Self-Awareness and the Habits of High-Performers with Alan Stein, Jr.

Welcome to the Athletics of Business, a podcast about how the traits and behaviors of elite athletes and remarkable business leaders frequently intersect. The real stories and hard lessons to help you level up your leadership and performance. Now your host, Ed Molitor.

Welcome back to another episode of the Athletics of Business podcast. I am your host and CEO of the Molitor Group, Ed Molitor. Now, if you've listened to the podcast follow my work. You know that you cannot become a high performer without self awareness. But for all leaders, there's a shadow side to self awareness where you have to set your ego aside to face your personal weaknesses and opportunities for growth. It's in those moments of humility and vulnerability with yourself, you can start becoming aware of how those weaknesses are showing up in your daily life, both at work and at home. Then you'll start to see how your habits are contributing to achieving or missing your goals. Now, my guest today views self awareness as the foundation on which everything else is built, while acknowledging that it's a continuous work in progress.

I am beyond excited to welcome my good friend, speaker and high performance Coach, Alan Stein Jr. And he shares how self awareness is the first step to changing your habits and how those habits help form you into a high performer. There is so much that we talk about today, including his two books, incredible books. There'll be links in the show notes to get these books. Go and get them first being Raise youe Game, High Performance Secrets from the Best of the Best and his most recent release, Sustain youn Game. High Performance Keys to Manage Stress, Avoid Stagnation and Beat Burnout. And not to give it all away, but Alan might make announcement inside of this podcast about how he's going to complete To Trilogy and what the naming and concept and content inside of that book will be.

Alan, thank you so much for joining us today on the Athletics of Business podcast. You are someone I consider a true friend in the business. So much respect and admiration for not just all the work that you do, but how you do it. Thanks for being here.

Oh man. Well, that feeling is very mutual and I'm excited to be with you. I've been looking forward to this since we put it on the schedule, so we'll have some fun today.

Well, we only have so much time. Let's jump right into it. We have a saying here in the wall in the studio and it says self awareness is the competitive advantage. And I know you are a huge fan of self awareness. Can we jump into that and what it's meant on your journey? Because you've had a heck of a ride.

Absolutely. I do believe self awareness is the foundation to which everything else is built. And I view self awareness as being able to look at every aspect of you as a human being. I think most people are intimately in touch with their strengths, with their talents, with their gifts, with their dreams, with their hopes, their ambitions, the stuff we can call the good stuff. But it really takes some courage to look on the other side of that curtain and have some humility and some vulnerability to be able to acknowledge your weaknesses and your opportunities for growth, your fears, your insecurities, the things that keep you up at night, the things that are holding you back are undermining your ability to be your best self. But I think it's really important to have a solid and accurate grasp of both.

With everything that I share in podcasts, on stage, or in my books, I always let folks know that I'm not coming from a place of mastery. These are all things I'm working on. And I can tell you, as someone who spent almost 40 years being relatively unaware, now that I've seen the other side and how much better life can be and how much higher you can perform when you're willing to do the tough work of becoming self aware. Yeah, there's just nothing like it.

And you used a word that I love and you talk about a lot. Mastery. Right. And working towards mastery. And you have a saying that's on the wall in the Penn State locker room or is it in the weight room? And to me, I repeat this often and it's Are the habits you have today on par with the dreams you have tomorrow? Can you talk to me about. About A, what that statement means and B, what it means to you, knowing that a group of young men and a collection of talent and leadership sees that every single day when they walk out on the field or walk in the weight room. Working towards mastery.

Well, having that quote up in the Penn State training facility is one of my highest professional honors. I mean, that's something that really means a lot to me because of my reverence and respect for Coach Franklin and the Penn State football program. It was something that I used to say all of the time when I was in the basketball training space and I'd be working with a group of players. And I always wanted them to make the connection that their habits, the things they do consistently and unconsciously and on a daily basis, is what will ultimately determine their level of success and their level of performance. And I wanted to make sure to connect those dots. And when I was working with young people at the time, understandably and rightfully so. They all had very lofty dreams.

Most of the players that I worked with when they were in high school had the dream of playing in the NBA one day, which was something I certainly wanted to encourage and support and champion. But I would let them know that if you want to make it to the NBA, you need to start having NBA caliber habits and make MBA caliber decisions and live your life as if you were already an NBA player. That's kind of where that quote was born from. Because I would let them know, look, if you have the dreams of playing in the NBA but you don't have very good habits, well, one of those things needs to change. Either you need to drastically level up your habits or. Or you need to lower your dreams.

And I would always say that with a huge smile and a tremendous amount of love in my heart because I don't think I've ever met anyone that says they want to consciously and voluntarily lower their dreams. Which means you have to improve your habits. So it was an easy teaching tool to be able to ask a young man what is your ultimate goal? And they would say, play in the NBA. I wouldn't have to yell at them, I wouldn't have to berate them, I certainly wouldn't have to demean them. I would just be able to whisper in their ear, the way you're working today won't get you to the mba. And that's all it would take for them to radically change their state, change their behavior and change their commitment in that moment to being their best self.

At the end of the day, don't. The best of the best. And you've trained the best of the best, you've worked with the best of the best, you've helped develop world championship, world class teams habits. Developing positive productive habits becomes just a way of life. But I think the world makes this huge deal of God. I have to put in the work, I have to develop these habits. It's so hard. No, you know why? You just get better at doing the hard stuff and just developing the positive. Productive habits just becomes a way of life. And how did you see that show up in all your work with the athletes you worked with?

