 For more than 15 years, Allen Stein Jr. worked with the highest performing basketball players on the planet, including iconic superstars such as Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Kobe Bryant. He is here today to share proven strategies on how you can utilize the same mindset, habits, and routines that elite athletes use to perform at a world-class level. Using proven principles from his book, Raise Your Game, Allen has worked with global brands such as American Express, Pepsi, and Starbucks, as well as championship caliber sports programs like Penn State Football and UConn Men's Basketball. He is excited to provide you with a series of practical, actionable lessons you can implement immediately to improve organizational performance and achieve higher levels of personal influence, impact, and significance. Allen is a passionate father of three and he never lets his kids beat him in anything, ever. Please help me welcome Allen Stein Jr. Back in 2007, Nike flew me out to Los Angeles to work the first ever Kobe Bryant Skills Academy. Nike brought in the top high school and college players from around the country for an intense three-day minicamp with the best player in the world. And for any of you that don't follow basketball, let me paint the picture. In 2007, Kobe was the best player in the game. Well, an important fact about me is I fell in love with the game of basketball at four or five years old and I'm incredibly grateful that four decades later, basketball is still a major pillar in my life. Well, having grown up in this basketball bubble, I'd always heard the urban legend of how insanely intense Kobe's individual workouts were. Well, since I was on camp staff, I figured this was my chance. This was my shot, so at my earliest opportunity, I walked up to Kobe and asked if I could watch one of his private workouts and he was incredibly gracious and he smiled and he said, sure man, no problem, I'm going tomorrow at four. And I got a little bit confused because I had just got done looking through the camp schedule and the camp schedule clearly said that the first workout with the players was the following day at 3.30 and Kobe recognized that confused look on my face and he clarified that with a, yeah, that's four AM. Well, I wasn't smart enough or quick enough to come up with an excuse on why it couldn't be somewhere at four in the morning, at least not an excuse that a guy like Kobe's going to accept. So I basically committed myself to being there and I figured if I'm going to be there anyway, I may as well try and impress Kobe. I may as well show him how serious of a trainer I was. So I came up with the plan to beat him to the gym. So I set my alarm for 3 AM. The alarm goes off. I jump up. I get myself together. I hop in a cab and I head to the gym. Now, when I arrive, it's 3.30 in the morning. So it's pitch black outside and yet the moment I step out of the cab, I can see the gym lights already on from the parking lot. I could faintly hear a ball bouncing and sneakers squeaking. I walked in the side door. Kobe was already in a full sweat. So he was going through an intense warm up before his scheduled workout with his trainer started at four. Now, professional courtesy, I didn't say anything to him. I didn't say anything to his trainer. I just sat down to watch and for the first 45 minutes, I was shocked for the first 45 minutes. I watched the best player on the planet do the most basic footwork and offensive moves. Kobe was doing stuff that I had routinely taught to middle school aged players. Now, don't get it twisted. This is Kobe Bryant. So he was doing everything in an unparalleled level of intensity and he was doing everything with surgical precision. But the stuff he was doing was incredibly basic. And his whole workout lasted a couple hours. And once again, when it was over, I didn't say anything to him. I didn't say anything to his trainer. I just quietly left. But my curiosity eventually got the best of me because I had to know. So later, that day at camp, I went up to him again and said, Kobe, I don't understand. You're the best player in the world. Why are you doing such basic drills? And once again, he was incredibly gracious and he flashed that million dollar smile. But he said with all seriousness, why do you think I'm the best player in the world? Because I never get bored with the basics. I never get bored with the basics. Kobe Bryant, the best player in the world and someone that has truly mastered his craft, said his secret is that he never gets bored with the basics. And as obvious as that may sound, that was an epiphany life changing moment for me. It's because when I realized that just because something is basic, it doesn't mean that it's easy. See, those are not synonyms and yet people often use those words interchangeably. Just because something is basic doesn't mean that it's easy. If it was easy, everyone else would be doing it. And as you all know, we live in a world that tells us it's okay to skip steps. That tells us we should always be on the hunt for a hack or a shortcut. That's encouraging us and pushing us to keep chasing what's hot and what's flashy, what's new and what's sexy and ignore what's basic. But anytime you do that, you're making a grave mistake because the basics work. They always have and they always will. And the very first step to you improving your performance in any area of your life, it doesn't matter if it's personal or professional. It doesn't matter if it's individual or it's organizational. The very first step is to admit that the basics work. But it's also having the humility to acknowledge that implementing the basics every single day is never ever going to be easy. Now, back in December, I had the honor of speaking to a group of managers at a keynote out in Las Vegas. And the theme of their event was be extraordinary. Now, I'm someone that's always been fascinated with language and I've always loved words and I've always really taken a liking to the word extraordinary. And I work hard to be extraordinary in different areas of my life. But what I found when I was interviewing some of their attendees ahead of time, because I'm a stickler for doing my due diligence and doing my homework before I meet with a group, I found that many of them mistakenly thought that extraordinary meant doing something grandiose, something massive, something magical. Guys, that's not what being extraordinary is about. If you want to be extraordinary, in any area of your life, you have to commit to mastering the basics. You have to make sure that you work relentlessly during the unseen hours to sharpen your sword and work towards mastery. And you have to make good decisions and do the right things, not when you want to, not when you feel like it, not when it's convenient, but you have to make good decisions and do the right things every single day. And trust me, if you make good decisions every single day, if you commit during the unseen hours to mastering your craft and you don't shy away from pursuing the basics, you will be more than extraordinary. Now, I'm here for one reason and one reason only today. That's to add value to your lives. And I can best do that certainly by sharing some stories and some stats and some lessons. But more importantly, I want to give you all some tangible, practical and applicable takeaways that you can implement immediately to raise the performance and level not only of yourself, but of your store. So we're going to talk about ways to improve relationships so that you can become more impactful and influential and improve your leadership. I'm going to teach you ways to make sure that your unit is more cohesive and that you develop a winning culture. And all of this will fall under the umbrella of delivering an exceptional and unparalleled customer experience. And I've had an opportunity to work with the best players in the world. And they've taught me every bit as much as I'd like to believe that I taught them. So I promise you now, I need to make this disclaimer. The stuff