Why Athletes Make Good Business People (Super Athlete Life)

There is a secret that most pro athletes, elite CEOs, and high performers all know they all have a group of world-class coaches working for them to help them optimize their potential. At Super Athlete Radio, our goal is to provide you with the caliber of world-class coaches and guests to help you unlock your potential, dominate your industry, and dominate your life. Let's get better today. Scott, really excited to have you on Super Athlete Radio today. How are you? I'm doing good. Thank you, Matt, for having me on. Really excited to have you on. I wanted to hear a little bit about your story before you got into media, but you kind of said about what you wanted to talk about today, and sound like you were trying to meet our audience where they were at. Always, that's how you have to be. You have to meet the audience where they're at. We can talk about my story, but for me, it's a big deal, but maybe it's exciting. Maybe it's not. I didn't have a hard upbringing. I think that my life was a series of lessons of trying to do my own thing and trying to trust myself to figure out what I wanted to take on, and it was definitely a 180 from what I had growing up and meaning that, again, didn't have a hard life growing up by any means. But family was super risk adverse. Super safe, dad worked for government, originally in law enforcement and then counterterrorism. On my mom's side, she took time off for me and my brother, but when she was working, when she went back to work, she worked in university labs. As close to a scientist as you can possibly be, that's the job. For me, upbringing was very safe to cure, and I think that I always wanted to sort of like, I didn't mind that, and that was always the fall back. But I still wanted to think what if I could do something a little bit more disruptive, a little bit higher risk. I thought about this a lot. What actually pushed me to be more entrepreneurial and to try to build my own stuff was the fact that the life that my mom and my dad and many of our parents and grandparents had where they worked the job from whatever 20 to 40, 50, 60, then retired. They had pension for the rest of their life, and they had that security. That doesn't exist for 99% of people. The pensions that our parents had, they don't exist. So it's like, you have to have this bucket of cash to retire if you want to retire. I'm not going to get that from working in 9 to 5, because I was doing the math. If I want to retire at 60 and with inflation, I have to have like what, $10 million, $20 million safe, so I can afford myself a lifestyle of $100,000 per year until I die at whatever 100 years old. And the math wasn't mathing. So I was like, well, I got to figure I got to try something. I got to try something that's going to afford me more opportunity. And I think that's where I was like, okay, let me try to work in something that maybe is a little bit less safe, not government governments, but as safe as you can get. So then I went to the tech and then tech was like the entry drug for entrepreneurship and ownership and building things and selling things and not just selling products, but selling companies. And this is the world that I entered into that I really did not grow up in. And then you're more risk of you have a higher risk tone now I have an exceptionally high risk tolerance. Okay, and would you say that that's valuable to have? Yes, yes, it is with the right attitude. Yeah, with the right attitude and the absolute belief and trust in yourself. I think that I think that risk is risk is part of life. I mean, you can these are all very like common saying like, you know, you have to fail and you have to take chances like this is very normal. But I don't think people trust themselves enough. So when they don't trust themselves and then they fail, then they revert back to what's safe and what's secure. So risk is very important because I think even COVID taught us that a traditional job is relatively high risk when you can get laid off anytime. Yeah. So risk is very important, but then it's risk plus trusting yourself plus being a self-taught individual. These are all sort of personality traits that I think lead to success for entrepreneurs. And then if you look at the people in the Forbes list, it seems they all are very very high risk very high risk, but they also trust themselves to figure shit out. They also like, you know, they'll they'll put a significant amount of time into building something so they won't give up. They'll they'll use failures as lessons and learnings like this is like these are these are traits that basically are seen across every single successful person. These are not new to me. These are not like these traits are not just something that I you know embody and that I sort of try and live by. These are traits that anybody who's built anything significant. That's those are some of the main things whether or not they're conscious of them or not that they take in and then they sort of live every single day. And then growing up, did you have where did sports and working out and any of that play a part? Yeah, I think so. I think sports. I think a lot of great entrepreneurs are athletes, not all, but I think a lot of great entrepreneurs are athletes because being an athlete teaches you a few things. So I played a lot of I played first of I played tons of sports growing up. So my first job ever was coaching tennis. Okay. Very, very first job and I loved coaching. I loved like watching like transformation of people when you start working with them to win, you know, two, three years later, you see like the progress they made as a person. So first job ever was coaching tennis played hockey from a super young age. And then I also when you play hockey on Canadian. So when you play hockey in the winter, then your summer sport is either baseball or soccer. And then when you grow up and you're sort of athletic and you start to take on the other sports, you start to play like football and rugby and lacrosse and you play all the other sports, but hockey was really my main thing. So I played a ton of different sports, but I played relatively competitive hockey and I think that that taught me to be highly competitive in my life. It taught me the value of putting in tons of practice and training for the main show, which is really a fraction of the amount of time that you put into all the practice and the and the prepping right because of any professional sport. Basically your entire season or both the games you play and the practices and the training and the gym and the diet and nutrition, all that leads to like like one or two games. Yeah, at the end of the season really when it comes down to it. Yeah. So I think that that taught me the value of patience and and putting in the reps for some far off end goal that ultimately was not going to be for several months in the future. And then if you translate that entrepreneurship, all the reps and the learning translates into an angle that could be 10 years in the future, but it's the same concept. So it's about patience and putting in the work every single day and I think that it just it trains your mind for hard work. I truly believe that it just trains your mind for hard work and it wasn't just the hockey after I you know when you're 16 and you're not drafted, it means you're not getting paid. Like you're not you're not going to. Yeah, you have to you have to like really focus on school and you really have to focus on like, okay, what's my career going to be. So I was good, but I wasn't like that good. I played with people that were that good and some of them some of them are still playing. Yeah, so so I was like, listen, okay, so hockey isn't my sport anymore. What am I going to take on? I got into bodybuilding. I really got into like, you know, like lifting and that to me also taught a lot about patience perseverance because then you your goal is no longer to win. You know, championship at the end of the year, your goal is to manipulate and turn your body into something that looks