Yeah, habits was one of the main focal points of the work I did when I was in the basketball space. And it's certainly one of the focal points of what I do now in the corporate space. And with that I also let folks know just to hopefully relieve some of the perceived pressure is let them know that we're not looking for perfection. I know when I look at my own life, I threw perfection out the window years ago. Right now, I'm much more inspired and motivated by progress. I make small changes and get incrementally better overall. I consider myself a fairly disciplined person. And I would say the vast majority of my habits serve me and take me closer to being my best self. But I'm definitely not batting a thousand.

I certainly have a couple of things in my life that I could continue to tweak and up level. And I'm okay with that. I'm aware of those things. I don't blame, complain, or make excuses about the things that aren't quite at the level that they should because I know I'm fully responsible for that. And I also know that I'm fully capable of making those changes. So I never want someone to feel that they have to be absolutely perfect in every area of their life because that can be a demotivator and it can be stifling. So for me, I just want to ask myself, do I have better habits today at 46 than I did at 36? Do I consistently make better decisions today at 46 than I did at 42?

And as long as the answer to that is yes, and that I do feel like, generally speaking, I'm moving in the right direction, my arrow is pointed slightly up, then I can sleep well at night knowing I'm going in the right direction. And to me, that's what's most important. It's not where you are at the moment, it's the trajectory and direction at which you're headed. And as long as you're making progress, even if it's very small percentage points or incremental progress, you're going in the right direction. And that's my own litmus test.

And that's just the thing, right? And you tell a story in your book, and I've read it a couple places, and I think I saw you talk about it in a video, the 100 Hour Run. Okay. And you had a gentleman on your podcast, correct, that did the 100 hour run. And the way you broke it down, the way you worded it to change the way he was thinking about it, he wanted to do 100 laps. Was that it? It was a 24 hour. Excuse me, 24 hour run. Wanted to do 100 laps. Okay. When there were one, it was a one mile loop. And then. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like how he changed his thinking and how all Of a sudden, he accomplished more than he thought he could possibly accomplish.

Absolutely. So we're talking about Rick Simmons, who founded the Telus Institute with his wife. And Rick is, I mean, he's become a good friend, but he's also one of the best leaders I've ever met. And he's been a very influential mentor in my life. And I actually have an event coming up at the end of August with him, a running event. Not a hundred miles, but pretty cool event nonetheless. And yeah, when Rick was explaining this to me, I was just blown away, you know, so he was running this event that was basically a 24 hour race. And each person's goal was to see how many 1 mile loops they could complete in 24 hours.

And kind of the gold standard for any ultra marathoner is to be able to complete 100 miles in 24 hours, which is just absolutely mind blowing if you really think about it. And Rick said that he was so set on that goal, that's all he could think about leading up to the race and then even during the race. And one of the things they do primarily for a safety issue is after you complete each lap, the race organizers and some of the volunteers, they check in with you to make sure you're still coherent and doing okay. And they ask you what is your goal? And want to know how you're feeling. And for the first few dozen laps, he always said, a hundred laps, it's a hundred or bust. That was what he had his mindset on.

And then he had what he described to me as kind of this epiphany out of body experience where it was almost like he was looking down on himself while he was running. And he realized that by putting a cap and a ceiling on his goal of 100, that goal was actually now a limit. It was a self perceived limit. So the very next lap, when the organizers checked in with him and said, what is your goal? He just basically said to enjoy this and do the best I can. You know, I mean, I don't think I nailed that verbatim, but that was the sentiment was basically have fun and do the best I can. And that was it.

Have fun running a hundred miles.

Yeah, he didn't have any perceived outcome he was attached to. It was more about the process and can I actually enjoy this experience? Can I be thankful for this opportunity to run? Can I have some fun and can I do my best? And at that moment he realized that he would be at peace with whatever that number was going to be, even if he fell short of the original goal of 100. But of course, as we'd have it, he ended up running 112 laps. So by removing that perceived limit and or ceiling and just focusing on the process and focusing on the enjoyment of the experience, he ended up doing 12 more laps than he thought. I really liked that.

And I know in my own life one of the main things that I continue to work towards is learning how to detach from outcomes and just learn how to focus on the process and love the work. You know, it doesn't mean outcomes aren't important and it doesn't mean that getting those outcomes isn't my preference. I would still prefer to hit the goal, but I'm no longer attached to it and I don't identify my self worth or confidence to those outcomes. And I think doing so has been really liberating in my life because like many people for the vast majority of my life, I've always associated my self worth with my achievement. Which means when I achieve, I feel good about myself. When I fall short, I feel lousy. And I think life is too short to be on that type of roller coaster.

I'm the type of guy that the goals that I set for myself, I probably hit them at a 50% clip. So just doing that math, that means half the time I feel good, half the time I feel lousy. I don't like that ratio. My goal is to show up, do the best I can, love the work, embrace the process, and then just let outcomes be a natural byproduct of whatever happens.

Right now I'm going to follow up on that. But just to put a wrap to that, and you and I are cut from a similar cloth then that 50% of the time when were successful, it's kind of like, eh, okay, I accomplished it, right? Like what's next? It's that anticlimactic feeling when you achieve a goal. Okay, but now going back to what you're just talking about the process and diving into the process, enjoying the process, falling in love with the process. But you and I both work with corporate clients that are just crushed with metrics, okay, that numbers, they have to hit numbers, metrics.

How is it when you talk to these corporate clients, how is it that you are able to connect with them and get them to buy into the fact that the outcomes will come, there'll be a byproduct of you doing the right things the right way. How do you go ahead talking about that?

Well, you just hit it so insightfully because you're Right on point. I let them know that the best chance they have of hitting that metric or that goal is to stick to this process. The best way to have a beautiful birthday cake is to follow the recipe to a T, you know, is to put in exactly the correct ingredients in the correct proportions and bake it for the exact amount of time. And that gives you the best chance of the cake turning out like the picture in the recipe book or the picture online.