I'm going to share with you this morning is indeed basic. I can promise you you've heard this stuff before. Now you might have heard it in different language, but you've heard it before. I can promise you that the stuff I'm going to share with you, you know it intuitively and you know it intellectually. But I want to caution you. I caution you not to sit back thinking, I already know all of this. But instead, I want to challenge you to ask one of the most important questions you can ever ask yourself. And that's, how well am I actually doing this? See, there's a gap between what we know and what we do. It's called a performance gap. And it is literally the gap between what we know we're supposed to do every single day and what we actually do every single day. And in order for you all to continue to be high performers, in order for you to get each of your stores to the one, two and $3 million mark, you have to close that gap. You have to start doing the things that you know you're supposed to do. And once you've been able to do that for yourself, then you need to make that contagious and make sure everybody on your team can close that gap and do the things that you know you're supposed to do. Now in order for us to make sure we start off on the same page, it's important that you understand that ultimately you are in the relationship business. I understand from a standpoint of what it is that you sell and what it is that you do. But I want you to refocus the lens and appreciate the fact that you are in a relationship business. And there are three relationships that are going to be vital to your success. The first relationship is one that is most often overlooked and unfortunately undervalued because it is the most important one. And it's the relationship that you have with yourself. Are you self-aware? Are you self-disciplined? When you make a mistake or things don't go your way, do you have self-compassion and are you able to move to the next play? But more important than that, do you make the time to fill your bucket mentally, physically, emotionally, or spiritually if appropriate to you, do you make the time to fill your bucket so that you show up to your store every single day as the best version of yourself? See, if you don't, if you make the choice not to fill your bucket first and you show up as anything other than your best self, two things. One, that's actually an act of selfishness. You are giving you and your team less of a chance to be successful because you've made the conscious choice not to show up as your best self. And you also drastically reduce the chance that you're able to hit the goals that you've set of becoming a one, two, or three million dollar store. So it's vital that you do everything you can to fill your bucket first. There's an old adage that's been around a lot longer than I've been around that says you can't pour anything out of an empty cup, which means if your cup is empty, you have nothing to give those on your team or those that you serve and your customers. So you have to fill your bucket first. And that's why this is the bottom of the pyramid. Then the next are the members of your team. And I know some of you have smaller teams, some of you have larger teams, but even if it's two people, that's still considered a team. And I want to ask you, are you doing everything that you can to empower the members of your team, to support them, to assist them, to fill their buckets, to take friction off of their plate? Are you doing everything you can as a leader to allow them to become the best versions of their selves? And then the last part is usually the most obvious to anyone in business, and that's going to be your customers. Are you doing everything you can to not make assumptions on what your customers need, but to actually ask insightful questions and listen to their feedback? Are you listening to the problems and the issues they have, and then making sure that you have a customized resolution, or at least customized in perception? Each and every customer that comes in needs to feel like that you care about them, not care about their wallet or their bank account. And you do that by using emotional intelligence to build that bridge and to show them that you care. One thing that is vital for us to understand in 2020, customer and consumer expectations are through the roof. And the reason they're through the roof is because of companies like Amazon. You guys realize, right now, each of you could pull out your phones, order something on Amazon, if you have Amazon Prime, and depending on what you ordered, it could be at your hotel room before the dinner tonight, like talk about high expectations. And while you all aren't necessarily in direct competition with Amazon, you are always in direct competition with others that are raising the bar when it comes to customer experience, which means people will come to you all now at your stores, and they have an inflated expectation from service to product to everything that you all offer. And in order to continue to separate yourselves so that you all continue to be the best in class, you have to raise your game to meet those expectations. So we can't forget how important these three relationships are. Jay Billis of ESPN has been a longtime friend and mentor for the past decade. He's been one of the most influential people in my life. And once again, I don't know which of you follow basketball, but just know that Jay is the face of ESPN College basketball. And part of his job on ESPN game day is he has to watch both teams practice the day before a game. That way he can collect as much intel as possible on each team's personnel, on their strategies, keys to victory. He needs to know as much as he can going into the game. See, when you're an on-air commentator for ESPN, your biggest enemy is silence. I know his listeners and his fans and his viewers, we'd love those guys to stop flapping their gums for just a couple of minutes, but that's not what they're paid to do. He has to make sure that he's done his due diligence where he can talk for the entire broadcast. So he's a stickler for doing his homework. And back in December of 2010, there was a tremendous amount of hype about an early season game. And it's very rare that people get super hyped for an early season game. But the reason there was so much hype around this game is it pitted Duke versus Butler. And for those that do follow college basketball, you'll know that those were the two teams that met in the national championship a mere nine months before. And it's very rare that the two teams that meet on the biggest stage in college basketball play again as one of the first games of the season. So there was a tremendous amount of buzz around this game. Well, Jay is actually a Duke alum. So he decided that he would go watch Coach K and Duke practice first. And Coach K is a Hall of Fame coach. He's the all-time winningest coach in the history of college basketball. And he's talking to his team and he says, guys, we're going to beat Butler tomorrow because we have a clear competitive advantage. We are bigger, stronger and more powerful than they are. We're going to pound the ball down low and get easy dunks and layups. We're going to out-rebound them and we're going to contest every shot. Don't worry, guys, we're going to be fine tomorrow because we have a clear competitive advantage. And Jay left that game and was thinking, or left that practice, excuse me, was thinking, this could be a bloodbath. Coach K, the best to ever blow a whistle and hold a clipboard, just told his team definitively why they have a competitive advantage and why they're going to win. But he needs to do his due diligence. So he goes over to watch Butler. And at the time Butler was led by Brad Stevens. Brad is the current head coach of the Boston Celtics and an absolute basketball savant, one of the brightest basketball minds that I've ever met. And he's talking to the Butler Bulldogs and says, guys, don't worry, we're going to be more than fine tomorrow. We're going to