 I derive so much satisfaction and so much fulfillment out of just making that progress. So adding two and a half pound plates to the barbell doesn't sound like a lot to most people, but that's absolutely massive progress if you're able to do that consistently over time. And as you said, the compounding effect of making small 1% incremental improvements day by day, week by week, month by month add up to massive, massive results. We just have to have the patience and the trust in the process that it will eventually come to fruition. Welcome to another episode of The Shredder Show. Truly, truly excited today to have an absolutely amazing guest whose book I started reading and I got very kindly introduced to. So it's Mr. Alastine Jr. So firstly, I read his book Raise Your Game, which was phenomenal and one of the best books I think I've read in a very long time. And he very kindly and then sent me his second book, Sustain Your Game, which is even good if not better. So thank you very much for your time, Alan, and coming on to the podcast. Oh my gosh, it's my pleasure. I've been looking forward to this since we put it on the calendar. So I'm looking forward to a fun conversation. 100%. So the big thing obviously you're into is high performance secrets, having to work with some phenomenal athletes and phenomenal people around the world. What does high performance mean to you? High performance means doing the best you're capable of as consistently as possible. I used to look at it through the lens, a comparative lens of am I outperforming competition or am I outperforming someone else? And I've slowly matured to a more intrinsic definition, which is am I doing the best I'm capable of with the tools I have as consistently as possible, which means all of us are capable of high performance. 100%. Now, you saying that what I really love is what you're capable of as the individual person, not comparing yourself to others. Now, to go into a bit of your background, you worked with some of the best athletes in the world. If you don't mind in terms of what you've done previously and what you've done up to this date, just to share for anyone who hasn't heard of you before. So I've spent most of my life around the game of elite level basketball. And for the first third of my life, I was a very dedicated basketball player, played all the way up through the university level here in the States. But then it was obvious to me, I didn't have what it took to play the game professionally. So I made a very distinct pivot into becoming a basketball performance coach in high school and in colleges. I was learning how to train myself and improve my strength and athleticism and conditioning. I really fell in love with the performance side of the game. So I figured when I graduated college, what could be better than combining my original love of basketball with this newfound love of strength conditioning, fitness and performance. So I became a basketball performance coach. I chose to specialize primarily at the youth in high school level, because that was an age that I felt I could have a really profound impact on their lives, not just on their games, but to be a role model to them off the court as well. But I was able to work at two high schools here in the Washington DC area that have produced a dozen players that are currently in the NBA, the most notable of which is Kevin Durant. And having had a chance to work with such elite level high school players, I got opportunities with Nike basketball, with Jordan Brand and with USA basketball to work some events for them. And that's what allowed me to observe and work and, you know, learn from guys like Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and Stephen Curry and Steve Nash. So I've had a very unique journey through the basketball world that I've been able to see both sides of the coin, what it takes to actually climb that proverbial mountain and become elite at your craft, but then also what it takes to sustain a high level of excellence and have a high level of fulfillment at the same time. And five years ago, I decided to take all of those lessons and strategies and principles that I'd learned through basketball. And I made the very distinct pivot to become a corporate keynote speaker and author. And that's what I do at present is I share all of these things that I've learned through the game and through these high level players. And I teach people how to apply them to their lives and to their businesses. I'm saying one of the things I love within the book is how you break down the player coach team concept in a different way that sort of explained. I don't know if you want to quickly summarize maybe each one of those just for anyone listening. So I think it's a fascinating way to really think about the process of high performance. So since I've spent most of my life in the game of basketball, that's the terminology that I tend to use and I'm most comfortable with. But I want to make sure that folks understand, whether we're talking about the book specifically or just some of these principles at large, that they're not relegated to just the sports world or to just basketball, that these types of principles and strategies, they have no boundaries and that's why they can be applied to different areas of life. So when I say the word player and I'm saying that in air quotes, I'm talking about an individual. Now whether that individual is an employee of a company, whether they're an entrepreneur or whether they're just a mother or a father, but I'm looking at the characteristics of them being an individual navigating the world. When I use the word coach again in air quotes, I'm talking about someone that's in a leadership position, someone that has the authority to help impact and influence other people's behaviors, hopefully in a very positive way to lead them to becoming the best versions of themselves. So even though I say coach, this again could be a parent, this could be a manager or a director or a supervisor, could be an executive, could be a pastor, could be anyone that has influence over others. And then when I say team, again in air quotes, I'm talking about anyone that has made the choice to be a part of something bigger than themselves, could be a traditional basketball team, could be your nuclear family, could be the organization or the business that you work for, could be your community and your neighborhood. But those are kind of the labels that I gave them and it's been my experience that everybody, regardless of industry, regardless of age, is always toggling in and out of all three of those. On some level, we're always navigating the world as an individual. We are also navigating the world as a part of something bigger. But even if you don't believe that you have the authority over others, you get to choose whether or not you are a leader and choose whether or not you can help positively impact other people's behaviors. So on some level, every single one of us is also a coach. 