You know, when you start going rogue and you start, you know, spending all of your time envisioning the final birthday cake, but you don't spend any time measuring ingredients or making sure you have the right ingredients or following them in the correct order, then you're not going to get a delicious cake, you're going to get a mess, and it's the same thing. So I let them know your goal is important and it provides us clarity and it provides us direction. However, having us organizationally sit around fixated on this number isn't going to help us. What each person needs to do within an organization or team, within their role, is say, what is the maximum contribution that I can make today that inches us just a little bit closer to hitting that goal.

And if every person on the team can make that type of commitment and the leadership is willing to hold everyone accountable to those high standards of excellence, then it's not a matter of whether or not you'll hit your goal. It's just a matter of when you'll hit it. And to me, that's what's most important. So I've always believed when you're trying to help someone achieve something, that what's important to them has to be important to you as well. So I let them know that these quarterly and yearly goals that you've set, these metrics, that they are important. I'm by no means devaluing them. What I'm saying is, once we've established them, let's put them on the shelf.

And now let's collaborate and co create the daily behaviors, the micro skills, the decisions, and the process that we all need to follow collectively to give us the best chance to reach that goal. And when I can word it that way, they usually embrace that.

I absolutely love that. And you use the word collaborate and I'm going to. It seemed like I'm going off on a tangent here, but I'm not. Yeah, we have some mutual friends. Bob Stark, Kevin Eastman, Michael and Amy Port. And it's funny, because the friends that we share in common, there's one word that I would use for all. There's a lot of words, but there's one word that I love about each one of them and that's their curiosity. How significant is it in leadership when you talk about what's important to them? Has to be important to you as a leader. How important is it for you to be insanely curious about your people as a leader?

Oh, it's beyond important. I think being curious should be a core tenet of most people's lives in general. I think when you're curious and you're fascinated about something, it just makes life so much more fulfilling. But as far as actual relationships, it is a glue that can bond a human connection. When you show a genuine and authentic curiosity in someone else in their area of expertise or what they enjoy doing or are curious about their family and their upbringing, it's a great glue to connect to human beings. But where I'll say this has really helped me out over the last couple of years, I think most people would agree that there have been several segments of our society that have been somewhat divisive, to say the least.

Whether that's your opinion on how to handle a pandemic, mask or no mask, vaccine or no vaccine, whether that's your political stance, and right or left or red or blue, how folks have handled some of the social injustices and systemic racism that we've all seen. There've been a lot of things that I think have caused some massive divide amongst the US population in general. And one thing that I found has been a really helpful tool because I have my opinions and I have some pretty strong convictions on certain things and I certainly have my preferences. But I'm trying to really make strides in being a much more inclusive human being instead of a divisive one. So one of the tools that I use is curiosity.

So let's just say that you and I fundamentally disagree on any one of the things that I just proposed and that you see the world completely differently than I do. The first thing I do is I have some humility and I pause and I say, look, if I believe that I'm entitled to my own opinions and preferences, then I need to respect Ed in the same light. He is entitled to his opinions and perspectives and preferences, even if they differ from mine. So I don't ever want to come at someone with some self righteous air that what I believe is more important than what you believe. Because we're not talking about facts. You and I aren't going to argue over whether or not gravity exists. We're going to argue or disagree or debate over something that's merely a preference.

So first of all, I just acknowledge that. Then the second thing I do is I lean in with curiosity. I go, ed and I are both relatively intelligent, informed human beings, and somehow we view this one issue completely differently. Boy, that fascinates me. I'm so curious to why Ed believes what he believes, because I see it so crystal clear on my side of the fence that I can't imagine someone would view it differently. But here's somebody that I really like and care about and respect, and he does see it differently. Boy, that fascinates me. I want to learn more about what you. You know, how you feel. And I know that can be tough, especially when we start talking about really emotionally charged topics like gun control, like abortion, like a lot of these things that have come to light as of late.

And I understand why people can get very emotionally charged on their beliefs. But if you take the time to lean in with some curiosity and say, okay, Ed, I see the world differently than you do, but, boy, I. I would love to be able to look through your lens. I would love to learn more about why you feel the way that you feel. And I listen with an open mind and an open heart instead of trying to shut you out and convince you that I'm right and demean you and try and beat you over the head with why you're so stupid. That just doesn't work. That does the opposite. That is divisive, and that erodes human connection.

And I found that even when somebody fundamentally disagrees with one of my perspectives, when you have the respect and the sincerity to lean in with curiosity, you'll still find some things that you'll agree on. You'll find some similarities, and you'll learn. You'll expose some blind spots. Like if you and I did have a different perspective on any one of those topics, and you start sharing why you believe what you believe, you will educate me. You will teach me some things that I was not privy to. And this doesn't mean it'll change my mind. This doesn't mean it'll sway my vote. All it means is I'm now listening with an open mind and an open heart, because I want to connect and I want to learn more about something that I didn't know before.

And, boy, has that been an incredibly helpful tool just as a human being. But it's an equally helpful tool in a specific role of leadership.

Well, I'm sure people are full of gratitude that you approach it that way. Here's the other thing I think really shows up when you do something like that. You learn more about the other person. So you're going to understand. And this comes from my years in the locker room. I mean, I think back to the team I. I was on, the two teams I was on in Creighton, and we had something very unique, something very special. Total socioeconomic, different socioeconomic backgrounds from all over the country. And we just had a way of getting to know each other, and it was that. And we would bust stones, we bust chops, but we asked questions and we respected it. And if something happened in the news, we would know if it impacted you or affected you.

Or if something happened back home in Gary, I would ask Latrell if all his friends and family were okay back in Gary. Or, I mean, and vice versa. It's just, I think we're missing a unique opportunity, a huge opportunity to get to know each other better and to understand each other better and where we're all coming from.