beat Duke because we clearly have the competitive advantage. We are smaller, quicker and faster than they are. We're going to be able to put on a full court smothering press. We're going to be able to get tons of points in transition because their big guys can't keep up with us. And we're going to be able to, they're not going to be able to come out to our corner three point shooters. We're going to be fine tomorrow because we clearly have the competitive advantage. And Jay left that game and was thinking, I got no idea who's going to win this game. Both of these Hall of Fame level coaches have high team awareness and self-awareness to know what it is that gives them the advantage. What it is that gives them a competitive edge and separates them from their competition. And I'm telling you all that for two very distinct reasons. One, you need to continually refine and refocus your lens on what it is that gives you a competitive advantage. What it is that separates you from everybody else. And you need to continue to double down on that. See, anytime you know something that separates you from your competition, any investment you can make in that is a solid investment because it will extend your lead. It will prevent the opportunity of others catching you. But the other reason I share that with you is I want to encourage you to make relationships part of that secret sauce. I want you to work hard to make sure that the relationship you have with yourself, the relationship that you have with your team and absolutely the customized and personalized relationships that you have with each and every customer are one of the things that separates you from everyone else. And it needs to be to the tune that that's what the customer says about you. It's not good enough that you think that or that you believe it. They have to say that because if the word on the street is the relationship that you've created with them goes far above and beyond the services and products that you serve for them, you guys will be un-catchable. You want to talk about turbocharging your performance and then the ability to create a one, two or three million dollar store and then of course the key to that once you've done that and I know some of you have then the key simply to replicate that once you've got one store banging on all cylinders, the recipe stays the same. The script stays the same. Now you simply open up another and you've already developed the skills on building a cohesive team and a winning culture that now you can simply attract, recruit, train and develop other amazing team members and you simply replicate. But it all starts with relationships. And just in case anyone was wondering, Duke actually won that game. Butler's best player went down at the middle of the second half with a calf injury, excuse me, so the result was probably a little more spread out than it could have been. But I just wanted to make sure you knew that because I've done some keynotes before where the very first question someone asked me when I'm done after everything I had to say was, yeah, who won that Duke game? And I'm like, is that all you've been thinking about for the last 40 minutes? Have you not heard another word that's come out of my head? So I just want to put you guys at ease and let you know that Duke did end up winning. So let's talk about relationships. I was incredibly fortunate that very early in my career I was mentored by many Hall of Fame caliber coaches. And all of them taught me the importance of relationships, especially when you're dealing with athletes. And that was when everything changed for me. The moment I saw my job as building strong relationships with my players, not simply trying to get them faster and stronger, that's when everything changed. Because that's when I was able to build a level of trust, a level of respect. My players knew that I cared about them. And the buy-in and believe-in went through the roof. And all it was was a simple change in the way that I viewed my relationship. And they taught me three relationship mantras when I was a young coach that still hold true today in business. And these actually make up the foundation of my parenting philosophy. The first is you have to wake up every single day with the mindset of it's not about me, it's about you. It's not about me, it's about you. And who is that you? That's everyone that you all serve. That's the members of your team. That's your customers. That's your family. That's members of your church and in your community. If you wake up every single day with the goal of being of service, the goal of filling other people's buckets, it will make you the most attractive and magnetic person in any room. Because everyone will gravitate to the person that puts others' needs first. So it's not about you, it's about them. The next mindset that you have to have is you have to connect first and coach second. And I put coach in quotation marks because that's the terminology that I'm most comfortable with. But it certainly doesn't have to be your terminology. You can substitute the word coach for lead, for advise, for parent. But anytime you're trying to be a person of influence and you're trying to change someone's behavior or change their decision making, which is ultimately what you do when you're in sales, you have to make sure that you create that connection first. Your team has to know that you care about them as people first and as team members second. Your customers have to know that you care about them as people first and as a bank account second. And how do we create that connection? Well, we go back to the first arrow of this mindset of it's not about me, it's about you. And the best analogy that I can think of, when I was a child, you could divide every single kid into one of two categories. There were those that could take a Tylenol pill and there were those that had to have it smashed up an applesauce to take a Tylenol pill. And it really doesn't matter how you take your Tylenol, all that matters is that you take it. And the reason I tell you this as leaders, in order to put others needs first, your number one goal as a leader with your team or with your customers is to figure out, how do they like their Tylenol? And then you give it to them in the way that they prefer, not the way that you prefer. See, if you make the assumption that because I can swallow a Tylenol pill, everybody else can, that's not going to be a fit for everyone on your team. And that's not going to be a fit for everyone of your customers. So your goal is to find as much about the other person as possible. What is important to them? What do they value? What are their goals? What are their dreams? And then you as a leader have to be chameleon like enough to speak their language and deliver it in the way that they need. And then the last of these mantras, and this is more on developing culture, but if you ask my three children, this is absolutely the foundation of my parenting, there's only two things when it comes to culture and when it comes to behavior. You either accept it or you correct it. There is nothing else. There is no in-between. Every single behavior that someone on your team shows on a daily basis is either something that you accept and therefore you would praise because that which gets praised gets repeated or it's something that you don't accept and you have to, excuse me, and you have to correct it. Well, how do we correct it? Once again, we go back to the previous two arrows. We correct it by knowing the other person well enough to figure out how do they take their title and all and what is the way that I can approach them that will get me the best response? How do I approach them in a manner that will elevate their performance? See, there are some people in this world you can speak incredibly directly to. You don't need to put any applesauce with it. You can tell them the straight truth head on and that will help them raise their performance, but there's others that you have to add that applesauce to when you're giving them