a certain way, performs a certain way. So that's also interesting, but then you realize that those same concepts can be sort of turned into your business or how you perform at an intellectual cognitive level. Like, how do I upskill my mind? How do I upskill my my business skill set? My whatever it is, I want to learn how to sell. I want to learn how to market. I want to learn how to raise money. So then it all it all translates back to like putting in putting in the reps. I mean, that's really the sort of the theme. I love that. And then the analogy you use about how how often athletes actually perform like on games that really compare to compare to how much training they do is an analogy that we run with our clients all the time who say who say stuff like, well, I don't know if I have time to do two hours of recovery a week or things like that. And we use that as a reality and say, hey, the more time that you spend preparing and recovering for the important stuff than the better the important stuff is going to go. But it's actually interesting because for for for for an athlete, you're practicing all year for like a few games at the end, or even like a few seconds of a few games that are really going to dictate whether or not you get to the next round or you or you win. You Stanley Cup, you win whatever you win Super Bowl, you win whatever sport, you're you're competing at in business. You practice, but you also have to execute almost every second of every day. So business is the ultimate sport. Business is the ultimate is the ultimate professional sport that you have to play nonstop because you always have to be practicing, but you always have to be executing too. So I find that it's a fun game to play, but I don't think it says forgiving. Maybe it's more forgiving. I'm just thinking about this now. Maybe it's more forgiving because you get unlimited chances to show up and perform at the same time every single day you have to show up and perform. So what I mean by that is if you're playing a sport and you don't show up 100% of practice earlier on in the season. Yeah, you may get reamed up by your coach, but it's really not going to have a huge effect that one particular thing that you screwed up. I think in business, you always have to perform at your at your highest level because it's not going to sink the business, but there's every single conversation you have every single negotiation you get into. I mean, that could be millions of dollars of revenue on the line or hundreds of thousands or even thousands of dollars of revenue if you don't show up and you don't you don't put your best self out there. So I really do believe that I mean, you just businesses less forgiving and but more forgiving at the same time less forgiving meaning you always have to show up more forgiving. You get unlimited chances to show up as well, but I don't want people to think that they can just lock off and not show up to the sales meeting in their best self because you're kind of you're kind of short selling yourself. You're kind of not doing yourself justice if you do that, right? So show up in your best game day self and if you screw up that meeting with the investor with the person trying to sell to. It's okay. It's whatever you get another shot, but at least you showed up with 110% capacity. Yeah. Yeah, my two boys here with us today and that's one of the principles that I taught them over the years. Yeah. The little things are more important than the big things because there's so many more little things. Yeah. And that seems like a perfect representation of that when you're talking about business. Yeah. I mean, little things are what make a business and little things are what make anything really one of the principles that's super important to me is reverse engineering success. So you asked, you know, are you more, are you more okay with risk? And I said, yeah, I'm okay with risk because I trust myself, but there's a gap there. So when I say I'm okay with risk and I say I trust myself where you're still going to say, well, Scott, like, how do you trust yourself to build, you know, to look this way or to compete at this level or to build the business of this size because just to say you trust yourself. That's like delusional. You've never done it before. How can you possibly trust yourself? So the gap between what I want and where I'm at now is the process of reverse engineering success. And this is a very important concept because I believe that a lot of people they see the end goal. They see what someone else is accomplished and they see where they're at now and the pathway to get from A to B is opaque. It's not transparent. It's fuzzy. It's gray. It's like, I don't get it. How can someone, how can I ever achieve, you know, whatever this person achieved? How can I build a $10 million business when I've only worked a W2 making $100,000 per year, right? There's like, it's like a huge gap, a perceived gap. So something that I've done in my life when I was playing a sport, trying to look better, trying to build a business, trying to get a promotion. I just reverse engineer the path that someone else has taken to get there because if you look at anyone who's achieved anything, the path that they've taken is actually not that confusing. It's multiple steps and a lot of learnings and a lot of iterating and a little bit of luck. But I do believe you can make your own luck if you try enough things and you do enough and you take enough action. But the path is always there. And if you reverse engineer the path, even if you don't end up exactly where that person is, you end up in a pretty good spot. So just to be clear on what that looks like, if I want to reverse engineer, like, for example, how to build a $10 million business. So I figure out how that person found product market fit at the beginning. What was their test for? Is there a customer that actually wants a thing that I'm selling? And then I looked at the sales channels that they went after and I looked at maybe the investors they approached and I looked at maybe the people that they hired. And then I start to map out exactly how they did the thing that they did. And then I start to action on those steps. And if I don't know how to do one of those steps, I trust myself to learn how to do one of those steps. So when I say that I trust myself, I trust myself to figure out the path that someone else has already taken. Because I don't believe that anybody is that special, like I truly don't. I trust myself that if someone else has figured it out and I can understand the steps that they took, I too can figure out those steps and learn those things and then just rinse and repeat and keep moving forward, inch by inch. And again, maybe I don't end up with a $10 million, $100 million billion business, but maybe I end up in a pretty good spot. Because if you do replicate the exact step of somebody else who's created something impressive, you will end up in a good spot. It's not that complicated success leaves tons of clues. So I think that that's where the trusting in yourself to execute on that roadmap really comes in. And then when you started the... This is bodybuilding too, by the way. If I want to look at a physique, I look at that physique, I look at the split they do, I look at the food they eat. I'm like, listen, are they taking drugs? Because if they have that physique and they're taking drugs and I'm not taking drugs and I'm not going to end up there, that's fine. I'll find another role model, right? But the point is I will reverse engineer everything they do over a period of time, the food they eat, the work that they do, and then you start to execute on those things. And guess what? You actually end up starting to look the way that that person looks or perform the way that that person performs. It's really not that complicated. And is this why you created the topic for the success story podcast? It was reverse engineering success so people could see the journey that other people have been on who have performed at the highest levels. And then they see the path is not