RHS 026 - Alan Stein Jr Explains the Unique Traits of High Performers

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Speaker 7 Hello, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Ryan Hanley Show. And today, we have a pretty epic episode for you.
We are joined by Alan Stein Jr.,

Speaker 7 who is a professional performance coach, a speaker, has trained some of the biggest names in the NBA in college, worked at one of the most prestigious

Speaker 7 kind of NBA factory high schools, DeMatha High School down in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 7 And he's now a speaker who takes the lessons that he learned from training Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and Kevin Durant and applies them to the corporate world through speaking and workshops and that kind of stuff.

Speaker 7 Alan is an absolute treasure. He's dynamic.
We get into all kinds of topics that are applicable to your life and to your business. It is a real treat that we're able to have Alan on the show.

Speaker 7 And I hope you'll give Alan your time and attention because you will not be disappointed. Before we get to Alan, though, we got to pay the bills with the fine sponsors that make this show possible.

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Here we go.

Speaker 8 So

Speaker 8 when I first came across you in particular, it was in the Speak and Spill Facebook group, right? Which is my absolute favorite place. And

Speaker 8 there are days when I'm like, how did I even get invited into this group? Like the people are just so smart and driven and, you know, supportive and fun.

Speaker 8 And I saw some of the things you were doing and I checked out your Twitter and that. And I just see like, I see these professional athletes and I see what you're talking about.

Speaker 8 And I'm like, this dude lives like the coolest life in the freaking world. He's hanging out with like the coolest people.

Speaker 8 It's like, give me, give everyone listening at home, like just if they're not familiar, and we're going to get into all this stuff, but like just a little bit of background on kind of where, where you've come from, kind of how you've gotten to where you are today.

Speaker 10 Sure. Well, the only reason I'm going to go back to the beginning is for context.
But I fell in love with the game of basketball at probably four or five years old.

Speaker 10 And I bring that up because at the time of this recording, I'm going to turn 44 in a couple of days.

Speaker 10 And I'm so thankful that four decades after I found my first passion, it's still a major staple in my life.

Speaker 10 And I'm thankful to have, I consider myself incredibly grateful and fortunate to have lived the life around my passion for the game of basketball.

Speaker 10 And even though my actual vocation has changed a few different times, you know, I spent 20 years really on the court as a basketball performance coach, working with some elite level players and learning from some elite level coaches.

Speaker 10 And then three years ago, I decided to leave the court and get onto stages and into boardrooms and share my message with folks in the corporate world, but share all of the lessons that I've learned through the game of basketball.

Speaker 10 So even though I'm not in the training space anymore, I'm still very in touch with the game and I'm still talking about all of the lessons and principles and strategies and mindsets and rituals and routines that elite basketball players use to perform at a high level.

Speaker 10 And then I teach folks in their respective businesses how to apply those same lessons. So basketball is still a major part of who I am and what I do.
And I'm so thankful for that.

Speaker 8 Yeah, that's tremendous. I was actually a high school basketball referee for 12 years.

Speaker 10 Oh, nice.

Speaker 8 So I saw the game as a player in high school. I wasn't, I played college baseball because I wasn't a good enough basketball player to keep going out with basketball.

Speaker 8 But then I went back to it because I love the game so much. I love the way it moves as a ref and did that for 12 years.
And now I coach my kids. So I...

Speaker 8 Not to the level that you do, but I share your passion for this, for the sport. I think it's tremendous.

Speaker 10 Well, I tell you what, and I say this with all due respect, if you were a referee for 12 years, you have to have a passion for basketball and or a passion for helping young people because you want to talk about a thankless job.

Speaker 10 I mean, you know,

Speaker 10 one broad stroke of advice to almost every coach or parent listening is just leave the referees alone. They're doing the best they can with the skills they have.

Speaker 10 They're there to help give your child or your player the best experience. So yeah, if you did that for 12 years, then I know you love the game.

Speaker 8 Yeah. You know, it's funny, a couple on refs, this is what I always tell people because people, when they find that out, they usually say, Well, you know, everyone's got these misconceptions.

Speaker 8 I don't even want to say misconceptions. So, one, every ref has a different skill set, just like every player, right?

Speaker 8 Like, that's one of the things is I feel like just because you all wear the same striped shirt, everyone shows up and goes, Well, that guy's just as good as that guy, and that's often not the case.