constructive feedback. Now, this is not about skirting the truth. I'm a firm believer that honesty and truth is a sign of love. You show someone you care about them by telling them the truth, by telling them the things that they need to hear, not necessarily the things they want to hear, but you have to learn what type of person am I trying to coach or am I trying to serve? There are some folks that you can actually be very direct with in front of their peers and that will cause them to raise their performance. There's others that if you call them out in front of their teammates, they'll feel embarrassed and emasculated and their performance will suffer. So you have to figure out what is the best way for me to correct behavior so that it is in alignment with our vision and our mission and everything that we're trying to accomplish. Now know that I said that this is binary, accept and correct are only the only two options and I know a few of you are taking notes and if you're taking notes, I recommend that you write this down, you underline this, you circle this and tonight maybe use a yellow highlighter. Accept it and correct are the only two options. Complaining is not a third option. It's the easiest default and it's the one that everybody goes to immediately because it's so much easier just to complain about circumstances, complain about the environment, complain about a team member instead of actually doing something about it. Now as you've gathered, I like to teach in threes and the reason I teach in threes is it makes things stickier and more memorable and as leaders, our goal is to make sure that whatever message we're trying to convey is as sticky as possible so that when you tell someone on your team something, they're going to remember it, they're going to recall it and hopefully put it into action so I have to teach in threes. The OCD and me would not let me have something with just one on here so I'm going to give you three things that will absolutely positively serve you in no positive way and I'm very careful with using absolutes. Complaining, making excuses and blaming others do absolutely nothing to move you forward, do absolutely nothing to serve you or your team and anytime you complain, make an excuse or blame others, you're basically skirting responsibility to someone else. Pat Riley who was the coach of the Lakers back in the showtime days with Kareem and Magic and is now a brilliant executive with the Miami Heat, he coined a term called disease of me and this is not what he calls, this is not what he uses for disease of me but I like that term. Disease of me basically means selfishness and anytime you complain, anytime you blame somebody else and anytime you make an excuse, that is a form of selfishness because you're taking responsibility off of yourself and you're putting it on someone else and as good leaders and influencers, if you're trying to be as impactful as you can we simply can't do that. So we have to have extreme ownership with everything that we do and I have nowhere to rush out of here but I want to be super respectful of your time because I value your attention more than you know, that's the only reason I'll occasionally look at my watch to make sure that I stop on time. Steve Nash is my favorite basketball player of all time, I mean he was an absolute wizard on the court but the reason I love Steve Nash was for his infectious energy and back in the early 2000s Steve Nash actually won back-to-back MVP titles which puts him in very rare company in the NBA. There have been some hall of fame level players that never won one MVP much less two and in the first season that Steve Nash won the MVP he only led the NBA in two statistical categories the first as most people would guess that follow sports would be assists he likes to share the sugar he likes to pass the pill he likes to get other people involved let them score the basket and receive the praise certainly the sign of a great teammate and a great leader but the other statistic that Steve Nash led the NBA in were touches I'm talking high fives fist bumps and pats on the butt how could I possibly know that Steve Nash led the NBA in high fives fist bumps and pats on the butt well it just so happens there was a research team from UC Berkeley and they were conducting an official study because they wanted to measure if showing signs of enthusiasm actually led to more wins on the court so they hired a research team that watched every minute of every NBA game and made a tally mark every time a player gave a high five a fist bump or a pat on the backside well the phoenix sons who Steve Nash played for were so enamored with this study that they hired a full-time intern to count just for Steve Nash just by show of hands how many of you have ever had a crappy entry-level job before yeah can you imagine if that was your first job yeah you see this guy over here yeah every time he touches one of these big tall sweaty guys if you could make a tally mark well in the very first game that the intern counted for Steve Nash he delivered 239 high fives fist bumps and pats on the backside he was an absolute furnace of human connection now in sport where physicality is appropriate it's been physiologically proven that you can actually transfer energy to another human being through physical touch you can indeed raise someone's game with a well-placed high five fist bump or pat on the backside just to make sure we're clear and HR compliant i'm not telling you that every single customer that leaves you give them a good pat on the backside what i am telling you though is what you all need to do is figure out ways to have an emotional equivalent of a high five fist bump or pat on the backside what is the emotional equivalent that you could give every single customer you could give every single team member on a daily basis almost like making deposits in a bank account what can you do to get the same response that a basketball player would get from a high five a fist bump or a pat on the backside here's something i want you guys to try and you can do this at each of your own stores it's an exercise called ten assists every morning when you wake up i want you to put 10 rubber bands on your left wrist and every time you give an assist to one of your teammates or to a customer and an assist is anything that you do that goes above and beyond what you're supposed to do this is completely unexpected this is extra this is not doing your job this is going above and beyond your job and every time you give an assist to a team member or to a customer you take one rubber band off of your left wrist and you put it on your right wrist but here's the rub you can't leave the store for the night until all 10 rubber bands are on your right wrist until you know for a fact that you've done nothing short of 10 tangible things to add value to someone on your team or someone that you serve many of you because you're the upper one percent you all are the leaders you guys are the Kobe Bryant's of what you do that's why you're in this room i'm willing to bet that most of you have already given out 10 assists by the morning coffee break but the sign of a real leader is being influential enough to make sure that that's something that's happening with everyone on your team can everyone on your team have the mindset to go above and beyond to deliver extra value make extra deposits with those on your team and those that you serve that's how you start to build the glue that will create the winning culture and i cannot stress enough all of this is about creating the script and the blueprint for you to get your store to one two or three million dollars but then being able to replicate that once you've got the secret sauce you owe it to yourselves and those that you serve to be able to expand and build on that but you guys don't need to change the script talk about basic versus easy the script of what it takes to do this is incredibly basic but as you all know you're living proof that being able to do this on a daily basis is anything but easy