0:00

I will one million percent tell you that the

0:02

most important I want my kid to have two

0:04

things happiness and a killer

0:06

work ethic. That's it, dude. Like if

0:08

we check those two boxes, the rest

0:10

of it, I hope he just he

0:12

plays in this playground of life and

0:14

anything else we're playing with house money

0:16

and bonus points happiness

0:20

and a killer work ethic and

0:26

Now escaping the drift the show designed to get

0:28

you from where you are to where you want to

0:30

be I'm john gafford and i

0:32

have a knack for getting extraordinary achievers to drop

0:34

their secrets to help you on a path to

0:37

greatness So stop drifting along

0:39

escape the drift and it's time

0:41

to start right now back again back

0:43

again for another episode Escaping the

0:45

drift the podcast that like the opening says

0:48

man gets you from where you are to

0:50

where you want to be and today On

0:53

the program. I got a baller man. I do

0:56

This cat is a two-time best-selling author.

0:58

He is the author of the book

1:00

the power of playing offense and better

1:02

decisions faster He is a former nfl

1:04

and nba executives Success

1:06

magazine said he was the top

1:08

speaker that gets results and man

1:10

We're gonna squeeze some information out

1:12

of him and into your brains today.

1:14

Welcome to the program Ladies

1:17

and gentlemen, this is paul ebstein. Paul. How

1:19

are you, buddy? Hey,

1:21

i'm fired up man. Let's do this good,

1:24

man So, you know, first of all, you've got

1:26

a you got a storied history, man You do

1:28

and and I always like to start these things

1:30

out anybody that has A

1:33

great moniker of success either had the hustle in

1:35

them as a young kid or there was some

1:37

downtime And they came to the hustle. So as

1:39

a kid tell me about that growing up. What

1:41

was the first hustle for you, man? They

1:44

got you got you going. What was it? Yeah,

1:46

well I'm gonna unpack it

1:49

in a couple of different ways because when you say

1:51

as a kid what I when I reflect back on

1:53

Especially my early days of childhood I

1:55

don't know if I would quite land on hustle. I

1:57

would land on more of what I call the inner

1:59

game So like if winning the outside game and

2:01

that's a lot of where hey, where'd you go to

2:03

school? Where'd you work and like for me 15 years

2:06

in the NFL and NBA and it's career success

2:09

all the the outside the trophy the

2:11

Achievements the accolades if that's the

2:13

outside game what I take more

2:15

from my earliest days in life

2:17

is The understanding that

2:19

it's the inner game that matters

2:23

So I can choose happiness.

2:25

I can choose Significance

2:27

over success I can choose

2:29

to obsess about things like

2:31

purpose and impact and legacy

2:33

and it's because My

2:35

earliest roots while you can't tell by the last

2:37

name of Epstein, but I'm a proud Mexican descent

2:39

So all on my mom's side and it's another

2:42

crazy story, but I also married in a full

2:44

Mexican family So let's just say that it happened

2:46

to be on the 50-yard line of Levi's Stadium

2:48

and we had a mariachi band I'm gonna leave

2:50

that one and if you want to unpack it

2:52

later, we totally can but when

2:54

I was down in Baja, California So here I

2:56

am in LA. It's a short four-hour drive

2:58

down the coast beautiful place called Ensenada And

3:01

I remember the earliest holidays of my

3:03

life Seeing

3:06

the smiles on my family's faces

3:08

and the tacos and the tequila, of

3:10

course But what

3:13

I do remember is we barely

3:15

had two nickels to scrape together man

3:17

And it I never felt more

3:19

joy more warmth more love So

3:22

at an early stage, not only do you

3:24

realize that money is what drives happiness? So

3:26

that was one insight while I wouldn't have

3:28

ever eloquently said that as a five six

3:30

seven-year-old I saw that and I said well,

3:32

we don't have much But

3:34

we actually had what mattered and then so that

3:36

was one piece and then the other was just

3:39

like this really humbling experience Man, so maybe this

3:41

comes down to the hunger and the grit that

3:43

you were talking about When you're

3:45

in a place like Mexico, even if

3:47

it's the more Developed

3:50

part of Mexico. It's

3:52

still ain't the US and it still

3:54

ain't LA and I don't mean that

3:56

in a bad way I actually just mean it from

3:58

like a a beautiful way of like, dude,

4:00

you got to be scrappy to get what you

4:02

want, you know, and you got to be able

4:05

to figure things out and be resourceful. And

4:07

so for me, understanding that

4:10

not everybody lives the way that we

4:12

live in a lot of now we

4:14

can call it something like privileged areas

4:16

like we do, that

4:19

is the lens that I will never

4:21

forget. So maybe to

4:23

your point, decades later, it does

4:25

show up with that corporate

4:28

hustle and determination and the scrappiness.

4:30

But at that point, all I

4:32

realized was how lucky we are

4:34

to have what we have, starting

4:36

with the people in our lives.

4:38

And that's a little bit of

4:40

my roots. That dude, that's

4:43

a very stoic outlook for a five

4:45

year old or a young kid. You

4:48

know, one of the one of my favorite quotes

4:50

from stoicism is a rich man is not someone

4:52

that has everything. It's someone that wants for nothing.

4:54

That's somebody rich. And I think if

4:57

you being able to see that as a young kid and not

5:00

have that, but as a kid that didn't

5:02

have the family was not,

5:05

you know, obviously not poverty stricken in

5:07

and sonatas is a much different thing.

5:10

But you know, if you wanted something as a kid, I'm sure

5:12

there was probably some sort of a level that you had to

5:14

do something to earn it. Hey, this is

5:16

Steve Simpson. I'm a proud partner of

5:18

Escape the Drift podcast with Jon Gafford.

5:20

And I've got something for you for

5:22

Sims Distillery. The community that is based

5:24

on you, the entrepreneur, giving you the

5:26

tools to be a better version of

5:28

you. Visit simsdistillery.com.

5:31

Use the word escape to get a $694

5:34

discount off of the community that you need

5:36

to be part of when you want to

5:38

demand a better version of you. Thanks

5:41

a lot. Escape the Drift and see you

5:43

in simsdistillery.com. Well,

5:47

no, hey, hey, man, I'll just call a

5:49

speed of speed. That's the Mexican work ethic.

5:51

Okay. Like that just is what it

5:53

is, dude. Like there are no handouts. There are no

5:55

freebies. And if you want it, you work for it.

5:57

And even now as a young parent at the time

5:59

we're recording. this. I've got a three-year-old and

6:01

a zero-year-old and whether they understand anything that

6:03

I'm saying, my three-year-old is starting to connect.

6:06

But trust me, brother, those same things that

6:08

I was hearing from my folks on the

6:10

four-hour drive down from LA to Mexico and

6:12

then the four-hour drive up, that's where a

6:14

lot of these lessons and insights came from. And it

6:16

doesn't even matter if at the time I understood

6:18

it, I was still hearing it. It might

6:21

have taken me decades to apply it. And

6:23

I think that's just a good lesson for all

6:26

of us to really absorb

6:28

is somebody's not

6:30

always ready to receive what you

6:32

are either saying or feeling. But

6:35

it doesn't mean you're doing the wrong

6:37

thing if it's not fully connecting. We

6:39

expect this instant gratification. We expect the

6:41

bear hug. We expect the money to

6:43

come back to us because, oh, I

6:45

launched a business today and it makes

6:47

money tomorrow. That's fundamentally false. So like

6:49

this gap of like you're not going

6:52

to get what you want on your

6:54

timeline. Life is not about your

6:56

timeline. And those are some of those early

6:58

things that I can really apply. But no

7:00

doubt, brother, I will one

7:02

million percent tell you that the most important. I

7:05

want my kid to have two things, happiness

7:07

and a killer work ethic. That's it,

7:09

dude. Like if we check those two

7:11

boxes, the rest of it, I hope

7:13

he just he plays in this playground

7:15

of life and anything else. We're playing

7:17

with house money and bonus points, happiness

7:22

and a killer work ethic. Sign me up. You know,

7:24

it's it's so funny. You guy, I

7:26

always get to that at some point in this podcast

7:28

because, you know, one of my biggest fears in

7:30

life is raising worthless kids. You know, it's

7:33

like hard hard times build great men

7:35

and easy times build soft men. And

7:37

I've got a son and a

7:39

daughter. And obviously, you know, when you

7:41

have kids that are eight years old, had an

7:44

opinion on airlines, you

7:46

know, that that's something you've got to constantly check.

7:48

And I think trying to manufacture adversity for them

7:50

when there is I mean, my kids are

7:52

never going to have to worry about going to bed, you know,

7:55

hungry or the shirt I can

7:57

pay. They don't have those concerns.

