know, five years later.
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I don't know, crap like that. I never got into it.
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I like playing certain sports. I like to play baseball. I love baseball.
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I mean, I even like watching baseball, but like minor league.
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And yeah, man, I do admire like the athleticism, the raw athleticism or the
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skill like that these individual dudes put in the work to achieve these
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great feats of athleticism and
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it's awesome and i do like that right but as
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far as just tracking sports and watching every game and all this and that i
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just got more important things to focus on but everyone loves the olympics yeah
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so we're gonna these these past olympics and specifically i'm going to talk
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about like team usa right hockey.
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They were inspirational. Yeah. Both the men and women's teams both got gold,
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and they got the full attention of the entire nation and it sparked national pride.
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Now I know that's a thing nobody likes to have these days is national pride.
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And the woke activists get mad if somebody's proud to be an American or actually
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stands for national anthem.
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But look, beyond all that, right?
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You had these young athletes out there hustling and they brought home gold for
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the USA in a sport that isn't typically like USA strong point. Yeah. Hockey.
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So nevermind trying to politicize any of that stuff.
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Just the fact that they went out and won on,
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on determination and skill jack hughes
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you know his toothless smile and and what i'm going to go ahead and say is an
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innocent you know boyish face that image is going to be an icon you know for
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a whole generation of young hockey players.
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When that photo of of him threw his helmet off and then that that's pure american
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grit and just the deepest most genuine joy you're ever going to see on ice.
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Yeah. The face of a generation right there. And then the women's hockey team
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matched that fire. Yeah.
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Megan Keller buried the overtime winning goal and showed the world,
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the whole world, that, you know, heart isn't just gender specific and skill
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isn't just gender specific.
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Not only in an in a typically non-american
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strong sport like hockey but also women's hockey
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which is not yeah it
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was great stuff man america usa
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so all that back you know several you know a few weeks ago sets the stage perfectly
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for this this show i i've been mulling this over for a while about doing an
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episode on Shorzy. Yeah.
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Now, I'm just talking about Team USA and Shorzy is a Canadian show,
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but it's about hockey, sort of. No, not sort of. It's about hockey.
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But that show, well, yeah, it's inspiring.
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It's easy to glance at an episode and write it off as just crude humor.
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But if you actually watch a few episodes...
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It's going to pull you in. If you can see past the raunchy jokes in the very
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foul language, it's a story that's built on loyalty, definitely hard work,
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and individual and team accountability.
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Yeah. And the constant ball busting going on between the boys feels honest and
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genuine because it shows exactly how real men talk when they trust each other. Yeah.
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And all the crudeness and whatnot, it strips away any pretense, right?
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And it shows us what it takes to show up, to grind through the pain,
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whatever it is, and hold yourself and your brothers to a higher standard.
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The boy's interaction in this show is the heart of it. Yeah,
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Shorzy, he's the lead character, and he unleashes just relentless ball-busting
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on the boys and back and forth, right?
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Dolo, Hitch, Goody, Michaels, they all rip each other, man, and it's so funny.
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But behind every single jab, you can tell that it's rooted in loyalty and love,
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man. And like, there is no malice.
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Yeah, there is no malice in the world. You can tell by the way they're trying.
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And they regularly hold kangaroo courts to keep each other accountable, you know.
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And throughout the season, they end up winning. They throw a trophy parade and
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brought the whole town to get, like, the whole town together.
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But most importantly throughout this, you'll see that in later seasons,
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they mentor the next generation, man.
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And that's, it's funny in the show, and it's the way they do, and it's very clever.
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But the mentorship is a very real thing.
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And, and as a team, right, this is the Sudbury Bulldogs is the name of the team there.
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And they do not, will not leave a teammate behind, man.
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And they're, the way they talk to each other is the language of,
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you know, brothers who they have each other's backs no matter what.
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And no matter how immature the language sounds.
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Because it is that.
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It sounds immature, but it's only on the surface, man, and that's what's brilliant about this show.
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On the surface, it's just clowning and bad language, but just a little bit deeper.
