Pour Passion Into the Process, Part 1 with Phil Wall

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 Molotor Group, Ed Molotor. Now, behind every podcast guest, there is a story. There's either they're a warm introduction from a great friend of mine or someone in my world who's connected to them, or the guest could be someone that I know at a very high level, very deep level, or there's a third type of podcast guest, and that is a type of podcast guest. I say that, okay, I don't know them. I'm going to find a way to get to know them because I have to have them on the podcast so they can share their story and all the great work that they do. And today's special guest, Phil Wall, falls into that third category. Go back several months, almost a year.

And Mark Heidersbach, who's a good friend of mine who was on our podcast, joined us on episode number 79 when he talked about performance excellence in the face of uncertainty. He called me one day and he said, hey, have you watched the Standard? And I had not, and I had no idea what the Standard was. He goes, listen. And then he explained it to me, okay? And I don't want to take away from this conversation we have coming up with Phil. He goes, you have to watch it. I know you will love it. Mark and I are doing some work. I was doing some work with his team over the course of six to nine months. And it's just something that really connected in line with the work that were going to do together. So I immediately went on itunes, ordered it, watched it.

After the family went to bed and woke up early the next morning to watch the end of it and then rewatch it. And it was awesome. So go back now about only a month and a half, and I was finishing up a presentation for a client, and I went through my notes on the Standard. I'm like, you know what? I'm going to go back and I'm going to watch it again, because I want to see this part, and I want to see if I can pull this out and add it to this presentation. And then I did a deeper dive on the writer, the producer, the filmmaker, and his story, and that is Phil Wall. I mean, Phil's an absolutely amazing person. And the more I read the more I realized we are so aligned.

I have to get him on the Athletics of Business podcast. And let me tell you a little bit about Phil. Phil's an award winning filmmaker and he has written, produced, directed film and edited three feature documentaries and is currently in post production on his fourth. His documentary feature the Standard, which I just told you about, debuted at number four on the iTunes documentary chart in September of 2020. It's currently available on Hula in the US and will have its international rollout in late 2021, most notably on Discovery plus in Latin America and Brazil. Now the Bookkeepers is his third documentary. We'll talk more about the Bookkeepers in part two of our podcast interview with Phil.

But this is just an amazing story and it premiered with the Austin Film Festival in October of 2020 where it won both the jury prize and the Audience Award for Best Documentary Feature. It's an official selection for 10 other US film festivals including Savannah, Napa Valley and Twin Cities. The film will be available for special events in early 202022 with distribution of Follow and I'll talk a little bit later about how I got a sneak preview and what that's all about. Okay. Now Phil's professional career began back in 2008, which ironically is that fourth documentary that's still in post production when he began work on the Passing Game, which is a documentary feature currently in post production about the career and philosophy of legendary prep school basketball coach Fletcher Eric.

Now Phil played for Coach Eric's Fork Union postgraduate squad in 2002 and 2003 before heading to Williams College. If you know college basketball, if you've worked in college basketball, you know Coach Erit and you know his story. We talk quite a bit about Fletcher in this podcast in part one, what he meant to Phil, what he meant to so many others and will continue to mean to people. While at Williams, Phil played four years of RC basketball and was honored with the Matthew Godrick Award for leadership in 2007. A coach's son, Wall, played for his dad at Roanoke Catholic High School. Now get this, the team won three straight Virginia Independent School state titles as well as back to back Virginia State Catholic Championships. And Phil traces his filmmaking journey back to creating highlight videos for those championship seasons.

And we'll talk quite a bit about that. We'll also talk about why playing basketball for his dad in high school was so rewarding beyond the three state championships. And he shares with us the three biggest words that Phil's dad taught him were so important and significant in coaching. And we'll talk again. We'll talk about his legendary prep school coach, Fletcher Ehret, and how he taught Phil and so many others that to have this biggest impact, you don't necessarily have to be on the biggest stage. Phil, thank you so much for joining us today on the Athletics of Business podcast. It is awesome to have you here.

Oh, thank you for having me. This is great.

You know, obviously I filled the listeners in to how we got connected. There's so much here, so much to talk about. Want to jump into your journey and how you evolved and got into doing documentary work. It's absolutely amazing. Yeah.

I mean, first of all, thanks for having me. It's rare that I meet someone who has seen all of my films and fortunately that group is growing. But, but I'm so glad that we connected and I've listened to the podcasts and I really, you know, we're kind of like minded and I enjoy it, so. But I started, I guess technically I started in high school making highlight videos for my basketball team. And we had, my dad was a coach and we had made like, you know, a couple of state championship. We had a few wins in the state championship down in Virginia. And I just like, you know, had a computer with the video editing and started doing my best to emulate what I saw on ESPN Classic and kind of took it from there.