Speaker 8 You can often have on a game, especially at the high school level, but in the college level as well, because I went to a lot of D1 camps and stuff like that, and I just ended up having kids and couldn't do that life, even though I wanted to.

Speaker 8 You have guys on the court that could be very drastically different experience and talent levels, even though they're in the same game. And the other side is

Speaker 8 refs absolutely positively have a bias. They always do.
And they're human beings. Right.
Yeah, exactly. That's one of the things that I've never understood is that like

Speaker 8 Even if it's unconscious, if I'm standing there and you are just harassing the shit out of me and something happens,

Speaker 8 even if I am trying to be, and I always try to be as, you know, you try to be as unbiased and professional and honest as you can, you can't help but like pay a little more attention to that kid who's always, you know, kind of talking back to you or is always kind of doing some dirty thing.

Speaker 10 Like you can't help it.

Speaker 8 And I, that's what I've always understood. Like you're putting yourself on my radar, which is like the last place that you want to be, which is probably a good life lesson.

Speaker 8 Like, just don't mess with people. But yeah, it was a very interesting experience, man.
I loved that game.

Speaker 8 And I'm sure for the same reasons that you were in as long as you were, like, the kids are just phenomenal. And even as they get older, you know, college kids are just, they're just awesome.

Speaker 8 They're just so much fun to be around.

Speaker 10 Absolutely. You know, I love that you brought that up because that's an, you know, I've never been a referee.
So I've got the playing and the coaching and even the parenting vantage point.

Speaker 10 But I love that you brought that up. But even I have the empathy and humility and compassion to acknowledge that referees are human beings.

Speaker 10 So I've why would a coat, why would it not register to a coach that if I'm going to give you a hard time and bellyache and complain over every missed call, that's eventually going to work against me.

Speaker 10 On some level,

Speaker 10 you're going to not want to give me that 50-50 call or do something in my favor. And same thing with players.

Speaker 10 Why do players and coaches expect referees to be perfect when neither one of them are even close to perfect? It's like, you know, a player yelling that you missed a call.

Speaker 10 Yeah, I might have missed that one. You've also missed your last four shots, and I had nothing to do with that.
And they were wide open layups. So I wasn't yelling at you for missing shots.

Speaker 10 Why are you yelling at me? Because I happened to miss a call. And, you know, what I'm really fascinated by, especially watching the NBA, where, I mean, those referees are phenomenal.

Speaker 8 Yeah, yeah. No, they are.

Speaker 10 You're watching in real time and you're like, oh, he missed that. And they go back and they show the replay.
And the referee was usually right about 98% of the time.

Speaker 8 And you're like, oh, my gosh he nailed that in real time with the biggest fastest strongest players in the world and he still got it right it's it's really remarkable so those those ref those refs um they operate in flow at a level that I don't think people like people look at like you know at uh at the you know LeBron or whoever and they're like oh he's in flow and what they don't understand is those refs to to to to be in that moment and make those calls the way that they do you have to be able to to drop into a flow state or otherwise there's absolutely no way you can keep up with that game.

Speaker 8 Like you just couldn't do it.

Speaker 8 It's happening so fast that, you know, going from like even going to like Division I college basketball camps and refing those camps and just the step up from a really good high school game to the college game, it's it's light years.

Speaker 8 It's logarithmic in terms of its pace. And then to go to the NBA, like they are in a different state of mind.

Speaker 8 That game is happening in their head so much slower than it is that if you or I were standing there. And obviously it's the same for a really good player as well.
But

Speaker 8 that's happening for those refs. Now, for most high school refs, that's not the case.
Those guys oftentimes are like, well, I have no idea. But yeah, no, it's interesting.

Speaker 8 It was interesting seeing the game, having played it for so long in high school,

Speaker 8 coming back after college and seeing the game

Speaker 8 and really any sport, but seeing the game from that side.

Speaker 8 it's a really interesting vantage point that I almost wish it would almost be a good exercise for coaches in particular to spend some amount of time earlier in their career.

Speaker 8 I think because one, you learn intricacies about the game that you can't see from the sidelines.

Speaker 8 You're able to stand in positions on the court and see angles of plays that

Speaker 8 when you're in the coach's box, you actually don't have that vantage point. And just the visual would be positive for them.