your jobs are not easy and i sure hope you know that i realize that i deliver all of this material in a very a matter of fact tone because i do believe that everything i'm sharing with you is basic i have nine a 10 year old twin sons and an eight year old daughter i've brought them to my talks before they don't get lost by anything that i share they can comprehend everything that i share because this stuff is basic but please don't think for one second guys that any of the stuff i'm sharing with you is easy every single thing that i'm asking you to do is not easy to do or you'd be doing it every single day there is nothing easy about your job and if you want to make it easier then you commit to the script you commit to the recipe you commit to mastering the basics during the unseen hours and that will make sure that you can accomplish that with much less friction so let's talk about culture and how you create that culture and even if an operation only has two people any relationship has a culture and the only question i have is the culture at your store one that you've designed with intention or is it one that you've accidentally walked backwards into we need to be very intentional about everything that we do and there are three distinct keys to a winning culture the first is role clarity everybody on your team needs to know exactly what they're supposed to do and what the expectations are to the level that they're supposed to do it when i'm done giving this talk if i asked this gentleman right here to please clean this table that's not specific enough because his definition of clean might be different than my definition of clean and now i'm going to be frustrated because i told you to clean the table you did what you thought you were supposed to do but it wasn't to my standard or expectation and now we've got dysfunction so part of role clarity is making sure that with with great description we can describe exactly what it is that we want what it is that we expect and what it is that we need that other person to do because every single person in this room has a different definition of what a clean table would look like some people it would just be well let's just wipe the table off some of you would pull out some windex and really scrub it down some of you would go the extra mile and whatever crumbs you knocked on the floor you then vacuum those up so we need to make sure that with role clarity it's not just the role that you have but it's what do i expect of you and one thing that we have to know about roles the role to the members on your team is not necessarily what they want it to be it's what you need it to be for the team to be successful and i firmly believe that the hardest thing in leadership is getting someone to buy in and believe in embracing a role that's not one of their choosing that they want to be doing something else but you need them to be doing this because it's what the team needs and getting them to not only know that role and embrace that role but to star in that role to the best of their ability see if you guys attract and recruit and train and develop the right people and you get each person on the team to have a mindset of i'm going to be world class in my role whatever their role is they want to be the best in the world at it that's how you build a winning culture let's talk about accountability i believe accountability is the biggest separator from average performing stores to good performing stores good to great and great to exceptional and your ability to then replicate that to future stores will all hinge on how well you can hold folks accountable and the most important part is to make sure that everyone looks at this through the same lens see holding someone accountable it's not something you do to them it's something you do for them holding someone accountable is the best gift that you can give them because basically you're saying i believe you're better than this i believe you're capable of more than what you're showing me right now and because i care about you because i care about our store and because i care about tent world as a whole i'm not going to let you slide with less than your best i'm going to hold you to the highest level of accountability and as leaders we need to care enough about the people we lead that we hold them to that level but we also have to be humble enough and vulnerable enough that we're not immune to that that we've created an environment where the people on our team can talk straight to us and can hold us accountable no one in this room is ever going to be perfect every day of their lives that just doesn't happen where human beings were fallible and there will be days where even as the leader that you don't show up as your best self and the best sign of your leadership and the culture you've created is when you don't show up as your best self and someone that is technically below you on the org chart still feels safe and comfortable enough to call you out and to tell you that that is a really really hard culture to establish but you should want to surround yourselves with people that hold you to the highest level each and every one of you should insulate yourselves with the people that will always tell you the truth help you see your blind spots and tell you the things that you need to hear even if in the moment you don't necessarily want to hear them and that's what accountability is about and most average performing cultures they only have what's called vertical accountability which is i'm in charge i tell you guys what to do now you go do it that's mediocre at best the highest performing organizations also have what's called horizontal accountability which means not only do i hold you accountable he holds you accountable he holds you accountable you hold him accountable he holds me accountable it's like a web and it doesn't matter where you fall on the org chart no one is immune to being held accountable to the standards that you've created that are in alignment with the vision of what you want for your store and for tent world as a whole so accountability is crucial and the most important part is getting everyone on the same page of looking at it as a gift see i was the performance coach at two nationally renowned high schools that have produced over a dozen players in the nba and i would sit on the far end of the bench which man if you sat next to me there was a good chance you were not going to get in that game your shooting shirt would stay on the entire game and those players would always ask me why is coach jones always so hard on me i don't even play why is he always giving me such a hard time in practice and you know what my answer was because he loves you because he cares about you because he wants you to be the best player that you're capable of and he wants the math the catholic high school to have the best basketball team that it's capable of and the only way that can happen is if he holds you accountable to everything so we should all want people in our lives that that hold us to that level and then lastly is communication i can make a really good compelling argument that every single dysfunction amongst two human beings or a group of human beings is within a couple degrees of poor communication or miscommunication lack of communication but communication is that vital and what i need you guys to understand as leaders is that you are always communicating something always most of you are aware of the nonverbals whether you realize it or not every single person in this room right now is communicating something to me based on your eye contact based on your body language your facial expressions your posture you are communicating a message to me whether you realize it or not but even more than that there are unconscious messages in everything we say and do and i want to make sure that you all not only recognize that but you control the message that goes out if you delegate something to someone on your team what's an unconscious message that you send when you delegate something of importance