You know, when I got into, when I was looking at going to college, I knew that as much as I love basketball, that it wasn't going to be a career for me. I thought about coaching, but I did have this pull into the creative field and my mom was a writer and both of my parents definitely nurtured that creative side. And so I went to college with the idea that I wanted to get into filmmaking.

So is that where the creative side of you came from? I mean, from your mom and her writing and just watching her what she did, or was there somebody else that kind of nudged you towards creating, you know, highlight films? Or was that just your love for espn?

I mean, it was like. So my mom was an English teacher and freelance writer. Her name was Carol Wall and she had articles that were published, you know, Southern Living Magazine, Atlanta Drawn Constitution. She had novels that were agented but never published. She did have one book that came out in 2014 called Mr. Owitha's Guide to Gardening. But anyways, I would say, like, her impact on me, I realized later after the fact, and what she really did for me was kind of demystify this process of getting your work Published. And so I got to see her do the work from start to finish, from concept to execution. And then I got to see her go through the process of contacting agents or sending queries out to magazines. And, you know, she would read the rejection letters or she would show me her paycheck.

And so I started to realize later that other people, it's a mystery to them. They think that it's. And we all, I think, have this tendency of. One of my favorite things to hear is people will say, oh, yeah, did you hear about that story? They're making a movie on it. You know, they are making a movie. Well, they is somebody.

And who are they? Yeah, yeah.

So I've heard people talk about Coach Aaron at Fork Union, who I'm making a documentary about. I've overheard someone say, you know, they're making a movie about.

Right. And did you throw in there? Yeah, I heard they're an amazing person. I mean, they're really talented.

Yeah, exactly. They're super talented. So what mom did for me was really show me, you know, that this can happen in our house and that it's about doing the work and recognizing what you can contribute and that you have your own talents and that it's about finding your voice and going through that process. And part of it's really frustrating and can feel isolating. And you can be doing it in what feels like obscurity in some ways, but it's only about who says yes. I think she showed me that and then sort of combined it with. I used to get, like, when I was a kid, amped up for basketball games by watching highlight videos. Like, I would watch the NBA highlight videos. I would watch. I had a Charlotte Hornets commemorative VHS that was of their first season.

And I guess it was probably about 45 minutes or an hour or something, and I'd watch that before every game when I was a little kid.

Who was your guy? Mugsy Bogues.

Yeah, Muggy Bogues. Rex Chapman.

Yeah, they had a squad. They did have a squad. Yeah, they did have a squad. Well, you know what's amazing about that, and I didn't really think about this, is she full transparency showed you the good, the bad, the ugly. Right. But it didn't discourage you from going into creative work.

No, it didn't. Because you're going to get that with everything.

Right.

I mean, my dad was a lawyer basketball coach. I saw his process as well.

Right.

It's work. And they were both doing what they. What they loved and what they felt was meaningful, and they had passion for it and they wanted to have a positive impact on people. So yeah, it was like, you know, you gotta do something. But I had a dream, right? Like I dreamed of making films. And I got the same charge out of having someone react to one of my projects that I got out of winning a game. And so I, I felt like that was something that I should pursue.

That's interesting. I want to get to. In a second here, we're going to get to your very first documentary and for obvious reasons, I want to back up. What was it like playing for your dad and what was, you know, you just talked about. Sometimes you feel like you're dealing in obscurity when you're working and you're doing the editing, you're doing all this work. And we always talk about the unseen hours. But in basketball it's completely different world. There was no obscurity. Right. And then you're playing for your father in a great program with great success. What was that like?

Yeah, I mean, weren't always good. I think my dad's first year, they were like 3 and 17 and I was in like 6th grade at that point or something. And we knew that were coming up with some really good players. J.R. reynolds, who ended up playing at Virginia, was in that group. But at first it felt like I had to overcome the hurdle of I'm on the team because my dad's the coach. But eventually I got over that after we started having that early success. But playing for him, it was really special because we spent so much time together. We talked about basketball at home, were going on all these trips together, we shared the same goals, we both wanted to win the same games and win the state championship.