8:00

But we try to manufacture as much adversity as

8:02

we can. So is that something that, you know,

8:04

obviously you sound like you had some real adversity

8:06

growing up in the way you did, but are

8:08

you trying, like, what's your plan to instill

8:10

that work ethic in your kids? What's the plan?

8:12

Have you thought about it yet? They're little, so

8:15

I get it. Yeah,

8:17

no, trust me. I'm thinking behind closed

8:19

doors about it a whole lot. And

8:21

it's in the moments, right?

8:24

It's just the fact of

8:26

saying, for one, there is

8:29

no single line of

8:31

communication and you ask for

8:33

something and I just give it to you. For

8:35

me, we're going to have a dialogue about it.

8:37

We're going to have a conversation about it. Like,

8:39

I'm going to understand why do you really want

8:41

it? And is it just for safety, stability, security,

8:43

comfort? Or is there, like, something where you're like,

8:45

no, I really want it? Like me as a

8:48

sales guy or me as an

8:50

entrepreneur now in my current phase?

8:53

Like I always learn this line very

8:55

early in my NBA days in sales

8:57

training, close mouths don't get fed. Close

9:01

mouths don't get fed. So it's

9:03

not even the why behind it.

9:08

I want to know how much you believe in what you're

9:10

saying. And that's where

9:12

it's like, if I push a little, if I

9:14

challenge a little bit, then I just want to

9:16

know that this is something that you really want.

9:18

And now look, I also, right now I sound

9:20

like a hard ass a little bit. I want

9:22

to kind of like take a step back and

9:24

zoom out because day to day I'm more

9:26

of that warm, fuzzy teddy bear and I'm going to

9:28

love on you. And there's going to be a lot,

9:30

a lot of that stuff. But where I'm coming at

9:32

this from is a place where I want

9:35

you to play offense in life. I

9:37

want you to be excited about today. I

9:39

want you to scratch the itch of curiosity.

9:42

And once we explore curiosity, then there's probably

9:44

some passions hidden deep down inside of there.

9:46

And then I want you to attack those

9:48

things and invest time. Right now, if you're

9:50

telling me you love football, baseball, basketball,

9:53

cool, then let's experiment. Let's watch. Let's

9:56

go to a game live. Let's watch

9:58

each on TV. I'm going to. see

10:00

how you respond to that. And I'm going to say, hey, do

10:02

you want to do it again? Okay. Why? Because he

10:04

always asked me why about 50 times a day. So

10:06

I figured I could ask him why in return. But

10:09

ultimately, man, I mean, that's kind of my thing is,

10:12

I just want to make sure that like, yeah,

10:15

I think work ethic comes out of it.

10:17

But I also believe that when we have

10:19

agency, when we have choice, when we can

10:21

make decisions, I could totally

10:23

see myself as my kids get older, falling into

10:25

a little bit of that Lord of the Flies

10:28

thing, people think it's crazy, like, oh, let the

10:30

kids decide right now. I don't care if it's

10:32

like, what do you want for lunch? I'm saying A,

10:34

B or C. And like, I

10:36

actually am listening for like, how do

10:39

you process this decision? I think

10:42

one of the best things I did for my kids when

10:44

they were little like that, they were really small at five

10:46

years old, I stole a certain Tony Robbins, we

10:48

bought an old timey time, we bought an

10:50

old timey time clock, right with the class.

10:53

And my kids had to punch in and punch out

10:55

to go to school, even I mean, kindergarten, they started,

10:57

I love it, and I'd pay

11:00

them like a dollar a week. And if

11:02

they didn't punch in or punch out, I

11:04

didn't pay them for that day. Like, you

11:07

dropped me off, you know, I went, I'm like, I

11:09

don't, I saw in the parking lot, I don't know

11:11

if you went to school, all I know is the

11:13

time card and that time card, you know, this is

11:15

your job to go to school and punching and punching

11:17

out. I thought that was a great thing. But it's

11:19

so funny. Also, you talked about being able to present

11:21

what you want. My daughter

11:24

makes incredible PowerPoint presentations for things

11:26

that she wanted. There you go.

11:28

Case in point, I have two

11:30

big white fluffy Persian cats, and

11:32

I am terribly allergic to cats.

11:35

So, but she makes

11:37

compelling, super compelling PowerPoint. So that's

11:40

how we got to that point. But I agree,

11:42

I think it should be more than just, you

11:45

know, asking, you know, sell it to me to make make

11:47

me do this. And I think those are great life skills

11:49

coming up as well. So

11:51

you mentioned you got an MBA. So you went to, where

11:53

did you go to school? USC

11:56

was my undergrad. Michigan was post-grad,

11:58

exec MBA. Okay,

12:00

so you had the full on the full on

12:02

experience. So obviously you are a guy, cause this

12:05

comes up a lot in entrepreneurial circles anymore. You're

12:07

a guy that puts a high value on, on

12:10

higher education. Do you still feel that way or no? Great

12:13

question. And I

12:16

was taught and look, I, my late father, which

12:18

I'm more than happy to unpack that because he's

12:20

my hero and I lost my hero at 19

12:22

years old. So we can totally go down that

12:24

if you want to go down that, but literally

12:26

I lost him at 19 and by trade, he

12:30

was a continuation school teacher. So a true

12:32

man of impact, a true man of making

12:34

a difference, a true man of leaving people

12:37

in places better than he found him because

12:39

after decades of teaching in traditional school, where

12:41

he felt like he's leaving impact on the

12:43

table, he goes to a place

12:45

like a continuation where if you're listening to this

12:48

and you're not familiar, that's a kid's last chance.

12:50

They've been kicked out of traditional school. They landed

12:52

a continuation. The next stop, if they don't act

12:54

right are the streets. And

12:57

because he said, look, in this case, you're

12:59

not just influencing lives. You're for sure changing

13:01

lives. And maybe you're

13:03

even saving lives in that environment.

13:05

It's just a higher impact type

13:07

of place. So I share all

13:09

that with you because

13:12

when we think about higher

13:14

education, I was always told

13:17

and taught that that is very important and

13:20

reflecting back, I

13:23

am not who I am today without

13:25

my experiences at those places. And I'm

13:27

not here to tell you that they

13:29

were perfect. I'm not here to tell

13:31

you that all of my friends

13:33

came from these places. There was one or

13:35

two or 10 things I learned in the classroom

13:38

that changed my life. No, no. I

13:41

am just saying for me, it allowed me

13:43

to mold myself into who

13:45

I am today. And that came from not

13:47

just the positives, but some of the pain,

13:49

some of the tension, some of the angst,

13:52

some of the things I felt like, man,

13:54

I'm just not getting this and reflecting back.

13:56

Damn. I wish I would have done that.

13:58

I wish I would have focused more on. people and

14:00

networking instead of cramming for all the tests that

14:02

don't even matter 15 years later.

14:04

Like, so those are some of the insights that you

14:06

don't realize till the rear view mirror. Here's

14:08

my philosophy, not just for my own kids, but

14:10

just how I think about life. I

14:14

do not, unless they are

14:16

core traits, like values or

14:19

character based, there's nothing

14:22

that I'm going to push on

14:24

the younger generation. I'm not going

14:26

to say I'm right, you're wrong. This is how

14:28

it should be done. This is how, because look

14:30

at me, absolutely not. If the

14:33

world is a different place, which of course

14:35

it will be in 15 or so years

14:37

when my kids get to the point of

14:39

high school and almost college, and if for

14:41

whatever reason, four year education, a

14:44

four year university is not in their path,

14:47

I don't care. I just don't care.

14:49

It's going to be a different, go ahead. Let

14:51

me ask you this, because my opinion honored

14:54

is I think it's a great place to

14:56

become an adult. I think, yes. I

14:59

think in the hustle, entrepreneurial culture that

15:01

we live in now, it's like, oh,

15:03

you got to

15:05

start hustling right now. If you're not a

15:07

millionaire with a Lambo by 21, you failed.

15:09

There's so much of that culture through social

15:11

media. I think college is

15:13

a great place to become an adult,

15:15

but more importantly, something that you said,

15:17

which is spot on, which

15:19

is this is where you build your

15:21

network for life. For

15:24

me, and you say, you know, you

15:26

went to Michigan and USC and those

15:28

are two unbelievable places to build networks

15:30

from, especially you residing still in Southern

15:32

California. There is the guys

15:34

that I know that went to USC are

15:37

so tied in to so many others that

15:39

went to SC. It's crazy. I

15:42

mean, like, you know, my son, you know,

15:44

you want to go to Florida state where, you know,

15:47

the rest of us went to school, you know, and

15:49

get drunk for three years. Yeah. I don't

15:51

know if that's the best use of your time, but

15:53

unless you want to live in North

15:55

Florida, but I think utilizing it

15:57

to grow your network and doing that, it makes

15:59

it. Now, I also think it depends

16:01

on what you major in. I think, you know,

16:04

you know, I think, I don't know necessarily

16:06

that I would say an MBA is going

16:08

to be that important in the people

16:10

that I know now, a lot of them that have MBAs

16:13

say, I don't know, you know,

16:15

undergrad and finance, undergrad and accounting. And

16:17

then a law degree to me is ideal because then you

16:19

don't have to be an attorney, but you can do anything.

