 You can be demanding without being demeaning like just because you come in late doesn't mean I'm gonna MF you up and you know up and down it just means that you came in late we all agreed that we'd be on time that's not cool you showing up late is taking lunch off of my plate and I'm not gonna let you do that because I care about the team and I care about you and when you can create collective accountability where everybody's willing to do that with each other you've got something incredibly special. Brad Lee back again with another episode of drop in bombs today in the studio I've got a dude of all dudes used to freaking coach basketball took a few teams from zero to hero and now he's blessing us with his presence Alan Stein jr. Welcome to the show. Thanks brother. A-steezy ready to drop some beezies. Well that is freaking exciting only because the bombs haven't been flowing lately. Oh they haven't. No let's change that. The button's been broken has it. Yep but it's working now so as you know if you listen to the podcast at all I do then I am the bomb dropper I am however going to get guests a bomb they can yeah I was gonna say I'm looking around at my desk I don't see anything I can press here so I'm gonna trust you. Everybody keeps requesting it and I'm like okay okay I'll get a bomb you can drop it might sound more like a fart but you know I'm definitely going to give you guys a bomb you can drop. I love it. So Alan you were a coach of what give me a little history some of the bomb squad listeners may or may not have heard of you but I want to give the benefit of the doubt to all the people that have not and I want to and I don't want to butcher your story tell me about your background. You know I'm under the impression most of them haven't heard and I love that I like swimming upstream and going uphill so yeah I was actually a basketball performance coach so I handled the strength and conditioning the fitness and the athleticism the players I worked with and I specialized mostly at the youth and high school level okay but I come from Washington DC and that's one of the probably top three or four areas for youth and high school basketball in the whole country. Why is that you think? You know I don't know there's something in the water but we've produced some really really exceptional players over the last 15 20 years. There are a lot of tall kids there. There are a lot of tall kids well there's a lot of tall kids everywhere but I think the DC metro area for whatever reason there's also some really good coaching in that area. Yeah but you know it's crazy about DC there's no tall buildings. No that's very true. Why is that? I have no idea because people would probably try and drop bombs and knock them down. Oh be my guest with the government there. Yeah it's interesting. They don't want to be an easy target. Yeah when I went there I'm like dude why are there no tall buildings here they're all little. That's why the Washington Monument sticks out and it's not even that big. Interesting all right so you're from the DC area there's a lot of talent around there and you produce talent. How long since you've stopped doing this? So two years ago I made the leap over to the corporate side but for almost 20 years I was working at the high school level. There's two schools there in particular Montrose Christian which is where Kevin Durant graduated from and then did you know him? I did yeah he was he was one of my players. Wow and then Demathec Catholic High School which has been good for the last 50 years and we've had a few NBA all-star level players from there as well and that's what kind of led me to get some gigs with Nike and with Jordan Brand and with USA basketball so I got a chance to observe and watch the best of the best as well as work with many of the best players when they were back in high school. Wow any coincidence that they're that they're religious faith-based schools? You know no not that I know of you know it's interesting in the DC area it's a very private school heavy area when it comes to athletic talent that you know the public schools get diluted really quick because most of the players choose to go to private schools and it's been my experience most private schools are faith-based of some sort. Yeah and I was always you know where I was driving with that is like you know you have to sometimes invest in people and private schools have a little more money than public schools and it's just coincidence that you know private schools always have the best programs you notice that yeah like here my kids go to a school well they have another school that they have it's called Finley Prep. I'm very familiar with Finley. Dude every kid on that fucking team is like 10 feet tall I'm thinking where are they getting all these tall ass kids like it's impossible to find them all just happen to be in the right neighborhood yeah well at the end of the day I realized oh they go out and find and invest like they want all the basketball stars coming to that place yes very few of the Finley kids that play on the basketball team are and Finleys are tall oh yeah like the actual Finley family yeah they're all I think that's what attracted them to the game in the first place interesting but that team is pretty eclectic they bring in kids from all over the world to play when they lure them and they lure them with the private school like absolutely so so back in high school what's the you know hail buy your cars are any of that going on I'm sure there is you know it's what's interesting you know at a program like dematha where I was most recently you know we have such a high track record of kids going on and playing division one basketball and then going on to the NBA that you don't need to do anything to attract the top talent it attracts itself they want to come play at dematha you know demathas led by coach Mike Jones who's one of the finest coaches that I've ever been around at any level in any sport and kids want to come play for him because they know they'll leave four years later best prepared to you know fulfill their dreams of playing basketball at college and in the NBA so you know dematha doesn't have to recruit near as much as people are recruiting themselves to come yeah I like you know when I was a kid I was good at sports but no one really to coach and mentor me my my dad wasn't really one of those parents that did that but basketball was quick I don't like garden people and when I did play I was in junior high and I freaking stole the ball out of the hands of the opponent everyone started cheering I got so excited I ran down did a layup made the basket turned around and realized it was the wrong basket oh man and the whole school was right there watching remember remember in schools where the whole assemblies and shit absolutely the whole school was there watching did that ruin your street cred or did you have enough cred you were okay you could shoot at the wrong hoop and everybody still liked you nope right you're done I quit and I and again I quit like a dumb ass and I didn't have any coaching and mentoring to say bro don't quit come on man this this shit happens the coach didn't even do it wow but I wasn't really that good at basketball I mean I was no star at basketball um and I hated guarding people and you have to guard people yeah so that's that's half the game yeah and then wrestling I went out for wrestling until some dude smeared my face in his armpit and I'm like are you fucking kidding me and so I quit that and plus you had to wear those stupid leotard looking outfits absolutely and then I found baseball and football so those were my sports well it's good you tried some other things figure out what didn't work before you found what stuck yeah I did track too did pretty good at track but football and baseball was my thing never really got into basketball I don't watch basketball I don't I don't I'm not a basketball fanatic but gotcha a lot of people are what drew you to basketball you know it was my first identifiable passion I mean I remember being five or six years old and falling in love with the game and you know of course I'm 43 so I'm right in the prime time age of the the torch being passed from you know Larry Bird and Magic Johnson to Michael Jordan when I'm a child so you know and Jordan basically changed not only basketball but you know the culture of sport um so I think that probably drew some some into it but there was something about the game one of the things I always liked about basketball was it was something I could go out and practice by myself I didn't need anybody else all I needed was a ball and a hoop and I could get better but then you actually won by being a good teammate and by by being someone that was of service to others so I like that dynamic you know some of the other sports you know baseball and football depending on what position are hard to practice by yourself you need someone to throw you the ball at the very least or someone to block so there was something about basketball that that I liked that a certain amount of it was up to me to go out and make myself the best player I could be and then use that within the confines of the team yeah I like that so so obviously you did very well at these schools and now you're like listen I'm gonna jump to corporate world and teach people how to be teams teach people mindset of winning what made you want to do that I was just ready for a change you know after 20 years of serving uh youth and high school players and coaches I was just ready to do something different and not only that there isn't much money in that is there no there's not a lot of money into it no even even if even if you are at an elite private school that will step up and pay their coaches even more yeah but it's still not a lot no it's still not from a revenue driving standpoint so were you tired of being broke that was not the number one driver I mean I'm not going to say that money doesn't motivate me it certainly does and that factored into the equation but it