so, it's hard work, but it's not complicated. I think that's the biggest takeaway when you're thinking about doing anything that's outside your comfort zone. It will always be a massive amount of hard work, but it does not have to be complicated work. Most people are not putting individuals on Mars. Most people are trying to figure out how to sell something on their Shopify store, or how to lose like 30 pounds. Most people are not trying to reinvent the wheel and change the world, which is great, because you don't have to, to live your best life. In fact, most people I don't think would even want Elon's life. I mean, people are going to, I've tweeted this out before people give me shit. I'm like, oh, I want to be a billionaire. I'm like, listen, trust. If you had $100 million, your life would be very damn good. There's headache that comes with $1 billion. Beyond a physical threat. You have non-stop staff, you have a massive portfolio of investment. It's not like it's changing your day to day. There's only so much money you can spend on food. There's only so much money you can spend on vacation. Maybe yet, do you want to own a team or buy an oligarch yacht? Okay, fine. But realistically, for most people, it's not worth the headache. Did you ever read this book or hear the story about the former Zappos? No, I was a sorry. Are you familiar with him? I know Zappos, but I don't know the story. He was like this super hot entrepreneur who's known. After Zappos, he wanted to build like this. Oh, didn't he tell himself? He got addicted to like whippets. Or did he die? Yeah, yeah, he died or something. It was like he was surrounded by this community of yes people. And he would just be high as a kite on like the most ridiculous drugs. Like what are whippets? And it's just an example of that particular like these dozens and dozens of people who were doing the most ridiculous shit just to be able to get access to his net worth. I think that the bigger issue is when you make a lot of money, you're always looking like the type of person that makes like an absurd amount of money. Like I don't know what absurd is for most people. I think for most people, 100 million is absurd, but when I think absurd, I think like people that are billionaires. I think that those people, I think first of all everyone who can piece at that level has a little bit wrong with them. But that's fine. Like a lot everyone in the world has a lot wrong with them. But like the point is like there's a there's a piece of them that's not quite right that forces them to continue to build past this threshold of like like what they can actually consume themselves. Whether or not it's competition or like this like you know, it's like need to give back whatever it is. Like there's something that is like not that normal compared to like the rest of the population. So when you operate at that level, I think that you're always looking for what's next. And when you basically beat the rest of the population at how to make money and how to you know, basically succeed, I think you start to think about okay, how do I constantly get the next higher, the next thrill or the next, like what's meaningful to me? And I think that that's where a lot of people struggle at that level. And that's where you, I mean, that's where you do ridiculous lifestyle things. Maybe you do a lot of drugs, but whatever it is, it's not good. Not everybody who can piece at that level ends up in a bad lifestyle. But some of them do because when you've won at everything, like what gives you satisfaction anymore? And that's where... You find the next win. Well, I mean, so that's that post guy doing a ton of drugs all the time. Like because nothing gives him any feeling anymore when he's already won at everything. Yeah. I mean, you see it a lot actually, not not with billionaires obviously, but like with the kids of billionaires where they never had to work for anything. Yeah. You see a lot of overdoses. You see a lot of partying, like it's very sad. So I think that it's always good to have something to strive for and maybe winning at everything at a very young age is not a way to live life either. Yeah. Which is why I think rich people who have worked and put in the effort they want to figure out a way for the kids not to just live with no stress or no struggle because that's what makes a good person. And it's besides the point. So yes. I can't remember where we're going with this, but that was super helpful. Where I wanted to go next was when you talked about showing up in business every day as just a high performing entrepreneur, high performing business person. Yeah. What does that look like to you? And then I want to ask how you set yourself up the day. Yeah. So showing up every day, again, just bringing it back to what I first touched on. Like every call, every meeting, every negotiation, which is businesses, you'll do 20 to 50 of these a day in different capacities, whether or not it's negotiating on deal via email or Zoom or in person. You always have to show up in your best self because every single chance is an opportunity for you to perform. And for you to compete, not compete because like the other person has to lose, but like you have to compete because you're trying to get an outcome. There are table stakes involved with most things that you do in a business all the time. So if you're going to compete, you have to show up in your best self. And that means that you have to feel good. You have to show up like you have to be intellectually on point, cognitively on point. You have to be clearing your thoughts. You have to be well prepared in what you're offering or what you're asking for. So I think you just have to figure out systems and processes that sort of support your life in terms of what you eat, your rest, your energy levels, as well as like not just business as my point, not just understanding the outcome of the deal. But you want to show up in a way that you can compete and perform so that you don't lose an opportunity. And I think that more entrepreneurs are focusing on their health and well-being. What have you seen with all the guests that you've had over the years? Do you feel like that's a trend? You know what's funny? I don't think I'm trying to think. It's like a mixed bag. I know that I would say the majority of people after they've had success definitely do focus on health and well-being. I think it's a mixed bag of while you're actually trying to build something. Do you focus on your health and well-being and wellness? Some people just don't give a shit. Some people like to eat like shit. They're drinking. They're taking drugs during the day to stay awake and they're drinking at night to go to sleep. I don't think that's a great way to be an entrepreneur and then I think they have massive health complications down the line. But I think that more and more young entrepreneurs are very health focused and very health conscious. Because I feel like, at least for me, it allows me to approach my day feeling good and feeling energized. And not feeling tired and not feeling confused or sloppy. So like, I don't know. I think that that's a competitive edge. So if you can always show up your best self, I feel like you'll progress much quicker than if you don't take your health and wellness seriously. And then what are some things that you do in terms of habits and diet and stuff like that? I mean, for me, I used to play competitive sports and then I did bodybuilding. So I've always been very, I guess, self-aware of how I feel. So I'm aware of what certain foods I eat and how they impact me and the energy levels they give me. So for me, what I actually do throughout the day now, I mean, this has not always been my diet and my routine, but I'll wake up. I'll take pre-work out. Go to the gym in the morning. I'll drink BCAA's post gym and then I'll fast until around 1 o'clock. Like Monday to Friday, even if I'm fasting, I'll do like a lower carb diet because I find the lower carb diet. First of all, it helps me look better and I also feel sharper. When I eat a ton of carbs, I feel