16:21

And, you know, I'm the son of an attorney. So I

16:23

grew up in a law office and I just think every

16:26

single guy that I know that has that combination

16:28

guy or woman that has a finance

16:30

or accounting undergrad with a legal degree

16:33

on top of that, you can literally

16:35

do anything. I mean, anything

16:37

at that point with that combination. Yeah.

16:40

And here's the reality. Context

16:42

always matters. So all right, I'll give you two scenarios.

16:45

One let's go the business route and one let's go

16:47

the non-business route. So my last response of ending with,

16:49

Hey, if my little guys say that they don't want

16:51

to go to a four year university, I don't care.

16:53

When I say I don't care, I, there's

16:56

a very important caveat to that. And

16:58

that means that they have found something

17:00

that they have so much passion for

17:02

and they have their gifts and their

17:04

talents and their skills and their abilities.

17:06

And if a four year

17:09

university is not going to advance, accelerate

17:11

that, then you know what? We

17:13

can always focus on building a network

17:15

in very creative ways and there's extracurricular

17:18

ways and there's clubs and

17:20

there's memberships and there's just places. And

17:22

at the end of the day, my job is to surround

17:24

us with people that we're all just without

17:26

keeping score, adding value to each other's lives.

17:29

Some are going to help you in your

17:31

health, some are going to help you in

17:33

your relationships, some are going to help you

17:35

in finance. So my job is to find

17:37

good hearted people to surround my family with

17:39

that we can all level up together. So

17:42

that's, that's part of what I'm putting on my shoulders.

17:44

But now with the business side, I think you bring

17:46

up a great point because sure,

17:49

that is an MBA at value and the

17:51

honest answer is it depends, but it also

17:53

depends on where you land. And that's why

17:55

I say context matters. San Francisco 49ers

17:57

where I spent my last five years.

18:00

in the NFL. I was

18:02

under two different presidents. The first, his

18:04

name is Parag. Second, his name is

18:06

Al. True story, his last name is

18:08

Guido and he's from Jersey. I could

18:10

not even make that up, okay? Guido

18:13

from Jersey. So we'll just leave it

18:15

at that. But Parag was a, I

18:17

don't remember which was undergrad, which was

18:19

post-grad. It doesn't matter, but he was

18:21

a Berkeley Stanford guy, okay? So his

18:23

higher ed came from one of those

18:26

two amazing educational universities. So for him,

18:28

for him to see those

18:30

three letters, MBA, non-negotiable

18:33

dude, you could not be an

18:35

executive at the Niners without an MBA

18:37

under Parag. Al, South

18:39

Jersey, like dude, high school,

18:42

I think literally his college was the something of

18:44

New Jersey. Like it was a school that until

18:46

I met Al, I'm just like, and you know

18:48

what? And he is unashamed of it. You're like,

18:50

they have a great beauty program. Yeah,

18:53

dude. So

18:56

at the end of the day for Al, he don't

18:58

give a damn. He don't give a damn about those

19:00

three letters and there's nothing wrong with that either. So

19:02

had you shown up at the Niners in the Parag

19:04

era, well, you would have hit a

19:06

ceiling without these things. But then you show

19:08

up in the Al era and it's like,

19:10

hey man, as long as you've got a

19:12

four year degree and you're a good person

19:15

and your skills can add, bam, you're a

19:17

49er. And so like, I think some

19:19

of that is interesting too of, I

19:21

think we under index on studying the

19:24

people side of where we want to

19:26

eventually spend these hundred thousand hours of

19:28

work. Like in college, they say, what do you want

19:30

to major in? All right. And then, oh, you want

19:32

to be a consultant work for one of the big

19:34

four. And I'm not saying

19:36

that doesn't matter to study the

19:38

industry and to study the companies.

19:40

It does. But what

19:43

matters more is who's

19:45

my boss going to be? What's

19:47

the leadership? What's the culture?

19:50

What's the day to day environment? Cause

19:52

this is going to be where

19:55

I'm at for the majority of my

19:57

adult life. And no, I don't need to stay at

19:59

the this one company, but I don't

20:02

think that we impress upon people who's

20:04

teaching culture in college, who's teaching leadership,

20:06

not how to be a boss. These

20:08

are 19 year old kids. They don't

20:11

need to be a boss. I mean,

20:13

what kind of boss would expand your

20:15

potential? Like how about that lesson in

20:18

a university? So I just think all

20:20

these things like soft skills and people

20:22

and culture and team. Yeah,

20:24

we learn them in sports, but we don't learn

20:26

them in business school. And I've given that feedback

20:29

to a lot of top programs. So I'll kick

20:31

it back to you, but that's my soapbox. No,

20:33

I was going to say, I tell my kids

20:35

all the time that of everything

20:38

you can do and have everything that happens,

20:40

the ability to connect one-on-one with another human

20:42

being across the table, that skillset is going

20:44

to be in such short order from their

20:47

generation. If you do nothing,

20:49

but have that skillset in an extremely

20:51

high level, a very, the

20:53

EQ is almost more important than the

20:55

IQ going forward. 1 million percent. It's

20:57

kids are just head down texting each other and they don't know how

20:59

to talk to each other. And here's the funny

21:02

thing. Like, yeah, we're in

21:04

a moment. We're in a moment of

21:06

correct of correcting my son, his behavior,

21:08

because my son spends

21:11

way too much time as all kids do. You

21:13

know, as parents, we try to limit this, but

21:15

here's only so much you can do. Staring at

21:18

YouTube, right? And we finally kind of put

21:20

together this, this issue, which is YouTube

21:22

talks at you. Every video you watch, they're

21:25

talking at you. It's not a, it's not

21:27

a, it's not a, it's not a communication

21:29

tool. They're just, you're listening. But what happens

21:31

is the kids, these kids are almost getting

21:33

programmed to talk at you if you're a

21:35

real human. So a conversation with my son

21:37

has gone from like, you know,

21:39

we teach like you have to be interested to

21:41

be interesting. That that's, that's basic. How to win

21:43

friends and influence people. And you know,

21:45

you got to ask questions, but the questions have now

21:47

become a quiz show. So

21:49

it's like, it's almost like there's no questions that

21:51

get asked unless he knows the answer. It's

21:54

like, Oh, did you, did you know what Jordan

21:56

Travis signed for with the jets today? Nobody.

21:58

I have no idea it's signed. for this.

22:00

And that's his idea of a conversation is

22:02

just hammering you with sports

22:05

backs. And I'm like, bro, this is

22:07

it's like being on a show. I'm

22:09

like, how is your day? Mom,

22:11

why are you holding a washcloth over your face?

22:14

I mean, so just the blatant, obvious things you

22:16

got to pick up on those cues and take

22:18

it that way. So I think that what you

22:20

just said, having those communication skills is

22:22

going to be clutch. Yeah. And

22:24

I'll just land the plane on what

22:27

we're talking about in this simple way. I

22:29

call it a daily scorecard. So I

22:32

think that a lot of times, especially me

22:34

as a young sales guy way back in

22:36

my career, I measured my entire outcome

22:39

of a day based on revenue or

22:41

profitability or growth or any KPI in

22:43

business that like the company or you

22:46

are measuring. And I think

22:48

that's part of it. But here's something

22:50

that I have developed. And I like

22:52

sharing it out because A, it's universally

22:54

applicable. It's for any age, any stage,

22:56

any culture. And here's what it is.

22:58

I believe that if we could reflect

23:00

back at the end of every day

23:02

and examine three things, I call it

23:05

the principle of EIR. E

23:07

is for experience. I is

23:09

for information. R are relationships.

23:11

So at the end of a day,

23:13

what experience did I gain today? At

23:16

the end of a day, what information did

23:18

I learn today? At the end of a

23:21

day, what relationships did I build or enhance

23:23

today? And if we have positive answers to

23:25

all three on a compounding basis, you literally

23:27

cannot lose because the beauty of experience is

23:30

you could have had a crappy day at

23:32

work. It's still valuable experience. Oh, maybe this

23:34

is not where I want to be. That's

23:36

not how I want to be treated. Maybe

23:39

I hate being an accountant. Cool. Bad first

23:41

date. But at least now you know who

23:43

you don't want to go out with, right?