Speaker 10 Oh, man. Well,

Speaker 10 anyone listening, I hope you just take back and hit rewind for a second and listen to what Ryan just said because that was laced with so much gold and so many things to unpack that

Speaker 10 I'm sure we're steering a little bit off course of what was intended, but I think this is going to be very valuable. There's a couple things that just struck a nerve with me in a great way.

Speaker 10 One is all of us should be looking to step outside of our direct craft and what we do to learn other things.

Speaker 10 I absolutely think it should be mandatory for all coaches to take referee seminars or even to referee summer league games to give them some empathy and some compassion for when they're going to deal with referees in the winter.

Speaker 10 Speaking of outside the box, you know, I'm a full-time professional speaker and I do watch other speakers because I want to get good at my craft, but I spend more time watching, and I love hip-hop and I love stand-up comedy.

Speaker 10 I love those two art forms, but I watch and devour so much of that stuff because I believe both of those art forms have something they can teach me to become a better professional speaker.

Speaker 10 Whether it's the physicality of it or varying my tone and inflection.

Speaker 10 And I mean, there's just something about both of those forms of spoken word that while I'll never be a hip-hop artist and I'll certainly never be a stand-up comedian, I can learn from.

Speaker 10 And I think anyone listening to this, if you only study and look inside your very narrow world of what you do, you're missing opportunities to grow and develop.

Speaker 8 You said something else that was, I'm sorry, there's no, no, keep going, keep going.

Speaker 10 So profound was

Speaker 10 it's easy when you watch NBA players, they make it look so easy what they do because they're so gifted and talented that we don't appreciate the pace at which they move,

Speaker 10 how explosive they are, even how big they are. I mean, if you watch NBA games on TV and you look at a guard and you're like, yeah, he looks like a little guy.

Speaker 10 That little guy's probably 6'4, 210 pounds. Now, on TV, he looks little because he's next to some Goliaths, but it's all relative.
So the fact that most most referees

Speaker 10 are of normal human stature, like you and I are, and the fact that they're able to run up and down the court with guys that are six foot eight, 260 pounds with no body fat, that move like a freight train for 48 minutes and always have themselves in position to at least make a call is absolutely extraordinary.

Speaker 10 And we forget that.

Speaker 10 And then the last thing I'll say is, I would hope that a referee's number one goal is, as you mentioned, everyone's going to be biased, but you do your best to remain unbiased and that

Speaker 10 you do the best you can to be in the right place, to have the right angle to make the right call.

Speaker 10 Now, whether or not you make the right call is a different story, but you should have enough hustle and a good enough attitude that you're just trying to be in the right place at the right time to do the right thing.

Speaker 10 And I think that's a lesson for all of us.

Speaker 10 If all of us would concern ourselves with our own effort and our own attitude and trying to make sure that we're in the right place at the right time to do the right thing for the right person,

Speaker 10 most times things will work out favorably for yourself. And so I think with that referee analogy, you just unpack the tremendous amount of gold that everyone should be able to learn from.

Speaker 8 See, guys, I do know what I'm talking about. Just listen to Al.

Speaker 8 No, I'll tell you, I wrote this post a long time ago when I first stopped refing.

Speaker 8 There were a bunch of lessons that I learned from refing, but there were two things in particular that that I've carried with me.

Speaker 8 Now, I guess I've been out of it for five years because my son is is six. So yeah, I've been out of refereeing for five years.

Speaker 8 The two most important lessons that I took away were: one, emotional control and how important emotional control is in hectic situations in particular.

Speaker 8 Because one of the things that a good mentor in the refereeing space will teach you is that as the crowd and the players and the coaches go up, you have to push yourself down.

Speaker 8 You have to become more controlled because

Speaker 8 what's what's going to happen is you can't add to the hecticness of that environment. Like you have to be the anchor for that because when you know you get a good, you get a

Speaker 8 steal breakaway hammer dunk at home, the place is going to be going bananas. And what you can't do is allow your heart rate to elevate to match that situation.

Speaker 8 You have to be able to control your emotions and

Speaker 8 you don't want to swallow them, but you want to own them. That was really the best advice advice that was ever given to me because it's not like you can, you know, you're not a Zen master.

Speaker 8 You're not like, you know, bringing your heart rate down, but owning the fact that you have control over how you react to that situation. That was one.
Love that. Second thing was

Speaker 8 if you referee the game by the book, you will get eaten alive. So you have to know how to do it.

Speaker 8 You have to know that on a drive to the hoop, you sidestep in and you step back so that you have a sharper angle, but more breath, right?

