Speaker 1: 0:12

So you're around a lot of athletes every year. What do you think the highest performers that you talk about? Obviously in the business industry industry as well as athlete. What are some commonalities between business people and athletes that you see?

Speaker 2: 0:31

I would say the the biggest commonality of high performers is discipline. Like if you really take a really, really high performer so let's say, if we were to compare your favorite and you had the blessing of working with him before his tragic passing. But if you take Kobe Bryant, and what made Kobe great? Kobe didn't rely just on his talent, right, God blessed him with a tremendous amount of talent, but he recognized. If I take the talent that God has given me and then I couple that with discipline at a level that other people are unwilling to match, you put the two together, you become a goat.

Speaker 2: 1:11

Same thing in the business world, you know I can think of. I had a coaching call this morning with a client of mine. She's absolutely amazing, had an award-winning career as an attorney and she just had tremendous discipline. Right, she had smarts and talent, but her discipline to do the little things, to make herself different than her competition caused her to be recognized around the world, literally winning awards, the equivalent of things that Kobe did. She did it as an attorney and now she gets to coach and she writes books, and so when you look at the variance of success, it's never somebody who just operates on talent, it's always the discipline, the high-level discipline, that makes them ultra high performers and what are those little things?

Speaker 1: 1:58

if you can go into detail that these, these people have, if you can go into specifics, like what makes someone tick differently, what makes someone have the answers or be four steps ahead, five steps ahead of people that normally don't have the answers?

Speaker 2: 2:14

Well, I'll tell you, we'll give credit to the man who connected us, sir Drew Hanlon, and we were talking about his book. Stop bullshitting yourself earlier, which I love the book and I know you do too, not just because we know him and we love him, but, like it really was an incredible book, and I want to make sure we give credit where credit's due, because far too many people on social media and videos try to say things that are not theirs and claim them to be theirs, which is always a compliment. However, however, you know you got to give credit where it's due.

Speaker 2: 2:45

There's an exercise in Drew's book that goes through the process of change, and he talks about micro shifts, and I think really high level performers really lock in on the little things that make the difference. Right, I always talk about the difference between focus and intentional focus. So focus is that person who shows up to work. Oh, I go to work from eight to five and I grind, you know, which I think is just a bunch of nonsense, right, they can't even tell you what they do, but better than not showing up at all and not being committed. So focus only gets you so far. Yet intentional focus is what Drew talks about in the book, like identify change. Identify an area where you want to make a difference, identify an area where you want to do something different, and then you identify those micro shifts. That's where the intentional focus comes into, where you recognize.

Speaker 2: 3:31

Ok, if I have a 15 minute meeting with maybe the key team member on our team and I do that to start the day, it sets the tone for her ability to lead the team and for me to be able to have intentional focus on other things. Right, so that'd be one micro shift. If I do that every day, I have trust, the team has it handled, I don't have to worry about it, I can attack. Then what I know drives revenue. So it might be. Hey, I need to make five phone calls a day. We got five main revenue buckets in our business, so every day I have to at least make one text message, email, phone call. So that would be a micro shift, a change, a discipline. And when I do that, those aspects of the business don't sleep, revenue grows, pipeline grows and that's how you drive growth of a business.

Speaker 1: 4:18

Do you fear at least for me, like I start to notice when I get content, get comfortable? Do you feel like you have to like super drive yourself, put yourself in a different gear where you may be feeling content? Do you have to kind of do something differently to get yourself like trick yourself, like okay, I gotta do something different because I feel comfortable?

Speaker 2: 4:40

Yeah, so just so everybody knows, you know season one we talked a lot about Sam. You know can't keep up, and so it's a common theme with Sam. He gets very seduced by success. He becomes very complacent, very content. You know, you gotta like he'll sleep til 2, 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Not really do much, right?

Speaker 2: 4:58

Just kidding one of the hardest working guys you'll ever meet and you look at his story literally from being a division one athlete being suppressed to some of the deepest depths where people would never even imagine they could. They could break through to where he's actually a janitor, wondering what will the next phases of my life be? What will the chapters be? Will I ever get out from under? Being a janitor literally cleaning women's toilets, and now he's recognized as one of the top videographers in the world, working with some of the top athletes in the world. He and Drew have done so many things in the world of basketball and beyond, and look at all the fun things we get to do now.

Speaker 2: 5:37

Right, so there's a lack of complacency when you understand, maybe, the place you're never going back to. So for Sam I know from knowing his story and what he shares, all he has to think about is that moment me being back being a janitor looking at a woman's toilet. I'm never going back there. And so that's that burn that we talk about, the burn in the podcast.