23:46

Like it's still good experience, even though it

23:48

sucks in the moment. So experience, BAM, information.

23:50

Yeah, a little bit of that one way

23:52

communication you talked about, but ultimately we're all

23:55

learning machines. We're all growth machines. We're all

23:57

curiosity machines. So that's information. And then the

23:59

relationship. Look, relationships are currency,

24:01

right? People that are rich in

24:04

relationships are rich in life, and I don't mean

24:06

that monetarily. I mean that in just the spirit

24:08

of abundance, man. They're just good people. They're good

24:10

vibes. They warm up the rooms that they walk

24:12

into. And so EIR, experience,

24:14

information, relationships, when I pass along,

24:17

especially when I do most of

24:19

my talks and keynotes or to

24:21

corporate audiences, but the younger the

24:23

demographic that I'm speaking to, when

24:25

I do university work or whatever

24:27

it is, that is one of

24:29

my biggest insights is start measuring

24:32

your success based on EIR, not

24:34

on these external metrics. Well,

24:36

I think what people, you know, reflect

24:39

in their day, there's not enough. It's

24:41

so singular to the negative. I

24:44

think, man, today was terrible.

24:46

But you know, again, being able to reflect

24:48

in those negative moments and see how the

24:51

lessons you can learn that can affect yourself

24:53

positively and forward. And most people don't. They

24:55

just continue to let that ball roll in

24:57

a negative way downhill. They just

24:59

keep rolling with it and be like, oh, it's just how it is. And I

25:01

got to do it. Yeah. How

25:03

did you, so you, so you graduated with your

25:05

MBA and you were in sales originally, right? Let's

25:08

talk about that for a minute. Because obviously that was

25:10

something you excelled in. You took, you excelled at that

25:12

in every job doing these things. So

25:15

if you had to walk me through the key

25:17

parts of your sales process, what would they be?

25:19

What makes you a great salesman? Well,

25:24

I think a lot of it also starts

25:26

with the environment that you're in. So I'll

25:28

give everybody the context because this matters. So

25:30

in sports, you're either working for a winner

25:32

or a loser. Are they winning games on

25:34

the field or the court of the ice?

25:37

Or on the contrary, are they losing

25:39

the majority? And I will say

25:41

this after 15 years in the sports industry,

25:44

I worked for 14, 14 out of 15

25:47

teams that did not make the playoffs in

25:49

that year. So in the majority of these

25:51

seasons, they are losing more games than they

25:53

win. I had to walk through a lot

25:55

of fires. I always worked for the underdog.

25:57

I always was in positions to sell the

25:59

unsellable. My first team was the LA Clippers.

26:02

That was circa 2005. Across

26:05

the hall, Kobe and Shaq were winning

26:07

championships. We were there

26:09

in an era where it's, you don't even need

26:11

to follow the NBA for this to make sense.

26:14

When you play 82 games, if you just roll the ball out

26:16

on the court and say, good luck 82 times,

26:19

you will stumble on 30 wins. Well,

26:22

the Clippers won 17 out of

26:24

82 games the first year

26:26

that I was there. So what that leads to

26:28

plus having toxic ownership and the negative work culture

26:30

and all the stuff that we now know decades

26:32

later. But back then I'm

26:34

an entry level sales guy decades ago.

26:37

ESPN called us the worst brand in sports.

26:40

And then the front cover of Sports Illustrated,

26:42

my second week on the job, it

26:45

had three Clipper fans with paper bags

26:47

over their heads. And one of them

26:49

said, just shoot me. And

26:52

I had to sell that. The front

26:54

cover of Sports Illustrated said worst franchise in

26:56

sports history with a guy that said, just

26:58

shoot me for being a Clipper fan. And

27:01

I look, I started with 12 people. I

27:04

was one of 12. We almost felt like a fraternity

27:06

pledge class, if you will. I was the only one

27:08

to make the third month on the job. And

27:10

here's why I really studied this because

27:13

telling my story is cool, but I

27:15

think the insights on how it's universally

27:17

relevant decades later, that's the real power

27:19

right there. So what I

27:22

realized early on was in

27:24

a season where we only won 17 out of 82

27:26

games and now your

27:28

fan base is negative, toxic.

27:31

They drop F-bombs at you when you cold

27:33

call them during dinner. I mean, like that was

27:35

just a daily environment. If you got rejected

27:37

99.9% of the time, you were

27:39

actually good. You were winning. Okay. And

27:43

so in that environment, what I

27:45

learned, and this was channeling my

27:47

mindset and channeling my energy, the

27:50

losses were never my fault, but

27:53

they were always my responsibility. What

27:56

I mean by that is if I'm talking

27:59

to you and you're listening to this. Anything

28:01

bad that happens to you, it may not

28:03

be your fault, but

28:05

it becomes your responsibility. The

28:08

way you respond, the way you

28:10

react, your mood, your energy, your

28:12

attitude. So that process of building

28:14

resilience and having that mentality that

28:16

the last play or the last day

28:19

or the last call is already done.

28:21

So I was able to kind of just

28:23

put this armor on and say like, look,

28:26

I get it, but I got two choices. I

28:28

could either be a kid in a candy

28:30

store and work in a dream industry like

28:32

sports and deal with the negative toxic energy

28:35

and deal with the losses and deal with

28:37

the F-bombs. I could do that or

28:39

I could bounce. And

28:42

I will tell you this, out of the 11 people

28:44

that left that original pledge class where I started

28:47

as an entry-level sales guy in 2005, none

28:50

of them ever got a second bite at the apple

28:52

to get into sports. So I wonder

28:54

if they, I'm

28:56

just gonna put it out there. Do you die

28:59

with regret? Do you die

29:01

with regret for like, man, I

29:03

could have just channeled this more

29:05

positive, more hopeful, more optimistic, more

29:07

high belief energy, or

29:10

damn, I became a product of

29:13

my environment. And sometimes you don't get a

29:15

second shot. And that was, go

29:17

ahead. Yeah. I'm gonna slow

29:20

you down a little bit because I wanna

29:22

do this. Cause you said something

29:24

that's really, really tough, which is, you

29:26

know, for me, when I talk about sales, it's like,

29:28

I always say, you've really gotta believe in what you're

29:31

doing. If you don't believe in the product and you

29:33

don't believe in what you've got, it's

29:35

really difficult to do a good job because

29:37

you're always, you're gonna be

29:39

at odds with yourself. Yeah. Always as

29:41

you say things. So you've got a product that you

29:43

know is absolute dog shit. Just a clear

29:45

choice. For sure. For sure. So

29:47

do you start looking at it as, well, this

29:50

is an incredible value against the Lakers. I mean,

29:52

how do you build value in your mind? Yeah.

29:55

Here, here's how, all right. I'll take you inside

29:58

the trenches of what a sales call sounded like. And

30:00

then I want to talk to you

30:02

about a constitution because this to me,

30:04

this constitution that we created and yours

30:06

truly created, it applies to everybody that's

30:08

not even in sales. But here's how

30:10

I sold a lot and

30:13

it led to a few different promotions at

30:15

the Clippers from entry-level sales to senior sales

30:17

and then eventually to manage the entry-level sales

30:19

group. And that's where the constitution comes from.

30:21

But what I took from that

30:24

was you

30:26

have to find common ground.

30:29

What I could almost guarantee you is

30:33

I'm calling somebody that's not a Clipper fan. But

30:37

what I could also almost guarantee you is I'm

30:40

calling somebody that is at least

30:42

a lukewarm basketball fan. Because

30:44

here they are, I get their name from

30:47

a list that they came out to one

30:49

game, likely to see the other team, likely

30:51

it was the Lakers, I gotcha. And my

30:53

job was to upsell them into a package

30:55

or season tickets or a corporate suite, whatever

30:57

the fit was. And so

30:59

what I did, I found the common

31:01

ground. I went through the

31:04

questions that would get down to an

31:06

emotional level. I focused

31:08

on the experience over

31:10

the outcome of the game or the fandom of

31:12

a particular team. And so when

31:15

I would realize, so you come

31:17

with your eight-year-old son and your five-year-old son, who

31:19

are their favorite players? Bang. How

31:21

do they become fans? How often do

31:23

you come? What do you like to see? Hey, have they

31:25

ever met the players? Have they ever gotten the backstage pass?

31:27

Have they ever this? Have

31:29

they? Oh, no, absolutely not. And then you just keep

31:32

on extrapolating it. And I found the common ground

31:34

until the point where I could say so

31:36

unequivocally from this call, from this

31:38

meeting that we're having, you

31:41

and your family are diehard basketball fans.