So it was a very valuable experience for me looking back on it and having those very intimate moments with him where now we can sit and talk about those. We talk about those days and I can't imagine not having that. He's like a philosopher. He's a well read guy and he's got a liberal arts mind. And so I really appreciated, and a lot of guys do, how he approached the game and how he used it to teach greater life lessons. And we would have our thoughts of the day before every practice. He also showed me how to adapt well. One of the things he said was, you know, the most important words in coaching, and perhaps he's taking it from someone else, is it ain't working. And we would see that. I could see him in practice doing that.

You know, let's say we had A rough game or lost a game, we would do things differently the next practice. But it wasn't like a punishment. It wasn't like, we're going back to the basics, you guys are out of shape, or like, it wasn't. It was never our fault. It was. I didn't prepare us properly. And now we know what we need to work on, and we're going to work on these things and shore this up, and then we're going to win. We won't have the same issue again.

You know, we talked a little bit about this when we first connected yesterday, but growing up a coach's son, we see the process. We got an education inside the locker rooms, at the practices, in the car, going to scout a game. And you had mentioned previously that your mom and dad did something they love. So I think at a very early age, we understood that it's a struggle even. Even if you love what you do. There is a process and there is a grind, and there is a commitment to it that is unmatched if you really want to be great at it. How much does that show up in your work today?

Well, I mean, like, I just left a film festival in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. It was a documentary, the Chagrin Documentary Film Festival. And, you know, surrounded by documentary filmmakers who were in town. It's a beautiful place, wonderful festival. Everybody there is passionate about what they do, especially in documentary. No one is doing it for the glory of it or the financial windfall. That just doesn't happen. People are there because they're passionate about the story that they're trying to tell. That totally shows up in what I do because I feel compelled to spend the time on the work that I've done and that I will do. It's like I heard one of the filmmakers describing how she came to decide to make her film.

And she said almost in the same moment, she was excited and then disappointed because she realized, oh, shoot, this is going to take me five years. You know, this is going to be really hard, right? And I can definitely relate to that. Especially you make a film and it's years of work alone, and then there's this brief window of time where you get to celebrate it and talk to other people about it, and it's off on its own. It has its own life. And hopefully people watch it and learn something from it. And maybe people seek you out kind of, you know, how we're talking here. But it's kind of rare when you compare the amount of time spent working to the amount of time and Then that's it.

It's over. Right? I mean, there you go. What was going through my first film festival when it was first. Your first documentary was shown? I want to jump into that. What was that like?

That's incredible. I guess the first time I ever did that was I had a film about VCU going to the Final Four. We screened at the Richmond International Film Festival in Virginia. Richmond, Virginia.

And I got to think people were excited there for that.

Yeah, yeah.

And there were.

I think there were, like, 500 people there. It felt so amazing. People were cheering during the film. People were, you know, yelling at the screen. People were, like, standing up in the middle of it.

Did you have Wyshaka in the house?

Yeah, I think he was. He brought the team.

Okay. So cool.

Yeah, yeah, he was there. He was awesome.

Yeah. What was that like to work with them?

That was amazing. It felt very natural for me. The way that story worked is I was doing some stuff for VCU in my client business, and I had made a thing for them to raise money for their. An addition to their arena. And at that point, I turned it in. In February of 2011, were done with it. And at that point, the best thing they'd done was beat Duke. And then a couple weeks later, they were in the sweet 16, going to the. You know, going to play Florida State. The guy called me back and said, you think you can come with us and help us beef this thing up and we'll redo this video?

And, of course, it just got out of hand in a good way, and it was really nice for me to just kind of be a passenger, so to speak. I got to travel with the team to San Antonio and to Houston and be around the team meetings and be in the coaches meetings. And it was fascinating to watch those guys prepare to watch them create the scouting reports. I mean, there was intensity there, but I also was taken with how comfortable they were. The thing that they said back then, one of their mantras was aggressive, confident, and loose. And that's something that has stuck with me, and I kind of. I think it's hard to articulate and explain, but I get it when I see it, all right? You know, I know it when I feel it, and that's a good state of mind.

Totally unscripted question here. How hard was it to cut stuff out of all the film footage that.

You had for that doc? Yeah, I mean, there had to be.

So much you wanted to keep in there, but you only have so much time.

Yeah, that one was really tough. Because we wanted to include as many people as possible. We wanted everyone on the team to have a speaking part in the film. And we interviewed everybody and I interviewed everybody. So that was one challenge was telling the story using everybody's voice at least once. That's a complication. That's difficult. The other thing I wanted to do was give the experience of watching the game that you would not get having watched the broadcast or going back to watch the broadcast. And so the way it worked was I had footage that was captured by the VCU videographer from the baseline. I actually wasn't filming during the games because the NCAA rule was one videographer per team and VCU had their guy. And then I had this drive of all of these CBS cameras that had all these different angles.