Speaker 8 I mean, that's the standard move when you see someone drive to the hoop than a ref will make. Except, what if the guy's,

Speaker 8 what if a secondary defender comes in or a guard drops in and is now going to try to take a backdoor charge?

Speaker 8 Or what if the guy goes past the standard layup and now he's going to go do an up and under? Where do you play that? So you could be upside down, twisted on the side.

Speaker 8 And for those watching on YouTube, I'm acting, you know, it looks crazy, But, like,

Speaker 8 you know,

Speaker 8 at the end of the day, all that matters is you get the angle. So it's like, you have to know the rules and, or know the guidelines, or know what you're supposed to do, and then

Speaker 8 be able to break off of that to get what actually has to be done.

Speaker 8 And I think the lesson that I took from that is the only way to know which rules to bend and/or break is to know what the rules are and

Speaker 8 be good at them in the first place. Wow.

Speaker 10 Well, if I'm hearing you correctly, here's how I process that.

Speaker 10 You're saying

Speaker 10 refereeing is both an art and a science, that you have to have the science of knowing specifically what the rules are and best practices. Excuse me.
But there is an art

Speaker 10 to being able to look at those nuances and to adapt and be flexible because what's going on in any specific game situation might call for something else. And I think that's a brilliant way to put it.

Speaker 10 And it's true in coaching.

Speaker 10 It's true in any area of our life. You're always going to have kind of the best practices and the science behind it, but then you have to be adaptive and reflexive to be able to change.

Speaker 10 You know, it's the same thing in coaching. There are some standard best practices of what one should do to be a basketball coach.

Speaker 10 But then there's also an art and there's a feel to it. And I think the best referees are the ones who kind of have a feel for the game and a flow and they're consistent in what they do.

Speaker 10 So maybe you're going to allow both teams to play a little bit more physically than someone else would prefer, but you're going to allow that level of physicality throughout the whole game.

Speaker 10 You know, you're not going to call hand checking really tight in the first quarter and then just let it completely go away for the second quarter. And then so there's a consistency to that.

Speaker 10 And all of these things you're bringing up are tenets of high performance.

Speaker 10 To be a high performer in any area of life, you have to understand both the art and the science and where they blend together.

Speaker 10 And all of these things, I hope, also give higher empathy and compassion to how hard these different areas areas are.

Speaker 10 It's one of the things when I'm working with businesses that I say all the time, lots of times a business, they've got their different silos.

Speaker 10 You've got your sales folks, you've got your leadership team, you've got people maybe in R D, you've got the front desk manager, and everyone just stays so narrow into what they do, they forget to have empathy and compassion for the other silos, which everyone has to blend together in order for the game or the business to succeed.

Speaker 10 And that's why we say all the time, you know, players should play, coaches should should coach, officials should officiate, and parents should just sit there and be supportive.

Speaker 10 As soon as anyone tries to do someone else's job, then we have a problem. And of all of those groups, the referees are usually the ones that do the best job of just doing their job.

Speaker 10 You never see a referee trying to tell a player what they should be doing with their footwork, or you never see a referee, you know, insert themselves in the huddle and call a new play.

Speaker 10 They do their job. But how many times do we see coaches trying to officiate as well or parents in the stands, They're trying to coach.

Speaker 10 Everyone just needs to stay in their lane, do their job, and have a strong appreciation and respect for the other three pillars. Yeah.

Speaker 8 The coaches, I'll be honest with you, though, as much as as much as refs get a lot of like

Speaker 8 garbage flung at them, coaches have it the worst because you got to deal directly with the parents and that

Speaker 10 and with the players. I mean, you've got coming at you from both ends.

Speaker 8 Yeah, they have it the worst. There's no doubt.
I mean, I, I, now that I am a coach, now I'm doing bitty bitty ball where the hoops are like half height.

Speaker 8 So I'm not quite at that point yet but I will I will you know hopefully I'll keep coaching my son as he as he evolves and uh um it's just I'm already like oh boy because I'm getting well my son got three rotations instead of four rotations and I'm like he's six what what are we talking about

Speaker 8 but all right let's get off let's get off

Speaker 10 One last thing. And I don't mean this for this to be any type of shameless plug, but because I've spent my entire life in elite athletics and I now have three children that are all playing sports.

Speaker 10 I've got a self-published book that's coming out in a few months. It's called The Sideline, The Ultimate Guide to Youth Sports Parenting.