Yeah. And curiosity is the cornerstone of that. You know, when you are genuinely curious about something, it automatically opens your mind and opens your heart. It's when we're closed off and we think we have all of the answers and we already think that our perspective is right, you know, which. Which is so comical. I mean, there. When we talk about perspectives and preferences and beliefs, there really is no such thing as right or wrong or good or bad. It's a matter of fit. You know, like I said, you don't see any. Well, very few people on social media arguing over something like gravity. That is a fact.

And you can argue, hey, there's people out there that would do it. You and I both know you can.

Argue it all you want, but if you go up to your roof and you step off, you're going to hit the ground. Like, you can argue it all you want, but that's about as close to a fact as we're going to get. But if I'm going to believe one side of any one of these emotionally charged issues, then I have to recognize that someone might be just as convicted and just as passionate about the other side. And the other thing that I've come to learn is this should have been blatantly obvious my entire life, but it's only been obvious these last few years where I like to believe I'm closer to becoming enlightened. And that is my perspective and the way I see the world and is heavily biased. It is biased based on my age, my race, my gender.

It's biased based on where I grew up, geographically. It's biased based on how I was parented. It's biased based on my friends, my experiences, traumas that I had as a child. It's heavily influenced by what I consume, what I read, watch and listen to. You know, my social media habits. All of these things have shaped my perspective of the world. So I understand that the way I see the world is not a fundamental truth. The way I see the world is a biased opinion. And that's okay because that's the way every other human being sees the world. So why would I be surprised if you and I were of different ages, different genders, different races? We grew up in a different part of the country. We were raised by different parents, we have different friends, we had different experiences.

You follow different people on social. You read, watch and listen to different stuff than I do. How could I possibly be surprised that your perspective of the world is different than mine when all of the inputs are different? Like when you take a step back, it's almost ridiculous that people often have the air that everyone should think what I think. Like I can't believe anyone would disagree with my position on this. Well, of course they're going to disagree. They have a completely different set of experiences and information. So once I step back and I have the humility to acknowledge that nothing I see in this world is a fundamental truth, it's all tainted by my own bias. That really keeps me humble and it keeps me open to being respectful and civil when people have a different opinion.

Well, and it empowers you to have a bigger impact, to reach more people, to more sustaining impact too. Right. And more influence. We're talking about positive influence. I think that's huge. Now let's segue into this too, because we're living in a time of where the pace and range of change is unlike anything we've ever seen. Right. And you have a great part in your piece in your book where you talk about change, you talk about the three steps of navigating change. Can you take us through that just for a quick second? Sure.

So the first step is always awareness. You'll never fix something you're oblivious to. You'll never change something you're unaware of. So very similar to how we started this conversation with the importance of self awareness. You have to be aware of the things that are holding you back. You have to be aware of your own biases and self perceived limitations like awareness is key. If you don't realize that you're doing something, you will Never be able to fix it with purpose or with intention. So there has to be awareness. The second step is you have to have a firm understanding of how this is affecting you, like what is the result. If I'm aware of the fact that I'm not eating very healthy food and I'm not exercising consistently, I'm aware of it now.

But I really need to drill deep and ask myself what is at risk if this doesn't change? If for the rest of my life I choose to eat unhealthy food and not move my body, what's at risk? Well, ask any doctor or physician or anyone in the healthcare space and they'll tell you quality of life will severely decline earlier and you will most likely be in the ground earlier than if you take care of yourself. So my longevity, my vitality, my quality of life, those things are at risk? Well, I don't know about you, but I can't think of any three more important things in the world than longevity, vitality and quality of life. They kind of dictate everything.

So now I have a pretty firm understanding that me not eating well and eating clean and exercising could have a really detrimental effect on my life. And then the third step is once I can connect some emotion to that understanding of how this is potentially hurting me and self defeating and undermining me, then I need to recondition those behaviors. And I need to be able to recondition and say, okay, what are some tweaks that I can make so that I can start making slightly better decisions when I eat and start moving my body consistently just a little bit more? You know, I'm not going to overhaul everything. I'm not going to go from that state to the very next morning.

Hiring a personal trainer, buying a peloton bike, hiring a nutritionist, throwing out every ounce of food in my house, and having a registered dietitian, no, that's just not sustainable, nor is it realistic. But how about tomorrow I make a healthy choice with what I'm going to eat for breakfast? Or how about tomorrow I go for a 30 minute walk? So you just start to make slight changes like that. When you can start to recondition your habits and you follow those three steps, then you're on the right path, you.

Know, and you talk about making the changes and then you talk about endurance. We always talk about what we have to sacrifice, what we have to give up to be a champion, what we have to give up to be successful. I think a lot of is what are we willing to endure, how much Are we willing to take on what has been some of the keys you've seen with the great pros that you've worked with and some of the keys in your career? I mean, I remember us having a conversation, a number of conversations during COVID like, okay, man, just sharing ideas, like, what do you see? What do you hear? What do you feel? How were you able to endure that with your business?

Endurance has a lot to do with your mindset and your perspective and the daily choices and behaviors that you make. I mean, from a mindset standpoint, I've worked really hard to condition myself to put most of my focus most of the time on the things I have control over, which really is just my own effort, my own attitude. Now, there are different spokes off of that wheel. I do believe I'm in control of my level of enthusiasm. I'm in control of my preparation, but really, those are just. That's a game of verbal semantics. Those are just different iterations of combinations of attitude and effort.