100%. With some of the gentlemen you mentioned previously in terms of like elite level athletes who are some of the best in the world in terms of basketball, what would you say some of the common characteristics that you see that maybe they all have? Is there something in common that every single one of them has that you see is just every single one of them has these three things? And that's what really pushes them to have such high standards for themselves? Absolutely. And the fun part has been that those three things, the three things I'm about to share aren't even just relegated to those in the sports world. Now that I've been in the business world for the last five years, I've noticed that the highest performers in business have these exact same three traits. The first of those is they never get bored with the basics. They embrace the fundamentals. They understand that the fundamentals are the foundation to which everything else is built. And they make a commitment to working towards mastery of those fundamentals during the unseen hours. So that's number one. Number two is they are open to feedback and they're open to being coached, which means they have to have high humility. However, they blend this humility brilliantly with a very high level of earned confidence. Every high performer that I've ever met does a masterful job of blending confidence with humility. They've earned the right to be confident because they've put in the work and they've gotten in the reps during the unseen hours, but they blend that with the humility that keeps them open to being coached, to continuing to improve, and to be open to appropriate feedback. And the third is they've learned to not put all of their focus into the outcomes and external results and measurements. They've learned to become very process oriented. Now they may set goals and they use goals as kind of the directive North Star, but they're much more focused on the process. So a basketball player of Kobe's caliber or LeBron's caliber doesn't spend every second thinking about winning a championship, even though that is the ultimate goal. Instead, they put their focus on what can I do today to improve my craft and help improve my teammates' abilities so that we can work towards that. And when you're very process oriented, you learn to love the work, you learn to love the steps, you focus on the micro skills and the daily behaviors that will inch you closer to reaching that goal. And if you can blend those three things together, which every single one of us is fully capable of doing, you'll see your performance skyrocket immediately. It reminds me of one of my favorite sayings, I don't know if I read it in your book, if I have just robbed this, but focusing on the process, not the prize, like is something I think in my head all the time when you fall in love with the process, then it's inevitable to get to the result. Yeah, absolutely. And think about apropos that is just to the fitness world in general. If you're trying to get your body to look a certain way, it's wonderful to have that vision, it's wonderful to have that clarity on where you're trying to go. But ultimately, you got to figure out what you're going to do every single day as far as your nutrition, as far as your workouts, and that's where you need to put your focus. So when you can focus on the process, then the prize, as you just so brilliantly said, just becomes a natural byproduct of that. It's not something that you again, have to obsess over every second of every day. Because if you do the process consistently, and you work on the process consistently, then you'll start to reach those outcomes more successfully and more consistently. One of the things you initially mentioned there was my favorite words, something I tried to get myself to focus on focusing on more is focusing. So like one of my favorite sayings, I heard an event, Bedros Krillian said it was a singularity of focus. Is that a common trend you see within the highest performers that they can literally like become blinkered and just turn off all the white noise? And have you got any tips or recommendations for anyone out there who finds that they maybe get like red shiny object syndrome in life that they get extracted by everything, if that makes sense. Oh, it absolutely makes sense. And it's something that I know in the past, I've fallen victim to on numerous occasions. And for me, I don't worry so much about singular focus as I worry about the skill set of being able to quickly refocus when I know that my mind is wandering or I'm distracted or I'm not in the present moment. In today's day and age, where all of us are consistently bombarded with so much white noise and so many distractions, particularly by those devices that we tend to be tethered to, I don't even know that it's realistic to have long periods of sustained uninterrupted focus. But what each and every one of us can develop is the skill set to be aware of when we're not focused and quickly dial that in. And yes, there are a few things that we can do to do that. And first, in order for us to refocus, we have to have an awareness of when we're not focused. And awareness is always the first step to improvement in any area of our life, because you'll never fix something you're oblivious to, and you'll never improve something that you're unaware of. So if you want to heighten focus, the first thing you have to do is recognize when you're