wasn't the number one reason that I made the change you got tired of helping kids I was just ready to do something different you know part of it I love the way you say that it had to do with my own development you know as I'm sure you can appreciate if you spend all of your time around teenage boys they're not doing much to teach me about the world and about perspective now that that I'm doing what I'm doing and I'm finding myself rubbing elbows with people like yourself and people in the business world I'm learning just as much as I'm sharing yeah so even when I go speak I'm leaving with a whole bunch of knowledge bombs that I've learned from other people and that's something that really excites me so I'm finding that my own personal and professional development has been ramped up tenfold since I decided to make this switch and interesting and I've also learned you know a lot of these principles that I learned I almost started taking them for granted and I work with some some elite level companies now and I'm shocked at how much dysfunction they have that that they don't necessarily have clear roles on their team and that their meetings are chaos and that's a lot of stuff I just took for granted being around you know coaches that really understood you know how to create a a winning type culture so I'm thankful for an opportunity to be able to share these kind of nuggets with with those groups yeah when you say clear roles and meetings do you do you find that most companies are like that because I do like I talk to a lot of people and you know I always say clarity is gold in a world of chaos yes it is and meetings which is funny that you say that because I'm coming out with a product called killermeeting.com if you go to killermeeting.com you'll see it it's not up yet but it'll be up soon and killer meeting is literally a system that if you put on a lot of meetings this will have all type kinds of meetings quick easy good killer meetings that will show you how to facilitate a quick good killer meeting because most meetings I've noticed usually do the opposite when you said they don't have clear roles they have chaotic meetings what did you mean that's exactly what I meant I wish I could find a statistic on how much time is actually wasted in meetings I like statistics I know you do and and there's just too many meetings in general I mean some people hold meetings to plan the next meeting and it's like there has to be something more efficient that we could be doing and you know I pull a page out of my basketball playbook you know a coach at the beginning of a game is only given a finite number of timeouts and those timeouts are briefed by design they're 30 or 90 seconds so they don't have the luxury of calling a timeout whenever they want or holding a meeting with the team whenever they feel like it you only get a few of them so you have to use them wisely and you have to be briefed by design because that's how long the timeouts are and you best share something with your team that's going to put them back out on the court you know more apt to succeed and I think businesses should follow a similar model like hey don't pretend we can have meetings whenever we want there you go there you go far we go I don't know how far we are in but I was waiting for that thank you sir there you go well that's because I agree a whole heartedly too many companies are having too many meetings first of all second of all when you do have them they're long and they're freaking pointless and when you walk in you have an agenda but when you walk out it usually is the opposite of what you were trying to accomplish hence my new invention killer meeting exactly no I look I look forward to checking that out well I want people maybe you can help me get it out there absolutely because at the end of the day it's just a it's just a library of killer meetings right to where the individual at company a doesn't have to be a meeting planning expert right this will be a meeting in a box kind of thing exactly where I got some some interesting and and unique things about it which will make it popular but at the end of the day there's a lot of meeting companies out there making a fortune just planning meetings right but from a day to day it you know you those are few and far between you know you got to plan um you know that right how about just the daily meetings people are having well those are the ones that are the major time suck I mean imagine if I if I came into lightspeed and said you get three meetings this week or three meetings this month that's all you get Brad so you better figure out how and when you want to use those oh and by the way when you have them there's a 20 minute time limit on each and not only is there a 20 minute time limit there needs to be an invite list and the only people that are in the meetings are those that need to be there we don't need this big corral of people and half the people are sitting in the meeting going why am I here someone could give me a pdf with the bullet points from this meeting this is this is a colossal waste of my time so why would people be in the meeting what makes them necessary in a meeting you could do that to anybody well it would just depend I mean it would it would imagine the agenda of the meeting what's the purpose of this meeting and who needs to have direct input you know so if you and I were going to have a meeting about how to create killer meeting dot com then who else besides you and I would need to be a part of this meeting who else would would be able to add input to this and if we decide that it's just you and me then it's just going to be you and me meeting we don't need to have anybody else in the room but so many groups would have 20 people in this room even though you and I are the only ones that need to actually have any input and that's wasting 18 other people's time so our meetings generally best utilized by input because sometimes I'll call meetings to tell people things it's not input it's output and I want them all in one room so I can answer your questions and make sure that you guys understand what's cracking for sure is that a good reason for a meeting oh I think so yeah I mean it's and this isn't about me coming from a place of judgment of what's good and what's bad that's for you as the leader to decide well I'm telling you I'll judge the world and the world has mostly shitty meetings yes and too many of them and I've and too many of them and I've been in good ones where when you leave it's like you're fired up you're I mean they whoever did it hit the mark but usually those meetings that make you feel that way are like frickin structured they're like like some somebody went through a lot of time to think through it yes and like you don't have in a day to day world the time to think through a bunch of sales meetings then there's people having sales meetings just just because there's a box to check did you have a sales meeting today right so I'm trying to figure out especially because it sounds like you're the expert what why do you have a meeting what what's a good reason to have a meeting I have meetings like I want everyone to hear this directly so there's no you know diluted bullshit and then I'll go in there with thinking you know we're gonna be here five minutes I'm gonna go bing bing bing and then we find ourselves belaboring certain issues saying the same shit three different ways which is now confusing people you know intimidating people threatening people you know because now you get passionate and you guys better understand this because if this gets fucked up we got issues and now you just basically shat on the people in the meeting and the past tense and dude at the end of the day it's like dude you would have probably better off not having a meeting at all right well what you just but what you just said there you said I mean that was so insightful you should never hold a meeting if there's not a distinct purpose for holding the meeting if you can't you know say at least in a in a clear sentence or a couple of bullet points the reason that you're having the meeting and what is the outcome that you're looking for what do I want these people to be able to do differently when they leave this meeting if you can't answer that then you probably shouldn't have the meeting in the first place so there needs to be something that they completely understand this is the reason here's why we're going to the meeting this is what brad wants us to do here's why I'm actually invited to the meeting whether it's for me to hear something or for me to share something but I know crystal clear why I'm there and here's an agenda that and I know if we have an agenda and brad sticks to it he's unconsciously telling me that he respects my time because if he doesn't if you just bring people in and everybody's talking and it's a free for all then no one's being respectful of anybody else's time so now I'm coming into the meeting I know exactly what we're going to talk about I know the reason we're having it and I know what I'm going to need to be able to do differently when I leave this meeting and sometimes that'll take eight minutes sometimes it might take 90 but at least we know that every minute has been invested into something that's trying to get us where we're trying to go and that's that's where I see a lot of folks they're not doing that and that's why I like this this timeout comparison you know and and novice coaches will call timeout okay so the clearly our team's not playing well I call timeout I sit you down brad and I you know get in your face and scream at you for 75 seconds about how poorly you're playing and you know how poorly you're playing I don't need to tell you that and now the buzzer goes off and I send you back out on the court and I've done nothing to empower you so that you'll play better now all I did was rehash the past that's a colossal waste of a meeting in this case a timeout yes so instead let's call it timeout let me be incredibly succinct in brief and tell you guys