Dre Baldwin - Entrepreneur & Former Pro-Basketball Player | Work On Your (Business) Game

Welcome to success story, the most useful podcast in the world. I'm your host Scott D. Clary the success story Podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network and the blue wire podcast network the HubSpot podcast network has incredible Podcasts like my first million my first million is hosted by Sam par and Sean Perry. They feature famous guests They discuss how companies made their first million and then some they brainstorm new business ideas based on the hottest trends and opportunities in the marketplace Here are some of the topics I talked about if you like any of these you will love the show Three profitable business ideas that you should start in 2022 drunk business ideas that can make you millions asking the founder of Grammarley how he built a 13 billion dollar company or SAS companies that anybody can start if these topics are up your alley go check out my first million listen to it wherever you listen to your podcast Today my guess is Dre Baldwin Dre is a former nine-year pro basketball player who traveled eight countries in his career after walking on at an NCAA Division III school. He is now a full-time entrepreneur who has authored 29 books and performed four TED talks on discipline Confidence mental toughness and personal initiative Dre has over a hundred and thirty seven thousand subscribers on YouTube and his daily work on your game podcast has been downloaded over three million times So we spoke about personal initiative. We spoke about entrepreneurship We spoke about confidence mental toughness and fortitude lessons that he's learned from a life as a professional basketball player He's applied to building businesses. So let's jump into it This is Dre Baldwin author speaker writer entrepreneur and former professional athlete All right, so I gave you three to five minute versions Scott come from the city of Philadelphia now giving Miami Florida always play sports growing up So all the normal backyard or where I'm from driveway sports kickball Somebody had a no basketball court a portable court in the backyard touch football all of that the first organized sport that I tried was football Couldn't my family couldn't afford football equipment. So I never really got around to the the serious part of football Then play some baseball for a few years and all my neighborhood friends played on the baseball teams We just all play sports, but I didn't really have a lot of talent for baseball I knew my ceiling was mediocrity so I moved on from baseball to basketball. That was around age 14 So if you're just starting to sport at age 14 You're probably not going to go far in that sport of you're trying to go somewhere Let's talk about no cowboys. We're going to play pro So me playing basketball starting at age 14 to try to go anywhere and vicious was kind of far-fetch and even in my high school years Trying out for the basketball teams that it was over my reality was a reflection of that didn't make my high school team until I was a senior I sat the bench the one year that I was on the team. I scored two points per game Now anybody who knows basketball knows two points not about now. Maybe if you're playing I'll tell people you playing soccer or hockey two points. You're a superstar, but in basketball you're not even playing So finishing high school. I knew I wanted to go to college because I just wanted to get the experience I wanted to get out of my my city my neighborhood where I'm from and college was a good excuse to get away and go see another part of No life another part of the world But I also wanted to play sports, but I did not have any type of I didn't have any offers I didn't have any sports scholarships No sports coaches were checking for me or anything like that So wherever I was going to go to school I was going to have to walk on and for those who don't know what that means It means you literally walk in nobody you didn't have an appointment It's kind of like making a sales call with no appointment. That's basically what I was doing Yeah, exactly. So I was I was basically cold calling my way into college basketball and The challenge though with college is that you have to actually enroll in the school It's not like you could pick any school. You have to enroll then try to make the basketball team So that's what I did I went to a school that is now a division three level play college basketball Didn't set the road on fire, but I did play, but I'm again I'm playing at the division three level again for those who don't know sports D3 is the third tier So when you watch college football the championships and all of that marks madness That's division one then is division two we were down there in the basement at division three So division three athletes usually are not the ones even dreaming about making a pro well I don't actually doing it, but when I got out of college I still had this idea this irrational idea that I was going to become a pro athlete But I again, I had no prospects. So when I got out of school There's not like it's not gives a bunch of basketball agents No beating down my door no my family didn't have to change their number We weren't getting too many phone calls from agents about representing drake ball when I played pro ball I wasn't having scouts come to my games or anything like that So my first year out of school. I had while I had this idea again. I had no solid prospects. So my first year After I graduated and this is in I graduated May of 2004 to give everybody a time I worked at foot locker. That was my first job. The first job I got was foot locker I was an assistant manager and I worked at a gym called Valley Total Fitness Selling memberships and then the year removed the summer of 2005 I saved up my money and I went to this event called an exposure camp now many people don't know about those And the exposure camp is like a job fair, but it's for athletes But instead of a bunch of athletes showing up with resumes and wearing suits and telling people what we can do We actually bring our sneakers and our gear and we play our sport in front of everybody So people are familiar with the NFL combine. It's a similar idea Difference with the NFL combine is that no everyone is still has the possibility to get drafted Whereas at an exposure camp you got a bunch of nobody guys the combine You probably heard of a lot of those players if you follow college sports, but in a Basketball exposure camp you anybody can basically show up. They'll take anybody's money They all act like they have a selective process But if your pay they'll take your money. So I saved up my $250. That's all it calls And I had to pay at the door because I didn't have a I didn't have a credit card or a bank account at the time So I get there pay my 250 at the door and it's a two-day event Saturday and Sunday You got two days is about 200 basketball players there and we're all trying to prove that we are good enough to play pro and At that two-day event I did pretty well got a nice scouting report got my footage from that Whoever's that to get myself a basketball agent and I'm skipping