sluggish, I feel tired, I feel like I'm hitting a wall at like four in the afternoon. I have like the regular regimen of supplements, like various D vitamins, fish oils, multivitamins, nothing too fancy. I'm sure there's people that have much more comprehensive supplement routines. But yeah, so it's wake up gym, fasted, eat around one, but mostly low carb. Weekends, I refeed with high carb when I don't have to do as much like cognitive work. I sort of rinse and repeat. I do mostly heavy lifting, maybe 15 minutes of cardio on the stepper, but really it's like just mostly bodybuilding split. And I found that that keeps me in great shape. It allows me to, again, perform as an entrepreneur business leader. And every time I jump in on a call, I feel sharp, I feel with it. I usually get about seven hours of sleep per night, six, seven hours of sleep per night. If I feel like I'm really, really tired, I'll sleep in a little bit, but I'll try and throughout the week at six, seven hours of sleep. And then a weekend, maybe I'll sleep in a little bit more. I don't drink throughout the week that much, but I don't not drink on the weekend. I also don't believe that you have to be extreme in one category or the other. For example, if we go out for dinner on a Wednesday with a client or even with my girlfriend, and we just eat carbs. I'm not going to like destroy my social life over eating carbs throughout the week. But I have like a framework that I try and default to. So I mean, it's like the 80-20 rule, right? Sure. Yeah, I think with the longevity space, that's a common thing that people network is like. That people go through it's in terms of how hardcore, hard edge do I want to be? People are too extreme. Yeah. Because a lot of longevity too is connection and things like that. So people I find are too extreme. And the reason why I'm not extreme is because I'm playing this game for a long time. Yeah. Right, I've been dieting. And like I used to, like when I was into bodybuilding, I could get down to like 5% body fat with very little cardio. I used to be in this game. Like I used to, like I've manipulated all the macros. Like I know, like I know the perfect split. Like there's a point where you can enjoy life. And if you do the longevity game to such an extreme degree, you start to isolate yourself from society. Because yes, it's for the first month, for the first two months, okay, it's sustainable. But if you never eat when you go out, if you never drink, if you, like you have like a, you know, a seven-step morning routine with like a coal plunge and a red light sun, which is nothing wrong with any of those things, I'm just saying like do it in moderation and don't ruin the rest of your life in pursuit of some longevity routine. I think that it's an extreme. And I do believe that most people, what ends up happening is they don't continue that extreme for the next 30 years. They do that for a year. And then they hate that they have no friends or they can never grow for dinner or they can never have a drink anymore. And then what happens? Then you, then you basically throw up your hands and you don't do any of it anymore. So I believe that it's a lifestyle thing if you want to take on anything and you have to find a balance that you're comfortable with, that you can maintain for literally the rest of your life. I don't think that people need to stop drinking for the rest of their life. Not like the sober movement is very, very popular right now. Like people need to chill the F out and just like have a drink every once in a while and it's not going to kill you. I think that that's where moderation is key. Also with business, it's not good to do nothing nonstop every single day except build. For 99% of the population, there are some people that are crazy that all they want to do every single day is built. And sometimes I'm in seasons of that in my life where I don't see anybody and I just want to build the thing that I'm working on. But I think for 99% of people, moderation is good because it keeps you sane and it allows you to continue to do the thing for the long run. And at the end of the day, what creates success in diet and business, it is doing it for an absurd amount of time. So when you do something for an absurd amount of time, whether or not it's dieting or whether or not it's building a business, you will be successful at it. It's not a matter of will I, it's a matter of when will I be successful at it. I truly believe that. I believe if you give 10 to 15 years of your life to anything and you're a smart person and you learn from your mistakes and you constantly focus on improving and iterating and you surround yourself with people that are a few steps ahead of you so you can learn from them. I think that you will become successful at literally anything you want to try. That's so funny you bring up the alcohol because I had a buddy who this is like actually the first time I was at this studio, I was a guest on his show. And he was like, he got to be divisive. He's like, I asked this other guest about alcohol and the guy looked at the camera and said, no, I don't ever fucking drink alcohol and got 1.3 million views. And I was like, man, on any of this stuff, I'm probably going to tell you it depends. Yeah, 100%. By the way, it is so, first of all, I just don't get why people are so hardcore. If you want to be hardcore and put on a show for social media fine, we know people that do that and they do quite well because they say the most ridiculous shit on social, but that's not a reality for 99% of people. What are you actually trying to do if you build a brand or if you create a great podcast or you put content out? You're trying to help a lot of people and you have to realize that for most people, they don't need to be some hard ass on social media. They just want to live a slightly better life than they are right now. And if you actually want to push people in the right direction, you know that this massive 180 approach to uproot their entire life is not the way to do it. You got to actually create habits, you got to create micro actions that lead towards a desired end result. And micro actions means that you're getting like 1% better every single day, right? Atomic habits, James clearly, this is what you're doing. You're doing 1% every single day and over a period of time. You can choose where you want to end up. But why? If telling people to stop cold turkey on drinking, if that was even the thing that was ruining their life, if alcohol was ruining your life, that's a different discussion. But for most people, I think it's like a drink on the weekends, you go to party with friends. If their life is some being ruined and you want to give a message over to that person, you want to help improve their life, I mean going 180 on not drinking is really not going to help them at all. There's other things, there's smaller actions, maybe you don't have to pull. Yeah, there's bigger levers to pull that's going to move their life forward in a positive way. Okay, yeah, maybe don't be drinking like Tuesday through Friday, but like Friday, but like, you know, focus on hitting the gym three times a week, maybe drink on the weekends. Start your side hustle from 7 to 11 after you get home from your job and start figuring out how to monetize something that you're good at. Like start to take steps in the right direction, figure out what macros are, learn about what macros are, and then start to eat the right ratio of proteins and carbs and fats. Like again, if everybody, if everybody's life could be changed by just throwing some massive like aggressive 180 action at them, then fine. But like we see people that join the gym in January because it's a joke between everybody who goes to the gym on a regular basis. The gym is full and packed in January and then come like January 15th attempt again. So obviously like it takes a lot to get people to change. It's very difficult to get people to change. So I'm just saying like you can change and you can move in the right direction and you can prove your life in anything you want to improve it in. It's money, if it's relationships, if it's fitness, whatever, if you just take micro actions and you do them for a ridiculously long period of time because you will start to move in the right direction. I think that's really what will help people. Not the never eat a car again, go to the gym eight times a week, never drink again, quit your job and build a $10 million business in 30 days or you're a loser. Like these are not things that help people at all because they're not real. They're not real. It's a social media bullshit. And a lot of that stems from short on social media. 