unfocused. And as obvious as that may sound, I mean, think of how many times you can go down a rabbit hole on YouTube and spend 45 minutes watching video after video, and you're not even consciously aware of the fact that you're not present at what it is that you most likely should be working on or should be focused on it at that moment. One of the tools that I use is the acronym WIN, W-I-N, and that stands for What's Important Now. Several times throughout my day, I constantly check in with myself, I recalibrate and I refocus my lens on what's important now. In any given moment of any given day, we should all be able to ask ourselves, what is the thing that deserves my attention in this moment right now? And then make sure we're very conscious about placing our attention at whatever is most deserving. If you're out to lunch with a friend, they deserve your full attention at that lunch. If your head's down working on a project or designing some type of program, then that's what deserves your full attention. And that's how we can take a step towards blocking out all of the things that would try and rob us of that. Ultimately, what we're talking about when we're talking about being focused is learning how to be in the present moment, trying not to get distracted by things that happened in the past and trying not to get anxious or worried about things that may or may not happen in the future, but just being in the moment. Because if you want to win the moment, you have to be in the moment. Something I find, I'm big into, like I'm big systems guys, trying to find systems to solve problems. So two of the things I find very helpful in terms of focus. One is using, you mentioned YouTube, like a YouTube blocking software, so your fee doesn't show up on your computer. Same thing for Facebook. Having all the crap off your desktops, you can't see that. And then I think everyone admits to this, they find times when they're supposed to be working and they're just sort of digging around and they're not really doing anything. So I have in front of me four sticky notes on my computer screen of like month goals, business, month goals, personal, six month goals, year goals. And then I can realign to like, okay, these are the four things I need to do this week to move the needle with everything I'm doing. So like, if I find them idle doing something I shouldn't be doing, I can quickly like recalibrate and that's bang in front of me like right now, for example. Oh, I love that you and I are very aligned in that approach. I'm a huge systems and processes guy. Because I don't want to have to use willpower to kind of grit my way through the world and through life. So I do try and put systems in place very similar to what you've just done. And yeah, the nice part is there are all sorts of, you know, softwares and things that we can use to help us with that process. But we can also go very old school style, you know, just turn the notifications on your phone off. If you're going to go have lunch with somebody, leave your phone in the car. If you're going to be on somebody's podcast, and your goal is to add value to their listeners, turn your phone off and leave it in the other room so that you're not going to hear any beeps or pings or anything like that. So there are systems that we can have in place. And, you know, I mean, in the fitness world, you know, if you don't have a pantry and refrigerator full of junk food, you are less likely to eat junk food. So that's a system and a process that can help in just closer to where we're trying to go and what it is that we're trying to do. I know for me a couple of years ago, I came to the admission and had the awareness that social media was monopolizing way too much of my time and attention. And I wanted to take some of that back. So I removed all social media off of my phone and I only have it on my laptop and I only check it a couple of times a day. Now I very much believe in social media. I think it's a great way to share. It's a great way to learn. It's a great way to connect. But I wanted to put some guidelines and some parameters in place so that I wasn't being consumed by it hours and hours and hours every single day. So now I've kind of taken the keys to the car back and I'm in control. And I'm not saying that that's something everyone needs to do. That's just something that I found helped me get a little bit closer to having more control over blocking out those distractions. So that's interesting, but would you identify with that as self-awareness? And I think that is, in my opinion, one of the biggest things that's not an older person. Respectfully, people lack in society now self-awareness of like being critical of themselves. Do you have any advice or like tips for anyone on that in terms of maybe how to try and become more self-aware or self-critical to identify where maybe they have got an issue with they're aimlessly scrolling Instagram Facebook or buying random crap on Amazon they shouldn't be buying? Well, as counterintuitive as it may sound, one of the most effective ways to heighten self-awareness is to actually ask the people closest to you and the people that know you the best because ultimately what we're looking for in self-awareness is having an accurate evaluation of how we see ourselves and if that matches the way the rest of the world sees us. So this is not about pandering for someone's approval or affection. This is about looking at everything through a neutral lens and seeing if the way you view yourself is the way others view you. So a perfect example would be and this is actually an area that I've really tried to improve in my life over the last several years is to become a better listener. I believe that being an improved active listener is the key to deepening relationships, is the key to strengthening so many different interpersonal parts of our life but I came to the conclusion that I was not a great listener. I wasn't actively listening. I was usually just waiting for my turn to talk and that was creating an erosion in some of my most important relationships but here's how we use this as an example. You know I would need to ask myself do I consider myself a good listener and then however I