When I can put most of my focus most of the time on the effort I'm exerting and the attitude that I have, then I'm not distracted and, or anxious or worried about all of the things outside of my control. Doing so is like taking an emotional weight vest off. You just become so much more nimble. One of my favorite phrases is, if you're not emotionally agile, then you'll be emotionally fragile and you simply can't endure and. Or be resilient or have grit if you're emotionally fragile. But part of that is taking off the weight of all of these things outside of my control. I mean, if I were to ask you to run 100 flights of stairs, there'd be a huge difference between you doing that as is and you doing that with 100 pound weight vest on.

It would be significantly harder for you to be able to reach the top with 100 pound weight vest. Well, if that weight vest isn't necessary, let's go ahead and shed that thing. And I think the more time we spend worried and anxious and focused on things outside of our control, it's like wearing that weight vest. So one of the best ways to have improved endurance is to be as efficient as you can emotionally and get rid of the baggage that you don't need.

And how much does preparation show up with that? How much of a role does preparation play in your ability to focus on the right things?

Well, you mentioned our mutual friend and mentor Kevin Eastman before, and Coach Eastman taught me very early in my career that the best of the best make their preparation their separation. And if you want to really stand out in any field, in any industry, you can create some of that separation through proper preparation. So I believe in being as prepared as possible with great intentionality for whatever it is that I'm showing up for. You know, whether I'm showing up to take my kids out to dinner or I'm showing up for a podcast with you, or if I have a keynote in front of 1200 people, I want to make sure that I do my due diligence to be as prepared as possible. And I want to be prepared physically, mentally and emotionally.

And that plays a massive role in each of the different hats I wear. I mean, specifically speaking vocationally as a keynote speaker, I've got basically a system and a process and a checklist, if you will, of the things that I do. They're non negotiable to make sure I am fully prepared for every keynote. That starts with doing a deep dive into the industry of the client that I'll be speaking to. And then I narrow that down and actually do some due diligence on the actual company and get to learn their mission and their vision and their core values, get to know each one of their separate departments and what their roles and responsibilities are.

I peel back the layers and figure out what things have been going well that we want to double down on and congratulate, and what are some of the biggest pain points and challenges and opportunities for growth that we need to focus on. You know, what is the specific message they need to hear to jolt them into improved behavior and action. I'll do a pre event call with the leadership team and often I'll actually interview some other members of the audience from other departments of who will be in the audience when I address them, just to make sure I get as many vantage points as possible. And then I use all of that information to customize and tailor, make a keynote program that I'm hoping will be meaningful and memorable. That's just kind of what I do to get the program.

And then I need to make sure that I rehearse it incessantly so that I know exactly what it is I'll be sharing on stage so that when I actually take the stage, I don't really have to worry about notes, I don't really have to worry about memorizing something. I can just be present and let it flow out of me because I've rehearsed it so many times. And then on the tactical side, I make sure I show up for every engagement, 24 hours before I speak, one to reduce any anxiety for me or the meeting planner or executive team that I'm not going to arrive because of delayed flights or weather or traffic. But the main reason I go a day early is so that I can take a look at the venue.

Can I take a look at the room and get a feel for the stage and see how the audience will be seated and what the lighting will be like? I also have contingency plans in my mind for anything that could potentially go wrong. And I have these things just ready so that if something unexpected happens, I'm not caught off guard, I'm fully prepared for it. And there's a big difference between being prepared for something that could potentially go wrong and worrying about it. I don't spend two seconds worrying about any of this stuff, but you better believe that I've got a plan in place.

If the AV stops working, if the mic cuts out, if somebody spills a beverage, if the fire alarm goes off, if somebody's phone goes off, if somebody in a nearby room's baby starts crying, anything that could potentially happen I'm ready for, because my only goal is to be in full service of the audience and add as much value to them as I can. And I don't want any one of those little nuanced nuisances to prevent me from doing my job because I'm a professional. That's an example of kind of my process of preparation that allows me to be the best that I'm capable of when I'm on stage. And then at that point, once the words have left my mouth, now it's all out of my control. I'm not responsible for whether or not everyone liked it.

I'm not responsible for whatever feedback they have on the evaluations. I'm not responsible for whether or not I get a standing ovation. Now, those things are all preferences of mine, but I'm not attached to any of those things. My focal point is on what I can control and. And doing the best that I'm capable of. And then after that, we just let the chips fall where they may. But it has been my experience that when I do those things to the best of my ability, usually the results are very favorable. Usually my keynotes are very well received. I get tremendous feedback and occasionally fill a standing ovation in the mix, which.

You love, but you said it yourself, you're not attached to that. Now, you and I both know we didn't just wake up that way. That was a process for you. To get there. How did you do that?

Well, part of it is because I think I come from that athletic background that I understood intuitively that if you have a basketball game on Friday, that you will be practicing and preparing and working out and breaking down film that entire week to get ready for the game. And you also know that you and your team and your coaching staff will have a game plan prepared for that opponent, but they may have to throw that game plan out the window midway through the first quarter because your best player gets a couple of fouls or one of your key players gets sick the night before, anything can happen. So I think this mindset was implanted in me very early, that the key to performing well when the lights come on is to prepare sufficiently during the unseen hours.

So to me, this has always been innate. I mean, it's hard for me to fathom that someone would choose to approach the speaking craft any differently. And I only say that with a smile because as we mentioned earlier, I know that's the case. I don't expect, nor would I believe that everyone should approach it the same way I do. Everyone's got their own method for showing up as their best self, and we all do the best that we can with that. So I don't. I'm not. I'm saying that tongue in cheek. I don't actually think everyone should do it the way that I do it. But this is a routine and a system and a process that works well for me, and that's all that matters.

If your process is completely different, as long as you show up on stage as your best self, that's all that matters.