to someone on your team i trust you absolutely i believe in you i think you're competent enough to get this done and i need your help is that unconscious message is that going to strengthen or erode the relationship between this gentleman and myself it's going to strengthen big time and please know that every time you interact with another human being it doesn't matter if it's someone on your team someone you've been married to for 30 years or someone in the elevator here at the marriott every time you interact with another human being there's only two things in the world that are possible you either strengthen a human connection or you erode it those are the only two things possible and as leaders we have to be in the business of getting in reps because repetition is not punishment repetition is the oldest and most effective form of learning we have to be in the the business of getting in reps of practicing the skill of strengthening every human connection that we can how would i strengthen a human connection with a stranger in an elevator at the marriott when i'm only in the elevator for 30 seconds a smile a smile will fill somebody's bucket a good morning will fill somebody's bucket and how you do anything is how you do everything so is it on a surface level required for you to smile to everyone that you're in an elevator with is that going to have any effect on your ability to have a one two or three million dollar store at tent world no not necessarily but your ability to practice the skills and the behaviors that are required absolutely matter so why not take advantage to get in a rep anytime that you can now let's take the reverse of that let's just say that you delegate someone something to one of your team members but then you micromanage them you either literally or figuratively stand over them and breathe down their neck to cross every t and dot every i what's the unconscious message you send to someone when you micromanage them it's the opposite i don't trust you i don't believe in you in fact you're such a moron that if i'm not standing over you you probably won't do this correctly now clearly is that going to strengthen or erode that relationship yeah it's going to erode and it's going to erode it quick that is pulling the yarn out of the sweater here's the thing i know that that is not your intent you all are leaders you guys have been spending years and many of you decades developing very specific skill sets the reason you're in this room is because you are high performers you are great at what you do you have spent time developing standards of excellence and i can appreciate the fact that the thought of handing something off to someone else and them not doing it to the level that you would do it makes your stomach turn or keeps you up at night but you need to understand that it may be more costly to unconsciously plan a seed with a team member that you don't believe in them and that's going to erode trust so if you do find yourself as someone that tends to skew towards micromanaging because you have a high standard of excellence then just you need to be able to vocalize that you need to be able to delegate something and just say i have a tendency to kind of micromanage i don't want to do that with you because i do believe in you i do trust you and i know you're going to crush this so if you find me breathing down your neck i give you full permission to tell me to back off a 20 second conversation like that can completely flip the script and change everything on how they view your relationship so we have to make sure that we own every single message that we communicate to the world before i was the performance coach at dematha catholic high school i spent seven years as the performance coach at montrose christian which is where kevin durant graduated from i think there are seven current players in the mba right now that all played at montrose during the seven years that i was there one day back in the late 2000s i was getting myself ready for practice and montrose is a really small school has a very small gym and i was getting dressed and i was heading up to the practice floor just what i thought was going to be a normal day of practice and i walk in the door and i'm standing 10 feet away from my idol if you would have asked me that day who's the one person in the world that you would like to meet i walked in to the gym and i was standing 10 feet away from him and that person was coach k the head coach at duke and i don't want to be overly dramatic but he was actually glowing like he is in that picture right there and i walked in and i found myself 10 feet away from my hero my idol somebody that i had looked up to from afar for many many years my entire career and what's kind of funny to me now i have much more mindfulness and awareness today than i had back then because in full transparency i don't remember a single word that either one of us said and we talked for a good 10 minutes i don't remember a single word but you know what i'll never forget how he made me feel coach k made me feel like i was the most important person in that gym i wasn't the kitty was recruiting was the most important person but that's not how he made me feel he had warm facial expressions and eye contact very open body language he kept asking me insightful question after insightful question and he made me believe that he cared about my answers he made me feel like i was the most important person in that gym now i was raised old school i was taught that when someone goes out of their way to do something nice for you you hand write them a thank you note so i went home that night and i hand wrote him a thank you note coach k thank you so much for your time today you have no idea how much that meant to me i'm going to continue to root and support for you and duke i appreciate you and i put a stamp on it and i mailed it off to germ north carolina and i figured that would be that well three weeks later i go to my mailbox and i've got a letter back from coach k that in essence thanked me for my time how long do you think it took him to write this even if he's slow maybe 60 seconds can we agree that over the course of our entire life 60 seconds is a little thing well this little thing had a profound impact on my life this little thing is the reason that today i am relentless about returning voicemails emails text messages and as many social increases i can because i'm from the mindset that if the greatest coach in the history of college basketball can make time to return my handwritten letter you better believe i can email you back you better believe i'm going to call you back you better believe i'm going to text you back this little thing is also the reason that i try to have an attitude of gratitude in everything that i do every single day that i wake up one of my initial goals is to tell as many people as i can i appreciate you thank you because if the best coach in the history of college basketball can take time out of his day to show me an absolute no one some gratitude then you better believe i can go out of my way to do the exact same thing and just so you guys know i only carry this around when i speak i didn't have this in my gym shorts yesterday i was i was walking around on the beach just want to make sure you guys knew that i told you at the very beginning that i was going to tell you things that you'd heard before i was going to tell you things that you already knew intellectually and intuitively and i believe i've done that so far and i hope that you're sitting back with some humility and asking yourself how well am i doing those things because therein lies the performance gap that i teed up earlier it is the gap between what you all know and what you all do i have the humility to acknowledge everything i've shared so far you've already known this but do you have the humility to acknowledge whether or not you're doing it and if you are doing it are you doing it to the level that you're capable of and if the answer is no to either one of those questions then