evaluate myself I want to ask those that know me the best, my inner circle if you will, how they would rate me as a listener and then the key is to see how much alignment we can create. You know if I think that I'm a world-class listener but you and I have been you know best mates for the last 10 years and I ask you and you say well Alan actually I think that's an area that you could really improve well that would mean I'm lacking self-awareness that the way I see myself is very different than the way others perceive me. In fact I would have a much higher sense of self-awareness if I said you know what I'm not a very good listener it's something I need to improve and then ask you and you said yeah I agree you're not a great listener that's something you need to improve that would mean I have very high self-awareness. I'm aware of the fact that I'm not a great listener and that is as I said earlier awareness is always the first step now that I've identified the fact that I'm not a great listener I can take steps to improve that I can create some systems and processes to help with that ability but it's now a skill set that I can really focus on and measure and mark improvement moving forward so one of the best things someone can do is do a personal inventory audit if you will ask yourself and you have to be able to answer with some honesty and some vulnerability and some courage how you would rate in certain areas of your life and then ask your inner circle if they would care enough and be kind enough to rate you on those those same traits and then you can just see how much alignment you have. I'll be interested would you say you're a good listener. Say that one more time. I'll be interested would you say you're a good listener. Yeah I was just kidding you know the the listening thing is something that I've really tried to focus on and improve and I think that it's it's moving in the right direction I would not qualify myself as a world-class listener at present but it's better than it was and that's actually a really important theme for everything that we're talking about is I never want someone to get stifled by perfection but instead be motivated by progress so I am far from a perfect listener and I'm far from a world-class listener but I'm a better listener than I was a year ago and a much better listener than I was five years ago so I'm moving in the right direction and that's where I want folks to derive inspiration from and optimism from is don't worry about where you are at the moment in any area of your life but be more focused on the direction at which you're headed and as long as we're all moving towards self-actualization and we're moving towards improvement and evolution and growth that's what's most important and there'll be times in our life where we make rapid progress immediately and then there's other times in our life where the progress is very slow and it's very incremental but as long as you're getting just a little bit better in these key areas each and every day that's what's most important and this is a thing I love and I all men need to know this if they're not currently happy like for me true fulfillment comes in progression in like that like one percent better every day like no matter what it is even if it's like I don't know you like golf and you can hit the ball five yards a lot further or you can lift an extra rep at the gym like those small little wins constantly in the way they stack up and compound over time I think that's what people don't understand is like how like the compounding effect works and how if you do that for like a period of time you do that for a month you get a six month you have five years how great you can suddenly be in like giving or listening an energy you might have been a bit of a shitty listener before but if you put a little bit effort every day in two years five years you can suddenly be a great listener which I think is what a lot of people don't understand absolutely and this this kind of piggyback to what we talked about earlier about loving the process see if we get too infatuated with and too attracted to the actual outcomes that can stifle our our motivation and our optimism because we're thinking okay you know for the last two weeks I've done a much better job of eating clean and working out but I don't really look any different well yeah because it's only been two weeks it's going to take a little bit more time for those things to come to fruition you know all right for the last two weeks I've really been focused on being a much more attentive listener but wait all of my relationships aren't magically perfect what's going on this isn't working so we have to combine the respect and trust of the process with patience and we have to as you said so perfectly again why I feel a lot of alignment with you I derive so much satisfaction and so much fulfillment out of just making that progress so so adding you know two and a half pound plates to the barbell doesn't sound like a lot to most people but that's absolutely massive progress if you're able to do that consistently over time and and as you said the compounding effect of making small one percent incremental improvements day by day week by week month by month add up to massive massive results we just have to have the patience and the trust in the process that it will eventually come to fruition in that instance so say for example looking to raise your game no pun intended about the book but your would do you have like a certain like tracking method or like goal setting thing that you recommend for people or people you work with like CEOs and staff have interest so goals are an interesting one I'm glad that you went in this direction because everyone has a different perspective and view on the importance of goals and I know I've actually made a massive shift where you know five ten years ago I was very very goal oriented and now less so you know I've got the clear vision of the man that I'm trying to become and and I just put more focus on the daily decisions and behavior so I'm so much more process oriented now that I don't obsess over goals the way that I used to now that's just simply an approach and a framework that works for me I'm not