31:44

Like you are. Awesome. Would it be if you could

31:46

be four rows off the court and then I would

31:49

just continue to paint the picture, paint the picture, paint

31:51

the picture. And then it

31:53

is possible. And here's what that looks like. And you're going to

31:55

get to see Kobe and Shaq twice a year. And you're going

31:57

to get to see Yao Ming and you're going to get to

31:59

see. All good. And

32:01

so that literally was about finding the

32:04

connective tissue. What's really

32:06

fascinating is, and

32:08

I do at some point want to come back

32:10

to that constitution, but I also learned this lesson

32:12

from my second NBA stop, which was in New

32:15

Orleans. They were the Hornets at

32:17

the time. Now they're the pelicans. So

32:19

in the South, so, so go ahead. Were

32:21

you working from Mickey Lomas at the time?

32:25

No, no, it was a pre the saints

32:27

and Hornets were not owned. Now it's the

32:29

same owner. It was not the same ownership

32:31

group back then. Great question though. Yeah. Great

32:34

question. Mickey Mickey's a good friend. Mickey's a

32:36

good friend of mine. So that's all I

32:38

asked. Dude, like we've been in the same

32:40

room a million times and, but this was

32:42

post my time at the then Hornets. So

32:45

here was the situation. I'll tell you a story in

32:47

a second. Keep talking. I'll tell you a story on

32:49

Mickey and Nick. Yeah. No, no, for sure. Um, here's

32:51

the cool thing about my experience in

32:54

New Orleans. So in the South

32:56

football is King. And

32:58

so it's almost like a religion, right?

33:00

Like it's football. There's NFL, there's college

33:02

football, and there's a chasm into whatever's

33:04

next NBA included. And so we

33:07

were in a situation where the

33:10

former owner, Mr. Shin of the

33:12

Hornets comes down with cancer. He's

33:14

no longer able to three 65

33:16

operate the franchise. So then now

33:18

late commissioner of the NBA, David

33:21

Stern took over stewardship of

33:23

the franchise and sends down his five

33:25

best lieutenants, his team marketing and business operations

33:27

unit. And basically it was a save

33:29

the franchise type of year. He said, this

33:31

is the least economically viable franchise in

33:33

the NBA. And if we don't get to

33:36

number one in season tickets, which was

33:38

almost like a death sentence, like you don't

33:40

go from last to first in one

33:42

year, like team was in not that great.

33:44

So, but he put that ultimatum on

33:46

the team, knowing that he probably privately wanted

33:49

to move the team out of New

33:51

Orleans. Well, that was never said. That's certainly

33:53

how it felt. But Hey, I'm going to put

33:55

my lieutenants down there. So at least we could

33:57

say with a straight face, we gave it a

33:59

shot. I do remember this because this

34:01

is okay. Yeah. I remember all this happening.

34:03

Yep. This is, yeah, this is not Pels.

34:05

This is Hornets. Yes. Okay. This is Hornets.

34:07

And this is how it connects back to

34:09

my clipper sales days. When I said find

34:11

a common ground, because if

34:13

we would have been trying to salvage

34:15

the franchise through selling basketball and

34:18

selling fandom of the Hornets, I

34:20

promise you the New Orleans pelicans do not

34:22

exist today in New Orleans. We would have

34:24

lost a team. So what we did, we

34:26

asked ourselves, so if you don't

34:29

care about basketball, because you've always heard

34:31

this line, right? Tell me

34:33

you love me. Tell me you hate me, but

34:35

don't tell me you don't care because I don't

34:37

have a want to fix apathy and in the

34:39

marketplace, there was apathy at that time, so we

34:42

had to go broader and make it bigger than

34:44

basketball. So then we said, what does a New

34:46

Orleanian care about? Well, unlike where I'm from LA,

34:48

where it's a lot of transplants, I would never

34:50

tell you that LA has a tremendous amount of

34:53

civic pride. Never would I say civic pride in

34:55

Los Angeles in the same, we just have too

34:57

many transplants and too many distractions and things

34:59

to do and all that, but in New Orleans,

35:01

11 out of

35:03

10, civic pride, a New

35:05

Orleanian loves their city. They

35:07

love the food. Let the

35:09

good times roll the jazz

35:12

music. There's an identity to

35:14

that place that is rare.

35:16

And so we said, Oh, so they

35:18

care about the place. They care about

35:20

being a New Orleanian. So you create

35:23

a campaign called I'm in. This

35:25

is not about basketball. It's about pledging

35:27

your support for the franchise. Two

35:30

people at a time, a family of four, a company

35:32

of 50. I'm in,

35:34

I'm in, I'm in. We pulled all

35:36

the celebrity chefs, all the celebrities from

35:38

jazz, all the celebrities to say, Hey,

35:40

who's in, who's in, who's in? It was

35:42

a massive campaign and we did

35:44

the unthinkable. So when you reflect

35:47

back and now obviously we salvaged a

35:49

franchise, that I'm in campaign was

35:51

not about basketball. It was about civic pride.

35:53

And that same connection point is the same

35:55

thing I did at the Clippers. I

35:57

just had to find in a private sense.

35:59

for the person on the other side of the phone. So

36:02

if you don't care about the Clippers, then what do

36:04

you care about? And now I have a puncher's chance

36:06

if I can connect what you care about to what

36:08

I'm offering. Yeah, some way, somehow.

36:10

Yeah, it's like, you know, it's so funny because

36:12

you know what we do here, you

36:16

know, we do 4000 residential real estate transactions

36:18

a year here and in my company and

36:20

very few, you know, none of those are

36:23

about needing a place to sleep. Yeah.

36:26

It's about growing your family. It's about

36:28

that. It's about not remembering your kids

36:31

are gone when you downsize. It's about

36:33

leveling up and status in a community.

36:35

It's about so many other things. And

36:38

very little of it is actually about sleep. So

36:42

yeah, I love that. What was the constitution? I wanted

36:44

to come back to that. What was that? Yeah,

36:47

so based on the time

36:49

that we were at the Clippers, you

36:51

had to beg people to work there. And

36:54

so one of my favorite memories, because it was

36:56

frankly, it was the biggest challenge of working there.

36:58

It was not dealing with the negativity of the

37:00

market. Like I got, you kind of developed some

37:03

thick skin over the years for that. Well, it

37:05

was finding me as a recruiting sales manager. So

37:07

now I'm in positional leadership. And I remember that

37:11

we couldn't fill the roster of sales folks

37:13

quick enough if we did one-to-one interviews. So

37:15

we had to cast a wider net and

37:17

do group interviews and do like five sessions

37:19

in a day, five days in a row.

37:22

And maybe we find a handful of people

37:24

in that whole time. And so begging is

37:26

not that far off from what we had

37:28

to do. But I do remember this, the

37:30

entry-level sales program at the Clippers was six

37:32

to nine months. So basically, come be a

37:34

phone banger. You're gonna make a boatload of

37:36

cold calls. And if, hey, only the strong

37:38

survive, if you can be effective at

37:40

this job, what I said is, if you give

37:42

me these three things, which are the constitution, I

37:44

will take care of you the rest of your

37:47

career, whether this opportunity works out or not. And

37:49

they said, okay, so what are the three things?

37:51

And I said, all right, it's a constitution. And

37:54

you're gonna sign on the dotted line and

37:56

you're gonna commit to work ethic, positivity.

38:00

and coachability. You give me

38:02

those three things. You signed this constitution. I

38:04

will take care of you for the rest of

38:06

your career, whether this opportunity works out or not.

38:09

And people looked at me funny like, wait, hold

38:11

on. What about the goals? What about the metrics?

38:13

This is sales. What about the performance? And I

38:15

said, don't worry about that. I'm only

38:17

gonna offer you the job if I think that you can

38:19

exceed expectations. Because we all know this,

38:22

I can train you up in the skill, but

38:24

I can't train the will. And my definition

38:27

of will was, the work

38:29

ethic, positivity, and coachability. Because

38:32

I don't have a wand to make you work harder.

38:34

I don't have a wand to keep you positive. And

38:36

what I know is gonna be a negative and toxic

38:38

environment and I don't have a wand to

38:40

make you obsessed about getting 1% better every

38:43

single day. In

38:46

other words, I cannot coach

38:49

care. I'll repeat that.

38:53

I cannot coach care.

38:56

So I found people

38:58

that through daily example

39:01

and role modeling of work ethic,

39:04

positivity, and coachability, they signed a

39:06

constitution. They committed to those things.