And let me take it a step further. And what I wanted to really expand on was the fact that you understand you are not attached. Like, your emotions are not attached to the things you can't control. Whether it's a standing ovation, whether the reviews are good, that didn't just happen. That wasn't just like, oh, I'm good with that. That, you know what? They didn't give me a standing, oh, I'm fine. That had to be a process for you to let go that ego piece. And it's not that we all have egos, right? And we all have a little bit of pride that, I mean, we want that edge, we want that standing O. Right? We want that win. We want that feeling of confirmation.

But how were you able to get to that point in your career knowing you did the best you can with what you had to become, the best you were capable of? How did you get to that point. Was that a lot of work?

Oh, absolutely. And I want to make one slight nuanced difference in what you just said. It's my self worth, my self belief and my confidence and does not waver based on the outcome. But I'm a sentient human just like you are. My emotions can absolutely be a roller coaster. I won't for one second pretend that after a keynote performance that I don't believe was the best I was capable of. Yeah, I'm a little disappointed or a little frustrated. You know, there have been times where I felt like on stage I was in the zone and I was killing it. But the real live in person feedback I was getting was not matching that. The folks didn't seem very interested. They weren't smiling, they weren't nodding their heads, they weren't taking notes. They were sitting there with their arms crossed.

And I could feel myself in the moment being a little frustrated, being a little disappointed. So I don't have control over those emotions, but I absolutely have control over being able to untether from the outcome. Now what I have learned, and this is something rather newfound over the last few years, and this is a really important distinction, and I learned this from a buddy of mine that's the mental performance coach for the San Francisco Giants in Major League Baseball. And he said our emotions are designed to inform us, they're not designed to direct us. And boy, is that powerful. The way I pull from that is. And I believe this. First of all, I don't believe there's any such thing as good and bad emotions. Emotions are all part of the human experience.

Now I do understand there are emotions that we would prefer to feel. And I would prefer to feel happy and elated over disappointed and frustrated. I mean, that's a preference, but. But I also recognize that it's not the universe's job to align to meet all of my preferences, that there has to be some yin to that yang, that in order to feel happiness and elation, you have to have another side of that coin, maybe disappointment and frustration. I allow myself to feel how I'm going to feel and I don't suppress it, resist it, or ignore those feelings. So if I'm feeling frustrated in the moment, there's nothing wrong with that. I don't judge myself. I'm not critical of myself. I. I don't try to use toxic positivity to snap out of it.

But I also don't allow that frustration to dictate how I behave and how I show up. I certainly don't let that frustration come out on stage. If the audience doesn't seem to be responding the way that I want, that's not their fault. That's on me. This is my job, is to be able to hopefully get them to think, act, and feel differently. And if they're not doing that, I put the onus on myself. I don't put it on the audience. And if I'm feeling a little frustrated in the moment, I don't allow that to dictate my mannerisms, my tone, my overall approach to the keynote. I've learned to separate the two.

And most people who at least know me on the surface socially tend to think that I'm always happy, I'm always positive, and I'm always optimistic because that tends to be what I choose to share socially and when I'm on stage. But that's not always the case. You better believe I get frustrated, I get disappointed. I feel a wide variety of emotions, but I don't let them dictate how I show up, and I don't let them dictate how I behave. If someone were to give me some very disappointing news three minutes before I took the stage, I'm capable of compartmentalizing that and doing my job as a professional. And then I will deal with that frustration later in the day. Yeah, it's. Yeah, I'm not going to carry it around for the rest of my life. That'd be like having a rock in my shoe.

I'll deal with it when I need to deal with it. But I'm able to separate how I feel and how I actually behave. And that's something that's rather newfound for me over these last few years because for most of my life, those things were intimately connected. If I was in a bad mood, that's how I behaved. That's how I treated others. And I realized that, one, that's just simply not the best way to navigate this thing we call life. But two, that's not the best way to get responses from people and to treat people and to show up as a high performer. So being able to uncouple those things has been really helpful.

And you mentioned the unseen hours. And Alan, you are an absolute pro and you talk about what being a pro means, but the unseen hours. Can you separate what some folks mean by working in the unseen hours? Let's just take basketball. You've worked with some amazing players as getting shots up versus a Steph Curry who will work hour after hour on game like moves, game like situations, off Balance shots. One of my favorite Kobe stories, Dwyane Wade told it after the Lakers lost to the Heat in the playoffs. And Dwayne was going out after the game and Kobe was in the arena and he was shooting everything left handed because Dwayne kept following him on the right hand and kept grabbing his right hand. I mean, can you talk about how that is really one of the big separators? Like everything's with a purpose.

Well, that's the key word, right there is purpose and intention and deliberate practice. So one of the examples that I would always use when I was back in the training space would say, a good player comes in to take 500 shots in the morning. A great player comes in to make 500 shots in the morning, and an elite player goes in to make one shot 500 separate times. That there's actually a difference in the way that you approach that. First of all, if we break each of those down, the game of basketball, especially at the high school level, does not need any more shot takers. We got plenty of those. We got plenty of people that are willing to just chuck them up from the cheap seats. So. So just going in to take 500 shots is kind of pointless.

Cause the name of the game is put the ball in the basket. So, you know, taking 500 shots is kind of irrelevant if you're not making very many of them. But one level to graduate up from that is to make 500 shots. If you focus on that's kind of going back to outcome versus process. You start looking at it almost as manual labor. You start just kind of going through the motions. Because you're not as concerned with doing it correctly as you are with just making the 500 shots. So as long as it goes in, I don't really care what my footwork looks like. I don't care what my form looks like. You know, as long as it's going in and I'm getting the result, then I think things are fine. And that can be a dangerous trap moving forward.