saying that that's right I'm not saying that that's best every single person watching or listening to this needs to figure out their relationship with goals and and with the process itself to figure out what will what will work best you know for me the framework I use and I choose to use kind of a longer tail on that kite if you will is I'm 46 years old and I've got a really clear vision of the man that I want to be 20 years from now I want the 66 year old Alan to be physically mentally and emotionally fit I want the 66 year old Alan to have a strong deep connection with his children his family and his friends I want the 66 year old Alan to be doing work he considers meaningful and in service of others so that's the person I want to be 20 years from now so now every single decision I make in my life from what I'm going to eat for breakfast to what I watch on Netflix I try to make sure that is an alignment with becoming that person so that's the daily filter I use every decision I make is this going to take me closer to becoming that guy or is it going to take me further away and as I said before I'm not looking to bat a thousand I'm not looking to be perfect but if most of the decisions I make in my life large and small are in alignment with becoming that person then that is who I'll become assuming I'm around 20 years from now and the beautiful part is with this framework I'm not postponing happiness I'm not postponing fulfillment and I'm not postponing becoming that guy because I'm making these decisions in real time in the present moment which means I'm reaping those benefits so I say this with a huge smile and tons of humility I am physically mentally and emotionally fit I do have a very deep connection with my children my family and my friends I am currently doing work that I consider meaningful and in service of others and I can say that right now in present time but that's because it's an alignment with the decisions that I make and the the litmus test I use is every night before I go to bed I ask myself I say look I just traded 24 hours of my life for the progress that I made today am I happy with that trade and if the answer is yes I made some pretty good decisions today then I get a very restful peaceful night's sleep on the rare occasion that my answer is no today was not my best day I had some lapses in judgment I made some poor decisions I did not show up as my best self I give myself permission to do that because I'm human and I'm fallible and I'm flawed but I own it and then I just go to bed knowing I get another crack at this tomorrow tomorrow I have a chance to make better decisions you know today maybe I skipped the workout and I didn't eat very clean that's okay I'm not going to criticize myself or judge myself or punish myself I'm going to allow myself to be human but tomorrow I'm going to get right back on it and I'm going to do a much better job and using that framework for me has actually allowed me to achieve more goals and bigger goals consistently because I'm not really focused on them instead I'm focused on my decision-making my daily behaviors and my mindset it's interesting because one of the ways I try and explain to people when they talk about fitness goals is again rather than saying about processes I try and say something like if you think in six months time you want to be walking down the beach with a six pack think about having the habits on a daily basis that person would have and then just do that and it's like that is literally the only way you have to think like would you eat the cheesecake at the cheesecake factory or would you have something else like when you start to think about the how those small decisions like we said earlier about the compounding effect of them that's literally all it is and that's literally just what you explained yeah so perfectly stated I mean these six pack walking on the beach becomes a natural byproduct of the decisions you make every single day so the the power is not really in the goal because everybody has goals I mean I would imagine almost every single guy listening or watching this right now would like to have a six pack walking down the beach so that doesn't make any of us unique by having that goal what can make us unique is having the discipline to make the decisions on a daily basis of the type of person that would have a six pack walking on the beach that's that's where the real effectiveness and power becomes and you know I'm sure you've read it but I don't know how many of your listeners have read James Clear's book Atomic Habits it's I mean he sold five million copies so there's a good chance most people have read it but but really James touches on all of these things you and I are talking about to a much deeper level is is you know work to become the type of person that that's your identity you know that that having a six pack walking down the beach is just a byproduct of someone that makes healthy decisions very consistently that's probably one of the best books I've ever read and I read it I almost you know a book's good when you can remember where you are when you read it and I recommend this to everyone so it's very very good coming into a slightly different topic almost of the same as your book Sustain Your Game when it comes to sustain your game and focusing on longevity of not getting yourself burnt out what do you think are some of the maybe signals that you're starting to get a bit afraid of the edges if that makes sense and then do you have a way that you try and work with people to try and pull them back from the fire a bit if that makes sense oh it absolutely does well I look at I look at this in three different kind of timelines I look at stress in the moment which is something we all face on a day to day basis I look at stagnation kind of that mental cruise control that that we have a tendency as human beings to click on kind of in the midterm and then I look at the accumulation of stress and stagnation is something that can lead to burnout which which can happen over the long term so we can address each of those but for me it starts with the ability to manage stress in the moment and there are all sorts of stressors in the world and some of these