over some parts of this and not make it too well But got myself a basketball agent and that agent helped me get my career started So my first job was in countless Lithuania and 2005 at the age of 23 years old now at the same time I took the footage from that exposure camp. It was on this device called a VHS tapes got you remember VHS I do and that's you're dating yourself man It's exactly exactly showing my age. So yes that VHS tape I knew that you know anybody who remembers VHS and those you listen who don't know what that is no Google it or ask your parents They'll tell you so with the VHS tape. I knew if you drop it it gets wet You give it in the sun that footage is destroyed So I'm like man I got a safe keep this footage forever because this footage is like my golden ticket in the plane pro Because that's what I need it the reason I didn't get I didn't have any scouts looking at me when I got out of college Because I didn't have good game footage of me playing against pro-level players because again I was playing against the vision three players and most of those guys are not pro-level But that exposure camp those are better players and I played well against them. So I needed that footage So I got that footage. I took it to an audio visual store They put it on a data CD and I took that data CD and I put it in my parents desktop computer and I uploaded to this new Website I just heard of Scott and on his website they said you can put up as much footage as you want completely for free And it's called youtube.com This is 2005. So this is how I started a a parallel career Didn't even notice it was going to be a career because that in 2005 nobody was talking about this We weren't using phrases like content personal branding social media those phrases did not exist in 2005 So I just put the footage up there just for me. It was just for me because who's on the internet looking up? Drey Baldwin nobody so a couple of years later No, not even years, but months later I went just to check on the footage and I saw there was comments on the video and there were people asking like hey Who do you who taught you how to play how often do you practice now? Where'd you go to school because they could see that I could play they didn't know who I was But they see the like this guy looks like he knows what he's doing and I Realized very quickly Scott that this was an underserved community that basically the people watching my videos were They were me, but 10 years younger. They were the players who wanted to play ball But they didn't have anybody to teach them the event is that they had over Mine generation our generation is that they could go to the internet and get information Whereas in my generation if nobody was there to teach you you had to figure it out on your own or you just didn't so I once I saw that they just wanted me to make more videos I just kept making them and I did it sporadically at first when it was around around 2009 2010 I found myself out of a job in basketball and I started making the videos more consistently because now Google had purchased YouTube They said well, we'll give you some ad revenue We'll share the ad revenue with you if you make videos in their popular and again This sounds like common sense now, but this is not common sense in 2009 So and they're like what you make money just while putting videos on the internet again back then if you were doing that You were a bum-given to your parents basement who need to get a real job, right? You remember those days, so Your early your early YouTube, man You're early exactly Yeah, right well again as well So around that time that's when I really started focusing more on internet thing and the funny thing is Know all the work you do to become a pro athlete, but most of the people who recognize me if I'm out in the street or at the mall They recognize me from YouTube nobody recognized me from overseas basketball because who in America watches overseas basketball? hardly anybody So that's the it's the ironic thing about the whole situation and just to tie this whole thing together I'll fast forward the next ten years Players started asking me questions about mindset because they really they heard about my background of how I barely made it in high school And how I had to hustle my way into the pros walk on in college so they would ask me about you know Why'd you keep doing it? Why'd you keep trying? Why'd you keep practicing? How'd you keep the vision alive in your mind? And that's when I started talking about the mental tools and I'm sure we'll get to here Scott that became the foundation of my philosophy now just called work on your game and when I started talking about those things People who didn't even play sports started finding my videos and my articles and things like that and they would tell me look Jerry I don't play sports, but the way you talk about mindset anybody can use that that's valuable to anybody So that planning to see to my mind when I'm done playing ball I can take this piece the mindset stuff and I can tease this to anyone I don't have to limit myself just to athletes So when I stopped playing ball in 2015 I just went full speed ahead on the mindset stuff and took it into what we now call fault leadership Which is writing book speaking no coaching consulting podcasting things like that and now today I'm from my company. It is called work on your game You couldn't guess and it's all about taking the mental tools to help athletes get to the top 1% in sports and leveraging those same tools at work and in everyday life So serving entrepreneurs professionals of course athletes Anybody who really just wants to maximize their max max out on their potential and make sure to their making the most of their opportunity So that is my back story and I think I that was five minutes might have been longer That was right. No, it's pretty good. That was pretty concise and succinct It was a good story because it teased up exactly how you got to where you are today and you know even looking at you now Like just like looking at your bio I see so many reasons why somebody who has been a high-performance athlete would have so many lessons to teach Somebody who is trying to build a business or what but it's it's something that you know sometimes you follow like the Football coaches or whatever and you get like you know the business tips from them But I don't see people that actively pivot an entire career and then understand how the lessons they've learned Operating at such a high level can be so applicable to an entrepreneur or somebody starting out from the ground up I think that's what it's it's incredible how your story evolved in like all these different inflection points in your story just led to you being able to have the experience and the platform Because that's also very important to be able to do this so as you So as you pivoted from pro-ball and then you started like down the thought leadership pathway Walk me through some of the things that you realized were applicable for a high-performing professional athlete that are also applicable to an entrepreneur because that's what you Speak about then and that's what you do Ted talks