Speaker 10 And it's basically a guideline to hopefully give parents some tools to stay in their lane and create an environment that's fun for kids. And of course, a big portion of that is...

Speaker 10 for parents not to coach from the sideline you know not to be don't push your children too hard just create an environment that makes it fun for them but definitely lay off the coaches and lay off the referees just enjoy the the fact that your child has found something they love to do and be as supportive as possible in making that a fun experience but i only bring that up because having spent my entire life in youth athletics it is becoming a problem and parents unfortunately is as well-intentioned as they are they're taking a lot of the fun out of the game and we're seeing an alarming number of statistics of kids are quitting sports earlier and earlier now and their number one reason every single time is from adult interference and the vast majority of those adults are the parents.

Speaker 10 And I love parents, I am a parent, I know how much they love their children, but boy, they need to start making some tweaks because they're starting to pollute what would otherwise be arguably the best platform for kids to learn life.

Speaker 8 I, I, so I could not agree with this. And, um,

Speaker 8 when I got out of basketball, there was in that 10-year span,

Speaker 8 which started, uh, I was refing down in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 8 around 2004,

Speaker 8 and I got out in that no 2000 doesn't matter 2015 is when I stopped

Speaker 8 and I was doing it for 12 years so 2003 is when I started down in DC so in that 10 year span I experienced what I believe the transition from

Speaker 8 from

Speaker 8 the kids being held responsible to their for their actions to them not being held responsible now I remember when I played high school I was I played football baseball and basketball but like when I was playing football

Speaker 8 I got a personal foul for a late hit, which was obvious and intentional.

Speaker 8 I was 17, you know, whatever.

Speaker 8 I deserve the flag. Let's just put it that way.

Speaker 8 My coach walked out onto the field, shoulder pressed me by my face mask, threw me into the sidelines, and wouldn't allow me to come back on the field for an entire quarter.

Speaker 8 Now, to a 17-year-old starter on a football team, that was like having my heart ripped out of my chest. You know what I mean? Not the throwing

Speaker 8 or the physical part, but the not being able to play. Today, that same type of action gets a gets a, why did you throw that flag? Now we're going to attack the refs.

Speaker 8 Now we're, you know, what's wrong with you? Why wouldn't you let my son back in the game?

Speaker 8 My dad made me run around the, I had, he like made me do laps around our neighborhood when I got home from the game

Speaker 8 because of what I did during the game. And it wasn't, there was no like,

Speaker 8 you're not wrong. You know, they shouldn't have done that to you.

Speaker 8 Now, and in that 12-year period, I watched now now in basketball I watched that mentality shift to now you have kids spiking basketballs kicking basketballs getting technicals pushing and shoving and then the coaches and the refs are blamed for the kids actions instead of the kids and that is pervasive today so what I will say is

Speaker 8 We'll have the sideline wherever people can register for it. I want you to tell them where they can get it, download it, buy it, whatever it is.

Speaker 8 And I want to push that because I believe so strongly in youth sports. It has shaped who I am as a person.

Speaker 8 And if there are resources that we can put in people's hands to help sculpt these tools, I mean, really, youth sports are tools for children to become quality adults, then I want to get those in their hands.

Speaker 8 So we'll let everyone know where they can get that, and then we'll have it all linked up and stuff too.

Speaker 10 I will. And it's so in its infancy right now that we don't even have the domain finalized.
So I'll make sure I shoot you that information when it's ready.

Speaker 8 Well, here's what I'll tell you. When you do, you email me and then I'll send it out to my email list and let everyone know about the book when it's ready.

Speaker 10 I love it. And I'm with you 100%.
These, the things we can and should learn from youth sports. carry over and bleed over to every area of our life.
And it's still the same principles.

Speaker 10 I mean, I speak to Fortune 100 companies now, and most of what I share, I translate it in a different language, but most of what I share are basic principles that I hope my children are learning through sport.

Speaker 10 You know, things like accountability and,

Speaker 10 you know, putting in work during the unseen hours and never making excuses, blaming others or complaining, holding yourself fully responsible for everything that you do and how important preparation is.

Speaker 10 I mean, so yeah,

Speaker 10 all of us as adults should unite to get kids to play more sports and to have a great experience.

Speaker 10 And I think if collectively we can do that, it's just, I mean, it's good for society, but it's certainly good in our own backyards with our own children.