exactly what it is that I need you to do different and then I want you leaving in the emotional state of how I want you to enter the next thing which would be the game so I don't want you going back into the game with less confidence which is what you'll have if I just scream and yell at you when you come out yeah so same thing you've got to think what's the emotional state I want my team to be in when they leave this meeting and you make sure that you end on that high note you know you end with a good close so that they leave going all right we're feeling good now if the meeting is you need to reprimand some people you don't like the way things are headed that's okay too it doesn't mean everything needs to be you know puppy dogs and ice cream it just means everything needs to be intentional nothing in a meeting and of course you're going to go off script every now and then but you need to plan meetings because that's how you'll get the most out of them and that's how you're being respectful of everybody's time yeah good point now most people miss that why is that they're not coaches you know one of the worst answers I think anyone can ever give to any question is well that's the way it's always been done and I think that I hear that a lot by I hear that a lot as well that's one of the reasons I enjoy going into the corporate world even though I don't have a lick of corporate experience I use that as to my advantage because I go into a company and say I'm not going to tell you the way things have always been done I'm going to come in with a fresh perspective and shake things up and do things differently you know but I think that people think well you know when I was the VP here we always held meetings and this is what we did we have the month you know the the Monday morning staff meeting it's just the way we do things here and no one's taken a second to step back and go do we even need this Monday morning meeting what's the point of it just because we've been doing it for five years doesn't mean it's a value and I think that's why a lot of people do a lot of things in their lives it's the way it's always been done and they don't take time to question it so and so and a business brings you in do you like you're not going to be known as the meeting guy no that's just one of the things yeah this is just one little teeny thing that but it often comes up when we when they want me to look at at leadership and effectiveness and building a culture if your meetings are draining the life out of your people that's eroding your culture you're ruining your culture by holding a meeting and I know that everyone has good intentions no one's intentionally holding a meeting to ruin their culture but you're doing that by default yep I think I've done it around here in time or two everybody maybe every time now you'll rethink it which is counterproductive yes yeah so when you walk into a business where do you start like the reason I'm asking is because you know I've got a lot of people with startups I got a lot of people with businesses that are listening to this podcast it's crazy by the way how many people listen to this podcast I know I'm like I'm one of them baby well thank you but I'm like holy shit man I just got a couple of microphones I chit chat with people and now all of a sudden it's like getting crazy popular and they keep saying it's because you know you're just having a real conversation it's almost like we're sitting in the living room with you guys listening and you know you keep shit real yes which I appreciate and so so thank the bomb squad and if you're in it that's awesome thank you the bomb squad so so the reason I ask is because there's a lot of people in the bomb squad that have businesses so I want you to tell me like if they can't afford you because you're working with some big companies the big people pay you to come in big money and I'm sure you help you know companies smaller too but let's say some people are out there they got a little company but they can't afford Alan Stein junior prices for now yep till they grow a little bit how give them some free shit that you would do don't tell them what to do tell them what you would do if someone just paid you big money and walked into a organization do you have a checklist you have where you start where you go and what you're trying to accomplish what are you trying to do when you when you get paid big bucks let's say I said okay I'll pay whatever fee come on in here first day you're going to do something you're going to walk through a process I'm sure and then we're going to get to a result talk about that absolutely well of course the very first thing I'll do before I even set foot here is I'm going to be the the best active listener I can be and I'm going to ask you every question that I can think of that that's going to help give me with clarity what the sticking points are what's the issue here where where is the thorn in your paw and let's figure that out first because I don't want any surprises but I've got what I call a success flow it goes identity standards accountability culture and results and I'll unpack each of those the very first thing that a company needs to know and have great clarity and this is not just you at the top this is all the way down to whoever would be the lowest on the proverbial totem pole this could even be the building service staff what is the identity of this business why are you in business what is your purpose like what do you believe why do you expect your team to make sacrifices you know what problems do you solve who are you serving you know and and really have with great clarity what is the identity of the existence of this business and even that alone you take a business with 100 people in it and you ask each of them to write down what's the identity of this business what exactly do we do what problems do we solve why are we here in a company of 100 people you'd be shocked how many different answers you get now if you're at the top you're the founder you're the ceo you probably have tremendous clarity with the identity but what about the other 99 people have you effectively communicated that to them do they know and do they know how their role fits into that what do we do what problems do we solve who do we solve them for like who is our target what do we believe what do we value all of these pillars and and your identity is really a healthy combination of all of these things it's it's there's not necessarily a set checklist of what to ask but this it's important for these people to know this is the identity of this business and then once you've created an identity now you need to create standards to uphold that identity so this is what you believe this is the problem you solve this is who you solve it for these are your values now we need to have some standards that everyone in this room needs to live up to in order to uphold that identity you know the old school style of leadership was top down which means you're at the top you come up with a list of rules and you tell all of us to follow them and if we don't then we need to find somewhere else to work word a better way to do that is to actually collectively create standards something that people know that if we live up to these standards we will live out this identity to the best of our ability so perfect example might be let's say we're sitting in here with 10 people that make up the lightspeed team and say do we all believe that being on time for company functions is important and if everyone says yes well then that's going to be a standard that we're going to live by everybody here knows someone says no no then one you want to be you want to be able to listen to them and and get some clarity well why do you think being on time is not important and see what they have to say now i use this example well because if the job gets done who cares what time i walk in the door fair enough but if we're talking about actual company functions if i know but i like i this is what i'm hearing so i'm trying to like ask you like if i just paid you big money i'd be asking you this because guess what i don't understand the whole they get to decide bullshit okay if i are you talking about when you like the consensus of the group yeah like if i if i invest all this time and money building the company you come to work here i'm not i don't necessarily need to ask you if you think it's okay that we're here on time i i think i should be or the leader should be the person that gets to decide hey we are going to be on time now you just said well you know you ask him is this something okay then it's going to be something well what if they say no because if because if they're going to say no why ask him at all because i don't give a fuck like hey you're going to be on time why because i said so that's why but in reality i don't i don't i'm not against given some you know open voting you know process i'm just wondering why what's the benefit because then they're just gonna i mean dude if i say hey are we going to give pay raises every day or every month of course they're going to say every day they're self-serving right i'm going to do shit i'm self-serving people are self-serving yes how do you get them to tell you real feedback and when do you not care because like showing up on time in my mind as an employee if the job gets done who gives a fuck you don't pay me hourly who cares if i'm here one hour or we're 40 hours if i walk in at 815 and do a better job than the person that's showing up at 8 what's more important well clearly in that case 815 but some point in time you have to have order you have to have expectation i want you here at 8 o'clock because that's what i expect you to be here so now i can start planning my day and i know you'll be here at 8 you will be here at 8 not would you like to be right what do you all think should we make that a standard i love it and i think i did a poor job communicating because i made it sound too soft and too touchy feely it's a couple of things you make