are actually positive like if you are trying to change your physique you actually need to impose stress on your body especially your muscular system when you're in the weight room like that is a good type of stress but generally speaking there are a variety of stressors in our life but but the the profound shift and impact I had was when I heard modern-day philosopher Eckhart Tolle say that stress is our desire for things to be different than they are in the present moment and and this was one of a handful of kind of epiphany moments that I've had in my life that that after I heard that it resonated so strongly with me that I kind of reframed the way that I was looking at the world and the reason that to me that definition resonates and is so profound is because it means that our stress as individuals is not caused by the outer world it's not caused by circumstances and events and what people say and what people do our stress is caused by our resistance to those things and if we're willing to let go of the resistance if on some level we can have some surrender and some acceptance of what's going on it drastically reduces our stress and I I found that so powerful because that means I'm no longer a victim to what's going on in the world I'm in complete control and I can lower my stress by choosing not to resist what is you know we get stressed out when we fight against reality and that is a fight we will lose a hundred percent of the time now a very important I guess disclaimer to make is that I'm not implying by any means that a lot of what happens in the world is to our liking and that a lot of things that happen are our preference I'm not saying that I'm saying that that our resisting what is is what's causing the stress we only punish ourselves by fighting against reality so plenty of things happen on a daily basis that are not my preference and that I don't particularly like but I accept the fact that that's what's happening and instead of putting my energy into resisting those things I put my energy into having thoughtful intentional responses that can make my situation a little better that can lower my stress that they can move me forward and once I took the shift off of worrying so much about what's happening around me and instead put it into well how am I going to respond things immediately got better and my stress uh uh subsided and and what I say to myself and I say this with a smile several times a day it's not the universe's job to conspire to make me happy and make my life easy every moment of every day it's my job to adapt to whatever the world throws at me in order to move closer to fulfillment so I am human I still get stressed on occasion by things that are happening but now I have a higher awareness of it and when I find myself feeling stressed I just remind myself that I'm causing this because I'm fighting against what is that I on some level I feel like the world should be lining up with my preferences and the world should be trying to make me happy and it's simply not and and that reminder with a smile and a wink is what allows me to lower my stress I think uh and always important to remember is stress is your perception of situation and then the way I always try and think of things is that um it's uh an opportunity because whenever anything really bad happens there's always something you can learn out of it whether it's like a don't fuck up and do that again or b you can pivot and do something else which like say like for example a business that's had happened to me a few times with Instagram accounts getting disabled and all that sort of fun stuff so you learn very quickly and one of the best ways you develop as a person and as a business owner or whatever it might be is when you're backed up against the wall because it fucking forces your hand to like pull something out your back pocket out of nowhere and um I remember that when that happened to me for example in terms of our Instagram counting it to say which we get a lot of our revenue from one of our trainers said to his partner who was like uh are you worried about this and he's like now Charlie will pull something out of the bag and then we did and it was fine and then we got the account back but um it's always a lesson to learn I think being able to try and create a high stress stress tolerance is an important thing for people to develop as life goes on because shit's going to go wrong whether you want it to go wrong or not absolutely and I love that example and your ability to remain poised and calm even though I know that's not your preference obviously you would prefer not to have your Instagram account shut down or shut off but whether or not it's your preference is irrelevant if in fact your Instagram account gets shut down anytime you spend blaming complaining making excuses about it getting upset about it isn't going to turn it on any quicker so now you're actually wasting resources and wasting emotional energy and currency when you can take the approach that you took which is okay I'd prefer this didn't happen but it did what can we do about it you know what what is a pivot we can make what's something and and your ability to remain calm and poised amidst that type of chaos or adversity is what allows you to have a clearer mind and make better decisions moving forward and and sometimes things are simply out of our control I mean in that example on some level you are at the mercy of the Instagram gods and whether or not they choose to turn it back on but still if you get upset about it and blame complain and make excuses you're only punishing yourself that will not get your account turned on or reactivated any quicker and acknowledging this is just it just makes for a much more fluid way to move forward and and your ability to pull things out of your back pocket when your back is against the wall is directly related to your ability to stay calm in those moments where you can access all of these different resources getting flustered and getting frazzled and getting bent out of shape and getting upset does not improve your mental acuity or your your your processing power to make better decisions and I also want to make this disclaimer I know that I'm saying all of