Speaker 8 100% agree. All right.
So let's, let's transition a little bit. That was tremendous.
Let's transition a little bit.

Speaker 8 I want to talk about your transition, your thought process, and going from your on-the-court, performance coach, performance trainer, helping these athletes, elite athletes, and moving towards being a speaker and moving towards the boardroom, which is a whole different arena, I guess, to keep the sports analogy going.

Speaker 8 Just talk to me about the mentality to do that because that couldn't have been an easy,

Speaker 8 you know, I mean, your life is this and you transition even if it's something you wanted it's never easy so I'm just interested in that move where it came from what was the motivation I mean there's so much there that I'm interested in the motivation was really

Speaker 10 I don't want to be over dramatic and say I was getting burnt out on the basketball training portion but I could see myself heading in that direction yeah and I've grown up with such a respect for teachers and coaches.

Speaker 10 I mean, I think they are the epitome of servant leaders.

Speaker 10 And I have such a profound respect for each of those crafts that I believe that all teachers and coaches should be 100% in in service of the players and teams they work with.

Speaker 10 And if you find yourself not as passionate, then it's up to you to leave and get out because you owe it in this case, especially to the young people you work with to do everything in your power for their development and their betterment.

Speaker 10 And I just found that I wasn't as excited. to be in the gym or on the court or in the weight room as I had been in years past.

Speaker 10 And I have high enough self-awareness that a red flag started to go up and was like, you know, Alan, something's wrong here.

Speaker 10 You used to love this, and it seems like you're losing a little bit of the love.

Speaker 10 Simultaneously, instead of being concerned with sets and exercises, and reps, and periodization, and all of the training, I was so much more fascinated with leadership and how do you build championship cultures and develop cohesion?

Speaker 10 How do you create the type of loving accountability and standards that allow an organization to thrive? So that was really what was occupying my passion.

Speaker 10 And I just decided to kind of rip the the bandaid off all at once and say, I'm going to leave the direct space that I'm in of basketball.

Speaker 10 I'm going to leave the direct vocation that I'm in, which is teaching players to run faster and jump higher. And I'm just going to pivot slightly to a new audience, thus being the corporate world.

Speaker 10 And I'm going to start sharing stuff that I'd learned outside of how do you run faster and jump higher.

Speaker 10 Because when I looked back on my breadth of work, I was so lucky to be around such amazing players and coaches who taught me the tenets of leadership and accountability and cohesion and holding yourself to excellence.

Speaker 10 I just decided that I wanted to take that stuff and start sharing it with other groups that I felt would really benefit if they applied it. So

Speaker 10 that was kind of how I steered my ship. And I spent a good portion of my time in basketball speaking at basketball clinics.

Speaker 10 So being up in front of people and talking has always been something I've enjoyed doing.

Speaker 10 So even though I'm only entering my fourth year as a professional speaker by trade, I've been speaking professionally for probably 15 years, but only now in the corporate space.

Speaker 10 So it was less of a leap than many people may think, because it's not like I had this set nine to five job and I just walked in and quit and decided I was going to be a speaker the next day.

Speaker 10 There were a lot of natural parallels between what I was doing. and what I'm doing now.

Speaker 10 And the biggest thing that made that leap somewhat easier was I'm a relationship guy and I had built some really amazing relationships with people in the basketball space who once I told them of my pivot, they were able to open doors for me in the corporate world.

Speaker 10 I I mean, I can't tell you how many times a high school coach would reach out and say, hey, Alan, I'm so-and-so. I coached down in Mississippi.
I've really loved your work for the last few years.

Speaker 10 Now that you're in the corporate space, I want to introduce you to my brother-in-law, who happens to be the VP of sales at so-and-so corporation. They're always looking for speakers.

Speaker 10 Let me give them your information. So the basketball community in full support.
really rolled out the red carpet and and made some introductions that allowed me to start getting the ball rolling.

Speaker 10 And then as you know, and any professional speaker knows, that's just what gets the momentum to start.

Speaker 10 Now you've got to create it by being good and by having some outreach and creating new relationships.

Speaker 10 So it was all kind of the perfect storm, but relatively speaking, it was a pretty smooth transition, and I'm very grateful for that.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 8 What was the most surprising thing for you in terms of the speaking business?

Speaker 10 Well, the most surprising thing, let me start on the corporate side. I was surprised.