it sound like we all want to play hacky sack and discuss the future yes no and it's and it's not quite that people will always give you more buy-in and more believe-in and more commitment if they feel that they have a say in what's going on so part of it is simply asking them make them feel that way yes exactly it doesn't mean that you absolutely have to do what it is that they're saying it's more that you care enough about them to ask their opinion you as the leader ultimately are going to be the one that decides which standards stick this is not a full democracy and that's where i did a bad job communicating that but i'm guilty see i'm guilty that's why i'm asking it because i'll walk into a meeting and i'm i want to try to act like that right but in reality i don't i'll walk in and i'll say hey folks we're going to be here at 8 o'clock and then i've tried the whole what do y'all think is that fair and then someone would say something that makes sense and you can't argue with it like what does it matter no that's a good point and then i don't know how to argue with it so then i just become a dick like it doesn't fucking matter like you'll be here at 8 and then again that's why those meetings like i always say backfire for companies they can yes because i went in there just to fire them all up and they all left thinking oh he's a dick like i tried to get their input what do y'all think is that is that fair and then someone made a good reason why it technically doesn't make any sense at all and then instead of somebody having the ability to change most people will just turn into a dick yeah like dude i don't care what you think you're going to be here at 8 o'clock when in reality the true finesse is when you get that information and then you get them to want to believe the being on time is important yes that's that's that's finesse yes you got to be like a skilled leader that takes practice just like basketball without question but i know that we're probably stuck too much on the one about time i'm with you 100% that as long as the job gets done and it gets done done to an elite level when you do it is probably irrelevant but i also think that being on time for certain things is a respect of time so if you were if you were gonna have a super big time guest in you've got your buddy Grant Cardone coming in to sit in this seat right here and your film guy decides to show up 30 minutes late that's not going to fly so him just coming in whenever he wants is probably not going to work so when you have a scheduled engagement Grant's coming in here you're going to interview him this guy better be here on time or it's disrespecting your time and it's disrespecting Grant's time but more well to me to be on time you're early for sure absolutely preparation is key love it but from a macro level it's important that you have to realize that you're always going to view the company through your lens which may be the founder or the CEO where other people in different departments and at different levels are going to have different vantage points and by merely asking them their opinion on certain things lots of times you'll get some tremendously valuable information that might change your perspective or how you view it so if this is not a everybody raise their hand if they want to be on time democracy this is let me hear some thoughts from some places that I don't get to see as often and let me see if what they have to offer is valuable but ultimately you're the one that will decide the standards but I'm telling you that just the mere fact of asking someone unconsciously they leave going well Brad Brad values what I think he just asked me about some of these standards and I shared with him regardless of whether you change any of your positioning or not I feel like you truly care about me as a person simply by the fact that you asked yeah that is a glue that will you know instead of eroding a culture like a lot of these meetings do this will actually help bind your culture yeah so now you have these standards and then the standards once they're set and effectively communicated that's when we move to accountability and the key for an organization to be successful is not just having vertical accountability it's having horizontal accountability which means everybody holds everyone accountable which means that's like a dream scenario and absolutely but that's what we're aiming for right can you help companies achieve that without question and it starts by first of all clarity clarity absolutely and laying a foundation of trust and getting people to understand accountability is not something you do to them it's something you do for them see many people think that if you're holding me accountable and we see this whether it's it's father to son or it's ceo to employee that if you're holding me accountable like why is brad always busting my chops why is he always getting on me because he cares when you hold someone accountable you show them that you care about them and you care about the organization so what I would like to see and we'll keep going back to time even though it might not be the best example if we have 10 people from light speed in here that we're all supposed to be at this meeting and we know that one of our standards is we will be early because if we're not early we're late and someone comes in five minutes late every single person in this room needs to hold that person accountable to the fact that they just violated one of the standards because if we allow them to violate any standard no matter how small it may seem then we're going to start to erode our identity so we're working back down the chain now and that's where things get busted but you can hold someone accountable through love you can be demanding without being demeaning like just because you come in late doesn't mean I'm going to MF you up and you know up and down it just means that you came in late we all agreed that we'd be on time that's not cool you showing up late is taking lunch off of my plate and I'm not going to let you do that because I care about the team and I care about you and when you can create collective accountability where everybody's willing to do that with each other you've got something incredibly special I wish like how do you get that achieved well one it's it's making sure that everybody knows that their voice is being heard and this one is is also incredibly challenging and I'd love your perspective on it it takes humility and vulnerability from the leader at the top because you aren't above the standards either which means if you Bradley show up five minutes late your team needs to be able to have the courage to hold you accountable and if you've created a safe and fertile environment a safe culture then they'll be willing to do that I'm going to be willing to say Brad dude you were five minutes late man come on that's not cool and I'm not worried that you're going to fire me over it I know that you want me to hold you accountable because that's the culture you've created and that's that would be nice well yeah it's difficult yeah not only that finding people to care like you you know they're in a company where people actually care would be beautiful like I think lightspeed to a point is like a unique company and then in some cases you know we're just like the rest of them but in most cases fortunately we step it up we do care we do try you know and try to mitigate as much you know tomfoolery as possible but I've seen it to where like certain employees won't tell on other certain employees because their friendship right and their camaraderie is more important than the mission the company the vision the rules and the accountability to where it's like I find something out and I go hey why wouldn't you say something oh dude I don't want to be labeled the narc right so their own relationships usually are more important than some of these things how do you fix that well again and that sometimes it can be hard to undo a lot of this is how you would especially start with new hires and making sure that they understand that would be an example of confrontation yeah but euphoria is when all your employees you know equally care like they own a piece of the company because a lot of times you get bigger and they don't give a rat's dick I'm not going to tell on joey that's 10 minutes back from lunch late then I'm the dick so and not only that we hang out after work and he won't give me a dime bag you know when we're playing Call of Duty or whatever so in a lot of companies most companies the employees are just there for a paycheck yes there is no strong culture by the way every company has a culture yes good or bad it's the crazy exactly but you see what I'm saying like how do you get people to buy into your shit so deeply that someone really is self policing and like when you show up late I really do give a shit and I give a shit so much I don't care if we're not friends anymore like that to me is like some euphoric you know ideological outcome that I've never seen in any business and that would be absolutely ideal and perfect and we realize that no business is going to be able to do that 100% of the time with 100% of the people but we're still trying to mitigate that gap as much as possible so it happens less often and with less people you brought up a couple really great points one it's important people know there's a difference between liking and caring you know you and I don't have to like each other personally but we do have to care about each other and we have to care about this business you know caring is an act of will caring is a choice if you and I decide that we don't want to go grab beers after work that's okay that can't get in the way of us being able to do our jobs and fulfill our role to the best of our ability so one we need to make sure that people know that if you and I are boys and you come in late mean not holding you accountable means that I don't care about this business that I don't care about the company or the identity or everybody