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That's all it is, just a little bit deeper, and you will see just some depths
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like you just won't expect.
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Episode after episode, well, they just get better and better,
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but Shorzy drops life lessons, man.
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Life lessons, especially in loyalty and dedication and family even.
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Yeah, but it does it. The show does it.
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This is one of the brilliant bits here is that the show does all this without
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being preachy or self-righteous.
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I just said it's a Canadian show And that implies to me That it's a little bit
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liberal As far as politics goes But it doesn't get into that,
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It's deeper than that, way deeper than that.
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And it talks about loyalty in a way that means that, like, you carry the weight
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when your teammate slips.
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When your teammate's down, you pick it up.
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And it talks about dedication.
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Well, it shows dedication. It doesn't talk about it. It shows it in action.
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Just throughout the, I want to say, season three, where they went from a winless
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team to the no-show league champions through, well, whether it was, yeah, pure dedication,
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determination, but also maybe out of spite just to show everyone else,
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very much F you to everyone else who wrote them off. You know what I mean?
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Guys, it's very good.
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And then I said family.
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There's even a glimpse into Shorzy's life A family life No, I don't mean wife
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and kids Clearly they're all single guys.
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His family is like a non-traditional family, right?
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All his brothers, they're all grown foster kids, but they're all very, very close.
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And they all just are fiercely loyal to one another and supportive.
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And yeah, I want the dad's a widower, I think, or, and, you know,
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one of his brothers is black and one of his sisters is Asian and whatever.
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They cover all the stuff. Yeah. But not in a woke way, just in a,
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hey, this is real life kind of way.
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And that's the brilliance of it. That's the brilliance of it.
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And then, yes, that's the family family. But the family dynamics really show
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the most in the team room or in the locker room.
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The way the boys interact.
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Yeah the way they interact and the way they go through whatever emotional ups and downs,
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man such a brilliant show you get pulled into it and you I mean you're rooting for the team man.
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That's it you are and when they do win that season and they win the cup man
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and Shorzy raises the cup What?
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You can feel every emotion, right?
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The cost of winning that season, the effort that was put into it, and the pride that came.
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Just the camera work on the ice. I mean, yeah, you see some action on the ice
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a lot, but a lot of times the action's in the background.
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You don't see it, but you see the results or the angst or the emotion during
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it without actually being on the ice.
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But some of the shots from the ice, oh my God, it's like some triumphant freaking epic war movie.
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My God. And, and watching their faces, man.
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Like, it seems like those boys are out playing hockey for, for keeps for real.
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And it's a TV show for crying out loud.
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It's, you feel the depth, man.
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It's done so well and it's easy to blow it off. It's very easy to blow it off, but it's done so well.
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And even in the off season, right? Season four is them.
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They're like, It's summertime, so they've won the cup, and now it's party time, right?
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They spend all summer just cruising around town with the cup,
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hitting all the landmarks, drinking it up.
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But that summer is also when they start actually mentoring the Lakers,
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the Sudbury Lakers, the younger, I say youth and that they're not kids.
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I mean, they're like teenagers, you know what I mean?
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And that's good. And that's a, but even then, man, it, it hammers home,
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like the culture of hard work that, that got him there.
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And, and then Shorzy goes into coaching and, and he goes into coaching with
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a, well, a very simple rule and it, and it's this, and it's go where you're needed.
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So we're going to talk about leadership for a little bit during this episode
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here. The TV show's great. The TV show's great.
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And Shorzy is a fictional character who...
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He gives a straight-up master class in leadership and accountability and drive.
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And as the character, as the team leader, right, or the team captain or whatever
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he is, he leads from the front.
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Yeah, that's a very military thing, leading from the front.
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And he fights through injuries or skates through them, you know. He's out there playing.
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And everybody does through the whole team because he demands that exact same thing from everybody.
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And one of the episodes was hilarious. They were all injured.
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And they were like, oh, you're about four to six.
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You're four to six? That means that's supposed to be their recovery time from
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their injury, but they're out there playing.