on that's what you write books about I think that's also a lot of your content on Instagram what not a lot of these these certain mindset things and Not just mindset, but actual application of certain things can be super applicable to entrepreneurs So what are those things that you discovered? Sure, so really it kind of went back to what the athletes were asking me because really the foundation of it was meeting Just answering questions to the athletes and they would just say well No, why come to the gym every day in practice? Why come to the gym every day and work out and then put these videos out and honestly sky I thought it was a normal thing. I thought that's what every athlete did because I'm figuring out I play basketball I want to play pro or I'm already playing pro or I need to get ready for my next job opportunity I should just go to the gym every day practice so that my game is sharp so when that call comes in I'm ready to go I thought that's what any athlete would do But what I realized very quickly was that not every athlete did this because when I showed myself doing it people were Looking at it like they couldn't they were surprised and I might isn't this whatever anybody would do you have a job You show ready for your job or at least ready for the job that you want you prepare for the job that you want before you even had the job I thought that was normal behavior a normal mindset So that was where the disappoint came from showing up every single day to do the work So that was the number one principle and it's still to this day. That is the foundational point I think for any professional and anything because if you look up the the dictionary definition of a professional as a person who gets paid To do something as it may not be patient, but my definition of a professional as a person who shows up every day in the livers Regardless of how they feel because some days we're sick sometimes you're tired sometimes you don't feel like turn the mic on You don't feel like writing another page for your book. You don't feel like being in the gym But you're getting paid for it. It's your job. You got to show up and do the work It's just like you think of your favorite who's your favorite athlete? Who's my favorite athlete? Let's take it back like like Muhammad Ali like someone like like throwback like like he yeah, go for it Go for it. Go for it. Oh, Muhammad Ali Now I'm sure now during in the the matches that everybody was watching Muhammad Ali was all keyed up and ready to go as many because Boxing is not like your boxing you know 80 times a year or 160 games a year like baseball But I'm sure there were days Muhammad Ali did not show like training No boxers do road work and they run the miles and they they got to hit the bag and they got to do the jump rope I'm pretty sure and Scott did you tell me if you disagreed there were days Muhammad Ali did not feel like training But he understood right because of his position and because in the next person he was fighting him because fighting him was like the grand prize of Anybody's career he knew he had to show up and do that training so that he would be ready to deliver every time so that No, somebody couldn't make a they couldn't make their whole career based off of beating him You know, so he had to be ready to show up every day or you think of a LeBron James Does he feel like playing every single time 82 times a year knowing that he's getting the best shot of every player He plays against every player wants to be able to say hey, I don't know LeBron James Or I stole the ball from LeBron or I scored on LeBron twice in one game 12 years ago You know everybody's trying to get their highlight off of him So he has to be that mentally on point every single day and that's much more of a mental decision than it is a physical skill Now a lot of people don't really understand that till they constantly think about it. So that first principle is discipline The next one I was gonna say I was gonna say just one thing No, I just wanted to point out something the only reason why I picked Muhammad Ali is because I love I love boxing as a solo sport and I find it and maybe just comment on this if you think there's something to it Like you think through the certain mental toughness that can be pulled from a solo sport versus a team sport not to say obviously like at a team level like mental Fortitude and and the psychology to show up every day is not important because it obviously is but like there's no team holding You accountable when you're when you're on your own that's I thought it was I thought that was something that's super impressive when I look at Boxers is probably some of the most notorious like solo sport. You're just showing up on your own with your coach Absolutely and no, it's funny because since I I stopped playing ball in 2015 a lot of people He's asked me, do you play pick up you playing the leagues or anything? I played zero basketball cold turkey because to me I'm always in a mentality if I can't be at my best or whatever my best Potential is at that moment. I want to play at all Because I don't want to be like the old guy with some young guy who isn't half of what I was at his age No beating me just because I'm not in shape anymore So I don't play ball at all, but I do I have a boxing trainer as a matter of fact I had a boxing workout this morning and you're 100% correct Because in a solo sport not only do you not have a teammate holding your accountable also in the matches in the games the Performances is just you out there you can't pass the ball to somebody else like in basketball if I'm not making my shots That night I can pass to one of my teammates if he's making all the shots we can still win the game But in boxing or tennis if my serve is off or something's wrong my ankle and I'm not moving the right way I can't hide I can't pass the ball to anybody and still win the game You're going to take that loss and everybody sees you. So Absolutely in a solo sport. It's a completely different approach because you have to you kind of had to be your own accountability Even though no boxers have trainers and no tennis players have whatever swimmers any solo sport they have trainers and coaches exactly But in the performance there's no one to pass it off to during that performance and when you lose You can't point at anybody and when you win all the glory goes to you. So 100% agree Anyways, you go and start I didn't mean to interrupt you guys That was interesting because that's that's sort of like the you know I always equate sports to start up and like as an entrepreneur like you don't have a team day one You're 100% solo day one. Yeah, right? So this one is the first principle that the work when you game is based on the second one is confidence And this is the one that usually if someone comes to me and they're asking for anything mindset wise Usually they're asking for confidence if they don't know anything about me. They're using Sandra I want to be more confident. I want to have more self-esteem I want to believe in myself more and why is that if you ask somebody why do they want more confidence? They'll usually say something like I