else on our team because I'm willing to let a standard slide based on my own personal relationship and and we need to encourage folks not to take that route that hey at first how though if if you and I are boys you know and I understand the concept of kind of narking and ratting somebody out but if you and I are boys you're putting me in an awkward position by showing up late but why what do I what do you give a shit I'm 10 minutes late that doesn't affect your job at all well that's where it comes to the next point that you made in order for this to really reach true euphoric levels you need to tie everyone in the organization to that identity so that they actually feel a little bit of pain when that's happening so let's say you have a certain revenue goal and if you reach this revenue goal everyone gets a certain bonus well if I if you can prove to me that my buddy showing up 10 minutes late is going to take a few steps in the wrong direction to us reaching the revenue goal then ultimately he is taking lunch off of my plate him coming in 10 minutes late and not making the two sales calls he was supposed to make is actually going to limit the ability for us to reach the goals and for me to get my bonus so there there actually is a problem there and I know that that example may be a tad over dramatic but the key is tying everybody to that identity and in order for for folks to truly care they have to believe that their role matters regardless of what their role is and if you've got the right people on the bus you need to make sure you put them in the right seat by making sure that their role is not only what they like to do but it's also what they're really good at you know if most of the people here at lightspeed are doing things that they're naturally good at and they enjoy doing they're going to give you a much better effort it's when you have people doing things that they're not very good at or don't like doing that's when we have some of this problem so part of the reason your boy shows up 10 minutes late anyway is because he probably doesn't feel a real strong connection to the identity and he doesn't really feel great about his role that's why he doesn't care if he's 10 minutes late you care because this is your baby which is why you're early everywhere you go which is why you have high enthusiasm everywhere you go which is why you're all in with everything you do because this thing is your baby your goal is the leader is to try to get as many people on the team to feel as close to that as possible yeah well i like the way you said about clarity because as you're talking i'm thinking i'll do that a lot that's a it's a good practice to get into brother so sports and team is the equivalent of business and employees yes absolutely so your business is the sport your employees is the team basketball in in your context is was your sport team were the kids yes now and you're the coach right analogy well maybe maybe but let me let me walk you down this oh please or as people say unpack it now the i'm looking at the differences the difference is because ideally they they work but not actually in some cases and and and our job as entrepreneurs to make it work because ideally you want like a team now in basketball everyone wants to win in business that's not necessarily true so there you want to you so i'm going through my mind so one i want to try and figure out how to get everybody to want to win right because if everybody doesn't want to win you got a problem right there you aren't going to win shit on a basketball team if half the team doesn't want to win can i challenge that just for a little bit sure i don't think anyone say that they wouldn't want to win but we know how selfish we are as human beings if you take the average high school player and say would you rather score 30 points and lose or would you rather score two points and win if you put them on a lie detector test most kids would rather score 30 and lose because it's all about them so you need to find the special players that are willing to say i'm okay if i only score two because winning is what's most important and you can look at any professional sports team look at the ones that have been the most successful historically they've found they've created a culture and they found coaches that bring in players that are those unique players they're the ones that would actually rather win than be the superstar they say they found them i'm trying to figure out how to create them create yes but then part of it's yeah part of it is it'll be the culture you create which one of the first things i learned as a coach there's only two things you can do as a coach or a leader you accept it or you correct it that's it accept it or correct it so neither and either one of them's um well you win either way so if you if you're if you find out that i'm letting my boy come in 30 minutes late to lunch accept or correct folks accept or correct that's that's that's that was a paused bomb i love it better late than never so that's it so either if you find out that i've been quietly letting my boy come in from lunch 10 minutes late you have a choice you either accept that that's just going to be the way it's going to be or you're going to find a way to correct that and that's those the only choices we have but that's the hard part oh it absolutely that's why people need to hire guys like you to come in and work with them and business is hard sure and if this was easy everybody else would have their own thing and they'd be crushing it the way you are but they don't the basketball and team business and employees that's to me that's the equivalent so so if i want and again it's easier with sports like dude to coach a soccer team to a championship is easier than to build a hundred million dollar company i think why well because everybody's voluntarily there wanting to play soccer you know what i'm saying they want to win in general you know sure there's little assholes that want to be the star and they they take a loss as long as they look like the star but in general they're all there because they want to be they're all having fun you know they're a team and everyone knows their role and everybody wants to win yeah in general every team i've been on i want to win yep so everybody wants to win so step one and i am saying it so you'll discuss it yes step one i feel like if i'm trying to make those real then my employees need to be a team yes that want to win so i need to make everybody want to win number two but you're saying you don't think that happens as often in business so i don't know because people people don't give a shit that's not my company i don't give a fuck all i want is my fucking $12 an hour like who gives a shit billy's late well i ain't knocking on billy duty he's not gonna fucking be cool with me after work matter of fact a couple people might just alienate me and not let me sit with him at lunch like it's the same stupid shit but so we need to get rid of billy right but my point is this my job if i want to equate these two my job step one make everybody want to win figure out a way to get everybody to want to win now if someone doesn't want to win and you can clearly identify elimination absolutely so make everyone want to win that's step one in my mind as you were talking and you have some ideas on how to do that no but that's what i'm gonna be asking yes please then then there's step two yep okay if these sports team business employees if we're equating those everybody wants to win on on a team number two if this is the case everybody needs to know their exact role and definition love it and and expectation because if you want me to play first base but you put me in center field it doesn't make any sense to me and i don't know what it is you're expecting me to do i get the general idea but you know there's no clarity exactly so i need to provide clarity for each and every role yes or roles because again in my house shit dude you might be the your role is to answer the door and then when there's no one at the door your fucking role is also to do the dishes until someone's at the door then your role is to go over there and open the door then your roles to go back and finish the fucking dishes know your role baby right so you see my point like if there's not always just this is my role look you might have many roles yes but especially in smaller startups but it's wearing lots of hats especially the owner yes the the entrepreneur so the whole thing is you have to define the role even if you have seven i need to know what my roles are yes right so that would be number two and then the third observation was that those teams when you play the next school there's a clear opponent yeah sometimes in business you don't know as an employee as a team member who the fuck's the bad guy who are we beating here you know who what there's no competition there's no clear i want to beat that person so we need to identify so you identify roles yeah and then number three i think if i'm equating the two yes i need to identify our enemy our competitor our opponent i need to identify our opponent now if i could do that to my employees that would create a team because the team now knows everybody wants to win everybody knows their position yep and everybody knows the enemy the opponent the the the goal the objective how do i do those three things love it and first of all i love the fact that yomi money i just made you billions because you're gonna freaking go into a company once we talk about this yeah the bomb squad's listening if you execute what he's about to tell you your company is going to improve for free because you listen to this podcast yeah because i'm telling you right now the whole goal would it sounds easy you know i coached a team from zero to freaking kick ass champions well if you did everybody wanted to win yep you knew everybody's position and they knew who their freaking opponent was so if you want to make your team similar to a sports team then i would think you have to do