Speaker 10 And now realize that i'm a little bit jaded because the two high schools that i worked for here in the washington dc area montrose christian which is where kevin durant graduated from yeah and damatha catholic high school which is where victorola depot graduated from my first basketball game i ever refed in my life was at the matha high school was it really oh wow look at you that's big time versus saint john's St.

Speaker 8 John's?

Speaker 8 What's the one over in they're in Maryland, the one Catholic School League team in Maryland there?

Speaker 10 St. John's.

Speaker 8 Yeah, St. John's.
Yeah, that's who it was.

Speaker 10 That's huge, man. You

Speaker 10 got the high end.

Speaker 8 Yeah.

Speaker 10 Wow. Well, both of those schools I worked at for 13 years combined, and we have over a dozen players in the NBA right now.

Speaker 10 So I preface that by saying those are two really elite-level schools, and they both had elite-level coaches.

Speaker 10 And I sometimes would take for granted that, you know, Mike Jones is the coach at Damatha, and he's as good as any coach I've ever seen at any level in any sport.

Speaker 10 And I guess I just got numb to the way that he did things because I just assumed that everyone in the world had a practice plan when they went into a meeting.

Speaker 10 I just assumed everyone in the world clearly defined everyone's roles for everyone on the team.

Speaker 10 And I go into the corporate world and I'm working with Fortune 500 companies who don't do the same things that a high school basketball coach does.

Speaker 10 So I was actually shocked that some of these groups have been able to attain incredible success. And yet some of the fundamentals and building blocks weren't even in place.

Speaker 10 I would sit in on corporate meetings and I'm like, this is the biggest waste of time.

Speaker 10 There's no organization. There's no plan.
They like this meeting could have been wrapped up in eight minutes and we're sitting here at minute 38 right now. This is a waste of resources.

Speaker 10 And I don't say that to diminish those groups and I don't want to make it sound like I could run a Fortune 500 company, but it just let me believe that it doesn't matter where you're coming from.

Speaker 10 Someone that has the traits of a high performer and has standards of excellence are things that we can all learn from.

Speaker 10 And to be able to say, when you come into a meeting, you should have a practice plan detailed to the minute of what the goal of the meeting is, who needs to be there, how much time we're going to allot spending on what, that just seemed like a no-brainer to me.

Speaker 10 Yeah. But it's not always common in regular life.
So to me, that was kind of a surprise. And as far as the speaking business in general, I don't know that anything really surprised me.

Speaker 10 And that's only because the moment I got in it, I insulated myself with amazing people like the folks in Speak and Spill who kind of showed me the ropes and kind of told me what to expect and have really dropped the breadcrumbs that I've been able to follow to matriculate up.

Speaker 10 But so far, I mean, I love what I do now. And I just, I mean, the speaking business, it's so perfect for me in my life right now.
I just absolutely love it. Yeah.

Speaker 8 I always,

Speaker 8 when people ask me about, so one, it's funny how small the world is that you coached at Damatha. Yeah.

Speaker 8 And or were working at Damatha and all those. I was, dude, I did.

Speaker 8 i so i refed in i reffed in dc for four years before i moved back up here to albany new york and uh my fourth year there i did

Speaker 8 um

Speaker 10 i did

Speaker 8 475 games in one basketball season i was doing it was the best basketball i tell people all the time like when i came back to upstate new york and nothing against upstate new york we just put uh kevin herder in the nba you know what i mean like i reffed kevin great kid, great basketball player.

Speaker 10 But, like,

Speaker 8 it was like, it was like slow motion up here compared to, I mean, you're looking at, you're looking at the way basketball is played in the Washington, D.C. area is like

Speaker 8 it's college basketball, even at like the JV level. And the way that it's coached is so much different.
And when I, well, you talk about like being spoiled when I left, because even

Speaker 8 though that's a contentious, hard-fought, incredibly competitive leagues down there,

Speaker 8 the quality that happens, even from a coaching standpoint, when you leave there, you're spoiled because all of a sudden you have these hacks telling you how to do your job, these country bumpkins.

Speaker 8 And I just, you know, whatever. But it's just funny how small the world is.
I love refing down there.

Speaker 8 That's cool.

Speaker 8 But

Speaker 8 so, so.

Speaker 8 The thing about speaking that I've always said to people was, you know, people ask me like, what do you, how do you like it? Why do you like it? Those kind of things.