The elite players that say, the only thing in the world that matters to me right now in this moment is this shot. And I want to make sure this shot. I have perfect footwork, perfect form. I'm on balance, I'm in range. I'm doing everything I can to make this shot. And then once that shot is over, whether it goes in or it doesn't, you wipe the slate clean. And now you direct all of your focus and intention into the next shot. So you're only worried about the shot that's right in front of you. When you're willing to have that type of deliberate practice and precision to the moment and to that specific rep, that's how you actually make strides in improvement. Yeah, I try and use that same philosophy with everything that I'm doing in my life as well.

Isn't that the way, when you think about it, from a leadership standpoint, from a coaching leadership standpoint, isn't that the way to really master the conversations you have with your people? I know I need to see these five folks today, but the only conversation that matters right now, it's not about checking the boxes that I saw, all five of them. It's the conversation I'm having right now.

Yes, that is so true. And that's ultimately the definition of being present. And that's something I've really had to work hard on over the last few years. And talk about not coming from a place of mastery. I mean, that's arguably my biggest challenge on a day to day is when I'm with my children, being fully present with my children and not thinking about my running to do list or the podcast I need to do, or the email I need to send, or the keynote I need to prepare for. Not worrying about any of that in the moment, just being fully present with my children. And then when that experience is done, then I can shift my sights one of those tasks or something else. So being in the present moment is vital.

I mean, right now the only thing that matters to me is having an enjoyable and fulfilling conversation with you that your listeners and viewers will find helpful and valuable. That's the only thing that matters. I'm not worried about anything else. I'm not worried about the things that I had going on earlier in the day and I'm not worried about the things I have scheduled after this. This is all that matters. And talk about systems and processes. Now I've also blocked out things that could potentially be a distraction to my ability to be fully present with you. The notifications are off on my phone and my phone is turned over. I don't have anything else open on my monitor or my laptop.

I've gone through steps to make sure that these things aren't going to try to steal my attention so that you have all of my attention. And then when this conversation is over and you hit stop on the record button, then I'll move on to the next thing and that thing will get my full attention at that time. I make it sound perfect and neat and completely compartmentalized. And of course that's never the case, but that's the goal. My goal is to be where my feet are and to be as present as I can for each thing that I have to do each day. And the reason I say I don't come from a place of mastery. Some days I think I do that pretty well, and other days, not so much. Other days, my mind is racing like a squirrel and I'm not present.

I'm distracted by the past. I'm anxious about the future. I'm still thinking about something I heard earlier in the day. So, yeah, far from perfect on it. But I do believe that I am more present more consistently today than I have been at any other time in my life.

And I think you do an amazing job of it, which is what's going to lead me to my next question. Because we are getting close to pushing the stop record button. We live in a society, for whatever reason, sort of, they hesitate to talk about the significance of winning, like the pursuit, the relentless pursuit of success. But we have a program that we work with our clients on victory defined, because we firmly believe that victory undefined is victory unfulfilled. The first thing we do is help people establish what success means to them, what winning means to them. Then where are their gaps and how are they going to go about achieving that success? But I'm curious, because you have been on this amazing journey and you continue to grow and evolve. How do you define winning? What does that mean to you?

The shortest answer is doing what I love with people that I care about. That's how I define winning in a very brief. You know, you could put that on a tweet or the front of a T shirt. If I were to expand that a little bit more. I define winning for myself as being physically, mentally and emotionally fit. I define winning as doing work that I consider to be meaningful and impactful and in service of other human beings, like making a contribution to the greater good. I consider winning having deep, connected, intimate relationships with the people that are most important to me, which my children are at the epicenter of that target. So that's kind of how I look at winning. And that's drastically different than how I've looked at it in the past.

And I believe in many cases it's drastically different than how society at large tends to look at winning. It's been my experience, and again, a very biased lens at which I'm seeing that much of society views winning and success as being synonymous, and they view success through primarily a financial lens. You know, what job do you have, what is your title, how much money do you make, what kind of house do you have, what kind of car do you drive, what kind of watch, what kind of vacations? And there's nothing wrong with any of those trappings. And there's nothing wrong with having nice things and enjoying nice things.

But to me, if that's your definition of winning, then you will unconsciously create behavioral patterns that will increase your chance of winning, which means you will most likely heavily weight spending most of your time and attention at work and doing everything you can to make an extra buck. That you'll sacrifice a date night with your spouse so that you can get in an extra client meeting. You'll miss your kid's soccer game because you're staring at your phone the whole time trying to return emails. You'll create a life that will get you what it is that you're trying to get. So to me, changing that North Star and changing that definition of winning and success is ultimately what it's all about.

And without having too big of a spoiler alert, because I haven't said this very often publicly, but I do think that I'll end up completing the book trilogy of raise your game, sustain your game, and I think the last one will probably be called change your game. And it's about changing your definition of winning and success that you don't have to mirror what everyone else is telling you have to do. You get to define it for yourself. And to me, that's the best part, is I don't allow anyone else to define success for me. If you want to look at me and say, alan is not successful, you have every right to have your opinion and that doesn't hurt my feelings at all.

Or contrary to that, if you look at me and say, alan's one of the most successful people I know, that's okay too. Neither one of those things are going to dictate how I choose to show up. So for me, having full control over defining my North Star and then full control over creating the life and the process to hopefully pursue that North Star, that's what life's all about.

I have to build on that. By the way, since you just made that announcement of the book trilogy on the athletics of business podcast, can I plan my flag? And I say I am one of the first people that Alan told that to. Can we do that?

You absolutely can.

I love it.

You and your listeners are in rare companies.