perform at a higher level. I'll be more consistent I'll have more and I'll be able better able to sell my product startup conversations with people know Close people on my products and offerings, whatever it is everybody wants confidence But many people don't understand is that discipline creates confidence That number one number one main source of confidence is discipline because if you think about it Scott the most confident people you know are usually very disciplined individuals and very disciplined people are usually very confident And why is that is because those disciplined people because they're showing up and they're doing the work And they know that they are following their their principles on a day-to-day basis They have earned the right to be confident So confidence is defined as your your belief in your ability to do something So where do you get that belief from from actually doing it now if you haven't done the thing before Let's say you practiced a lot. Let's say as a boxer or a business person You're trying to sell something you've done all the practice you listen to all the tapes you're ready But you haven't done the actual performance yet. Where do you get that confidence from now? Some people had this concept of faking it until you make it. I actually don't believe in that concept I don't believe in fake it so you make it. I think it's a a misnomer oxymoron the reason is Because the subconscious mind again doesn't know the difference between Imagination and reality, but the same time it takes everything literally So when you tell yourself that you're faking it till you make it it's kind of like Cinderella You know, Cinderella as she puts on that glass slipper. She has on this beautiful ball gown But at some point that clock strikes midnight and she goes back to wearing the rags That's what happens to people when they fake it till they make it is that eventually you're going to tell yourself to stop faking it and all that Confidence that you had you go back from the the beautiful ball gown to the rags So what I suggest that people do instead is Becoming because you don't have to fake it. You can just become that person and I give an example one of my TED Talks I talked about this a basketball player. He was in practice and a coach told him that day I want you to pretend to be the best player on the team and this guy was this player that he was talking to was Marginal player maybe the 10th best player on the 12-person roster But that day when he's pretending to be the best player on the team He's doing all kinds of crazy moves. He's making all kinds of miraculous shots that he never does and All his teammates are looking at him crazy guy. Where's this coming from? We didn't know you had this ability and what he had done is he had stepped into this principle that I called a super You which is you still being yourself not faking it But as you at your highest possible level of confidence and what you're doing that moment is you borrow that confidence from another person So to give an example you take a let's say somebody who's a boxer and They are them whoever they are now before they go into that match They're looking for that confidence. I would tell them listen I want you to think about somebody like Muhammad Ali or Mike Tyson or Floyd Mayweather or whoever your favorite boxers And I don't want you to try to be them in the ring because you don't have their same wiring or skill set But I want you to look at think about their mentality think about how they would walk into the ring Think about how they would approach the fight How would they feel about themselves going into the ring? How would their confidence be? How would they how would they picture their performance leading up to the game for a basketball player? I say picture of Michael Jordan or Kobe or Steph Curry. What is their confidence? How do they feel about themselves? How do you look at themselves in a mirror before the game? And I want you to think about yourself the same way they would think about themselves So you're basically mirroring their mentality not necessarily their actions and that way You can step into a level of confidence that maybe that person has never had before because as humans We have these things called mirror neurons It's like you can want somebody else do something and just by watching them do it You have a better understanding how to do it even though you haven't done it before and that works for confidence It works for you know hammering in a nail. It works for repairing a car. It works for anything But people have to understand the principles behind it and understand that you're not trying to be somebody else You're still being yourself. You don't want to be faking it because eventually like I said faking it is going to end You don't want to tell your brain and you're pretending to be anything. So the second principle is confidence So and just I want to ask one question on that one Say you I understand the concept and You put your mind in the space of somebody who has that experience and who's done it a lot So now you have that confidence. You're becoming it How do you make sure that when something doesn't go according to plan that you can maintain that confidence? How do you not break this perception? Because I feel like it would be human nature the second I'm Going for a shot that I've never made before and I don't make it all of a sudden I get in my own head and I just realized that I tried to do this thing to become this person And it worked for 90% of the time, but then that one time that didn't work. I'm like shit. I'm not that person I can please screw that up because you haven't you're not that person So how do you how do you keep how do you keep that mindset right great question? So this is that's part of your training. That's part of the mental training ahead of the performance because if you think about it every professional prepares for the situation before the situation and Amateurs get into the situation then they try to prepare while they're in it So part of your training is to be ready for that situation. This is why every athlete has a coach every Athlete has a trainer every athlete goes through a lot of practice before they get to play in the game You don't practice you don't play but in the professional world outside of sports We have a lot of people out here the kind of freelancing and not like as a freelancer But freelancing meaning they're not preparing and training for the situation before they get into a so an athlete If I'm training a basketball player or a boxer for example I'm getting them ready for the fact that they're going to miss a shot that they're going to try a move And somebody's going to steal the ball from them and they're going to try to dunk and they're going to miss the dunk Or they're going to get their shot well They're going to get crossed over and scored on two times in a row by somebody else who's better than them And they had to be mentally prepared for that so that when that situation occurs They know how to deal with it. I'll give you an example Did you see the the tiger was documentary? I think it was on HBO max. You see that I Think I think so