Like “Spiritual sound” Joe Moglia from the CEO of Wall Street to College Football coaches

Joe Moglia put his head under his desk for a moment and reappeared and kept a heavy folder.

“Do you see this file?” he said. “I have three of them.”

Thousands of Moglia versions lie between the lines of these pages: a 19-year-old College in the second year, who supports his wife and newborn daughter by driving a taxi and a mail truck in New York while working in his father's fruit shop at the same time. The successful CEO of TD Ameritrade. An award -winning Cheffussball coach at Coastal Carolina.

The connective tissue that weighs all of these completely different themselves are his “private notes”, a number of journal entries from over 50 -year -olds try to withdraw the layers of his subconscious. The notes represent a process that Moglia believes that everyone can learn more about themselves and make great decisions.

The process is uncomplicated. First, Moglia sits in front of his notepad and is asking itself: What is my favorite music? Do I like Bruce Springsteen? Why do I like him? What are my skills? What can I do well? And what am I bad? What does my career look like? And how do I want it to look?

It is the point to always ask specific questions in the fact that they add up over time to answer a larger and broader question: Who am I?

Above all, Moglia refuses to tell someone what he wrote, especially when he reveals a knowledge of himself. The goal is to determine exactly who he is and how he feels without the judgment or influence of others.

In this way, he knows himself well enough to understand which decisions are best served him.

“Every time I do something big in my life,” he said, “I went through it.”

How did he know that he was ready to leave and train New York? What did he realize that it was time to leave coaching and go to Wall Street? Why did he feel comfortable when TD Ameritrade gave the college football into a final shot?

“I went straight to the right -wing block,” he said.

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In 1971 Moglia studied economics in Fordham and also trained football. When the conclusion approached, his first big career decision did it.

“If I can get a trainer job with high school school course, I will follow a career in coaching,” he said to his wife. “If not, we will try to go to Wall Street.”

He applied to 100 schools and received a call back from the Archmere Academy, a Catholic high school in Claymont, del. He kept wondering: What does me do me?

“I just started writing S – Down,” said Moglia.

He wrote every thought and feeling that he had about his life, and asked himself questions about his interests, ambitions and personal life.

“Just write on,” he said. “Don't stop. Just write on. “

The first part of his process was born and Moglia took over the job at the Archmere Academy.

Later this year Moglia was on its way to New Jersey Turnpike to meet his new team. He felt excited and wanted to leave a good first impression, so he decided to present his new journal exercise to his players. He called it “spiritual sound”.

He told his players about the first part of his self-discovery process-which is important that they “stand on their own two feet” and “take responsibility for themselves”. He explained how it gets easier when you take the time to challenge yourself with questions and write enough to find out exactly who you are and what you believe in.

But he also emphasized an important point: they had to make sure that they do not share their notes or insights with someone.

“The whole idea here is that this is your examination of conscience with yourself, with God, with whom, but it is not someone else,” he said. “We tend to become a merging of the people around us. The first time that you go to someone else, the closest person in your life, unconsciously, what you do, look for you to confirm what your thought is. That is the jumping point. We are not looking for it. We are looking for you to find out who you are. “

It didn't take long for Moglia to get on the way to College Coaching and led the Lafayette College Football Team before becoming a defensive coordinator in Dartmouth in 1981. In his first season he received divorce papers and moved into the storage room over the football offices.

A few years later, he received a dream offer for the coach at the University of Miami, the home of the reigning National Champions. Once again Moglia returned to his spiritual soundness journal: professional and personal, what are the advantages and disadvantages?

He was sold professionally. He said, “the most perfect job that I could possibly have.” If he accepted it, he believed that he would be successful and could one day fulfill one of his dreams: to become head coach at a big school.

However, he was not convinced personally.

He remembered the first step of the spiritual soundness process that was defined by himself: responsibility for himself. He thought about who he was as a father, whom he wanted to be as a father and how the job would affect this part of his life.

“How can I do this and not fulfill my responsibility as a father?” he said. “I have four children. I share decisions. I'm not okay to be guilty. “

He called the job as “hardest career decision I made in my life”. But that was the jumping point of his journal process.

“You come to a point you go, do you know what? That's me, ”he said. “This is the truth, I am. Thesis are the good point and the bad points, but this is who i am And the more often you can critically make the right decision, and then you will increase the likelihood that you will feel good who you are. You will feel fulfilled. “

Soon afterwards he went into his diary again with a new knowledge. He still had a persistent interest in Wall Street. It started the second step of his process: Courage and knows that they have to live with the consequences of their actions.

So he started to network.

In the 1980s he turned to alumni groups in Fordham and the two schools in which he had trained without his own contacts, Lafayette and Dartmouth, and asked for names and numbers. Slowly he built a list of people who worked on Wall Street and started cold.

“I had a one -minute pitch that said something like that:” I realize that I don't have a MBA from Harvard, but I have that, “he said. 'I have a doctorate in life. And I think I have the skills you are looking for.'”

He spent about three months chasing leads. Finally he landed in the MBA institutional training program from Merrill Lynch. He said he was the only one in the program without MBA. He spent the following 17 years in the company.

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In 2008 Moglia resigned as a CEO of TD Ameritrade after seven years.

“I was never asked in my life again,” he said.

But he realized that he was still interested in training College football again.

He knew what he wanted to do was unusual. And he knew that he was financially happy; He didn't have to worry about money. He also wondered: Will I get a job? This thought followed another: I would be good at it. Maybe someone, my background, is so unique that someone gives me an opportunity.

Through his spiritual soundness process, he discovered exactly why he wanted to return to football. It was not that he was such a big fan; He said he would rather see television programs than a game. But he enjoyed the football strategy and believed in his ability to influence players.

“The real football game is like the chess of the master, but with 22 people at the same time. I am very good at it, ”he said. “The ability to put together an entire program. I am very good at it. “

He thought: Maybe I have the chance to go back and see what I could do.

His diary process made it clear: he should choose. Moglia started in 2009 as an executive advisor of Bo Pelini, then as head coach in Nebraska. A year later, he was appointed head coach of Virginia Destroyer, a new team in the Upstart United Football League. Then he became president and head coach of the OFL OMAHA Nighthawks.

Finally he got his chance in 2011: Coastal Carolina, then a subdivision program of the football championship, made him the second head coach of the school in history. Moglia won 72 percent of his games, including two seasons with 12 wins and four consecutive appearances in the FCS playoffs. In 2014 Coastal Carolina started the season 11-0 and became 1st in the program history for the first time. He brought his “spiritual tone” and his players with him.

After the 2018 season, Moglia announced that he would resign as a coach of Coastal Carolina, but he remained active in the field of leadership. Until the summer of 2024 he was chairman of athletics and managing director at Coastal and is still the executive advisor of the President of Coastal Carolina. He held 10 opening speeches, including in Coastal and Fordham, his Alma Mater. And at the Miami University of Miami, he spoke about how he can become an effective leader.

As always, all streets lead to “spiritual soundness” and to the process that he developed more than 50 years ago.

To this day, he still relies on this process and even starts with personal retreats in order to complete the exercise all year round. Finally, he sat down over the holidays and checked all three binders that contain his overcrowded notes from the years, an infinite journey to learn more about himself and his life.

“Everyone says they know who they are, but they don't,” he said. “I would say: 'Please you have to go through this exercise.' I think each of us wants to be happy in life.

(Illustration: Dan Goldfarb / The athlete; Jason Smith / Sports Illustrated / Getty Images)