100% stem from podcasts that people are shooting. And I'd love to hear what your thoughts with thought is on the podcast space overall right now. Podcasts is the content medium to build trust with an audience. First of all, strategically, it's a great medium because what you can do with it is you can take one piece that's a long form like what we're doing right now and you can chop it up into all these smaller pieces. So from like a business opportunity, it's a highly scalable medium, right? It's much easier to create one podcast. What I do is I create one podcast. I turn it into, I don't know, each podcast may be 10 shorts newsletter, a blog. I also take the full podcast, which is audio and video and turn it into 10 minute clips, then go up on YouTube. And then also I take one line as other podcasts, turn them into tweets. So one podcast can create almost unlimited amount of content, especially if you're doing them two, three times a week. But it's also this massive trust building exercise. Like nowhere else can you basically be in the ear of your potential customer or audience for like 60 minutes speaking about a certain topic. That doesn't exist on any short form. If you look at TikTok, if you look at like Instagram, if you look at Twitter, all very short form, not a lot of trust is built in a significant way on these platforms. If you actually look at the platform that has the highest amount of trust built between creator and audience, how do I measure trust? I look at YouTube. YouTube is my, I believe YouTube is the highest trust building platform. Why? Because it's long form audio and video. But how do I measure trust? I look at creators that started on YouTube with longer form audio video. And I look at their audience on YouTube and their audience on YouTube directly correlates to their audience on all their other socials. Meaning if you have two million subs on YouTube, you'll have a large Twitter audience, have a large Instagram audience, have a large TikTok audience. You'll have a lot of subscribers on your newsletter. I mean, I can't audit that, but I'm just looking at all the other sort of data. And I know from the other side, you go to Twitter while I was going to say that on the other side, just if you have bigger audience on those other platforms does not mean. There's no trust because it's transactional content consumption on those other platforms. Whereas YouTube, you get to know the person. You get to know the person and YouTube started with like 10 minute, that's sort of the optimal video length. You get to know the person, you get to build trust with the person. You see creators on TikTok with like 5 million followers and it is like crickets on other platforms. And then from a business perspective, because I've tried to work with different creators and people that would create like UGC for consumer brands, the conversions are shit. Like conversions are shit on TikTok and Twitter and I mean Instagram, it's okay, but now a lot of people have fake followers. So conversions are not great compared to if you work with a YouTuber that has a big audience. When they say to go buy this product or service, it's sold out. It's like you, it's absolutely wild. I do not see that at the same level. When a TikToker, a famous, say for example, apples to apples, 5 million on TikTok, 5 million on YouTube. 5 million on TikTok, a TikToker says go buy this product. I love this, you know, whatever this makeup, this whatever. I just made this drink and there's this like certain kind of alcohol that I used. It doesn't really impact the sales. If you get a 5 million sub plus YouTuber, say that, you will have a hard time finding that product or service if you go into a store. It's sold out. It's sold out. It's sold out almost immediately. Like it's absolutely wild. I see this a lot with like large makeup YouTubers. If they recommend like a new makeup, like Gina, my girlfriend, she'll be like, Scott, look at this. They just did a video on this on this makeup and you'll go on Amazon and you can't buy it. You'll go to Sephora. You can't buy it. Or wherever the hell you buy makeup. The point is, I think it's for it. So you, it's the trust is just huge. So the point is back to your question, why podcasts? Because podcasts are like the highest trust. Medium, you can possibly build. And if it's video, which I do believe you should be doing, I think it's even better because then you get organic traffic from YouTube and you build a YouTube audience. And I think that, I mean, outside of everything, just because it's one piece that can turn into 50, while it's such a high trust building type of content, I think everyone should be doing it. Businesses and individuals. And there is a lot of people doing it. And you at this point, I mean, just because you pound in the stone. Yeah. Many times have one of the biggest pocket business pockets in the world. I'm known for six years. So I'm not as big as like a Tim Ferris. Sure. We're doing it for like 12 years. Sure. But it's like six years and about 500 episodes later. And again, all the things that I speak about like if you do something for long enough, you're going to figure it a way to be successful at it. There's strategy, but like ultimately, that's a strategy. The strategy is do this shit for 10 to 15 years. And don't be an idiot and figure out works and what doesn't. And then you'll be successful at it. That's, I mean, that's what I deploy. And then what have you been doing? What say in 2024 that's been on your mind in terms of your specific show? Well, I think that the sort of the things that move the needle the most on a show would be the content strategy I just discussed. So taking one episode and turning it into unlimited pieces of content that definitely moves the needle because you just show up everywhere. The second thing that I think really works well. And the reason why it's important to show up everywhere is because just because just because somebody listen to your podcast once doesn't mean they're like they love podcasts like some people like TikTok. Some people like reading a newsletter. So the point is you have to meet your audience where they're at. So if you want to tap into every kind of audience, every kind of demo, like you have to take your content and you have to serve it in a way that they want to consume it. Now, the people that follow me on TikTok, I don't think I could sell as much to them as the people that subscribe to me on YouTube, but that's besides the point. People will still discover me from TikTok in a percentage of those will turn into podcast listeners, newsletters, subscribers, whatever. So you have one medium that goes everywhere and then you cross pollinate. So you're taking your podcast listeners and you're turning into YouTube subscribers, turning them into newsletter subscribers, turning them into Instagram followers, Twitter followers, whatever. So that's one strategy that I deploy. So one podcast goes everywhere. The second thing that works very well is when you're tapping into other people's audiences. This is not new. When we have an interview like this, I'm tapping into your audience, you're tapping into my audience, you're doing collaborations, we're putting your content together. I mean, you're just tapping into other audiences of people that you would hope like the content you put out. So you put out high performance, you put out athletic and sports and you focus on business as well and entrepreneurship. So all that stuff is probably very much