this in a very a matter of fact tone please don't think for one second that I'm saying this is easy that that for one second I'm implying that when you find out your Instagram account which is a major source of revenue gets shut off that your automatic default should be to smile and whistle and just skip down the hallway no it is really challenging to adopt this type of mindset and perspective but it is a huge separator and the rewards and benefits of having this type of mindset you know are incalculable so it's it's important to develop that and and with that being said I also never want to imply that I'm speaking from a place of mastery on any of this because I'm not you know I still am challenged by all of the same things that you and your listeners are challenged by but now I'm working in the right direction so yes there are still some things that I have triggers inside of me that when I hear or see something my initial default is to get stressed is to get upset but now instead of allowing that to ruin the rest of my day I catch it within a matter of seconds and I remind myself okay this thing happened it's not my preference I really wish it didn't happen but it did how am I going to deal with it how am I going to adapt to this new reality and that awareness like is moving me in that right direction but it's still a tough fight and it's still a daily challenge some days I do a really good job of it other days not as much but that's part of being human and I give myself that permission to be human some of the high performing athletes and people we've worked with have you seen any different ways they deal with prep but high pressure situations so like I know NBA players playing in really tough situations and like the biggest games and like last minute shots anything you you could share to maybe the listeners that maybe you've seen some of them do to try and handle those situations absolutely well on the front end they make preparation their separation they make sure that they have put in so much work during the unseen hours that they have earned the right to let's say take this big shot they've earned the right to be in this big moment and they believe in themselves they have a high level of confidence because they remind themselves you know hey I've hit this shot a million times in an empty gym when no one was watching I've earned the right to hit it now when everybody is watching so a good portion of it they can alleviate through proper preparation and extensive preparation the second thing they do when you tee this up perfectly with what you just said before is they view it as an opportunity they don't view it as the pressure of oh my gosh what if I miss they look at this as an opportunity that hey I work so hard on my craft and I've been working on my game for so long I am thankful to have the opportunity to take a game winning shot I'm thankful for the opportunity to play in a game seven to win a championship so they just kind of reframe it to say that that they're grateful you know they're grateful for the opportunity to be put in this position and then lastly they allow themselves to be human you know they don't hold themselves to a level of perfection they understand that part of playing the game of in this case basketball means you don't make every shot you know I mean Steph and Curry will go down in history as the greatest shooter the game has ever seen and Steph and Curry misses six out of every ten three pointers he takes you know I mean he makes four out of ten which is why he's the best shooter in the world but he misses six out of ten so they understand that that there's a responsibility that comes with this and that I've put in the work I'm thankful for this opportunity and I'm going to do the best I can to hit this shot but if it doesn't go in that's okay I'm I have the strength in the grit and the resilience to be able to persevere and to move forward after this and while it's certainly my preference that I hit it that would feel a lot better um but they learned to take some of the the air out of the ball if you will and don't make the the pressure any higher than it needs to be you know they they smile and say I'm playing a game that I love I have an opportunity to do something really special I've put in the work to deserve it now I just need to be present and execute to the best of my ability and if things go well we'll celebrate if things don't go well I'll learn a lesson from it and I'll still be able to move forward who's the most impressive person you've ever met wow that's a beautiful question and I I don't know that I could answer it in a singular fashion you know I'm the proud father of sporting from an athletic point of view and the other can be like business politician whatever okay um still a really tough challenging question which which I'm not opposed to I was laughing because you know I have three children and it's kind of like if you ask me which of my three children do I love the most you know a father's answer is it's a three-way tie um I will say so I got to spend extensive time with Kevin Durant because I met him when he was 15 years old so you know I've known Kevin for well over a decade and I've gotten to know him on and off the court for an extensive period of time and he is an incredibly impressive person I did not get to spend near as much time with Kobe Bryant you know only met him on a couple of occasions but had some good conversations with him and he made a really profound impact so those are two guys that jumped to mind immediately in athletics one that I spent a lot of time with one that I didn't but both who I found very impressive just in their approach and in their their mindsets um what I will say is when I look at qualities of things that impress me a lot of it has to do with consistency and longevity you know when I can look at someone that's been performing at a high level for a long period of time I mean you've got LeBron James approaching two decades of being at the top of the NBA you've got Tom Brady who's been at the top of the NFL for two decades you have somebody like Warren Buffett you have somebody like Jeff Bezos you know uh Jay-Z you know there's there's a list of people that have