Join host Brett Gilliland in this inspiring episode of the Circuit of Success podcast as he chats with Jim Harshaw Jr., a renowned coach and mentor. They discuss the power of clarity in achieving goals, the importance of surrounding yourself with high-performing individuals, and the value of daily habits for personal and professional growth. Jim shares stories of individuals who have achieved remarkable success through the consistent practice of goal-setting and accountability. Discover how the productive pause, journaling, and focused reflection can provide clarity of action and peace of mind, leading to an elevated level of performance in all areas of life. Tune in and be motivated to embrace clarity, set meaningful goals, and take intentional action to create your own path to success.



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Brett Gilliland: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Circuit of Success. I'm your host, Brett Gilland, and today I've got Jim Haw with me. Jim, how you doing?

Jim Harshaw Jr: Great, man. Great to

Brett Gilliland: meet you, Brett. Great to be with you. Uh, you are in Charlottesville, Virginia. What's cooking in Charlottesville today?

Jim Harshaw Jr: Charlottesville's. Good man. I'm Pittsburgh Native or, but, uh, born in, born and bred up there, but, um, Charlottesville's home now going to the University of Virginia.

Tried leaving a couple times and it didn't work. This place has a gravity to it, so uh, it sucked you

Brett Gilliland: back in. Yeah.

Jim Harshaw Jr: Yeah. Wipe. That's awesome. Four kids. We ruin our roots here. We love

Brett Gilliland: it. How old are the

Jim Harshaw Jr: kids? Nine through 17. So two boys and two girls. So we got three teenagers now and a nine year old. And, uh, so it's, you know, life is busy.

It's, uh, it takes effort to stay balanced. Yeah. And, and to keep everything, uh, everything moving the right direction. And in all the areas of your life, which is really. It's the crux of what I do

Brett Gilliland: with people. That's right. That's right. Well, we must be in the exact [00:01:00] same boat. My youngest just turned nine on Saturday, so I've got a nine.

My 13 year old just turned 13 two Fridays ago and then a 15 and a 17 year old. So that's exact same ages. Yeah. Maybe we'll just stay in this exact same, uh, tone for the podcast was talk about being a father of four kids and how crazy it's. Yeah. Yeah. We, we could talk for data that, absolutely. Well, you are a, uh, former division one, uh, all American athlete, internationally recognized TEDx speaker and a personal performance coach.

Uh, you've had, you've impacted hundreds of thousands of lives across the world, helping clients and audiences increase resilience. Maximize potential and build high performing teams. And so some of those things is what we're gonna talk about today. But before we do that, if you can, man, just give us a little lay of the land, what's made you the man you are today, and tell us a little bit about that upbringing and where you're at today.

Yeah.

Jim Harshaw Jr: Um, so grew up in Western Pennsylvania. Like I said, I'm a, I'm a blue collar kid. Grew up in a small town. Uh, dad was a construction worker, [00:02:00] mine was a secretary. Blue collar, hardworking folks. You know, um, kinda always had the mindset that success was for other people, and that carried over into my wrestling and.

You know, I've never achieved any of my goals in wrestling in high school. Uh, my goal is to be a state champion. Never, never got on, never won a state championship, never even got onto the podium at the state championship. So it didn't even come close. But I worked hard and got good grades night, but good grades and good enough to, uh, between that, between my grades and wrestling, it opened up the door for me to get into the number one public.

Academic university in the country at the University of Virginia. And so got to UVA and, and just felt like I was over my head there. I was, you know, everybody on the wrestling team was a state champion or a three time or two time state place winner. I was none of those. Uh, academically, like I said, I got in because of wrestling.

Um, you know, even. Socially, you know, [00:03:00] it's a, it's a white collar, sort of affluent school and you know, I I, we didn't have a whole lot growing up, you know, and yeah, so it was, it was a definite point in life where I thought to myself like, can I, this is the next level. Can I make it at the next level? Can I find success here?

Do I belong here? A lot of doubt, a lot of uncertainty. And five years later I graduate with an undergraduate degree and a master's degree. Wow. Uh, I was a three-time ACC champion ncaa, all-American Division One American. Uh, I was ranked on the Olympic level in the United States at that point. I was invited to live in train at the Olympic Training Center as an Olympic hopeful.