similar things so i have to freaking get everybody to want to win which is hard very hard and then there's number two because they're they don't own the company correct i don't get fuck all from this right fuck you give me my twelve dollars and shut the fuck up i don't care and there's a lot of that in the world there is so how do we identify it and eliminate it because a lot of people hide a lot of people are good at you know acting like they're all your buddy and they give a shit and they don't give a rat's dick and then there's some other people that they give a rat's dick but they're just dumbered in a box of rocks they'll fuck your business up with good intention yeah and you don't want them either i don't anyway no and then number uh so you got to make them all want to win you got to clearly identify the roles and then you have to clearly identify the opponent one in some cases you know i'm a landscaper who's my opponent the grass the grass i'm just kidding but you see what i'm saying like in business to equate it's kind of you need a professional to teach us so how would you handle those three things for a company love it first of all let's clear one thing up that a lot of people think that basic and easy are synonyms and they're not just because something is basic doesn't mean that it's easy what you just and this is a this is a this is a huge and and vice versa of course but this is a compliment those three pillars that you just gave us are pure gold they're knowledge bomb worthy and they're incredibly basic like i follow along with what you just said with perfect clarity none of those things are easy and you're living proof that they're not easy if they were easy you'd already be doing them show every other business so we all have to have the humility to realize that if we need to get back to mastering the basics and the fundamentals but doing so is not going to be easy people skip them because they think it's beneath them that we don't need to worry about the basics i know for a fact that the best basketball players in the world still do the most basic footwork and offensive moves for 10 to 15 minutes of every workout in every practice you know that's right yes because they never get away from the fundamentals another thing to think about you know you've mentioned that there are a lot of people out there that say just give me my 12 bucks this is i'm just in it for the paycheck i don't care about anything else yeah but if they said that well it's easy to find them yes i'm talking about the people they don't say that but their actions are telling you well their behavior to some degree is showing it well again technically yeah but it's not as it's not easy because i'm my leadership i confused a while back with cheerleader ship uh-huh and cheerleader is not a leader no it's a cheerleader not a leader no to me a leader sometimes you have to be good at identifying what's not being said and done absolutely because in some cases someone's trying to help out you fire them because they fucking drop the ball yeah and the company other people they know that the person volunteered and just got fired for fucking something up yeah when the message that gets sent is you'll get fired if you volunteer yes so now everybody's like dude i ain't volunteering yeah and then they get fired because why don't you give enough give give enough shits to volunteer well so there's all these confusing messages unless somebody's clear and that takes the finesse that you mentioned earlier i mean we all know that which gets praised gets repeated well it's the same thing in the other direction if you're going to terminate somebody for not doing what they're supposed to do then then we're going to have an issue one thing what i'd ask you do you believe there are enough good people out there that are not dumber than a bag of rocks and that do you care enough about something other than the $12 paycheck are there enough of those people out there yes yes they're all over and in fact most companies that are frustrated and think they have dumb people and think they have people that don't care have the same people that are going to give a fuck somewhere else yes and they're the same people that are going to excel somewhere else and that's why it's your fault because those people that you say are dumb and that you blow out and that aren't capable they're just not capable for you it's just like a fucking when people say she's a slut you know the difference between a slut and a bitch i don't a slut will fuck anyone and a bitch will fuck anyone but you that's the difference so dropping bomb on that one that's pretty no but it's but that's the difference it's like people don't understand like your employees that suck and you let them go they're going to excel somewhere else they're going to find the right seat eventually but they sucked for you well why did they suck for you because you couldn't lead properly you couldn't identify what seat they belonged in you couldn't nurture their talents and identify their talents and bring them to a level of success therefore you should fire them and here's here's the the the weak part i get then i say oh well they've got kids at home and oh well they've got this and rather than you know care more yeah you act like you care that they have kids so you keep them dude you should care more that they have kids and blow them out why yes because you're the fucking loser they can't figure out how to lead them properly so you should just let them go get led or find or even float into a better position for sure but that's where i get weak dude i i don't like terminating people because i i i put myself in people's shoes i do it with a customer that's why we've got the baddest training system on earth if i have to use a training system i want to use light speed right and the reason for that is because i put myself in a user's position yes i put myself an employee position i put myself in other people's positions and i think it's a unique advantage it is and you actually i think on some level just answered number one for us because it was what i was going to bring up which is you have very high empathy i mean i can tell just in knowing you for a short time you have a very high emotional IQ so you need to ask yourself if i was this employee making $12 an hour why would i care if i'm not brad lee the owner if this is not my baby i'm the employee that makes $12 an hour why would i care about this what would make me care about the identity why would i care about making brad another million why does this matter to me if i wasn't a dick if you know you need to ask that i am in my mind and i'm starting to ask some qualifying questions like oh i mean if i'm not a dick because if i'm a dick i don't give a fuck i want my check son where's my money right i don't give a shit now if i wasn't a dick but that's you admitting that you have a dick on your team which comes back to you that's either accepting or because you're proposing hypothetical and hypothetical also run through all the possibilities okay there could be a possibility i was a dick i love it we're going different yes now if i was just a regular good person what would make me care you like if i liked you okay you know i want i don't want to let you down i admire you so therefore i respect and admire you and i don't want you to be let down therefore i would care to do a better job even though i'm only getting $12 an hour as i might i admire and respect you as the leader and i want to make you look good and feel good and think i'm cool well okay that's one reason let's use a hypothetical let's say that i work for you and i make $12 an hour now on one hand i might be completely apathetic i just want to go home and rip bong hits and play video games this is only for $12 i don't care i'm apathetic well if that's the case the moment you feel that way you need to remove me from the team because there's no room for apathy in a bradley organization however if i'm not if i do care here's some things i might care about brad is a really smart guy who can teach me skills that i can either use here or use for whatever it is that i'm trying to chase in the future yes in the future exactly so you pouring into me and giving me new skills is a value you're an incredibly connected guy and you know people so not true if you if you and i have a conversation and you say alan what is it that you want to get out of this job other than $12 an hour what are your aspirations where are you trying to go because i can help you get there if you be if you're on my team and you're committed and you buy in and play your role even at $12 an hour i promise you it'll be the best investment you've ever made because i'm going to open doors for you and teach you skills that will allow you to fulfill your own dreams good one you think if i heard that from bradley i wouldn't be all in at $12 an hour i'd be a hundred percent in that'd be nice i might even say brad keep your $12 because what you're giving me is a thousand times more valuable than money i'm all in which would be true but it of course it is but it takes it takes and i know this is difficult at scale because if you have 500 people working for you i know you can't have this conversation with 500 different yeah but you pass that down to your leaders you definitely do that conversation needs to be had is literally you say or one of your other leaders says alan what's going to make you care about how well we do what is it that you want to get out of this we're all inherently selfish you know in the morning you don't have to when i wake up in the morning you don't have to remind me to look out for myself like i know that we're all wired to do that self-preservation yes and and and since we know that well we can't change the waves but we can learn how to surf which means if you already know that i'm an inherently selfish creature then start asking me what it is that i want what am i trying to get out of this and once you've done that and i've told you now you can put me in a