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And that's good or bad, you know, in real life. But I'm just saying it hammers
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home their dedication and their, their grit, you know, to play through and,
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and then he starts recruiting, you know, new guys.
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And, you know, his one thing is, do you, do you love winning?
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Yeah. But do you hate losing more?
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Yeah. Everybody loves winning. Do you hate losing?
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And it's so brilliant and it's delivered so, so good.
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And even in the team room or the locker room, it's like he, you know,
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the tough love sort of thing.
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And there's just absolutely zero tolerance for excuses, right?
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Every dude on the team owns their, their mistakes.
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Or even when they're just didn't even make an obvious mistake,
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they're just not up to it today.
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Not up to the level. And they own it, man.
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They own it and there's ball busting but then also it's not just ball busting
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i mean there's there's like sort of a quiet off to the side support if somebody really needs it like,
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like and he sees that as good
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leaders do and eventually i think season four
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maybe he ends up he's out of the game right he gets he takes such a hard injury
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that he can't skate anymore and because not because he can't skate anymore but
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because he looks at it like possibly he's a liability now and he would rather
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help the team in some other way than to be a liability on the ice,
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and that's that's brilliant that's it's brilliant in itself.
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And to break that down i mean to see the episode go and you're like oh man yeah
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how that's tough for sure.
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But if you break that down, man, into the emotional toll to a guy who put a
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career on the ice and then it's time to go, you know?
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Oh man. But he stays in the, in the sport. It's just.
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But once he, once he hangs up to skates, he, he may, he stays in the game, right?
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And he, he still keeps the same fire and the same drive and the same leadership
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sort of role, but it's from a,
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position of mentorship, right? And protecting the team legacy, which is important.
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And then he goes into coaching.
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And he's just an example, man, of very clear and unclouded vision for the team,
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absolute integrity for the team.
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And then he genuinely cares for his homies.
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And those kind of qualities, those are qualities that men look up to.
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Now look, Jared Kiso is the guy, the actor.
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And I don't know what that guy's like in real life. I don't know if he's a good leader in real life.
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But if he's not, he's a world-class actor.
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Because you don't just memorize the lines and deliver them in the way that he does.
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I think he probably is a real life leader and he probably does have those qualities.
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Now, obviously, Shorzy is a character, right? He's a larger than life character.
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And, you know, Kiso may or may not be, but it's brilliant in the way he delivers.
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And I think he delivers based on, I don't know, maybe some experience or maybe
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just Even in the acting world,
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I think he created Letterkenny and Shorzy.
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And that takes some effort, man. That's a big undertaking.
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And I imagine you've got to be a leader even in that sense to be able to deliver
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the lines the way he does and the concepts the way he does.
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The leadership concepts.
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As you watch, and man, please do watch.
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Like I said, if he's not a good leader, he's a world-class actor.
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You could take little five-minute clips of Shorzy leadership moments and create
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a whole leadership series just based on that.
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Because he dropped some wisdom, and it's like understated, right?
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It's shaped out with a little humor.
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And that's what makes it just palatable, right? Because it's with humor.
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So you can accept it without feeling like you're being judged or whatnot.
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But it breeds success. Everything he says breeds success.
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And if you're in a leadership role, regardless of what field you're in,
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do yourself a favor and go watch season five, episode one. It's called,
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the episode's called Keep It Simple.
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And Shorzy's interactions, there's a young player named Jack who's,
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he's struggling, right? Struggling.
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And so Shorzy and a couple of the boys go up with the kid's mom to go up to
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a game, you know, to give them some support, right?
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And the interactions between Shorzy and Jack. So Shorzy hits him before the
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first period, and he gives him a nugget of wisdom.
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And he talks to him. You know what I mean? Hey, bro, what's going on?
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This and that and the other.
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And then you don't see the hockey play, right?
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You know, it flashes to like Shorzy and the boys in the stands and some other
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stuff. You don't ever see the gameplay.
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And then the kid just took what Shorzy said, implemented it, and boom.
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And then he says, I'll see you in second period.
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So then the second period, before the second period, he comes back and says,
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hey, you're a hero, man. You did it. Now do this.