in line with people that listen to me and my content. So then you're going to attract some of them and then some of the people that listen to the show will come check out my show or come check out my Instagram. So it's just collaboration and you do that enough time so you'll start to like pick and you'll start to get into other people's audiences and bring over some of their subscribers and their fans. And then I think the last thing that really moves the needle for me is it sounds obvious, but I'll explain. Maybe it's not obvious to some people. People are always trying to figure out outside of content marketing and collaboration. If I want to pay to advertise my show or I want to pay to advertise anything, where should I put my dollar so I have the highest ROI? Because there's so many places I could advertise a podcast. I could run Google ads to a landing page and say subscribe to my podcast. I could pay for a newsletter placement and someone else's newsletter and say this is Scott's podcast. Success story, you should go listen to it. I could, I mean, there's unlimited spots that will take my money. I could put a billboard up by the I-95 and say success story like go listen to it. Scots from Miami, you're going to love this show. But in my experience too, it seems like because it is such high trust, there is a time commitment potentially, it is potentially more challenging to get people in the door. It is. And that's why if you're going to spend money to put it in front of an audience, you have to make sure that your money is well spent. So what I found if I'm growing a podcast and we've spoken about this offline, you're asking me like where should I put my ad dollars? Right. And I was mentioning like cast box and player FM. I've been dabbling in pod roll. I've used Mo pod before. The point is you're spending money to advertise where people already are podcast listeners. Yeah. Why is that important? It seems obvious. But again, you know, common sense is always common. I see a lot of people who would spend money to advertise a podcast and a newsletter. Why is that a bad idea? Because it's not a bad, bad idea, but your cost per acquisition or your cost per subscriber is going to be much higher. Why? Because you're asking somebody that reads a newsletter to start to listen to a podcast, to get used to the idea of a podcast, and then you have to like mine. People are going to say, no, people listen, read newsletters also listen to podcasts. I'm like, some, but not all. Yeah. Some but not all. So the alternative is you put your podcast in places where people already listen to podcasts. That could be podcast apps. That could be literally me sponsoring another podcast. Like if I want to, I've never done this, but I know Tim Ferriss tried to $50,000 for an ad slot, maybe putting my podcast into $50,000 for a mid role in Tim Ferriss. Tim Ferriss showed me a good idea. Why? Because everybody who's listening to Tim Ferriss is already a podcast listener. So it's easier to convert them because I don't want to say to somebody, hey, I have to convince you that podcasts are a great use of your time. Yeah. I just want to convince somebody you're already bought into the idea of podcasts. Just listen to mine. Yeah. So, but this is not, this is not just a podcast concept. Like if I'm selling any product, I want to make sure that I'm advertising where there's people that are already using similar products. Because, or have similar problems that I'm trying to solve for. Because you don't have to convince somebody that they have a problem. You don't want to have to convince somebody that have a problem. Or you don't want to have to convince somebody that they want to switch from newsletter to podcasts. You just want to convince somebody that you're the option. They're already looking for an option. Just, just use me. Yeah. That's the strategy whenever you, even if you did organic collaboration, but I'm saying this in regards to paid, basically paid marketing or performance marketing, when you're paying somebody to put your product or your service or your podcast somewhere else. Because when you're doing paid, you have to measure the ROI. You have to make sure that it makes sense. So, there's a lot of times when you can pay somebody to advertise you, like on a billboard or whatever, and the ROI isn't there. It doesn't make sense. I can't track, and I don't know who's driving down the highway if they're podcast listeners. I just want to be more targeted and intentional about what I'm doing. That's super wise. Wow, super helpful. And as we kind of go into the fourth quarter of the show here, I want to make sure, I love the reference, by the way. Yeah. You've talked with hundreds of business people. You've ran teams yourself. What are some common attributes you've seen in terms of high performance teams when it comes to business, specifically from the leaders perspective in terms of what they're doing to create that? Because what I've noticed working for myself past 15, 17 years, the market just keeps getting bigger and bigger in terms of potential talent. But finding the right piece of talent is becoming more and more challenging. A few things. So, I think that in the current state of hiring people, it's very important to understand that people will never have the same amount invested into the company as you do as the owner, and that's okay. But you have to understand what their goals are. You can align the opportunity you're presenting them with where their future goals are. One thing I do like to do in a modern work environment, because I know they're not going to be there for 20 years with my organization. That's usually not the case. So, I'll make a contract with them, and I'll say, listen, where do you want to go? Like, in your career, where do you want to go? And they'll tell me, and I'll say, okay, let's make a contract. I need your two best years or three best years of your life for my organization. And during those three years, you're not going to look for other jobs. You're not going to mess around. You're going to tell me how much money you need to make. And if we agree, that's fine. And then I'm going to help you get to where you want to go. Is it a different job, different company? I don't care. But I'm going to help you get there. But you commit three years to me. What does this do? It stops this quiet quitting BS, where it's like somebody's working for you, while simultaneously applying for like six jobs a week, because they're already on their way out, and they're scared to tell you they don't want to work with you anymore. So you have to set these expectations on front and set a contract with them so that you're helping them achieve their goals, and they're going to help your organization achieve its goals. But you know that it's not going to be a forever relationship. So nobody's pretending you're going to be here for 15 years. Maybe you want to, but I don't think a lot of people want to. A lot of people want to move around, which is cool. So you just operate within the way people want to work. Then the standard up front. Yeah, you set it up front. Because what actually happens in old school organizations is you hire somebody, and you have to figure out your costs, and maybe you break even on that person if you use the recruiter in year one, if the recruiter is expensive, and they take X percentage of their salary, and you have to pay the recruiter that much percentage of their salary. So you're not even breaking even on that person till the end of year one, usually. So you have to figure out, okay, so this person, there's a cost associated with acquiring them, there's a cost associated with training them, I want to make sure if I invest that cost, they're not going to leave me in a year and a half. So if I set that standard up front, and they think that I'm going to help them get to where they are, and I do, then they're not going to leave me, because I'm the stepping stone that's going to help them get to the next job, and I'm okay with that. What ends up happening in the bad case is when you don't make that