I can't remember now though. It wasn't a while ago. I think I think I have yet But I just don't remember I don't remember it specifically. I think maybe a year or two ago it came out But I just watched it probably this year But in that Docu series you see when tiger was coming up as a golfer because his dad taught him how to golf, right? So when he's 14 15 years old he would be out on a on a links golfing and his dad would be with him And his dad would do stuff to distract him when tiger was lining up a put his dad will walk through his line before he put it Or when he was just about he was in his back swing his dad would cough or laugh or make some noise to try to distract him And the whole point was teaching tiger like look These kind of things might happen in the real match and you have to not come unglued not be become unwired And you got to deal with it and be mentally tough enough to deal with that situation because he saw a tiger had the talent He had the physical ability But it's the mental ability to unlocks the physical ability so it's making sure that you're doing the preparation ahead of time and not preparing for everything To be perfect for preparing for the fact that things will go wrong and they're going to go off course are you Mensily do you have a mental dexterity to deal with that situation on a fly when it happens because it's going to happen Good good. No, I make sense. So that's that's part of the that is part of the prep So when even if you're going into even if you're going into a situation where you are becoming something So that you have that meant that mindset you can still be doing the prep ahead of time so that you're you're aware that when things don't go 100% to plan and this is actually, you know, this is something that I don't think you have to do for a specific event Right, like it's not like this is a mindset that you can carry with you through the next job You're going into next interview. You're going into the next startup you want to take on it can it can be a mindset that even if Even if you're casually just taking up a sport and you want to you want to play a sport and you're you know You haven't played in a few years like this is a mindset just just preps you for things not going right That's right. You take it everywhere, right? It's just like you just have to know that's how you have to think Exactly and just understanding that life is not always going to go in your favor exactly as you want it in the way that I describe it to people is Playing a road game is like playing a game on a road in sports because and then let's say a sport like football or basketball No team wins the championship without winning some games on the road You have to be able to go into a hostile environment where things are not set up in your favor People don't want you to win and they are not going to move out of your way and you have to figure out how to win anyway and Know it's funny. I was just listening to a zig-zagger Seekers are closing the sale tape and I listen to that tape all at so many times with one of the things that he talks about is that You got to be able to close the close ones because as a salesperson you're going to have some gimme So you're going to have some customers who come in as they say sometimes with their credit card on their forehead You're going that's an easy sale But you can't build the whole sales career just on easy sales You might have some of those close sales where it could go either way and if you don't close enough of those close ones The road games then you can't build the career in sales So it's understanding that they're going to be some situation that could be you might win You might lose you got to win enough of those to get by and then the easy ones would be the easy ones Then it's going to be something that you're not going to win no matter what but you got to win enough of those 50-50 games It's the same thing in sports is the same thing in businesses and sales is everything in life So this is confidence but I think it sort of dovetails into the next point as well Yeah, so the next point yeah, so walk me through that walk me through that and how does that obviously? Actually go for it then I have a question. I followed after but go for a first Okay, all right, so if you have this point in place you're showing up every day doing work confidence putting yourself out there Bowie and offensively the third principle is mental toughness now mental toughness is your willingness and ability to To continue being discipline and confident despite the fact that Following the program following the rules You're disciplining your confidence have not yet produced the desired results So this is right what would you what you just asked about that this because you follow everything perfectly I mean if you ever signed up with a coach or you signed up for a course or you're following some somebody has a ten step process to produce Outcome XYZ and you follow exactly what they said did exactly what they told you to do and you did not get the desired result All right, the mental toughness is do you look at it and say all right, let me figure this out Let me figure out what's missing here. How do I fix this how can I go about this a different way or you just throw your hands up Give up and quit and while it sounds so tight and it sounds so common sense maybe to many of the listeners and people who listen to a show like this You probably wouldn't even think of even needing to make that choice But there are so many people out there who when things don't go the way that they expected or you don't go according to plan or No one real life alters that lab tests. They just give up. They just they just don't keep showing up in persistence is One of the number one traits of successful people is that they're just willing to persist They don't quit when things don't go their way They just regroup and they figure out a way How can I go at this problem a different way to make it work out and anybody who works in startups I mean, this is your whole business right? This is the the entire thing is being persistent even though it didn't work exactly how you thought it would I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot now as a leader You're always on the lookout for more ways to arm yourself with knowledge the books the seminars and most importantly The podcast that help you make the best possible decision for you your company your customers Because when you know more you can apply more and you can grow with HubSpot CRM platform You can store track manage and report on all the tasks and activities that make up your relationships With customers with the birds eye view over all your customer interactions HubSpot empowers your decision making like never before so you can give your business and your customers all the good You've got learn how to make your business grow better at HubSpot.com Do you have and and you you make a point that I'm sure the people listen to a business or You know an upskilling focused podcast where you're trying to learn how to be better and do better I'm sure they do have a level of mental toughness that maybe the average person doesn't