constantly and consistently reinvented themselves and found ways to still stay relevant and stay at top of their craft even though the world has changed considerably in the last several decades you know I mean I look at somebody like like Dr. Dre in the hip hop community I mean I'm 46 years old so when NWA first came out on a cassette tape I was in eighth grade it was 1988 and here fast forward three decades Dr. Dre is still just as relevant in the space as he was 30 years ago and that is really really hard to do and you know of the traits that I try to emulate and aspire to have longevity is is one of them you know I don't know that I'll still be a keynote speaker and an author 30 years from now but I certainly hope I'm making a contribution to the world and I hope that I'm you know being of service to others and I'm hoping that I'm relevant 30 years from now in what form that'll take I don't know but that that takes constant work so I know I didn't really specifically answer your question but hopefully that that kind of generalization of the things that impressed me the most you know another another area that I I love to study and enjoy is stand-up comedy and when I look at a stand-up comedian that has been funny for you know two plus decades and is still you know they're they're putting out Netflix specials when they started this craft 20 or 30 years ago is is really really impressive to me I think one of the you don't have to worry about you having an impact forever because your books are very phenomenal so I think that's gonna stand the test of time and on that note would you have any other you've got any other books you've got planned to write or are there any other books you would also recommend I am working on a third book at present it's in infancy where I've just started to kind of put some of the framework together still trying to decide if it'll complete the trilogy and be kind of a third extension of raise your game and sustain your game or if I'll go in another direction yeah who know yeah that's a that's a great suggestion actually you know for me what's most important is that I don't confine myself and put myself on any type of rigorous timeline I only want to put out a book if I feel I have something worthy to say and something new to say I don't want to keep regurgitating what I've put in previous books so you know whether that happens every two years or every 10 years I don't know but I want to make sure that I'm constantly learning and growing and in my opinion if I'm constantly learning and growing then about every two to three years I would hope I've accumulated enough to put something new out into the world so it's a little bit of both I don't handcuff myself to that timeline because I don't want to put something out just for the sake of putting it out but I do believe if I am growing and learning and connecting with people like you where it's filling my bucket with new ideas that that every two to three years I should hopefully have something out 100% do you have any other books you'd recommend for any listeners I know you mentioned atomic habits are you a big reader yeah atomic habits is phenomenal two others that pop into mind that that might be a little bit different than some other recommendations your guests may have had one is called exactly what to say by my friend Phil M. Jones and it's it's more of a short guide than it is an actual book but it just talks about the importance and power of language and word choice and then when you can learn to change your words you can change your world and that's his tagline not not my invention so exactly what to say is a great book another one that I've read several times is called the coaching habit by my friend Michael Bunga Stainer and it's a great book even if you don't consider yourself a coach again if you were just in a position where you want to positively impact other people in your world whether you're a parent whether you're a leader in your community or at your church whether you actually have a leadership position at your business or you're an entrepreneur is a fantastic book and it really deals with a series of questions that if you ask these questions of other people it will help them kind of mine for gold and work towards being their best selves and then one last one this is an oldie but a goodie but it was a very transformational book for me it is leading with the heart by coach K the the recently retired head basketball coach at Duke wrote that book boy it's got to be 20 years old now but but it for me really became the foundation of the way that I viewed leadership the way I viewed building cultures and teams so there's yeah there's a handful of books that that hopefully your your listeners find value in or someone will be ordering all three of those and how can people find out more about you and where can they find out some more information about you they can go to alansteinjr.com that's my main site I also have a supplemental site stronger team.com I do a little bit of one-on-one coaching I've got a podcast as we mentioned the books and I have an online course you can find that at strongerteam.com you can find either book raise your game or sustain your game on amazon or audible wherever you get your books and audiobooks and then I'm very responsive and very accessible on social media and I'm at alansteinjr on instagram twitter facebook linkedin if anybody's got a question if anyone wants to share something or just connect drop me a dm on instagram or linkedin I'm very good about getting back to people I'm certain I would also recommend an easy hack for anyone who does listen to the books as I like to or read the book I like to listen and then read at the same time put like 2x speed so you can read faster you take it twice as much information so that's a very easy hack for anyone who's listening in so really really appreciate your time say alan thank you so much and you're a super busy guy I took person a huge amount of value and inspiration from this podcast and also from the books as well so you're having a massive impact so big thank you for that. Oh my pleasure this was a lot of fun you do a terrific job and I really appreciate your support awesome thank you