You absolutely made my day. One of the things I learned as a college athlete then in the world of coaching major college basketball was a lot of folks in the business made compromises to be successful. And what I mean by this is this their families, right? I learned from people very close to me it was awesome to include your family and your work. It was awesome to bring them around what you did, to be a part of it, because they were just as much a part of the success as the players were as a support staff was. Otherwise, what's going to happen is they're going to end up resenting what you do. And once they end up presenting what you do, then guess what, you're going to end up resenting what you do and you're not going to be very good at it.

All the things that you just told us that you how you define success, someone may be sitting there right now be like, well, Alan, that's great, but how do you measure it? You absolutely can measure it with the lead measures of your behaviors. Are your behaviors aligned with what your definition of success is? With that being said, can you just share with us about your recent eight day, nine day trip with your kids, how you brought them with you, couple speaking engagements, what that meant to them, what it meant to your relationship. I just think that's so powerful and it's so awesome and absolutely fits right in with everything we've been talking about.

Oh, well, thank you so much for acknowledging that and for context for your listeners. I have 12 year old twin sons and I have a 10 year old daughter. One year prior to the pandemic, I was trying to create a tradition where every year I would take each child individually on at least one or two work trips. I would let them know all of the places I'd be speaking. I'd let them each choose which one they wanted to come with me. As an amicably divorced father of three, most of the time I have my children, I have all three of them together. And I recognize as a father, one of the things that I need to do a better job of is carving out individual time with each child because it's a completely different dynamic when it's one one instead of three one.

So we started to get into that. So my goal every year was to take each child individually one, maybe two trips and then take all three of them together one or two trips, one. Just so they could kind of be involved in my work. They could kind of see what daddy does, you know, every time he hops on a plane. I also believe that the things that I share in my Keynotes are good things for the kids to hear. It's the right seeds to plant. And when they hear me saying it in a suit and tie on stage, it's different than if I'm giving them this talk in the middle of our living room. So I kind of wanted to plant those seeds unconsciously.

And right before the pandemic, I took my son Luke to a speaking engagement in Vegas, and I took him to one in Baltimore. I took my son Jack to New York. And right when I was going to take my daughter Lila is when the pandemic hit and everything went on hold. So I hadn't taken the kids on a work trip for almost two and a half years. And then we dusted that off this couple weeks ago, and I took them to Las Vegas, all three of them, to see one of my keynotes. And it was just an amazing experience. It was so fulfilling. They're older now. They're 12 and 10. So they were much more open and receptive to it than they were two and a half years ago. And it was awesome. They all dressed up just like I did.

They helped by passing out some of my cards to put on each one of the tables. Like they felt involved. It was really cool. And they know, moving forward in the fall and in 20 of 23, or, excuse me, winter of 2023, that I'm going to try to take some individual trips with them for that exact same reason. And, yeah, it was incredibly fulfilling. They've heard most of that stuff before because they're often kind of milling around when I'm doing podcasts like this, and they've heard some of the playbacks on videos and so forth. It was really fulfilling, and I really believe it's going to be memorable for both of us. I mean, I won't forget that for the rest of my life, and I'm hoping that they don't either.

So, yeah, encouraging and supporting my kids to go out and find what they love to do just as much as I found what I love to do is ultimately what I want to teach them. If they have zero desire to be keynote speakers or authors or performance coaches, I have no problem with that. But I want them to see that I love what I do, and I'm very grateful for the opportunity to do it. And my only hope for them is that they find their own path. So, yeah, it was really cool.

So cool. And you know what's been really cool is when that shows up later in their life. Right. And they have that conversation with you know, Dad, I remember this. This.

Well, you know, it's funny that you mentioned that. So for four days we're in Vegas and then for the next four days went to St. Augustine, Florida to spend time with my parents and my brother. And it was absolutely hysterical. So as I said, I have 12 year old twin boys and for anyone that has boys around that age, you know that they've got a tremendous amount of physical energy and they can often kind of get on each other's nerves. So Luke and Jack were kind of just picking at each other and overall they were incredibly well behaved the whole eight days. So no complaints from me. But they were just kind of picking at each other at the pool. And I just said to my son Jack, I was like, come on man, can you stop making your brother mad?

And he looked at me and he smiled and he said, I'm not making Luke mad, he's choosing to be mad. Which is almost verbatim a line out of my keynote. And boy, I just started cracking up. And I said, you know what, you are 100% right, but if you could still stop being a pain in the butt, we would appreciate that. And we just shared this really connected moment because the seed I planted, like, he got it, he understood it. And you know, as a father, that just made me immensely proud that he picked up on that and we had a really nice connection and moment because of it.

That's really cool. Well, hey, with respect to your time, brother, I appreciate you. Listen, we are going to have a link, show notes for each book. See how beat up these books are. Okay? We go through them. Love your work, love what you're doing. We'll put everything out there on the show notes. But you want to take a second here and just tell the listener where they can find everything. Alan Stein for speaking for your books. Anything.

Be happy to. So my main speaking site is alansteinjr.com anything that I shared today you feel like would resonate with your organization. Please fill out the online inquiry or drop me an email. I have a supplemental site, strongerteam.com, which has info on my podcast, my books. I have an online course and I do some exclusive one one coaching with a few folks. I'm very easily found on social media alansteinjr on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook. So if anyone wants to keep this conversation going, just shoot me a dm. I take a tremendous amount of pride in not only being accessible, but also being very responsive. So just shoot me a note. And as Ed already said you can get either Book Raise youe Game or Sustain youn Game on Amazon, Audible or wherever you get your books and audiobooks.

Brother, this was so much fun. I appreciate you immensely. I look forward to getting together with you in person sometime.

Absolutely. I look forward to it. Appreciate you.

Thanks Alan you for listening to the Athletics of Business. Be sure to give us a rating and review so we know how we're doing. For more information about the show, visit theathleticsofbusiness.com now get out there. Think, act and execute at the highest level to unleash your greatness.