Speaker 2: 5:57

When somebody finds that deep-rooted, it's pain, it's something that gives you perspective. I'm not going back there. It's the person who told you that you couldn't do something For me. It's my mom. To continue, never to be perfect, because none of us will be perfect, but to be the best example I can be for Kennedy, the best example I can be for Isaac, the best example I can be as a husband and I mess up all the time, but I will always try to be my best. But that's fueled from that burn that I have all these days that my mom never got because I've already outlived her by eight years. Right, so for Sam, that I'm never going back to being a janitor again, for me, I will never waste a day. I think you as an individual have to find what is that burn to? Where you fight off complacency, you fight off the seduction of success, when you understand that the burn is gonna fuel you to not be complacent, to not be seduced and to keep stacking days.

Speaker 1: 6:51

You work with some of the best people in the world and you can tell within five minutes if someone's motivated or you can just see right past them. Is it hard to sustain that motivation with people like to to help people become motivated for great periods of time?

Speaker 2: 7:09

the inconsistencies of seeing that day after day with people well, I think you know the the work that our team does, the work that I have the blessing of doing every day, is identifying what somebody's burn is. Once I identify what somebody's burn is, I just love the work so much I almost become passionate enough, almost like I have a connection to their burn to help them drive consistency with those reminders Right. So, individuals that I coach one on, members of our standard elite mastermind, they'll share with you. They'll get random texts from me. That's what their burn is, right. So I know their burn. I keep notes on what their burn is. I'll just sometimes I'll randomly text it to them Cause, like I thrive on knowing, like that, one little thing that I can do, that's a micro shift, that one little touch may cause somebody to say I'm going to go own this day.

Speaker 2: 8:03

You know, I just I kind of thought about it, but I wasn't intentional in thinking about it. Ben hit me with that text message I'm going to go attack the day. And that, to me, is what gets me fired up every day to continue to do this work is that when you help somebody understand that burn, it's amazing the impact you can have. By the way, total side side note, we may have to turn this into a burn episode. This is good. I mean you like your level of questions. I mean I almost as if you were like prepared for this.

Speaker 2: 8:30

this is very impressive so that this meant we may have to do like an intro and an outro for the burn with what you're creating here, Sam. This is maybe we'll let you do the intro for the burn, although I've already given you the credit. You know, know you got credit for his story, which is important to Sam, but his story really is amazing and I will tell you guys, if you want to have some fun, go back and Google the burn episode with Sam Lamone. We did this in LA years ago Ten years, I think. Ten years ago we had Sam on the burn. We were in a locker room in one of the gyms where they do training of NBA players and it was like a dumpy old, it was almost like a vacant building. It felt like and uh, we shared his story then. So I'd encourage you guys to go back and listen. It'll really push you and motivate you to have different perspective of what you perceive tough times to be.

Speaker 1: 9:20

If you were helping somebody, just anybody, random, how? With what you know now and to show them fast, immediate results and I know everybody wants immediate results but to even give them just a belief that their life could change, tell them to kind of fill that change right away with what you know in your time of training. What little details can you kind of tell them and kind of share with them, like, hey, listen, this is possible, like I know I'm saying it right now but how do you, how can you instill faith into someone right away, like like a hint of faith?

Speaker 2: 10:00

well, I think the the faith comes in choosing to be faithful that one day the vision you have can happen. But those individuals where we have worked closely or I've had the opportunity to speak or to share a message with you, you know that I always say long obedience in the same direction, with aggressive patience, and so when I say that, it's the reminder this is not gonna happen fast, it's not gonna happen overnight, and maybe it will, and if it does, I think that's incredible. But the chance of that success sustaining itself is not as likely. So a lot of times, the pain or the strength that you build from staying faithful, showing a continued commitment, showing discipline day after day after day, stacking days, is what builds the muscle and the fortitude for you to be able to sustain long amounts of success and then to really earn the vision that one day you can have. You know, I think, about the number of people who they'll call and they say oh, you know, I'd love to be on the sidelines at a Kansas State. I'd love to be on the sidelines for an NFL game. I would have loved to have, you know, worked with Coach Saban.

Speaker 2: 11:12

I literally said yes to my high school basketball coach to go back. There was no money. Even if they would have had money I would have taken. I would not have taken any money to go back to my high school when coach Basler called me and said, benny boy, these kids are underperforming and said come fire them up. And I said yes to my coach because of what my coach had meant in my life. And you have to say yes Oftentimes to things that are in alignment with where you want to go, even if it doesn't pay you today or it doesn't get you the result that you want today. You have to do the little things that other people are unwilling to do to one day live the life that you want to live.

Speaker 1: 11:52

And like this is cliche all the time and we talk about it all the time, but why do people give up so quickly? Why, like not a cliche answer, but why do they give up so quickly?

Speaker 2: 12:03

so quickly? Why, like, not a cliche answer, but why do they get up so quickly? I think, people, there's a lot of ways we could answer this, but if we think about you using that word, faith right, you, as tough as it was, you had faith. I don't know what it is, I don't know how I will get out of this situation. So, even though there was fear, you chose to remain faithful by having action, learning the camera, learning things, putting yourself in position within that door open when you could go to a drew handle and say, dude, I'll work for free, I'll come into your gym, I'll film. You were ready to get yourself out of your situation because you had faith.