39:08

The majority of them ended up

39:10

thriving in the job. Some didn't,

39:12

but they still did those

39:14

three things. And I'm still to this

39:16

day serving as their mentor, a coach,

39:19

an advisor, a friend in many cases

39:21

because they upheld their end of the

39:23

bargain and that was the constitution. And

39:25

this isn't just a feel good story

39:27

of people. We went from

39:29

28th in league revenue before

39:31

the constitution to second in

39:35

league revenue out of 30 teams. This

39:37

was the Kickstarter for the next 14

39:40

out of my 15 years. This

39:42

was it. It was because of the

39:44

transformation in revenue and in culture that

39:46

we had at the Clippers. And I

39:48

insulated it to my department because the

39:51

broader culture, it was still

39:53

tough. But I said, you know what,

39:55

let me protect this. Let me create

39:57

something special under a private little umbrella.

40:00

In a different part of the arena so it's a

40:02

little bit easier to control the environment and the Constitution

40:05

was the way that it manifested Well,

40:07

let's talk about this because I find that a lot of people

40:09

that are as I call it I mean escaping the drift is

40:11

the name of the podcast and a lot

40:13

of people that are stuck in the you know

40:15

drifting along with The currents of life are people

40:17

that don't have that innate Work

40:20

ethic that innate bill. So is

40:22

there something is there a formula that you read

40:24

that you have you can extrapolate that type of

40:26

behavior out of people It

40:30

has to be connected to meaning

40:32

and mattering In other words,

40:35

if it you use something earlier that

40:37

I like I'll double-click on like in

40:39

sales training You'll always hear

40:41

about belief belief in the product belief in

40:43

the service. Of course, I think that's important

40:46

But I think it's about What's

40:49

the meaning that you're attaching to

40:51

the job to the career path?

40:53

And in our case because the

40:55

product was so bad The

40:57

meaning often wasn't attached to the

41:00

product. The meaning was attached to

41:02

the zoom-out vision of Why

41:06

do I want this success? Why

41:08

do I want to grow my career? Why

41:10

do I want what's next? How

41:13

much do I love my boss? How

41:15

much do I love the people that

41:17

I go to battle with every day

41:19

the people to my left and right?

41:21

That's our locker room. So we found

41:24

meaning and mattering from everything but the

41:26

product sure You probably were

41:28

a basketball fan. Otherwise, you don't you

41:31

don't apply for the job But the majority weren't

41:33

clipper fans on the contrary They were probably all

41:35

Laker fans because it was LA but we didn't

41:37

make it about that because you know When I

41:39

used to work at career fairs, I Remember

41:42

that people thought that their biggest value prop the way

41:44

that they would try to sound the most valuable to

41:46

me is tell me Oh when I was a kid

41:48

I used to watch sports in it with my pops

41:50

and I'm like So does everybody

41:52

in line and I didn't say it like that

41:55

because it you know as a warm human being

41:57

but like now I'm just like dude. That's not

41:59

your separator. That's That's why you're in this line.

42:01

You've got to convince me that you can kick ass

42:03

at the job. You've got to convince me that you

42:06

could be a kick ass teammate. Watching

42:08

sports and when you're seven years old

42:10

does not qualify you, okay?

42:12

And like, so I had to kind of

42:14

like partially shatter some dreams also of

42:16

like, here, cause here's my thing. Remember that stat

42:18

I said about I was one of 12 and

42:21

the other 11 never got back in the industry. Part

42:24

of my pet peeve was a lot of

42:26

my counterparts that were sales managers decades ago.

42:30

They would do whatever they needed. They would say whatever

42:32

they needed to say to get people to sign on

42:34

the dotted line, especially if it was a challenging sell

42:36

to come work for their team. The problem

42:38

is I

42:41

knew that if we were

42:43

to use a batting percentage, if

42:45

you go O for one, meaning your

42:47

first job in an industry doesn't work

42:49

out. If you're in real estate and

42:51

the first job that you have, you

42:53

just flame out, like you fundamentally, it's just

42:55

a wrong fit. It's a wrong fit. 90%

42:58

of people do. 90% of people do. It's

43:00

a wrong fit. There's probably no boomerang back. Yeah,

43:02

sure. There's always exceptions and you and I both

43:05

know these people and whether real estate or sports,

43:07

I get it, but that's the exception, not the

43:09

rule. So I protected people and I said, please

43:11

don't take this job because what you want to

43:13

do is you want to work in sports, but

43:16

you don't want to sell, but we have 40

43:18

sales openings and that one marketing opening that is

43:20

probably a better fit. You think it's tougher to

43:22

get that. So you've been given the advice to

43:25

get your foot in the door through any means

43:27

necessary. Wrong advice because now

43:29

you're going to fail at this thing and now

43:31

you're not going to end up where you were supposed to.

43:34

I'd rather you be an unpaid intern in a

43:36

vertical that you have a passion and a skillset

43:38

and a gift for and you want to grow

43:40

in and you're going to do the unpaid

43:43

work in the unseen hours at the early stage.

43:45

So that was kind of the mentality that we

43:47

took. So I kind of had to negative sell

43:49

a little bit just to make sure that we

43:52

had the right people on the bus in the

43:54

right seats. Of course, it's funny. When people come

43:56

to interview with me, I

43:58

always ask the same question, which is... You know, what's

44:00

the goal? What's the goal? And

44:03

so many people throw out a dollar figure. I

44:05

want to make $150,000 a year. That's

44:07

the goal. And then the follow up

44:10

question, nine out of 10 can't

44:12

answer it. And the follow up question is always the

44:14

same as well. It's why? For what?

44:17

What's the 150 do? What does it do? Yeah. What

44:20

does that do? And the

44:22

people that can't, and so many people can't answer

44:25

that question. And my answer is normally to those

44:27

folks, well, come back when you can answer it.

44:29

Because if you can't answer why you want

44:32

to do something, the odds on

44:34

you actually achieving it are very slim in

44:36

my experience, especially in the real estate industry. You've got

44:39

to be crystal clear as to why you want to

44:41

do what you're trying to do. And if you don't

44:43

know, it's crazy, which again, you mentioned something which I

44:45

love also, which is internships. I

44:47

have known so many people in life that

44:50

just, you know, go to

44:52

college, they get a degree, they start a

44:54

job that they hate because they didn't know

44:56

anything about the job before they did it.

44:59

They had no idea, which is,

45:01

you know, and look, I get it. My kids

45:03

are lucky because I got dad, dad could hook

45:05

them up. But every summer my

45:07

kids are interning with people that I know

45:09

that are high performers at some particular type

45:12

of job that they might have interest

45:14

in. Last summer, my son interned

45:16

with the guys that own on VShred. You probably

45:18

seen that app come rolling down your social media

45:20

with the Vince guys, Superfit. They're the best digital

45:22

marketers in the world. And they run their business

45:24

from Vegas. They took my son in last summer,

45:26

he spent all summer. The summer he's

45:28

going to spend it in law office because he has an interest

45:31

in maybe being an attorney. Okay, go see what an attorney does.

45:33

Let's spend a summer looking through,

45:36

you know, mundane documents and see if

45:38

you still want to do this. It's

45:40

not suits. Nobody's going to walk in and

45:42

do a file and go, this is exactly

45:44

what I needed. Case closed. It's

45:47

how it works, right? So, but I think

45:49

exposing yourself through internships to things that you

45:51

find that might be interesting is

45:53

a great way to get your foot in the door. A and

45:55

then B, see if it's something you want to actually even do.

46:00

Even in relationships, even a personal

46:02

relationship, I always joke that

46:05

you've got to date some crazy to find

46:07

the one. You have to

46:09

go on some bad dates. That's

46:11

just the process. I

46:13

actually- Or in some cases, a lot of crazy before

46:16

you find the right one. A lot. Yeah, sign

46:18

me up. Yeah. No, you

46:20

know what's crazy, man, is the same analogy

46:22

I would make for work I actually make

46:24

for personal relationships. There's

46:26

actually a little mini curse in

46:28

finding really good too soon. You

46:31

know, I have folks at their first

46:33

job out of college, maybe they do get lucky and

46:35

it is lucky. They work for an

46:37

amazing culture and an amazing boss and they get

46:39

paid $10. But because they're young

46:41

and they think like a young person, they go across the

46:43

street to make 11 instead of 10. And

46:45

now they're in a bad workplace. And now they're

46:48

just chasing their tails their whole career

46:50

because they created this up into the

46:52

right vision and they are

46:54

like, oh my gosh, the people magic

46:56

was at my first place. And

46:58

it's kind of like meeting the one when you're 16 years

47:00

old. I don't know if I could have handled that.

47:03

Dude, or coming

47:05

to Vegas and winning your first trip here.