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He's like, but I can't do that. No, you did this. Now do that.
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And the kid's like, I'll try. And he goes out and he executes.
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He's like, I'll see you in third period. And then the kid comes back after the second period.
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He did what he said he was going to do and what Shorzy guided him to do.
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Man, masterclass, masterclass.
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It applies to sports for sure, but it applies to every leadership role,
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any leadership role, man. So brilliant.
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So brilliant. And look, I don't know what kind of, you don't have to be a hockey fan.
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You don't even have to know much about hockey to, to fall in love with this show.
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The characters alone, when they win your heart instantly, they're honest,
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they're loyal to each other.
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They're, they're interactions. They're just, uh, the personalities,
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man, that they're all unique. They're all different. They're all funny as hell.
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And most of them are missing like a front tooth. is that's great and then shorzy
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you know he's larger than life his larger than life style.
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Kind of it kind of hides the
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depth and i think it kind of does that on
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purpose man and like i said if if kiso
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is not a genuine guy genuine leader genuine i think he genuinely loves hockey
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he's the he's one of the best actors on the planet because that guy sells every
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single scene either with a smile or even with pain,
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whatever it is,
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he sells every single scene, man.
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And the whole crew, all the boys, they just feel
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like a group of dependable dudes that
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you already know or knew throughout your
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life and dudes you would trust in a fight
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or at any job or any
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mission now look if i bet you any sf guy special forces guy that watches this
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they immediately see their own oda bros on the screen.
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The boys on the screen, they throw the same dark humor under pressure.
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They show the same, just limitless loyalty when things go south, when things turn ugly.
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And they all, each and every one, run toward the hard work, run toward the fight
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with the same drive, the same determination.
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You can look at those dudes and you can think of personality,
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guys you knew on your ODA or guys you,
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knew you know in your company and and
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you can see them man you can see it and you can look at
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the boys on screen and you can see any and every
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one of those dudes in uniform right you can you can see it that's the kind of
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guys that they depict that's the kind of guys that they they are and why is
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that it's because they live a code of like brotherhood and accountability and,
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holding each other up and keeping each other in check.
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And you see that on the screen and you can feel that. Man, it's so brilliant.
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And there's another aspect here that I think is important.
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This whole modern, well, political to a degree, but, you know,
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take on toxic masculinity.
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It kind of takes that on. This show takes that on, head on, man.
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Because the show celebrates like real proper authentic manhood yeah that's rooted
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in loyalty and hard work and dedication to each other and that kind of stuff
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that's what manhood's rooted in.
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And these dudes the boys they are they are loud they are physical they're crass and unfiltered,
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but then at the same time they cried during the national anthem laughing,
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And Shorzy, throughout the whole season, you know, he's known for crying at
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little small, like, emotional moments that you might not think are emotional.
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One, I think on this season five, I think the second episode,
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Shorzy's supposed to do, like, a sports show, you know, TV show with Wayne Gretzky.
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And when the producer told him that, he pulled his hat down over his eyes and
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he was just with his head down.
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And the ladies are like, are you crying?
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Because he idolized Wayne Gretzky, right? The great one. And he, yeah, man.
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It's funny. Yeah, they cry during the national anthem. These men are emotional,
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right? They're just hard men, but they're emotional.
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They support each other through heartbreak, like real heartbreak.
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Mentor the new generation with patience and empathy, you know, because they remember.
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That's the thing. There was a line the mom asked, how are you so good with the kid?
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And he's because I was a kid. He remembers.
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He didn't let that go. he remembers what it was like to be a kid coming up getting
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mentored by by some other,
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rock star you know and that
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stuff is all contrary to what everybody's crying
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about the toxic masculinity the show
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mocks like that stuff and it mocks it hard the sensitivity seminar seminars
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and like soft hockey where they they penalize hitting and and what it does though
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the show masterfully shows that real strength includes some emotional depth,
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especially for the game, right?
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But especially for the boys beside you, your brothers, the men to your right and left.
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That's what you'll hear in the military all the time.