Speaker 2: 12:44

Most people have fear to where they show up and what happens is the fear speaks to them way louder than the faith and you really can't listen to both voices, you can only listen to one. And they listen so much to the fear that they then accept their circumstance, they accept their life. They live to their feelings rather than having faith, developing standards and building that perseverance and resilience to build a different life. They live to their feelings rather than having faith, developing standards and building that perseverance and resilience to build a different life. You're a great example of that.

Speaker 1: 13:10

So a lot of people, 90% of the time, will give into fear versus self-belief versus faith.

Speaker 2: 13:20

I think it's the easy way and just as people want, anybody wanting the easy way towards success is probably going to be the person that is more susceptible to the easy way of listening to the fear and quitting Most people. And that's where, like when I coach yes, I know veins will pop out of my neck I'm intense. A lot of people can't handle it. They may think I'm too much. Like why is this guy so intense? I'm just being real with you. If you think this big dream is going to happen overnight, I'm sorry. Like you're probably going to end up succumbing to your fears because you're not going to have that internal fortitude or that connection or that burn to sustain the pain or the challenge or the adversity that comes with doing something great in your life. So I just I try to just be real with people and unfortunately, even when you're real, people don't want to listen because they just want the easy way. But there's no easy way to success. There's no easy way to greatness.

Speaker 1: 14:16

And would you say that passion is probably a huge indicator of being successful?

Speaker 2: 14:25

So I just started the process of writing the next book, which is going to be called the Process, and you know many of you read the Standard and it was a huge blessing the support of the Standard. It became a Wall Street Journal bestseller, and so the logical next step, I believed, was, now that we've identified what is the standard, we have to now equip you with an understanding of how important discipline is and the process to sustain the standard of long-term success a lot of what this conversation is based on. And so, in the process, I'm actually going to tell a story of another client from our mastermind group and we talked about, I helped him uncover, which is now something I've been using in our coaching work, consistently called HEUs they're high energy units and Mark Few, who's the head basketball coach at Gonzaga, he developed, as a Hall of Fame basketball coach, what he calls EGBs energy giving behaviors and it's the little things that a basketball player is willing to do on the court that typically aren't tracked. What do most people track? They track how many threes did I hit, how many points did I have, how many assists, assists, how many rebounds. Those are the things we know, like the regular statistics that are tracked. He started tracking these egbs. How many times do you dive on the floor? How many high fives to your teammates? You know the communication on the court, the intangibles that make people great, and so I brought that now into the business world with this form of HEUs.

Speaker 2: 16:01

It had a massive impact on this member, mark from our mastermind, where now he's attacking four different disciplines in his life. And when you tap into your capacity, it's hard sometimes, like I, have to manage that much so, he intentionally says every time he starts attacking one of those new objectives. Every day, I have to bring high energy units to what I'm doing. So a lot of times, high energy comes from passion. So I think passion is critically important. Passion met with high energy is going to drive results. It's going to have you enthusiastic, fired up, excited, which then becomes attractive for somebody that you're leading, somebody that you're coaching, somebody that you're mentoring, somebody that you're educating and somebody that you might be going to compete with on a team.

Speaker 1: 16:47

Do you ever run into a situation where you have to encourage your clients to transform their pain into passion, transform their pain into trying to reach success?

Speaker 2: 17:01

That's the story of my life, right? You know, as much as I would give anything and would love, you know, to have another conversation with my mom, another hug with my mom, my mom, to have just one dinner with my children, this is my life. And you know, no matter how hard you pray for those things, there was an amazing purpose that my mother had in her life to overcome her pain, to teach me the lessons she instilled in me when a disease that there's still no cure for took her life. And those are now lessons I try to instill in our children, right? So there was a purpose or pain that she had to go through for me to learn who I can be and how strong I can be, and what fuels that little boy who is the fighter inside of me, who's still inside of me, to sustain that pain, to find my greatest strength.

Speaker 2: 17:56

And I think a lot of times it comes from perspective, right? No matter how hard I cry, no matter how hard I pray, this is my life and this is the adversity that I've had to face. And if we can't change it, then we have to accept it, we have to adapt, we have to adjust and we have to attack it, and that's what I try my very best to do. Doesn't mean that I don't have emotion around it. Doesn't mean that I don't cry to do Doesn't mean that I don't have emotion around it. Doesn't mean that I don't cry. Doesn't mean I don't have tough days. Doesn't mean I don't have those days where I wish I could see or have a conversation with my mom or spend time, but I don't get to do those things. So I believe we as individuals have to accept the pain, allow the pain to become strength and then that strength to be the fuel that allows you to overcome in your life.