#123: Junior Bridgeman, former NBA player and leading entrepreneur – Go farther together
How Leaders Lead with David Novak
David Novak Leadership
4.8 • 596 Ratings
🗓️ 23 February 2023
⏱️ 62 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to How Leaders Lead, where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very |
| 0:08.9 | best leaders in the world. I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, |
| 0:13.9 | you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what |
| 0:18.5 | this podcast is all about. Well, my guest today is Junior Bridgman, |
| 0:22.9 | a former NBA player who's now one of the greatest entrepreneurs in our country and a real |
| 0:28.5 | hero in my eyes. When he retired from the NBA after 12 years, he jumped headfirst into the |
| 0:34.4 | restaurant business. Now, it didn't start out great, as you'll hear him |
| 0:37.7 | talk about, but eventually he owned 450 Wendy's locations all over the country. And now he's doing |
| 0:45.2 | it all over again in a totally different category, this time becoming one of the leading |
| 0:50.5 | Coke bottlers in the United States and all of Canada. And if all that wasn't enough, |
| 0:56.5 | in 2020, he surprised a lot of people when he bought Jet and Ebony, which like a lot of |
| 1:02.1 | magazines were really struggling. But as you'll hear him talk about, Junior sees the opportunity |
| 1:07.0 | to preserve and amplify the stories those magazines have told over the years, |
| 1:12.5 | something that's so important year-round, but is especially top of mind right now during |
| 1:17.8 | Black History Month. In fact, Jr. was recently honored with Louisville's prestigious Keepers |
| 1:22.7 | of the Dream Freedom Award for all the ways he exemplifies the ideals of Martin Luther King, Jr. |
| 1:29.4 | So, you know, it's easy to see why Junior Bridgman is the real deal for so many reasons. |
| 1:35.8 | And at every step along the way, from playing basketball to serving his community, to building |
| 1:40.4 | these incredibly successful businesses, he's all about the power of teamwork. |
| 1:45.9 | As leaders, you know we use the word team a lot. |
| 1:49.0 | But when you listen to Junior, you realize that true teamwork doesn't just happen because |
| 1:53.7 | you've assembled a group of people together. |
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