I don't. I forget how many cameras there were. But each game had multiple hours of footage from different angles. And so I was dealing with the play by play radio from vcu, the commentators from cbs, all the different angles, and just trying to create this experience that you wouldn't see in the broadcast.

Right. That's unbelievable. Now let's bring it back to you. Have a great high school career. It's time to go to college. Your first documentary is about a gentleman who's a huge impact on your life. Not just your life, but hundreds, if not thousands of men pick up after high school. And what happened from there?

Yeah, so I ended up. I was getting recruited by college basketball my senior year in high school, and I ended up getting injured right around the time that coaches really started getting more serious. I had a high ankle sprain. So I was out and kind of indefinitely. Someone suggested, you know, you ought to go to prep school. And that was sort of a new thing for me. I hadn't heard of many guys doing that. Now I realize lots of guys do it. And I wound up trying out at Fort Union Military Academy, which is in. It's in central Virginia, it's near Charlottesville in Richmond. And the coach there for 42 years was a guy named Fletcher Ehrett. And he has sort of this nonsense approach to the game, to how he deals with his players.

And I ended up trying out there and somehow making the team. It was probably the most difficult year I've had, but it was the best thing I've ever done. It led to going to Williams College in Massachusetts, which is exactly the type of place I wanted to go and exactly the type of thing I wanted door that I wanted basketball to open for me. But playing for Fletcher Erett, I Think of that guy every day. He is known in the basketball world for being kind of the greatest coach that no one's ever heard of. So you talk to household names. Fletcher Erat is a household name.

How about Billy Donovan's quote?

Yeah, I mean, I traveled the country interviewing guys and about him for this film I'm making called the Passing Game. And Billy Donovan, his quote is basically, when you talk about success in the game of basketball and you talk about influencing and impacting guys lives, there's no better coach than Fletcher Eric. There's no one who has come to have that level of impact on the game. And you know, he's had in 42 years, it's 12 new guys every year. That's, you know, do the math. And he's had thousands of students. The guy, he was a biology teacher. Basketball, he got like a stipend eventually. I don't even think he got that much of a stipend when he was first coach in there. Basketball was his side job.

But his impact on the game is unrivaled and his approach is somewhat unorthodox because he's so simple. And so like, I would sit with guys who would ask me to some of these coaches at that level, like, you know, guys who'd won national championships in college basketball would sit me down, take me out to dinner or lunch or whatever and have a pen and paper and say, like, diagram that offense for me, the passing game.

Right.

And then we would have this conversation about how simple it is and a few guys would talk about like, well, I can't do that because we're getting paid too much money to, you know, to be that simple.

And it's going to look really bad when our guys can't figure it out, when we just keep on the patience. We don't have the discipline to run it. Yeah, yeah.

I saw one time Coach Eric was on the, the court after a practice and Bobby Clements was there. And at that time, Bobby Crimmins, you know, he's old Georgia Tech coach and he retired and then got back into the game and was coaching at Charleston. So he was at Charleston at the time and he's on the. He asked coach Eric to walk him through how the passing game starts, which it typically starts with the down screen. And so Bobby's like, well, what if they switch? You know, And Coach Eric says, well, you, that you go back, he's not open, you go back door. That's the rule. And they keep going. And Bobby just keeps coming up with, well, what if that guy's not open? What if he's not open? What if he's not open? And finally, Coach Eric says, hey, get better players.

Get better players that can make plays for love. A.J.

Yeah, if he can't get open, the other team's got better players than you.

So at some point the questions run out, don't they? Yeah. You know, what else did he do? What was it about him? Because we talk all the time in our world about in the athletics of business, the correlation between high impact coaches and athletics and high impact coaches in the business world and the meaning behind what he did. I want to read a quote from Sidney Johnson in the trailer of your documentary. He said, coach was a transformative influence on my life. He said the reason he took a chance on him was because he thought he was a good person. Now, obviously, this is. It's broken up a little bit. And he said he took a chance on us to show us what honesty meant, what hard work meant, what faith meant, and it made us stronger. I mean, what was it about?

Like you mentioned, it was the toughest year of your life in terms of basketball. Was that physically, mentally, emotionally being pushed outside your comfort zone. And what was it about the way he was able to do that to you, but then all of a sudden you reflect back on it and it was a game changer for you and for so many.