but even then like when when stuff doesn't work out Like it's hard like it's just really it's really hard like there's no way around it. So Somebody that teaches us for a living do you have tips on How to condition yourself so that when things don't work out and it's easy to pivot and and you have to pivot maybe you have some sort of Kind of like what you said before like you you know you're preparing for things to not go right What is an exercise that you could do so that you can prepare for things to not go right Because if you can prepare for things to not go right you can pivot quickly You can go into something new much quicker You're not letting yourself get in your own way and slowing yourself down Because of like what you what's in your head So how do you condition yourself for mental toughness is the question Great question. Well in my book work on your game as you can see over my shoulder right there the first chapter That book is called mental conditioning. That's the very first chapter of the book and you think about conditioning if Anybody if you ever play a sport that involves running like basketball baseball football One of the things that we do at the beginning of every season training camp is we do conditioning workouts And what is the conditioning workout is just a whole lot of Things that are designed to get you physically fatigued and the whole point of that is not so that what many people Incorrectly think they think being well physically conditioned means that you never get tired now trust me I still I still run no probably a 10k three times a week here in Miami where I live Every time I run I feel fatigued even though I'm in great shape I feel fatigue every single time Even though I'm in physical condition What conditioning means is not that things are not going to happen is just a matter of how much time do you need to recover before you can get right back at it So when you're well conditioned physically as a basketball player for example If you go sprint up and down to court 10 times in row even the bronze is going to get tired Kobe will get tired stuff curry will get tired to some matter of stuff curry might only need 30 seconds of breathing time before he can run full speed all over again Whereas somebody who's not conditioned they might need 30 minutes or 30 days before they can run full speed ever again So that's what conditioning is about it's about shortening the amount of time you need to deal with the setbacks and the challenges when they inevitably happen So how do you get ready for that is it goes right back to the preparation and being ready ahead of time or what's going to happen and Anticipating the fact that there may be challenges and that's what you work into your strategy because it going back to boxing And analogy from boxing is is not the hard punts to knock you out is the punts that you didn't see coming You see somebody getting knocked out in boxing is not because they got hit so hard because they didn't know it was coming and surprise them That's when they get knocked out and it's the same thing in life is that if you anticipate that there will be a challenge Then you're you can much better deal with the challenge because you knew it was coming doesn't make it any easier But it feels easier and you can make it look easier simply because you got ready for it and actually my newest book called the third day is all about that It's put conditioning yourself to deal with the challenging days that third day is that challenging day You got the startup you're going everybody's excited for you you're excited You got all this initial attention coming into you you're selling your product it feels good But then that newness wears off the novelty is gone and now it's just you by yourself And they everybody has moved on to the new guy who has something new to came out newer than yours now. What do you do? And it's at that point right there that a lot of startups and you can tell me from wrong about this guy a lot of startups Don't make it past that point because that's where definitely don't right that's where the newness has worn off Exactly now you got a grind through that part that third day is what I call it You got to grind your way through that and if those who grind through it then they might get to the point where they can see a lot of day But a lot of people and a lot of businesses and a lot of situations just don't make it through that point So that grind right there that's what makes the professional is dealing with that grind It is not the talent it is not the opportunity is damn sure not the resources It's the mental toughness to grind through that tough part that is going to come to everybody Um just on that point uh, so actually When when people are building something and this is something that I see often They focus on building and they all in theory love what you just said and it all makes sense and nobody would argue These are all important things But then you get stuck in the day-to-day you get stuck in the doing and and you have to execute on things and Life is busy so What do you say to somebody who knows that this is like focusing on your mindset getting your mind right They know it's important, but they just never quote unquote like find the time to invest in Building themselves so that they can help themselves in the future when they actually need some of the things that you're speaking about How do you how do you get that person on board or is that not the person? The focus on do you focus on people that are already trying to help themselves? Well, it's a combination of both because the people who are the people who understand the value of that are the kind of people who come find somebody like me Because they understand the value of it and they're like I know I need to make this investment because I know these challenges are going to come up or I'm already dealing with these challenges Now on the other hand the people who are not aware or they're not constantly thinking about it They one of two things going to happen either they will They can hear the message from like this conversation right here They might be listening to this and saying okay. You know what that actually makes sense. Let me go read a book Let me go listen to some more Scott stuff Let me go see more of what Drey is talking about and then maybe they'll they will convince themselves because we can't convince them They got to choose themselves to get more into this or the other thing is going to happen is they don't get their butt kicked By life by business by the industry by situation and then they'll realize oh, okay. This is what they were talking about Okay, let me make sure this doesn't happen again But one of two things has to happen But it's nothing that I can say or that you can say that is more valuable than what they say to themselves And that's either like kicking their butt and then they say it or they get the idea ahead of time So one of it's going to happen one way or another Um, and that sort of dovetails into the last point. That's what I was trying to figure out Like personal initiative Holding yourself accountable and just being a you know self-aware of