expectation, and then you hire somebody, and they don't see any future growth in your organization, and they don't trust that they can be honest with you about where they want to go. So that you've paid for all the training and the onboarding, you've paid the recruiter, they're starting to work, and they're looking for other jobs. And then they jump ship, not only have you wasted a ton of money, also, now you weren't even expecting them to leave, so now you have to find a way to make up all the work that they're supposed to be doing. It's just not a healthy environment. And go back to your definition, what high performance is, of being fully engaged and fully engaged. It is fully engaged. They're not fully engaged. No, they're not fully engaged. If you set an environment, they're happy to operate, and they will be fully engaged. Because they feel like you're bought into their mission. They'll be buying into your mission. It's not perfect, but it's better than the status quo. The second thing you have to look for is you have to hire a player. What is a player? It's somebody who knows the job better than you know the job. It's somebody who's willing to figure out solutions to problems before you even know they exist. It's somebody who is truly like, you know, Yaka Willink, Extreme Ownership. That is such an important aspect of hiring somebody. If they can own the job they're doing, and owning the job they're doing completely, they feel comfortable making decisions. You give them the authority to make decisions. You don't micromanage them. That is somebody who you have to look for in your organization. Because if you hire an A player, they will only ever want to... And by the way, hiring an A player means you have to be an A player yourself. Because no A players want to work for B players. No A players want to work for lazy managers, leaders, CEOs, founders. So you got to step up. You got to show that you're operating at peak capacity, and then you attract people that are also at that level. They're going to challenge you. That's cool. They're going to know more than you. That's cool. But what's also going to happen is they're going to hire other A players underneath them on their team, because they don't want to work with idiots. And when you hire A players, they attract more A players into strong organization. If you hire somebody that is always asking what to do next, if they don't feel comfortable, say there's something that's not going right in the organization, and say they don't feel comfortable bringing it up with you, because they're scared of how you react. Maybe you're an asshole. You got to fix yourself, but also if you hire that B player, then they're only going to hire Bs and Cs and Ds. And it's because a B player... The culture will erode. The culture erodes. A B player doesn't want people better than them, because they know that they have deficiencies. An A player understands that even on their own team, they're going to hire somebody better than them. It's going to accelerate the organization. It's going to make everybody operate at a higher level. So I think that to find what A player looks like in your organization, to find how you want them to operate, but those are the only people you can hire on. And if I would say that's a non-negotiable, but usually it is regardless of the nuances of the work that you're doing, or the company, or the industry, or the category that you're in. An A player is really somebody that probably outperforms you in the job that they're doing, and is comfortable acting like an entrepreneur in their own little business unit. And they're challenging you. It's not yes, men. It's people that challenge you, and challenge what you're doing. And they force you to be better too. That's a really good indicator of an A player. Is that person forcing me to be a better leader? If yes, then there's a really good chance that that person's operating at the peak capacity, and that's somebody I want to keep around. Yeah, I got to get your energy right. Get your body right. Get your confidence right. Yeah, get your team right. Get everyone right. You can track those players. Cool. This has been amazing, Scott. We're going to do a little bonus section here with my two sons, and overtime. Yeah, I love that. Over time on Super Athlete Radio today, very excited, very blessed to have my two boys on the show with us, and we're doing one of the principles that I talked to them about consistently. Talk to strangers. I love it. And the importance of doing that and how it helps your business. So today's kind of unique with we had the honor of having Scott on the show today, and then who we have next in terms of Eric Spofford, which is very business-centric on our compared to our usual guest list. So I thought minus we'll just go. I tried to weave in a little bit. Yeah. Oh, you did fantastic. I tried to weave in. No, you killed it. And so I thought minus we'll go all in on the uniqueness. I've been pushing business on them as that valuable skills since they were really up. So they have a couple questions that they would like to bring to the table here. Let's do it. So my first question is, if you had to start from zero, like what would be your strategy to just build up? Start from zero. Start from zero. I mean, trying to think what are like the most important things that I would do differently. What would you do now? What would I do now? I would take, like I always say the same thing. I would take bigger risks earlier on. And by that, I'd mean I would, all the stuff that I'm talking about now that we just spoke about in the podcast, like trusting yourself, this is like years of building up the ability to trust myself. I did not trust myself when I first started out. I took very small moves, right? I think that I would immediately try and build something. I would try and build a business based on a skillset that I had, or I would learn a monetizable skill, and I would start selling it into the market. I'd be like, I want to be a graphic designer. I want to sell t-shirts on Shopify. And I would just trust that I would build something that is not supported by anyone but me, and I just start learning the skillset to do it. And especially looking back now, like everything you need to know to make money online is available on YouTube. You can pay for courses if you want, but like everything is on YouTube. And just one last thought, there's this really cool graph, and I've spoke with this a few times, and the graph shows on one axis, it shows the amount of people required, on this axis, it shows the amount of people required to build a business to a million dollars on the y-axis, and on the x-axis, it shows a timeline, for like 1940s, 1950s, 1960s. And it shows that the amount of people to build a business to one million dollars, in like 1940s, for example, say it was like 50 people. Yeah. Any inflation, whatever, whatever. But the point is, you see this like downward curves over time. And like in 2024, it takes one person to build a million of a million, build a business of a million dollars, because access to education, access to outsourced talent, access to no-code tools, access to platforms like Shopify, access to marketplaces like Fiverr, and Upwork, and TopTile. So the point is, I just start building and trust myself completely day zero. I don't even know if I go to university, but whatever. Like I did, but I don't know if I would bother doing it again, because I know that I could do anything, I know I could do everything that I need to do to make a significant amount of money on my own. Does that make sense? I would just follow up with what he said and what a theme was throughout our entire episode of just showing up and putting reps in. Yeah. Yeah. All that's reps. Yeah. What's your second one? Do you guys think that there's any habits that you think, like, helped you become more successful and if you didn't do that thing, you would be in a different place. I think waking up and going to the gym has been my success habit. It doesn't have to be a 5am, it can be. But for me, waking up and