logically you're not performing at the level that you're capable of you and your store are not performing at the level that you're capable of if you're not doing these things every single day and that would lead the question why why would a group of really intelligent high performers which you all absolutely are why would you not be doing the things that you know you're supposed to do because it's not easy guys none of this stuff is easy and it's going to require you to change see i don't make a lot of absolutes and i don't make a lot of promises but one thing i know for sure when you all leave this event if nothing changes nothing changes i can promise you that when you leave this event if you keep doing what you've been doing you will keep getting what you've been getting if you don't like what you've been getting you need to change what you've been doing but the problem with change is it gives people anxiety it makes people worry because we're creatures of habit there was a duke university study that said 42 of every single thing we do during our waking hours is habitual that means almost half of everything you do from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to bed is on autopilot and anytime we have to change that autopilot and change the behavior that we've grooved it makes us uncomfortable and most human beings do everything in their conscious and unconscious control to alleviate discomfort this is where i'm so fortunate that i came up in the basketball training space because when i was playing training a player like kd discomfort was not a nice to have discomfort was a requirement it was a necessity my goal was to take every player in every team to the brink of discomfort physically mentally and emotionally every single time they came in and whether or not you're going to maximize your potential hinges on whether or not you're willing to embrace that discomfort so i had a chance to meet kd when he was 15 years old and i watched him play for a couple minutes and there were a few things that were really obvious to me this kid loves to play basketball he is as fundamentally sound as any 15 year old i've ever seen and boy does he understand the game he knew the game on a level that would that on a cerebral level that would rival most coaches but what was really obvious to me as a performance coach and is probably obvious to you all in this picture kevin was rather slight of frame he used to get real irritated with me when i would call him skinny but you can see from this picture he was very very slight of frame so i made it very clear to him and his wonderful mom wanda that something was going to need to change in order for him to be the best player he was capable of he was going to have to become stronger and more powerful he was going to have to put on body weight and in order to do those things it was going to come with a tremendous amount of discomfort and it took a few months of convincing before he finally came in for a workout when his mom wanted to let him come in because her little baby bird had never gone through any type of organized strength and conditioning and he came in for a workout and i remember i got so jacked up and i was so excited that this kid came in within the first 30 minutes i had absolutely hammered him kevin was laying in a pile on the gym floor well as you can see he was 611 180 pounds so he was more coiled up like an old garden hose but he was on the gym floor and his muscles were twitching he was drenched in sweat and kevin was always a young man of very few words he didn't say two words to me the entire workout so i had no idea whether or not he liked it so i asked him and as serious as can be he said no coach i didn't but i know this is what i need to do if i want to play in the nba so when can i see you again i remember being blown away of the maturity of this 15 year old to recognize the fact that he was going to have to make a change and this change was going to come with a tremendous amount of discomfort mental physical and emotional discomfort but he was willing to do that because he knew that that was the sacrifice that was required for him to get where he wants to go and i'm here to tell you all you are going to have to make a sacrifice in comfort to change the behaviors that are required for you to become your best and for your store to perform as well as it's capable of but i want you to embrace that discomfort don't try to run from it don't try to hide from it and take solace in knowing that discomfort is a temporary prerequisite to getting the permanent outcome that you want if you're willing to go through a little bit of discomfort now you're going to have a lot of enjoyment and success later and you have to be willing to make that sacrifice and make that investment now as i start to wrap up i want to put a big bowtie on everything i've shared with you so far and to no surprise this will have three pillars to it everything i've shared with you on building the three most important relationships and how to build those three relationships the three things of the disease of me that we need to make sure are not part of what we do on a daily basis and the three keys to building that winning culture the only way you can do all of this stuff to the best of your ability is if you learn to live in the present moment i'll tell you from my own experience as a 44 year old professional speaker and author and father of three the biggest challenge i face every single day of my life is the ability to be in the present moment because distractions in 2020 are at an all-time high and a good portion of those come from digital distractions those little things you guys have in your pocket that are ringing and buzzing just like that right on cue those things they're distractions and we have to learn how to stay foot thank you for doing that i'm going to bring you on the road with me that was excellent no no worries distractions like that happened thousands of times a day and in order for you to be the best that you can you have to learn how to invest in the present moment so let me give you the three pillars of being in the present moment and then i'll wrap things up with one final story and we'll be out of here first and foremost you have to learn how to focus on the next play so you can't worry about what just happened i can't worry that a phone just went off that was outside of my control all i can do is move to the next play one of the things that makes coach jones the head basketball coach at dematha so remarkable is he teaches players the moment they set foot on dematha's campus how to focus on the next play you just missed the layup it's okay next play you just turn the ball over it's okay next play i know the referee missed a call it happens occasionally in high school basketball next play why does coach jones want the players at dematha to focus on the next play it's the only one they have any control over they can't do anything about the miss layup the turnover the referees miss call that play is over it's in the rearview mirror and anytime focus attention or energy one's spent on something that's in the past cannot be deposited into the future so if you're going to pout and whine and cry and complain because you missed the layup turn the ball over the referee didn't make a call you are not at your best for the next play the next part is we have to learn how to control the controllables there's only two things in this world folks you have 100 control over 100 of the time your effort and your attitude those the only two things now there are a lot of other things within your sphere of influence there's a lot of other things that you can impact but those are the only two things that you have 100 percent control over 100 percent of the time and anytime you are worried about something outside of what you can control you're not focused on what you do control and performance will suffer so when we look at effort most people will acknowledge that giving a good effort is a choice but what they don't acknowledge is there has to