What what you're good at what you're capable of and maybe some of the things that you need to work on What is personal initiative How does it fit into this framework of discipline confidence mental toughness? Is it just like what you just mentioned is it being self-aware of the fact that you have to go and work on these things read a book uh Focus on getting your mind right before you start building something or is it Is it holding yourself accountable once you're already down a path of building something? What's what is like your version of personal personal initiative mean? Well both of those are part of it in the way I describe personal initiative is being at go-getter A person who goes and makes things happen instead of waiting for things to happen So you and a lot of work that's you're in scot this is exactly this should fit you to it see and what being at Go-getter means it's understanding that the three things we talked about so far are all mindsets discipline confidence Something that's a way of thinking but you could do all of that by sitting in your seat and never doing anything You could read about it all day and watch youtube and listen to podcasts and all that stuff But personal initiative is taking that potential energy and turning it into kinetic energy energy in motion Going and actually doing something because these days with I mean how many people have a podcast? How many people write books how many people are making youtube videos right everybody literally everybody is doing that So the thing is many of us these days Couldn't get into what we call analysis by paralysis right or paralysis by analysis that we're just taking in all this information And we're thinking about this and that and there's all this new stuff that we can get and we don't feel we know enough to take action yet No, we don't want to make cold calls We don't want to put our product out there because it's not quite ready the problem is by the time you figure out what to do The opportunity is gone. The options are gone and your vitality is going So the important thing for me and this is something that I tell people all the time I call it the 10% rule of information and action So you only need 10% of information to get started to take action you only need 10% of information Then along the way you will learn more and I guarantee you you're probably not going to get the perfect result when only 10% of information However, you make yourself eligible to get to the perfect result because you got started because you moved because you put yourself out there Now you can get some feedback from the universe You can get what I call activity knowledge and you can figure out our how does this stuff actually apply to Dre and Scott are talking about here Let me see how this applies to me how it applies to my life and my particular situation So if you're sitting around waiting to get all quote-unquote of the information No, first of all, that's impossible because information is being created at a faster pace than any of us can take it in So you can never get all the information and whatever is information right now today Two weeks from now is not going to be information anymore and something has changed So you have to be willing to move without knowing everything and actually being comfortable in that Being comfortable in your ignorance, I guess we can call it being comfortable in the discomfort if you even want to call it that of knowing that things are always changing around you but Trusting that you will be able to change it with it. That's what personal in this sentence And ultimately just taking action because then you get like that's that's the main thing Which take action like get get that momentum going you get that flywheel of like activity happening And that's that that's going to propel you to figure stuff out to do something new to to get to the next level Like it's just all about like at the end of the day. It sounds so like Common sense is in common, but it sounds it sounds so simple is like just get your ass started And then everything else starts to fall into place not easily, but things start to happen Right It's common sense to people like us, but it's not common sense to average person No, no, no fair fair If you had if you had one lesson because you teach you teach a lot if you had like one Lesson that you'd want people to take away from all your work your TED talks Um all the content you put out the books you write What would what would that lesson be? What would the like be the mark that you want to leave on the words a heavy question, but I'm curious Is that mindset is the foundation of everything Mindset is the foundation of creating success is the foundation of winning is the foundation of taking yourself to another But even if you feel like you are already successful the person that got you to where you are today Is not the person that's going to get you where you want to be this time next year There is something that needs to change about who you are being as a person not your actions The actions come after but something needs to change about the way that you think and the way that you see yourself And the way you see your business in order for you to take your business to another level And when you change how you see yourself and the way you think the actions will automatically follow Because if I'm a person who doesn't work out for example and I change my mindset to someone who does work out Well, what am I going to do? I need to get a gym membership need to give me some sneakers I need to make sure I wake up an hour early so I can go work out before I go to work The actions will automatically follow the mentality if you truly believe it about yourself You will take actions that match what you see And it is impossible for any human being to consistently act that when you send a period of time in a way that is Inconflict with the way that they see themselves So when you change how you see yourself your actions will automatically follow So mindset is the foundation that's always That's a good I love that quote That I love that quote so if you're like that that brings it back to the start man That brings it back to the you cannot fake it till you make it like it's good You're gonna your your mind's gonna self correct at some point It's gonna shatter this whole perception you've built for yourself So it's not fake until you make it. It's it's just getting your mind right and then executing Against that proper mindset You said it much more eloquently than me, but I'm just trying to paraphrase You can clip it out you can clip it out and use it No, that's a that's a that's a social clip for Sherman. That was that was good Whatever you just said like like 60 seconds ago. That was golden Okay, I want to I want to do a couple rapid fire just to pull out from your career some insights You've done a lot in your career. They're your pro career obviously All the content you put out the books the TED talks But most importantly before I pivot Where can people connect with you? So what are all the socials the websites that you want people to go check out? Well, I'm on every social media platform. I'm not on TikTok. I