There was a point in Jonathan Pixley’s life when things felt bleak.
Lying in a hospital recovery room after knee surgery, Pixley listened as the orthopedic surgeon shared the grim news that his basketball career was over. The recent college graduate had sustained a major injury during the third game of the NBA Summer League, a casting call of sorts for prospects. Pixley had just finished playing college ball at Samford University, and his lifelong dream had been to go pro.
“It was devastating,” he recalls.
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But in short order, a new perspective took over.
“It was the word, ‘next,’” says Pixley, now 50. “For me, it’s a God thing, but it’s a word I’ve just always had etched in my brain.”
He soon returned to basketball, beginning what would become a 21-year tenure as head coach at The Dunham School. Well-known in regional athletic circles, Pixley would also help open the popular Fidelity Bank Sportsplex on Perkins Road, the largest basketball facility in Baton Rouge and largest volleyball facility in Louisiana. He remains its director of operations. And in 2019, Pixley became a partner in MatchPoint Connection, an NIL marketplace that connects athletes to sponsors.
His “next” philosophy continues to unfold. One of his former Dunham players, now a local dentist, once asked him if he would ever consider providing executive coaching. Pixley hadn’t, but he started sketching the plans for a new company the next day.
Now Pixley’s four-year-old firm TLW—short for Train Lead Win—helps executives improve productivity through one-on-one, tailored coaching.
One of Pixley’s many standard directives is to “control both ends of the day,” meaning rising early and assessing the day’s success before shutting down. This makes the middle hours more efficient, he says.
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He personally subscribes to it, waking at 4 a.m. to exercise before diving into a workday driven by an electronic to-do list.
“You want to be more productive before noon,” Pixley says, “than other people are with their whole day.” trainleadwin.com
This article was originally published in the June 2024 issue of 225 Magazine.