47:09

That is a recipe for financial justice.

47:11

Yeah. Dude, speaking of the

47:13

one, I met the one in Vegas,

47:15

man, two crazy kids Memorial weekend of

47:17

2011. So yeah,

47:19

Vegas will always have a special place in

47:21

my heart. I met

47:23

my wife on a trip out here with, uh, I

47:25

was out on, I was out here with some buddies

47:27

from New Orleans, uh, that are on tour. And

47:30

I was out here and I met her out of here

47:32

that weekend and, uh, started coming out of here every weekend

47:34

and moved out here about two months later. So

47:37

yeah, love it. That's all I, that's all I came

47:39

to be here. Met a girl. That

47:41

was sick. So let's talk

47:43

about, you know, cause you built this whole

47:45

community now around the concept. It's on your

47:47

shirt. And it's behind you. For

47:49

those of you watching on YouTube, if I didn't mention this,

47:51

I would be an idiot. Um, but

47:53

yeah, this, this, this whole community behind the

47:56

concept of when Monday. So let's talk about

47:58

that. I

48:01

believe Monday is where all momentum

48:03

is born. And I also

48:05

believe not only are we momentum machines, but

48:07

we're all growth engines, right? Like, especially if

48:09

you surround yourself with high performers and high

48:11

achievers, it's that obsession with getting 1% better

48:14

every day. And what I have

48:16

found is that we look for the

48:18

margins and the edges of what

48:21

I call separation season. So

48:23

I don't think that the world needs more TGIF. And

48:25

by the way, I love Friday as much as the

48:27

next person, and I love weekends as much as the

48:29

next person. But

48:31

that's not where I'm going to separate on

48:34

a TGIF mantra. For me,

48:37

what we have to do is

48:39

go from what many perceive as the worst

48:41

day of the week and make it the

48:43

best day of the week. Because when you

48:45

win Monday, you have momentum to win the

48:47

week. And then there's just this reset button

48:49

every single week. And one of

48:52

the big things that I've realized, because this

48:54

is really a community, not just of high

48:56

performers and achievers, but we all have unreasonable

48:58

ambition. But when I say win, it's not

49:00

winning financially, it's not winning professionally, it's winning

49:02

holistically. I want to win as badly in my

49:04

health and my relationships as I do in my

49:07

finance and my happiness and my fulfillment and my

49:09

purpose and my impact, my legacy. I just want

49:11

to win. And I'm also not

49:13

obsessed with competing with other people. I just

49:15

want to be better today than I was

49:17

yesterday. I want to be better tomorrow than

49:20

I am today. So that's kind of the

49:22

spirit of the tribe. But we had this

49:24

really cool saying that I learned from

49:26

not only becoming a speaker, but

49:29

a massive pain point in my life as

49:32

this momentum machine and as this growth

49:34

engine when I was suffering

49:36

from way too many sugar highs.

49:39

And here's what I mean by that. If

49:41

you're listening in, I'm talking to you because we've

49:43

all been in this situation. You

49:45

go to this retreat, you go to

49:47

this workshop, you attend a massive keynote,

49:50

or you go to their Tony Robbins

49:52

event, whatever it is. And

49:54

you feel like a changed person, like this is the best

49:56

me and I'm going to shoot out of a

49:58

rocket ship. And then the follow Monday

50:00

hits and because you probably were ignoring your

50:02

inbox the week prior you're playing catch-up and then

50:04

boss and then spouse and then kids and Then

50:06

life happens So you get back in the hamster

50:08

wheel you get back in the grind you get

50:11

back in the hustle and then tick-tock One

50:13

or two weeks go by and you reflect

50:15

back on that once inspiring event and poof

50:19

It's a sugar high and I experienced

50:22

that way too many times

50:24

and that's on me So

50:26

what I said was when I now am

50:28

going from the audience to the stage This

50:30

is my post NFL NBA chapter and now

50:33

that I'm writing the books and doing the

50:35

keynotes all over the globe and all that

50:37

Good stuff. I started this

50:39

community to ensure that no sugar highs

50:41

would ever be allowed again if You

50:44

meet me at the 50 and you meet our

50:46

community at the 50 It's because you want to

50:48

win holistically and you're willing to do the work

50:51

behind closed doors and in the unseen hours To

50:53

become the best version of you and

50:55

so when I deliver a keynote I've

50:57

got a news flash if you bring me

51:00

in for a keynote and do nothing

51:02

new or better or different the following

51:04

Monday morning You too will have a

51:06

sugar high. It does not matter how

51:08

great the speaker is You

51:10

might remember what I talked about in four months, but

51:12

your life is no better or different And so what

51:14

I'm doing is I'm creating this 52 week

51:17

action plan It's a momentum plan and it's

51:19

just a free gift from my heart I

51:21

call it Monday momentum because it

51:23

comes with my keynotes But also

51:25

I now put it out there

51:28

for the world to engage because for me

51:30

I just said I just want

51:32

to surround myself with people that have

51:34

the same Tenacity the same work ethic

51:36

the same values the same character the

51:38

same hunger and that's when Monday So

51:40

I encourage anybody that whether it's me

51:43

telling you about when Monday or Monday momentum or

51:45

just the overall vibe That we've been riffing

51:47

on the past 40 50 minutes if this

51:49

is you All you got to

51:51

do is go to win Monday dot win putting your

51:54

name and email and that's it It's

51:56

a free gift from my heart because I just want

51:58

to surround myself with people that are exactly I acted

52:00

like the two folks that have been having this

52:02

conversation. So just do win Monday dot win. And

52:05

that's it. Yeah, I agree.

52:07

I'm a member of several high level

52:09

mastermind groups and I, and I,

52:11

and I started when I first started going,

52:13

man, I would come back those

52:16

weekends and be like, we're changing everything. Everything's

52:18

got a chair. We got to hit a

52:20

little bit. This got to the

52:22

point where like my staff was like, I'd say

52:24

I'm going to join meeting somewhere else. And my

52:26

staff would just be like, Oh God, just waiting

52:28

for me to come back and be shot out

52:30

of a cannon that way. Cause part of, I

52:33

admit it. One of my toxic traits is

52:35

there's nothing pretty much on this planet that

52:38

I can hear about that somebody else

52:40

can do that. I don't immediately think I could do too. Like,

52:44

well, it's a great problem to have it.

52:46

Yeah, it's a great, it's a kryptonite, but

52:48

it's also a blessing and you know, you

52:50

know, it's both, it's both, but no, no,

52:52

no, but here's why it's a kryptonite because

52:54

there's been so many times over the

52:56

last four years when my core competency

52:59

and my focus got diluted from

53:01

where it should be because I'm like, no, I can

53:03

just spin this up and it's just, I'm going to

53:05

spin this up and it just, this guy's doing it

53:07

and how hard it could be to do this. And

53:09

you know, five seconds of research. And now I've got, you

53:11

know, now I've got an outsourcer that's building this platform

53:13

and I'm doing this thing and it's up and I'm

53:15

going to start the marketing and I'm like, wait a

53:17

sec. Why am I doing this? You know, I did

53:19

this with, it's funny, but real

53:21

estate, you know, uh, cause we're in the brokerage business

53:23

is what we do. And there's, there's

53:25

a portion of the business called wholesaling and essentially

53:27

you don't need a license to do it. You

53:29

don't need a license to do it. Essentially

53:32

it's equity stripping is what it is. And you go

53:34

into a house, you just say, Hey, I'll buy your

53:36

house cash. You write a contract and or a signing,

53:38

and then you walk out the door and then you

53:40

flip the paper to somebody else and make a spread

53:42

on it for 10 or $20,000. You're

53:45

stripping equity from the seller. Well,

53:47

I got a lot of friends that do this at extremely high level,

53:50

but it's, does not go at all with what I

53:52

do or even what I believe in the business. And

53:54

I spun this business up in the first appointment that

53:56

I went to. I sat down and I'm like, shouldn't

53:59

do this. You should just sit on the open market. This

54:01

is dumb for you. Like, why am I doing this? I was

54:03

like, stop. At

54:05

this point, I'd already gone like 10 grand

54:07

deep on marketing. And I was like, why

54:09

am I doing this? Cause that's my toxic

54:11

trait. But that's why I like your, like,

54:13

let's just be consistent. Let's just do it.

54:15

Let's just do a nice even keel. Let's

54:17

take what you're doing and take it to

54:19

the next level. Let's not try to layer

54:22

on a bunch of new shit that you

54:24

know is gonna describe what you're doing. You

54:26

know, let's just take you to the next

54:28

level to what you're doing. But

54:31

look, I don't want to sound like a source

54:33

or a magic man over here either. Oftentimes

54:36

when you sound like you have so much

54:38

conviction and you know that you're building something

54:40

special, it's because you know what it's like

54:42

to do the exact opposite. And I suffered.