Yeah, I guess the reason I say it was the toughest year is really because of the being in the military school. I mean, basketball was somewhat of a respite. And part of that, part of the basketball being such a rewarding and meaningful experience was that you knew what to expect with Coach Eric. He set really clear rules and guidelines. And Sidney saying that about coach taking a chance on him and so many of us because he thought he was a good person. I think that's really true. I mean, the first day of practice at Fork Union, Coach Eric walks upstairs with a mesh bag and he dumps the practice uniforms on the court. And then he goes down the line and he says, hey, Wal, what number were you in high school? And I say, number 12.

I've been number 12 since I was 10 years old. I said, number 12. And then he looks down and he goes, okay, you're number 10. Picks it up, out, and he goes down the line. He does that to everybody. Then he gives a speech that is about how a great player is a great player because it's something inside you that is special. It's not the number you wear. It's not the armband you wear, it's inside of you. And that's really what he did. He was someone who saw what people were capable of even when they couldn't see themselves.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, he would realize that someone was a great rebounder, let's say. And say, you know, that's all you need to do. You can go to the top if you just be what you are. And I remember one time him pulling me aside. We were leaving a game where I had. I was in a shooting slump, basically, and I was. Clearly, it was impacting me. And he's walking with me out of the gym and he says, phil, I do not care about your shot. I want you to get guys to their spots and to run the game. And I don't care if you miss, because if you get the guys where they're supposed to be, that's a rebound for us. And the best way to score is often offensive rebound.

It's eye opening to be that young and in such an intense year thinking, what's going to happen with my life? To have someone basically saying to you need to let go. You need to stop doing what you've been doing, because clearly it's not working. You're not where you want to be, and you need to be here for some reason, and you're going to use this. He had these moments. I mean, I honestly, the first day of practice when I played for him, he did that thing with the jerseys. And then he showed us how were going to wear our uniforms. And then he showed us how we're going to wear our socks two inches above your shoe. And then he pulled out a jock strap and said, everybody's going to wear this. None of you are going to wear anything else under your shorts.

No tights, nothing like that. And here's how you put all of this back on the ring. And here's how we wash it. And you know, if any of you mess up, we're going to run. And I remember he, like, said all of that, and it was confusing, you know, I wasn't sure why he was doing it. And then he takes the jockstrap and he says, some of you don't even know what this is. And he puts it on over his shorts and says, could you imagine trying.

To do that today? Yeah.

It says, this is how. This is how you wear this. Left foot first, right foot first. And it was like. It was hilarious. But at the same time, he's given this speech that's basically. It's what's Inside you, that counts. And you can tell the size of a man by the size of their problems. So if you can't do this right, then you can't sacrifice for your teammate. When the game's on the line by setting a screen, you're worried about your shot and I know it because you can't wear your socks.

Right.

And so honestly, that's the first time I thought, somebody needs to make a film about this guy. It so quickly cut to the heart of what I was going through. It made me kind of. It flipped a switch, right. Like, oh my God, I'm learning something. So. And I'm enjoying it. And also like, this feels so intense. He was such a authentic person and you knew what to expect. He had a profound impact on the game. And a profound. An unrivaled. When you look at numbers and wins and people to college and the pros, I mean, nobody's done what he's done, but it was done through a very simple approach that was repeated year after year.

And completely selfless. Not arrogant. No ego, not money driven. Not about me, not some of the stuff that we see today. And I've got to ask a question now. This is completely. I had not asked you this question yet, but I'm curious. I'm going to guess that he was really good at coaching everybody the same way, but treating everybody differently in the sense that knowing you in a one one, but like getting to know you.

Oh my God.

Yeah.

I'm really glad you said that.

And we haven't talked about this and full disclosure, this is just something that popped in my head as you were describing him.

No, I'm really glad you said that. He would go around. We had stretch. You would stretch every day in a circle. And it was a very regimented thing. 15ft apart, which by the way happens to be how far apart you have to be when you run the offense.

Yeah.

While you're stretching.

And that was probably intentional too, right?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But while we would stretch, he would walk around to each guy and he put his hand on you and he would have something to say, he would joke around, but it was about you. We all felt special and seen and coached and perhaps if you were. If he was hard on you the day before or whatever. I mean, he was someone. He always sort of closed the loop, never left you hanging. It was never the person. And I guess this comes up later in the standard film, but it was never the person who was making a mistake. It was your performances lacking. It was Never a personal attack. The guy never cursed, but he could, you know, make a seven footer feel like he just dropped his ice cream.