going to the gym, it sets a tone for the whole day. I feel better about myself. For me, the gym is like my safe space. It's like my therapy. It doesn't matter how shitty or how good life is. I just kick my own ass in the gym, and it feels great. And then I genuinely, like, not outside of like, there's like hormones that make you feel good after you work out, but I just feel like I've accomplished something. There's like that viral clip on goalcast of that Navy commander saying, make your bed in the morning. Yeah. For me, it's like, go to the gym. I don't care about the bed. I just care about like, I gotta get a workout in. It doesn't even matter if it's like, a long workout, I just gotta get something started so that I accomplished something that's meaningful to me that day. So I think the actual answer is, accomplish something that's meaningful to you to kick the day off. It's a cold punch, if it's a sauna, if it's a run, if it's a gym, if it's a make your bed, whatever, I don't know why. That'd be meaningful to the book. Yeah, but the point is, if you get that done, then you know that you've already moved your life in the right direction to the day's already a win. Yeah. I mean, getting up alive is already a win, but the point is, the day is already a win, especially if you accomplished that one thing. So that's a thing for me, for sure. And then what I would say would be, you need to understand that you need to, not get emotionally butt hurt on stuff. So I visited Joe again, last week, Joe to Senna, and he's like this weird mentor for me in business, because you ask him how business is going. It's like, horrible, fire at the factory, you're like, what's the number one business advice you have? Whatever can go wrong will go wrong. And he's saying that's all this stuff, and he's completely calm, while saying that. And he's a guy who's had successful businesses since he was your age. He started cleaning pools. So just to understand that when stuff happens and stuff goes wrong, then that's just part for the course. So it's just an opportunity for you to learn and just fix it and go on to the next thing. And Joe's gone through some shit. Joe's gone through some shit. I know his story. He lost a lot of money during COVID. Yeah. Yeah. He's still chill, too. Okay. Did you get that? Cool. No, Joe's the best. If you were at mean, how would you start making money? It's a little bit like what we just discussed, but I would say I would find a skill or learn a skill. And it could be like posting on social. It could be graphic design. It could be copywriting. Like find anything that you want to do. Also know where you want to end up. And then I guess the first skill that you monetize should be something that could eventually help you achieve that goal. I think that's also very important. And then start selling it. Like literally start selling it on any of those marketplaces I just discussed. Like Fiverr top tile, Upwork is another one. If you want to be a developer, you can also sell your services there. It's like you start to be a service provider. And then you start to increase your hourly. And then you can probably ramp up if you have unlimited time, if you're not working, to be making 100K pretty quickly at that thing. And then you've mastered this great skill. You've understood the nuances of entrepreneurship. You understand how to sell yourself, market yourself, fulfill deliverables, follow up with clients. You understand how to collect payment. Now you're fine. Like just turn yourself into an entrepreneur basically by selling one skill. I guess the best way to start. I'm just going to add on to your question to get your answer on this. But so these guys have gotten all in on basketball. Yeah. And their favorite thing to consume in terms of content is these documentaries on these high level basketball players. Yeah. And I was thinking it'd be ideal that they do something similar. They start creating on their own journey. Yeah. I think some ways that they'd be able to monetize that. I would say learn how to talk to this. I figure out how to record video. And then start creating like play tapes and stuff like that. And highlight reels from schools. And then start selling like highlight reels as a service to like people that are trying to get drafted. Like guys that are just finishing either high school getting draft to college or college getting drafted to like the actual show. And then start getting this first of all start by doing this recording for free. And then showing what kind of editing skills you can do. Because I think that some of these people would pay a good amount of money to get something professionally added as they can show to like maybe a scout. I'm just assuming I don't have the industry. I'm not using themselves. Yeah, exactly. So I think that that would be really cool. And then you could also think about different people that would like who's the person that actually uses the stuff that you're reviewing. Like it's coaches or what is it scouts or something like that. So they're watching players like Jared McCain comes to mind. So this guy had a really popular documentary of his journey going playing high school basketball. Then now he's at Duke. And he's about to go to the league after this year. But what I'm thinking is like basically you're building your personal brand through basketball. Yeah. And what are some products in our services that you can kind of. So I would say like well for like I think like selling that as a service is a very easy start. And then you can turn into a whole business. Like if you did a documentary you could do it for free because you just need a camera. Learn how to shoot. Learn how to edit. Do a documentary for a pick college player that you like. They listen. We're just super ambitious. You want to shoot a whole bunch of your content. Create a documentary around you. Would you be down for that? And like put in the work to make a great product. And that's what you used to now sell. You say look at this documentary for this guy. Look at how it turned out. You turn it into a video marketing agency niche down into like basketball. And then you would start selling documentary or game real or any kind of like videotaping services for basketball players. And I think that's a huge opportunity too. And you can like I mean like again this is not the spot where you're going to end up at the end of the day. But this can make you a couple thousand bucks quite easily. Because every single one of those tapes is going to be like what? Like if you do a documentary somebody 5, 10, 20,000 bucks. I think that would be a great place to start. And it's something that you already are passionate about. And it teaches you another. It teaches you how to do it again. How to be an entrepreneur. All right. Last question. Good job. How did you start your first business? I started. I started my first own business doing consulting. So I kind of took the advice I just gave you in a different way. So I started doing like fractional like sales and marketing for companies. Because that's what I knew. So I took a skill that I knew and something I was passionate about. I'm like listen, I've done this at a very high level. And this is what I've accomplished. And these are the types of companies that I've sold to and marketed to. You're an early stage company which is a whole other caveat while you don't want to always work with early stage companies. You don't have a lot of money but that's besides the point. So you're an early stage company. I'm going to show you how to sell and market your product. And that was for me my first version of entrepreneurship. And then I learned about, again, how to sell myself. How to market myself. How to close clients. How to build my own brand on social. Because you had to. You had to be a consulting firm. And then you had to, I mean, you had to grow your business. And it was very hard work. But that's how I did it. I just monetized the skill that I already had. Does that make sense? All right. Thank you, Mr. Clary. Great job, gentlemen. Thank you, guys. That's a wrap.