It was the interview heard around the world, or at least all over social media. Bill Belichick, the former New England Patriots head coach, was being interviewed on CBS about his new book and other topics.
About two-thirds of the way through the interview, the 73-year-old Belichick was asked questions about his 24-year-old girlfriend Jordon Hudson. That’s when the interview went south. Hudson, who was sitting nearby, interrupted the interview when it turned to their relationship.
The incident went viral and gave many of Belichick’s detractors a good laugh. But we’re more interested in the serious lessons that you can learn from the interview. First, let’s look at the clip below.
Friends and foes alike have ridiculed the couple because of their nearly half-century age difference. But the first lesson here is regardless of the age difference of a girlfriend, boyfriend, spouse, or anyone else, never place that person off camera and allow them to interrupt an interview.
Why? Because the reporter will almost always use that video in the story, and it never makes the person being interviewed look good, as Belichick has now discovered.
Secondly, when you agree to be interviewed, you should assume that the reporter will ask a question you don’t expect or don’t want to answer. Belichick should have said something like, “I really don’t want to discuss that. Let’s focus on my book and what I hope readers will learn from it.” Then, without waiting for another question, he could have delivered a key message from the book. That’s a very important bridging concept that we teach in our seminars.
If Belichick had used it, he wouldn’t be dealing with the social media fallout that he continues to face.