You know, like he did Coach everybody was under the same rules, but he knew how to get to everybody, to each individual. A couple of guys told me a story one time about Larry Davis, who was a fantastic player. I think he played at North Carolina and then transferred to South Carolina. Incredible scorer. And they told this story about, coach puts Larry Davis in the game, and Larry comes down, pull up three, bam. Goes back the other way, Larry gets a steal, pull up three, bam. Comes down. You know, next possession, Larry Davis, pull up three, bam. Coach Eric looks over at the bench and says, somebody get Davis out. You know, he's not running the passing game, right? And so, you know, he pulls it, he pulls the sub, gets Davis out.

And while Davis is walking to the bench, Coach Eric turns around to the benches and. But, man, did you see that? Like, that was incredible. But he knew how to get to David, you know, and he knew how to get to me, and he knew how to get to so many guys. And it wasn't about. It was about teaching you what you needed to know or learn or work on to survive, to get to and thrive at the next level.

Did you realize that when you were playing? For me now, being a coach's son, I'm not patting us on the back here, it's just the reality of the situation. You grew up around this, but did the guys that played for him realize that's what was happening as it was taking place? Like they were literally living transformative moments?

I think that varied, you know, I mean, guys are frustrated. We're kids, we're 19 years old, 18 years old. We don't know anything. I definitely, like, felt that I was learning a ton and that it was transformative. I was also very acutely aware of the stress I was under not knowing where I was going to go to school or what coach was going to come walk into the gym. And that was hard to look beyond that. And I think a lot of guys, especially, you know, guys that maybe didn't have. I had, I had people around me. My, my parents were very realistic about what would be good for me at the next level and what the purpose was of that year at Fort Union.

And were all on the same page and it was more fortunately lined up with the reality of the situation. Whereas some other guys, I think, were frustrated because they had unrealistic right, like, you know, being like, well, I just need Coach to get Kentucky to come in here and see me play, it's like, dude, you're not, you know, you're not playing at Kentucky. And some of those guys, I think there's a long tail on this.

Right?

I mean, you learn things through reflection as well. Right? Like, wow, I didn't realize that coach was doing that for me at that point. So it was, I mean, for me it was transformative at the time. But then also, of course, I've learned so much looking back on it. And then, you know, I'm making this film about it, which is an exploration of his philosophies. And the central question of it is how did he have this impact on people so thoroughly to a guy, to a person, what's the experience of knowing Fletcher Ehret and what are the philosophies that lead to that type of impact on others? It's hard for me to parse out, like what I knew when I was 19 years old and what I feel is important now.

Right. And isn't that the sign of your legacy? Right. And isn't the sign of the impact that you have as a coach? It's like, how long do those lessons sustain? How long do they endure? And I think that speaks volumes. And that concludes part one of my podcast interview with Phil Wall. I hope you enjoyed that so much there. The takeaways from his time that, you know, the documentary with vcu, his experiences playing for his father and the lessons that his father taught him that still sustain him in his career today, as well as his mom's passion for writing in her sharing her experiences with Phil and how that shaped his expectations for his world as a filmmaker. And then the great Fletcher Ehrett and being around the game of basketball, being a college coach. Obviously I had known of Fletcher Ehrett.

I had known about him, the great players that he had, the impact that he has had. But to hear Billy Donovan say, when you talk about success in the game of basketball and you talk about influencing and impacting guys lives, there is no better coach than Fletcher Ehrett in embracing his belief that you don't have to be on the biggest stage to make the biggest impact. And we think about that in our world, whether it be the business world, our home life, leading ourselves. And isn't that what leadership's all about? Right? I mean, it's not social media, it's not the big splash. Being in someone's face, that's a quick fix. That's the world we live in.

But you want to give the people you lead something to sustain, something that will hold them, something that they can pay forward that will multiply the impact you had on them. Now, coming up in Part two, Man, we really get some other really cool stories about his journey, but we're going to talk into the Standard and that is a documentary that really made me seek out Phil once I read more about him and his journey. But the Standard, just such an incredible documentary and so much there for you. And then we'll talk about the Bookkeepers, another passion project of his, which is what's really cool about Phil. They're all passion projects and everybody has a story and he loves sharing the stories.

But the Bookkeepers is a first person narrative following father and son as they crisscross the country to fulfill a dying wish, ensure a legacy, and find solace after tragic personal loss. This is a story about his mother and his father after his mother passed and their journey to keep her dream of the book alive. And without saying too much about it, we'll talk about that a whole lot in Part two.

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