54:44

So I'll tell you my kryptonite, I

54:47

had the shiny squirrel syndrome. Squirrel.

54:50

You know, especially when you're in a space of passion. And I'm

54:52

like, chase that, chase that, chase that, chase that. And

54:54

it wasn't just the money. It wasn't about that.

54:56

But I just, I suffer from saying yes

54:59

to too many things because I just wanna

55:01

serve, I wanna contribute, I wanna drive impact.

55:04

But then the problem is it became my

55:06

kryptonite because now that I've overcommitted myself, I

55:08

run out of time and I'm actually, I've

55:10

got a poor yield on my impact because

55:14

I'm probably spending time in 10 things out of 15 things.

55:16

And those 10 I should have never been involved with.

55:19

But I said yes, for whatever reason, I said yes

55:21

to, I didn't wanna let somebody down.

55:23

I wanted to help, I wanted to support, I wanted

55:26

to encourage. And diluted focus

55:28

leads to diluted results. We

55:30

all know that. And so that's, our

55:32

kryptonites are not that different, but now I

55:34

made myself a promise ever since I read

55:37

Essentialism by Greg McKeown. Couple of years ago,

55:39

that book changed my life. It got me

55:41

to stop chasing shiny squirrels. And

55:43

I now have a rule. Of course,

55:45

if it's not essential, don't do it. That

55:47

sounds simple. But at the end of the

55:49

day, I promised myself that I could only

55:51

have one. And if I'm obsessed, I can

55:53

have a max of two big rocks in

55:55

any given year. And I now

55:58

have had the same two rocks for multiple.

56:00

years and I don't plan on changing these

56:02

two rocks anytime soon. I am

56:04

a keynote speaker and I am building the

56:06

wind Monday community. If it falls out of

56:08

bounds with those two big rocks, I

56:11

just say no. I just say no. I

56:14

started doing the same thing. I have not been on a

56:16

stage in the last time I was on stage was probably

56:19

clever summit, probably almost two years ago, because I

56:21

started saying no to everything because I'm like, okay,

56:23

I want to get this book done. I want

56:25

to finish my book. I want to get it

56:28

out. It is now with the beta readers. However,

56:30

there's 20 random people. I don't know reading my

56:32

book. Gonna

56:34

give notes to her editor, which is going to let me know where

56:36

it's at. And, uh, and yeah, I

56:38

wanted to get that done. And then when that's

56:40

done, it's going to be full fledged back. Everything

56:42

else. I've really just been doing my, my own

56:45

podcast. I haven't been on any way else's podcast.

56:47

I've been doing great stuff. So by saying no,

56:49

like I'll give you another example, I'll

56:51

give you another great example. So a buddy of

56:53

mine just by focusing, right? A

56:55

friend of mine asked me because, you know, I've

56:57

been running, we run a very large brokerage

56:59

here. We also have vertically integrated completely with title mortgage

57:02

and everything else. So for the last three years, I've

57:04

really just been building those companies. I haven't done any

57:06

personal real estate forever. I've got a team of 14

57:09

agents that were directly for me that handle all

57:11

my business that I've gotten over the last 17

57:13

years, they handle everything for me, but personally not

57:16

doing a lot of business. So my buddy was

57:18

like, well, now that houses are selling for 25

57:20

million bucks in Vegas, which

57:22

is still astounding to me. He said, how long

57:24

would it take you to spin up a, um,

57:26

a luxury brand again? I said, dude, I could

57:28

spin up in 90 days. Easy. I could just

57:31

rebrand everything, but back up, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Good.

57:33

So he's like, all right, I'll bet you 10 grand. I'm

57:35

like, all right, fine. Let's do it. So I started doing

57:37

it and spinning it up and it's not hard and it's

57:39

something that'll be an asset that I can sell at some

57:41

point when I don't want to do it. But

57:44

the, here's the, here's the rub, right? So I go on

57:47

social media and I'm like, I'm going to do this 90

57:49

days of luxury thing. Right. And I'm still kind of doing

57:51

it. And I started going on every day and sharing the journey of,

57:53

okay, this is what I did today and this is what I did. And

57:55

this is what I'm doing. This and this and this and this and this.

57:58

And I found. that the

58:00

posting became so

58:02

distracting. And I

58:05

was like, I've got to stop. I got to

58:07

stop worrying about posting this shit and just head

58:09

down a, do it. Do

58:11

it. Yeah. And so now like I'm probably

58:13

75 days and I haven't posted in probably

58:15

12 days, but I got more done. I

58:17

think in the last 12 days and in

58:20

the first 60, cause I wasn't worried about,

58:22

well, how am I going to do this today? That's

58:24

going to craft into a social media post, which is

58:26

bullshitting anyway. Yeah. I

58:29

mean, a lot of people follow me because I don't are watching

58:31

those posts, but dude, that squirrel

58:33

took me away from what I was trying

58:35

to get done. Oh dude. I, my team

58:37

does all, if, if it's not my

58:39

family, my team runs my social because the

58:42

thought process of posting the thought process of

58:44

what to post, what's my agenda, what's my

58:46

day. It was exhausting dude. And it, and

58:49

also like, I'm just going to be real.

58:51

It never was my happy place. It

58:53

was a check box thing. And so if it's that,

58:56

that's not even good energy that I'm putting out there.

58:58

So the content is great and it helps a lot

59:00

of people, but I had to tell my team, please

59:02

take this off my plate. If I'm going to post

59:04

about my kids or my fam, like all good, let

59:07

me do it. But all this stuff, lock

59:09

me in a lab, let's film content. And now

59:11

for the next 60 days, you're set. Like I

59:14

totally backed off of it about a year

59:16

ago and it's changed my, it's changed your

59:18

trajectory of my business, frankly, and my energy,

59:20

my energy too. Your energy, dude, I talk

59:22

about in my book that people, people

59:25

spend so little thought to the diet that

59:27

they feed their head. Like they think like,

59:29

good, blah, blah, blah. And essentially most of

59:31

the shit you're looking at on social media

59:33

is like eating Doritos and drinking, no Coke

59:35

all day is essentially what you're doing, but

59:37

to your brain. And yeah,

59:39

I found, if I found like, just say,

59:41

do one thing, just audit how you

59:44

feel after you look at 10 minutes of

59:46

social media, like what did my, yeah,

59:48

yeah. Happier. And I said, and

59:50

I don't know very many people that can

59:52

answer that question honestly and say, I feel

59:54

better than I did 10 minutes ago. You

59:56

don't know. No, terrible. All

1:00:00

right, man. Well, dude, so if they want to

1:00:03

find you, how do they find you? You said

1:00:05

you said the when Monday dot when was your

1:00:07

site there? Yeah, when Monday dot when gets into

1:00:09

Monday. Momentum. Now that we've crucified socials, how do

1:00:11

they find us? Well,

1:00:14

look, yeah, I'm not I'm not even going

1:00:16

to say follow on social. If you choose

1:00:18

LinkedIn and Instagram, all good. But look, when

1:00:20

Monday dot when gets you into Monday momentum.

1:00:22

And if you're somebody that leads a team,

1:00:24

a culture, an organization where bringing in a

1:00:26

speaker to fire up the troops is up

1:00:28

your alley. Paul Epstein speaks dot com. That's

1:00:31

the home and the hub for all things

1:00:33

speaking books. You name it. I'm not hard

1:00:35

to find even on social media, believe it

1:00:37

or not. So it's all good. I

1:00:40

love I love it. Well, dude, thanks so much for joining us,

1:00:42

man. It was a cool talk. I hope you

1:00:44

guys got as much out of this as I did today. It

1:00:46

was really good. And remember, man, if you're somebody that's out there

1:00:48

that feels like you're drifting along with the currents of life, you

1:00:52

got to stand up and you got to start swimming together

1:00:54

to something because nobody's coming to save you. Not even Paul.

1:00:57

See you next week. What's

1:01:02

up, everybody? Thanks for joining us for another episode of

1:01:04

Escaping the Drift. Hope you got a bunch out of

1:01:06

it, or at least as much as I did out

1:01:09

of it. Anyway, if you want to

1:01:11

learn more about the show, you can always go over

1:01:13

to escaping the drift dot com. You can join our

1:01:15

mailing list. But do me a favor. If you wouldn't

1:01:17

mind, throw up that five star review. Give us a

1:01:19

share. Do something, man. We're here for you. Hopefully

1:01:22

you'll be here for us. But anyway, in the meantime,

1:01:24

we will see you at the next episode. Bye.