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For the men to the left and the right of you, that's why you do what you do.
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And what this show shows, and it's legit,
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is that it shows that That masculinity.
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Builds people up It holds everyone accountable But it builds people up.
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Does not do is it does not apologize for being masculine.
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It does not apologize for wanting to win.
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And it certainly doesn't apologize for hating to lose.
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It glorifies masculinity and the way that masculinity is positive.
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The catchphrase toxic masculinity is just that.
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So It's a political catchphrase. There's toxic femininity.
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There's toxic any name of personality trait.
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Then there's a toxic version of it.
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So toxic masculinity doesn't mean anything at all.
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It's just a way to belittle men and whatever. I think gaslight men.
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I think that's a term that people like to use.
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Every personality trait, it all has a toxic version to it, folks.
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So don't get wrapped around that. If you're a man hater, think about why.
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Well, I hate toxic masculinity.
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I like sensitive guys. Well, sensitive guys, you can be masculine and be sensitive.
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You can be masculine and have emotions. Doesn't necessarily mean that you need
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to spill them out all over the place all the time.
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But yeah, man, this show celebrates masculinity. Now look, that being said,
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every woman, every female character in this show, they're strong. Yeah, they're strong.
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They're independent. They're like the, the team owner is a, is a woman and her,
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and her crew, the team owner.
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And then two like native girls.
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So they, they highlight their independence and their role in running the show
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and, and helping the team to be successful, et cetera, et cetera.
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And they're pivotal in it. In fact, and yeah.
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Yeah. Now, I don't know how much this show appeals to women,
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but I'm telling you right now that every woman in that show is a prominent, strong woman.
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There ain't just some barefoot and pregnant chick.
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Now, there's hot chicks all over the place. Yes, they're all, you know...
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Attractive they're all
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attractive no no dude about it but anyway
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celebrates masculinity yep it celebrates it and the women balance that out because
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they call out they call out bullshit it's great it's brilliant the way it the way they interact act.
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So look, I encourage you to watch it.
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And as you do, just keep the leadership aspects in mind.
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Just keep, yeah, keep the leadership aspects in mind.
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Look at it and go, oh yeah, I can see how that under the subterfuge of,
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you know, your mom jokes and I banged your mom jokes, which there's a minute, a million of them.
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Under that, look for the goodness. Yeah, the leadership goodness, because it is goodness.
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And under that, look at the work ethic and the team dynamics.
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Shorzy is a rare treasure in today's streaming world, folks.
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There's a lot of garbage. There's some good stuff. You know,
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there's entertaining things, but Shorzy is a rare treasure and it keeps you laughing for sure.
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But all the while it reminds us that loyalty, hard work, and accountability still matter.
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And in the modern age here of softness and wokeness and non-binaryness and frigging
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all the stuff, right, that's going on.
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This show celebrates men being men with all their flaws, with all their crass humor, and.
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Humor, deep commitment to each other is what, is what they have.
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And that's what it highlights and it celebrates.
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So however immature it is, because it is to a degree, that's just, that's just a veil.
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You can see the deeper stuff in there. And if you watch this show,
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I promise you that it will fire you up for the grind.
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Whatever your grind is, man, it will fire you up.
32:54
And it'll make you want to stand taller for your people, your team, your crew.
33:02
And it'll make you hate losing.
33:07
Yeah. Watch Shorzy. It's got some hidden brilliance in it, folks. Watch it.
33:14
Reach out to me, good people.
33:18
Thejuntopodcast.com.
33:21
Go check out ospreyshootingsolutions.com I've just posted some new stuff up
33:26
there for our consulting,
33:29
offerings there for our facility assessments and SOP development that kind of
33:35
thing so go check it out please if you're a leader if you're a business owner if you're a,
33:42
organizational leader of any kind and your security posture may be lacking, give me a call.
33:49
Free consult over a cup of coffee or at your place of business or whatever.
33:54
Yeah, reach out, folks. Give me your input. Give me your feedback. Give me suggestions.
34:00
Okay, good people. I love you.