Why Character Always Wins

The Playbook With David Meltzer

David Meltzer, Entrepreneur.com

Entrepreneurship, Business, Careers

4.6 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 19 April 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In today’s episode, I sit down with former NFL executive and ESPN analyst Mike Tannenbaum. From his years leading the Jets and Dolphins, Mike shares how he managed the pressure of decisions worth hundreds of millions and why character always determined the ceiling for a player’s success. He reflects on lessons from Curtis Martin, the importance of consistency, and why small daily efforts stack into game-changing results. We also talk about building lasting relationships, staying motivated after failure, and what young athletes should know if they’re serious about the NFL. Mike’s journey is a reminder that talent sets the floor, but mindset and preparation raise the ceiling.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome back to office hours.
0:01.8	I'm David Meltzer here at the win in amazing Las Vegas, Sirius XM Studios.
0:07.6	And I have one of my best friends in the world on.
0:10.2	And we have a show together called Executive Football Talk.
0:13.7	And there's probably no greater football executive that I know.
0:16.7	And I know most of them than Mike Tanabom.
0:19.0	And he's blessed now as former GM and executive
0:22.5	vice president of the Miami Dolphins to be the NFL insider on ESPN and we get to see him
0:29.4	almost every day and is a blessing for me. Mike Tanabom, welcome to office hours. Dave, as always,
0:35.8	great to be with you. Hope your Friday afternoon is going well.
0:38.7	It is now that you're here. And Mike, it was funny. We were talking about our skills and our knowledge
0:43.8	as being a basement. And you've evaluated more professional talent than most people in the world
0:50.0	at the highest level with the most pressure. In professional sports, it's either the head coach or the general manager
0:57.6	that gets fired and blamed for the owner never gets blamed.
1:02.4	If you know Jerry Jones, you'll see why.
1:05.0	But it's either the GM or the coach, if things aren't going well,
1:08.0	that they decide, hey, buddy, it's your fault that the team sucks
1:10.8	uh mike that's a lot of pressure to make critical decisions with now hundreds of millions of
1:16.5	dollars how did you deal with the fact that at every moment your job was on the line and you really
1:22.9	didn't have control whether or not dac prescott got hurt or somebody got a bad penalty. That seems to me
1:30.8	a job that I don't want. What were some of the ways that you dealt with the pressure that you had no
1:35.4	control of the outcome? Yeah, Dave, I think one of the many areas you and I are aligned is looking
	...

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