Jim Craig

Leadership expert and speaker Jim Craig is best remembered for his outstanding goaltending in the “Miracle on Ice” during the 1980 winter Olympics. In what has been labeled the greatest sports moment of the 20th century, the United States hockey team beat the heavily favored Russians and went on to win the Olympic gold medal. The legendary tale of the team led by Jim Craig was immortalized in the Disney feature film Miracle.

Today, Craig is president of Gold Medal Strategies, a Boston-based motivational speaking and sales training company and the author of the business book Gold Medal Strategies: Business Lessons from America’s Miracle Team. The book outlines the necessary skills and details the specific techniques you need to maximize your business readiness, hone competitive cooperation, gather your strategies, and attack your challengers.

An in-demand spokesperson, marketing and sales strategist, master storyteller, and motivational speaker JimCraig has inspired, instructed, and provided strategic and winning direction for employees and associates from more than 500 organizations and some of the world’s most recognized brands, including Coca-Cola, Coors, Walt Disney, Fidelity, Dunkin’ Donuts, John Hancock, KPMG, NBC, Ocean Spray, Evergreen Financial, Sun Life Financial.

Drawing upon his experiences as both a world-class athlete and as an accomplished businessman, Olympian and leadership speaker Jim Craig reveals how commitment, preparation, purpose, and effort melded 20 individuals into a winning Olympic team.

Building a Winning Team and Corporate Culture

– Recruiting and selecting the right players

– Inspiring, guiding, and motivating team members to put “team” in front of individual interests

– Managing and coaching team members to work efficiently and in synchronicity

– Identifying “diamonds in the rough”

Self Reliance and Personal Responsibility

– How do I strive for and achieve personal excellence?

– How do I stay committed to my personal goals?

– How do I condition myself to be professionally tough – better than my competitor?

Creating Great Groups

– Instilling in people a sense of destiny and desire to accomplish greatness

– Maintaining a competitive edge and a view that the team is an underappreciated underdog that will win, shock, and inspire

Identifying the Right People for the Right Position

– As Coach Herb Brooks said when building the U.S. 1980 Olympic hockey team: “I’m not looking for the best players – I’m looking for the right ones.”

– Selecting the type of players so that the whole (team) is greater sum of the parts (employees, players)

– Being on guard against prima donnas and disruptive influences

– Finding your captain and team leader

Innovation and Strategic Change

– Always be on the lookout and the hunt for better ways to do things

– What tools and resources are available to help your team win?

– How Coach Brooks, a supreme innovator and strategist, taught and mentored us to play a revolutionary type of hockey that would enable us to beat the mighty Soviet machine: a hybrid of the bruising and physical Canadian form of play and the speed, fluidity, and finesse of the Eastern European and Soviet game

– When needed, abandoning the old, unsuccessful, yet comfortable, for the new and uncomfortable, yet what will eventually enable success

Making a Difference — Build Your Legacy

– Make it matter that you lived!

– Are you optimizing your God-given talents?

– Set the right example for your children, for all young people

– Improve the lives of others

The Keys to Peak Performance:

– Hard Work

– Sacrifice

– Humility: A Willingness to Ask for Advice and Seek Out the Counsel of Others

– Persistence