position on the team that i'm going to be getting what i want at the same time i'm helping you get what you want and the moment you think that i'm not i'm apathetic and i don't care and i just want the 12 bucks then you either accept it or you correct it and correcting it would mean this person we just can't have apathy on our team hmm that was a good in there cool but you i mean you led me down that because you're already doing that because you have high empathy i'm thought provoking you're very thought provoking how about clear roles sometimes as a business entrepreneur an owner we believe we have clear roles when in reality there's confusion amongst the ranks now why is that it's like that old game telephone we had 10 people in this room right now and you whispered something in my ear and i whispered it to the next person by the time it got back to you it would not be the original statement if right now uh you write down what everybody's role is in your organization then you go to them and ask them to write down what their role is i guarantee you there's going to be some gaps and there's going to be some differences which just gives us the humility to realize we haven't said it as clearly as possible yeah but here's what i would recommend tell me where i'm wrong or if i'm right okay i don't try to figure out what a person's role is i figured i try to figure out what the role is and then i try to put the right person yeah because it's a hundred percent right because too many people are trying to figure out what this person's role should be listen if you had nobody at your company and you were going to start over open it up all over again knowing what you know now what roles would be necessary like shit i need someone to freaking fix these damn lawnmowers because they break down a lot which i didn't know but now i do so guess what i need a repairman yes so there's a role now i need um i also need someone to answer the damn phone because man i am swamp dancer in the phone so now i need a role for that now you might end up creating a role that answers phones and fixes the machine for sure now now that might be a role but you you don't identify well shit if they're constantly answering the phone how they ever going to fix the machine now i'm going to have bad customer service because everyone's going to wonder where the fuck their machine is well the dude's answering the phone because we're so busy and we won't have any time to fix any machines until everyone thinks we're stupid and quits calling yep and then they can actually fix machines because now they're not answering the phone but then after all the machines are fixed the phone's not ringing and i just went out of business when in reality you should have had two distinct roles right absolutely so how do you how do you figure out your roles well i love that you started with the outcome first we have 10 broken lawn mowers these need to be fixed let me look at my team who on this team is the best person to fix the lawn mowers and who actually enjoys fixing lawn mowers first of all if they're the same person questions i mean it's over you've already answered it this is the person that will be fixing our lawn mowers they're good at it and they enjoy doing it uh now what happens if there's no lawn mowers to fix or there's very few because it's a startup then what should they do while there's no lawn mowers well then that then that's not a role that needs to be that's not a role we need to fill there we needed filling role i'm paying i'm a salary if they're just sitting there waiting for a lawn mower to fix i'm wasting my money and they won't work on freaking on uh on uh you know what i'm talking about if you on call because now they need a full-time job so you hire a lawn mower repairman and that bitch needs to get paid whether you got lawn mowers to repair or not so i would say what happens when there's no lawn mowers to repair what should they do then i call that a secondary post come out yes oh and that's what you're saying so you're saying initially we needed lawn mowers to be fixed no you you're in the lawn mower business you know you're going to need them but you don't need a bunch of them because you're just getting started so now i have a repairman but not a lot of lawn mowers to get repaired yet because i don't have a salesman so i hire a salesman but until it ramps up my mechanics just waiting what should i have them do while he's waiting i call that a secondary post do you recommend those or one clear role no i think there's nothing wrong with a secondary post my question would have been why did you hire a lawn mower repairman before you needed any lawn mowers repaired that was an error and judgment on your end because you're paying somebody money to fill a role that's not even there yet yeah because if i wait then people are now okay you come in to freaking get your lawn mower repaired now i'm out with an ad looking for a repairman and now there's delay in my first customer's test so then i would say okay we've got brad jr over here as an expert lawn mower repairman but we don't need him to do that at present what other needs do we have that he's capable of filling to a high level and that will be his secondary post that will be his not only does he answer the door but he also cleans the dishes but you said it perfectly first first we have to establish a need what is the role that needs to be filled and then we either need to look on our team to who fills that to the best of their ability or who do we go out and recruit to fill that but there's no need in bringing someone on just bringing sand to the beach like if there's not a role that needs to be filled then we don't need this person yeah or a or a role that requires a full-time person absolutely interesting and that clarity there's kind of three steps to the clarity first of all everyone on the team needs to know their role they have to know what it is next you need them to embrace their role they have to understand that you know you ever want them to butter their role only only when they go out to dinner when we have a staff dinner they can butter that thing all they want i just checking we need them to embrace it we need everyone on the team to go man my role is important to this organization because if i stop fixing lawnmowers this whole thing falls apart so i want to embrace the fact that brad trusts me to fix lawnmowers i am important regardless of the twelve dollars an hour i am important and i am needed by this team that that sense of worth and value will get people to buy in goes a long way and then you need them to star in their role this is often the hardest part because getting someone to star in a role that most people would consider a lesser role you know hey if your only role is to answer the door and the doorbell only rings every now and then that's not one of the biggest roles on the team however we need you to be the best door answerer in the world when it does ring you have to star in your role and we do that by rewarding great behavior when i answer to the door like i'm an elite world class professional door answerer you're going to praise me up and down you're going to tell me what a great job that i did in that one instance because then it will be repeated so you want to recognize your role always recognize the role and and one thing to think i know you said you don't follow basketball but let me let me paint a picture for you in the mba there's probably 12 players that can do a little bit of everything your lebron james your kevin dirantz i mean those guys are freaks they can do it all outside of the top 12 players every single player in the mba is a role player they have one specific skill set that they do at an elite level and sometimes a secondary skill set but that's what they do i could list you 10 guys right now that are elite sharpshooters they get paid millions of dollars to catch and shoot that's their only job catching shoot i could give you another list of guys their entire job is to rebound and block shots they don't care if their coach doesn't care if they score a point the entire game you give me 12 rebounds a game we'll give you 15 20 million dollars a year they have a very specific role well here's guys have to fulfill that role to the best of their ability in order for the team to come together and be successful well here let me blow your mind please what do you think let's say kd gets paid for to win basketball games no no okay okay some people say play basketball put butts in the seats that's right okay kd's a salesman yeah that's i like that always boils back down to sales yes like all these top athletes are not necessarily paid because they're really good athletes they're paid because they sell tickets they're entertainers which makes them sales people yeah sales is something that you need to master in absolutely any company even more importantly than a lot of this culture i know companies that are killing it and their culture is poison and everyone quits and there's high turnover but they're killing it because they're freaking selling the shit out of things but imagine if you're a company out there and you get both right well that's what i was just gonna say you that you're playing a dangerous game you're playing the comparison game you're saying they're killing it because you're comparing them to somebody else but they're not killing it to the degree that they could be killing that's right so they're they're actually sandbag that's right and that's where you could say are you successful because of your culture or in spite of your culture in spite and if the answer is in spite then we've got a problem that's right so yeah that's that's why people come in here like this place is great dude you've done so well and i say actually no and they're like quit playing humble i'm like dude i'm not humble i should be a billion dollar company right now i've fucked up my own shit by not knowing this stuff and and and i'm changing it when i learn especially when the experts like