be another side to that coin if working hard is a choice well then not working hard is also a choice but that's not one that most people hold themselves accountable for if i call you out for not giving your best effort there's a very good chance just because you're a human being i obviously don't know you there's a very good chance that if i call you out for not giving your best effort you're going to resolve to you're going to go back to the disease of me you're more than likely going to make an excuse on why you didn't give your best effort you might blame him for why you didn't give your best effort and i can promise you that the moment i leave the room you're going to complain to these folks right next to you that i had the audacity to hold you accountable to not giving your best effort but effort is always a choice and it always starts with us and then we have to look at attitude we live in a crazy world 99.9 percent of the things that happen on a daily basis you have zero control over but you have 100 control over how you respond and you react to everything that happens and to me that is the most empowering mindset you can have that no matter what the world throws at me i control how i respond and if you want to continue to be high performers and high achievers you will always choose a response that moves you forward instead of one that cripples you and moves you back but the choice is always yours and then lastly you have to learn how to fall in love with the process that's a lot of what we've been talking about there is a distinct process that charles and the rest of his team have already outlined for you of what it takes for you to have a one two or three million dollar store the script is there the blueprint is there now you just have to follow the process and the best way i can describe the process to you is imagine that you need to build a brick wall if you need to build a brick wall i don't want you to get lost in the end result of the brick wall of how long is it going to be how tall is it going to be are they going to paint it is it going to be part of the marion all i want you to do is focus on laying each brick with care and precision because if you can lay each brick as perfectly as possible the wall will take care of itself the juice is in the bricks it's not in the end result so once you have the goal in hand and you have the script that's been provided for you now what you and the rest of your team needs to do is lay as many perfect bricks as you can every single day and if you do that we'll be able to shift the conversation this will no longer be can you have a store with a million dollars the new conversation will be when are you going to have a store with a million dollars and it's all about trusting and respecting that process back in the summer of 2017 i had an opportunity to run a charity event an endurance charity event at the home of sarah blakley and jesse itzler if you're not familiar sarah blakley is the founder and owner of spanks a women's undergarment company and at the time i ran that race she was the youngest self-made female billionaire in the world one of the sharpest human beings have ever met and her husband jesse is equally impressive he's a fellow speaker and author an endurance superhuman and a serial entrepreneur so they're quite the power couple and they invited 70 of us up to their home for an event at their home in new fairfield connecticut and this picture doesn't quite do it justice so let me show you with a graph here this hill in the backyard it was 85 yards long so it's just shy of a football field but the more important statistic is it was at a 40 degree slope that's steep i don't know if you guys have ever done any incline work on a conventional treadmill but even the treadmills here at the marriott they only go up to 15 percent and if you've ever put them up to 15 percent and tried to go for a little walk you feel like you're going to fall off the back of the earth well this was 40 percent and our task for the day there were 70 of us that were invited our task for the day was to run up and down that hill a hundred times yeah tell me about it the event was appropriately called hell on the hill and that it was when i got to about rep 70 i was ready to quit i was done i could feel blisters forming under each big toe my back and my knees were throbbing to the touch and i apologize for the visual because i know you just ate breakfast but i had a chafing situation going on that was absolutely out of this world i was miserable and i was ready to quit i didn't think i could finish but thankfully a good friend of mine happened to be running as well his name's steve wojachowski steve is a dupe basketball icon and he's the head coach at marquette and we've been friends for over a decade and i didn't think that i was going to be able to finish this i knew i was around rep 70 and just to commiserate misery i asked steve what number he was on because i knew we were on about the same pace and he smiled at me which really irritated me and he said i've got one rep one rep there's no way and then he finished his sentence i've got one rep 30 more times that's the definition of living in the present moment you don't focus on the hundred all you focus on is the next rep all you got to do is get up and down that hill one more time baby one more time you don't worry about your knees and your back and your chafing situation you focus on your own attitude and your own effort because those the only two things you can control and i don't have a very high math acumen but even i'm smart enough to know mathematically that you cannot get to number 100 until you go through number 71 you have to respect and trust the process and that gentle reminder from steve is what allowed me to finish it took me four hours and four minutes of continuous running up and down this hill to finish the hundred reps so now we'll close i opened by telling you the story of the coby Bryant skills academy what i didn't tell you all was there was a very special college counselor there now he was not special at the time because no one knew who he was he had just finished his freshman year and he was unknown to all of the coaches but there was something about this young man that was different and it was palpable but the most impressive of which was at the end of the first workout and we did two workouts a day for four straight days this was an mba mini training camp at the end of the first workout he and i just happened to be standing close to each other we had never met before but just based on proximity he said coach will you rebound for me because i don't leave the gym until i swish five free throws in a row swish five free throws in a row to any of you that have never actually shot a basketball yourself that is an incredibly high standard a swish by definition is a perfect shot it doesn't touch the rim it doesn't touch the backboard it gets its name from the sound it makes by going nothing but net and this young man was not going to leave the gym until he swished five in a row that means he could have swished four in a row hit a little bit of the rim on the fifth one it still goes in he's still mathematically perfect he's still five for five but that wasn't good enough for him he would start over and if memory serves it never took him longer than 12 to 15 minutes to swish five in a row that young man was stefan curry and stef will go down in history as the greatest shooter that the game has ever seen and it's not by accident it's not by luck it's not even because his dad played in the mba it's because he's willing to hold himself to unparalleled standards and that's the thought that i want to leave you all with this morning as i thank you so much for your amazing presence and attention but the standards that you set today both for yourself and for your team at your store will determine who and where you'll be tomorrow so with that i really and truly thank you all for your attention i appreciate you guys and i hope you have a wonderful rest of your event thank you