So complete transformation happened in that time at Virginia.

Brett Gilliland: So what, what, boil that back for us. If you can like, boil that down for us, I should say, like, what was it about that? Right. If you come in and I'm, I'm using air quotes for those not watching and just listening. Maybe if you were average right.

You don't win. I think you said [00:04:00] three ACC championships. Yeah. Right. And so, right. That doesn't just happen, man. So what clicked for you to take that mindset from I'm, I'm mediocre average to I'm, I'm one of the best.

Jim Harshaw Jr: Yeah, yeah, great question. So, I, I couldn't put it into, into words for a long time because after I got outta college, I ended getting into coaching and I ended up as the young, I was, I was a division one head coach.

I was the youngest division one head coach in the country. I got coached for about a decade, got outta coaching, started my first business, and that was successful. I sold that, started my next business, raised some Angel Capital, built this technology company, and about two years into that, I realized that everything I'm trying to build for my family, I is crumbling around me.

I, I had a, a. Failing business. We had debt up to our eyeballs, wasn't spending enough time with my wife and kids. I was just so single-minded, focused on one thing. Like I wasn't, I was single-minded, focused on wrestling, and I was single-minded focused in this [00:05:00] business. And, um, so I was, you know, not paying attention to, to my wife or my kids.

I wasn't working out. I was in the worst physical shape of my life. I know. I was, I was broken. Broken at that point. Mm. And so to get back to the point of, you know, what was it during that time at Virginia that. Turned me from, from sort of underperformer to peak performer. I was trying to figure that same thing out.

I'm laying there in bed as I'm closing down this business. I'm, you know, you know, pulling the plug on this thing and I'm starting to look for jobs and, you know, I'm on like Craigslist, you know, like looking for jobs, you know, scrolling past jobs for like paper boys and unpaid internships and thinking to myself like, like, this wasn't this, this wasn't supposed to be my trajectory.

Like, like I didn't, you know, I thought I'd be further along at this point in my career. And, and so I thought to myself like, what was in place in my life that helped me go from underperformer to peak performer? That totally transformed me when I was wrestling and people talk about all these great life lessons that you learn in sports.

Like, like, I, I need them now because I don't know if I didn't [00:06:00] learn 'em or, or I wasn't paying attention, but I definitely need them now. And so I was laying there. I remember it was like LA laying there at night. One night next to my wife, she was asleep in bed and I'm like staring at the ceiling in the dark.

I'm thinking to myself like, what, what, what was in place then? It's not in place now. Right. And I realized it was like a camera lens coming into focus. There were, there were four things, four very distinct things that were in place then that were not in place at that moment. And the, and the first one is this.

I had a very clear vision for what success looked like for me. And it was based upon my values. Okay? So I had this vision, this very clear vision, and, and it was based upon my values. And you know, when you're an athlete, the, the vision for success, it's pretty clear, but you get out into the real world. I.

It's, it's undefined, right? We, we have so many different things, you know, shiny objects and things that we want, and it's like, what does success actually look like for me? What is that clear vision that I'm pursuing and what is it based [00:07:00] on? And to be honest, when I was wrestling, I couldn't have told you my core values like I can today.

But I knew I wanted to be tough. I wanted to be respected. I wanted to go on to success after wrestling, like so many of my heroes and mentors did before me, and. So, so I, that was the first piece is I had this, this clear vision in these values, and then the second piece of four, Is I had goals that aligned with those values, not goals that aligned with, you know, what the mass media tells you that you should want or what you see on social media.

Yeah. Or what you see parked in your neighbor's driveway. But goals that aligned with Jim with who I was at a deep foundational level. Because when you have that failing in, in, in adversity and setbacks, They're not quite irrelevant, but certainly the pain and the impact that those have on you is, is significantly less.

You can be resilient. You can keep getting up one more time. You can [00:08:00] do the hard work. And I make a distinction between hard work and inspired action. I mean, wrestling is known for, for being a tough sport and the hard work that we put in, but really it's, it's inspired action. I was inspired.

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