you come through i take notes and then i'm like that makes sense and i start implementing so it's getting better but i can tell you if i could go back 20 years and redo this it'd take me three years to get where i am today yes in 20 it they take me three but that's a great thing that means you're continually learning and growing and i hope that 20 years from now you say the same thing no in three years from now i'm gonna be a billion dollar company three to five max if i'm not done in five i haven't listened to a damn thing i've been preaching and i and that's the thing about me i like to keep it real i know the real bradley now real quick because because we're hour three into this really well it flew by oh sure it flies by when you're talking to the old b-meister yeah i do it quick but i want to know how do you identify your clear opponent when it could be you know ethereal it could be like you know it's there's no real it's not oh the my competitor it's not oh that like sometimes you're doing you're doing a job and you don't feel uh an opponent or a competitor or or any kind of clear opposition how do you invent one or identify one like let's say i'm a radio station but part of it's what you just said i think it's it's you're comparing with yourself your opponent is yourself so right now you said we're a hundred million dollar company that's what i was driving towards which which to the average person a hundred million dollar company is phenomenal you're doing great but a hundred million dollar company when you're capable of being a one billion dollar company is not that good no so it's your opponent and i didn't say we're a hundred million because we're not no i'm just talking fictitiously that's what happens when we play the comparison game so when you say my buddy's got a company and they're killing it although their culture is bad he's killing it compared to some other small buildings next to his he's not killing it compared to what he could be doing if he was getting all of their is blowing it that's why we say i was saying this don't be fooled by success they're like what does that mean that's exactly what it means that's exactly what it is just because you're kicking ass doesn't mean you're kicking ass right you could be killing more well you could be killing it and losing you know what i'm saying it's it's perspective if i could be making 30 billion and i'm making what i'm making everyone would say dude he's fricking eating shit yeah well he's doing millions of dollars yeah but dude like he's losing it if you knew i could be a billion dollar company but if you're a if you if you didn't even think i'd make 40 million dollars you'd be going always killing it no don't be fooled by successful just because you're kicking ass in your company doesn't mean you're actually kicking ass right assess your company assess your team assess yourself and if you can go out and fricking hire an expert like alan stein jr and by the way if you guys want to follow him on instagram it's alan stein jr on instagram his your website is what alan stein jr dot com alan stein jr dot com now let me ask you a question sure but i want to address what you just said the the clear opponent see i think it's a mistake trying to look for motivation by trying to find someone else to compete with you know you're right yet you don't need to be able to do that you need to focus on yourself now clearly in a game like basketball you've got to learn the other teams personnel and you want to learn their sets but the best teams i've ever been around they spend way more time focused on what they do and what they control than anybody else and it's an old quote winners there you go you might want to do it again because i like this one winners focus on winning losers focus on winners so i don't need to look around the room for am i competing against brad am i compete no i'm going to do what i do i'm going to stay in my lane and i'm going to do it to the best of my ability and if i do that it will be good enough to beat everybody else that's around me yeah well again here you go because when i wrote those down i'm thinking through it but when i read clear opponent yeah my whole thing is don't compare yourself to other people compare yourself to yourself so if you guys were out there listening going yeah how who is our opponent you are your opponent outdo yesterday every day you should be outdoing yesterday that's your opponent your opponent is you your opponent is your potential and your opponent is your growth and if you strive to just beat that every single day and outdo the day before man it's just a matter of time before you can hit that winners bell because there's no incremental growth is is is good like in other words you could be doing the right thing but if you who i forget who said it some some uh fucking rogers or some even if you're doing the right thing even if you're on the right track you'll get run over if you're just sitting there who said that like will rogers yeah will write good call yeah so like even if you're sitting on the right track and you're just sitting there you're going to get run over so always out do yesterday make yourself the opponent you're going to win like a son bitch now my question to you was yes you're a junior yes now which means your dad's a senior yes he is now do you like being a junior you know well if you could if you could choose would you have changed your middle name to where you got the same first and last but nope there's no junior attached because i've never been called junior i'm not a junior i call my son almost fucking around when i say i'm you know what's up junior but i've always wondered if juniors like being juniors well here let me tell you something well first of all we were talking about dumb dad jokes before and we hit the record but can i ask one more question yes please what happens if you have a kid and you make him a junior you're no longer a junior he's the third if i would have i i didn't name my son's alan stein so you're still a junior yeah you're always a junior so i'd be a daddy but i'd be a junior because my kid would be alan stein the third and what about if he had one they'd be the fourth and and fifth yep and six and i'll always be junior no matter what so i'm going to be a 90 year old junior one day that's kind of weird what happens if senior passes on well he's going to ever according to life that's what you'll never be a senior no i'll always be junior yeah it's not i don't get a promotion i don't go from uh yeah junior vp to senior vp when my dad passes away do you like junior if you could change it would you change it well here's what's funny first of all if you ever meet my dad i will bet you everything that i own which is not a ton he makes the joke i'm the original alan this is the carbon copy he does that every time he meets anybody that i introduce him to but uh he still loves the joke i always just went by alan stein and in the basketball world it was just alan stein when i made the leap over to the corporate space alan stein.com and the different social handles were already taken i had to add the junior just so i could get the handles and the website that i wanted so you could have went the real alan stein i could have had i known you back then i probably would have done that so yeah up until two years ago i never went by junior yeah or the younger the more handsome alan stein yeah that's a long that's a long handle then but i could have done it then it would have been funny at christmas with your dad holiday yes it would have been interesting perspective so you added the junior so if you ran into people that know you they'd just say coach stein yes that's what all of them say they wouldn't say coach stein junior but it was also it was also part of the rebranding that i wanted to kind of change something about as i moved into the corporate space uh my dad's a retired principal both my both my parents were in elementary education for 30 years really what is he still active i mean he's he's an active human being but not active working no good i want to pick your brain right after this podcast i've got an invention that i'm going to create again okay this one requires educators to help me okay i think your dad could help me if he's still active and like you know wants to do some work and not a lot of it and i know a lot of educators my friend dude i'm gonna i'm gonna i speak to principles associations and to schools and give graduation commitment i'm not even gonna i'm not even gonna say it on the air because it's so good people are gonna do it got it so i'm gonna do it first i got you now you got a book coming out i do win january eighth january eighth folks i'm gonna drop this episode early just to make sure it hits before january eighth or or actually maybe we should wait till it hits so people can go get it and go put it yeah okay so where can they go get it go to raiseyourgamebook.com it's called raiseyourgame high-performance secrets from the best of the best raiseyourgamebook.com it will it be on amazon it it's on amazon now you can pre-order now or if you want it in your hands on the eighth you can get it uh well it might be the eighth after this drops who knows so go get his book raise your game on amazon or raiseyourgamebook.com go follow him on on instagram we'll have him back here again i'm sure would love it if you're a company or an organization and you want to frickin take your shit to the next level and get through some of the pain and agony call mr stein and and and see if he can help you out because too many businesses out there are afraid to invest in themselves they they're their scarcity mindset they've got some money in the bank and hell no i'm not going to give it to a consultant because then i won't have any if you don't give it to a someone that can help you you might not have any anyway exactly so do yourself a favor folks let go of money sometimes because money is a tool and if you don't use it you're limiting your own ability to grow now until next time