Personal Growth - Nathan Whitaker

You Never Fully “Arrive”

by Nathan Whitaker | Feb 21, 2024 | leadership, Personal Growth

Last week I wrote about not transferring blame (via Colorado Mesa baseball). As leaders, as we — and those we lead — truly own our mistakes, it’s important that we also learn from them, and then move on. Learn from the past; don’t live in it. That...

Don’t Transfer Blame – Instilling Accountability in Teams

by Nathan Whitaker | Feb 9, 2024 | leadership, Personal Growth, relationships, Team Building

I learned a new lesson in accountability while in Orlando to keynote an international conference for the Turfgrass Producers International, thanks to two days with the Colorado Mesa Mavericks baseball team, ranked in the top 10 of Division II college baseball. Before...

Striving For Excellence, Celebrating Wins

by Nathan Whitaker | Jan 22, 2024 | leadership, Personal Growth, Team Building

What does it mean to strive for excellence, and does it follow that we’ll always be dissatisfied? And can we still be grateful? In 1999, when I was still with the Jacksonville Jaguars, we went 14-2 but lost in the AFC Championship game to the Tennessee...

New Year, New Process?

by Nathan Whitaker | Jan 15, 2024 | leadership, Personal Growth, relationships, Team Building

When I was in school at Harvard, I took a class from the late, brilliant Stephen Jay Gould, a paleontologist and big baseball fan (the latter is what helped me understand any of his examples). He spoke and wrote often of our preoccupation with otherwise meaningless...

Mentoring, the US Army, and Me

by Nathan Whitaker | Jan 4, 2024 | leadership, Personal Growth, relationships, Team Building

I’ve been able to speak in some really neat settings, including to professional and college sports teams, on university campuses, in foreign countries…even at the Iowa Speedway. Last month may have been the most unique of them all, as I was invited to...

Fired Into the Great Wide Open

by Nathan Whitaker | Jan 17, 2023 | Personal Growth, relationships

This week in 2004, I was fired by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Bruce Allen had just replaced Rich McKay as General Manager, and I was a “McKay Guy,” weary from two years of internal battles between head coach Jon Gruden and Rich (as well as the rest of us in...