have a TikTok account on post there But I'm everywhere else the one I'm most active on probably is a Instagram. I use Instagram stories all day every day So you want to get a really a good inside book and a good feel for my personality Instagram story My Instagram is just my name at Dre Baldwin My newest book third day. I get people a free copy if they just cover the shipping can I tell them about that? Scott Yeah, do it man. Do it and give me and send me a link so I can put it in the show. No, it's perfect sure Oh, yeah sure will so this is the newest book called third day the decision separates the pros from the amateurs This is one of my this is framework is about disciplines And we talked about this point at the beginning of the show the third day is the framework that I used to explain it And whenever I give speeches and I talk about the third day This is the thing that people remember the most so I went and wrote a whole book just about this So this is the biggest most popular framework within working your game And it's all about your ability to show up on a consistent basis and deliver consistently And that seems to be the thing that people ask me about the most How can I be more consistent? How can I make sure I'm sticking to my discipline? It's sticking to my habits sticking to the things I said that I want to do that's what the third day is and the third day Is I give a quick metaphor for it? You show up to the gym. Let's say we got a new year coming up when this comes out might already be in a new year Everybody comes to the gym in January, right? Anybody who goes to the gym, you know January You hate going because you got all these people who you know won't be there in two months. Everybody's in the gym, right? That's the that's the first day metaphorically doesn't have to be days Second day, let's say that's the middle of January people are still showing up But it's not new anymore. They're getting there a little bit later. They're giving it leaving a little bit earlier Not showing up quite as often the third day is probably let's say Bob Valentine's day You got the same people that were there before all right the same people from last year now all the new people left That they forgot their gym membership and I don't know people noticed you know that 50% of gym revenue is people who never show up to the gym That is people who have memberships before yeah, but they don't actually ever show up. I'm gonna make off that Yeah, they make most of their money from people who never come to the gym and the thing is if people if everybody who had a gym membership regularly use the gym the gym would not have capacity to service all those people So they factored us into their business model is that most of the members will never show up So that's the third day is the newness is gone the novelty is gone You realize that this thing that you signed up for and even if you're paying for it This is some actual this is real work. I had to actually do some work here This startup is real work or having a podcast is actual work This relationship is real work or this gym is actual work And that's when you separate the pros from the amateurs who is going to show up That's what this book is about and I give you a copy for free. I've got to tell you link It is thirddaybook.com and now it's got you'll have the link so everybody can just click on it and go back to copy Third day book.com the book is free. All you gonna do is cover the shipping now. We'll physically ship you a copy of that book Amazing. Thank you, man Okay, so let's go into some rapid fire questions to pull us some last insights from you Biggest challenge you've overcome in your own personal life or professional lane But what was that challenge had you overcome it? The biggest challenge I had to overcome was really just developing a confidence confidence as a person the confidence To talk to just people to talk to audiences then as an athlete and then in the business world And then some people see me now and they might not think that but the reason I'm able to teach confidence because I know what it feels Like to be at a zero and I know it feels like to be at a hundred so confidence Okay, good If you had to choose one person obviously there has been many But one person has had a major impact on your life. Who was that person and what did they teach you? Who I had to go in my favorite author Robert Green he wrote the 48 goals of power 33 strizes award 50th of all And what I learned from him is really just learning to look really introspectively into people Not only other people what also myself and think about the psychology behind people's actions I've always been into that but when I read his book he was speaking directly to me So it got me more into it. So Robert Green. Good. Good. Um, so this is you answer two questions with one But I'll give you okay the next one is is a book or podcast you'd recommend so You know, yeah, go for it go for it Another book I recommend is the law of success by Napoleon Hill now most people know Napoleon for Think it grow rich, but the law of success was like a it was like a course that he created and from within the law of success He grabbed thinking grow rich. He basically extracted it from the law of success And may think it grow rich was became the most popular business book of all time But that book is that is a super long book But it is worth the time investments you read it. I mean read with your eyes and get the audiobook I got the audiobook and the physical book and I have read that book many times I actually need to read it again. So that one of all of success Just out of curiosity are you more of an audiobook or like a physical book person? I used to be very physical books But then when audiobooks came out and just demands on my time. I do audiobooks more now. So I'm more audiobook now Yeah, I am too. I was just I was just curious um Sometimes there's something that we said for like actually sitting down and opening a book But I found myself doing podcasts or audiobooks at like 1.5 Yeah, exactly. I put them on two. Yeah, yeah, good for you at a time anymore. I had a time like I used to Um, which is again, it's a good problem to have, right? Right. Good problem Um Okay, if you could tell your 20-year-old self one thing what would it be? No easy question investing yourself Invest in yourself meaning getting around the right people Invest in reading books investing getting information that is not going to be taught to you in schools Not going to be taught to you by your parents and people who invest in themselves they grow by multiplication Whereas people who don't invest they only grow by addition So everybody's growing it's just the people who invest they they grow faster. So investing yourself And last question what is success mean to you Success means being a person who you're proud to look at in the mirror and living the kind of life that you want to live Not what everybody else thinks you want to live or what everybody else wants for you But what you actually want for yourself so success really comes down to An honest conversation that you have with yourself not what anybody else thinks about you