Speaker 8 It's the closest thing to sports as a kid, as I've been able to find as an adult, that feeling of electricity that you have

Speaker 8 being in front of an audience, performing for them, like the Michael Port, you know, how Michael Port talks about it. You're not, it's not a speaking engagement.
It's a performance.

Speaker 8 It's a performance. Yeah.
Like, like that, to me,

Speaker 8 it's the closest thing that I've been able to find. And I've, and I haven't coached at a high level.
I'm sure, you know, if I get to coach my kid and, you know, there could could be some fun.

Speaker 8 But, you know, when you're out in front of an audience, 500, 700, 1,000 people, and they're all looking at you and you're trying to give every ounce that you have to them, there's just, it's the closest thing to being in the batter's box or, you know, making that shot at the end of the game or whatever.

Speaker 8 Like, it just, it's the closest thing you can get as an adult.

Speaker 10 Oh, absolutely. And I think that's one of the reasons I find it so intoxicating.
It does.

Speaker 10 It fills many of those same memories that I had as a player and even as a coach. And I actually actually choose to approach speaking very similarly.
I mean, my, I call it my pregame routine.

Speaker 10 My pregame routine before I take the stage is similar in framework to what I used to do to prepare for a game.

Speaker 10 Now, clearly, I don't necessarily have to do a ton of stretching before I take the stage, but I do something physical to get some energy out. I make sure that I'm getting good sleep the night before.

Speaker 10 I have my uniform.

Speaker 10 I mean, the things that I choose to wear on stage, I don't wear anywhere else because I like the feeling of knowing when I'm putting this on it's game time it's just like you don't you don't wear your jersey out you know during the week you put it on when it's time to prepare and time to play and same thing i i have a pre-game meal i mean depending on whether i'm giving a morning keynote or an evening keynote those things will vary but i prepare and have the same routine and rituals for every speaking engagement just like an athlete would to to prepare and you know i don't know at the time of this recording if the lakers are playing tonight or night but i know that if the lakers have a game tonight LeBron has a very specific schedule of what he does on game day, starting from the moment he wakes up to the moment the jump ball is thrown up.

Speaker 10 And there's nothing haphazard about that schedule.

Speaker 10 Now, it's taken him years probably to fine-tune that to make sure that he performs at a high level, but LeBron's not walking around the streets of LA four hours before tip-off going, I wonder what I'm going to eat this afternoon.

Speaker 10 You know, do I feel like Mexican food or no?

Speaker 10 He knows exactly what he's going to eat, when he's going to eat it, when he's going to get to the arena, what stretches he's going to do, when he's going to take the court, what he's going to, like, he knows all of that because that's what high performers do.

Speaker 10 They create consistency through mindsets and rituals and routines to perform at the highest level.

Speaker 10 So when you say that, that speaking is as close to we guys like us can get to playing sports, you are 100% right on. And I choose to approach it that way.

Speaker 8 Yeah, I think

Speaker 8 I'm with you.

Speaker 8 I do the same thing.

Speaker 8 I have a whole routine that I go through. Again, it all varies morning, night.
You know, you never really know.

Speaker 8 But yeah, no, I do the same thing.

Speaker 8 And just like you said with the LeBron example, and this is probably the closest similarity that I have to LeBron, it has taken me years to kind of define what that is and trial and error, right?

Speaker 8 Like, do I like to eat close to the speaking time? Do I want to keep some space? Do I want to fast before it? Like, you know, how much coffee do I want to drink? And how hydrated do you want to be?

Speaker 8 Like, there's, there's, you know, you kind of trial and error these things. And as you find them, you, you, you, and then it's, it's making sure that you are consistent with it.

Speaker 8 And I find, you know, I have these, I have these crazy notebooks where I just write things down.

Speaker 8 And whether I actually ever go back and look at the note or not, writing it down burns it into the brain. And then you repeat, repeat.
And

Speaker 8 I'm 100% with you. And what, what I find interesting, and I'm really interested in your take on this because I want to kind of take this into

Speaker 8 Raise the Game, your book. But like, why? So, so we've talked about this, this habitual kind of

Speaker 8 performance preparation, all that kind of stuff that we're talking about right now. And we've talked about it in terms of like of sports, which makes a lot of sense.

Speaker 8 And then, and then in speaking, even it doesn't feel like a big stretch.

Speaker 8 But then when we have like a really important sales call or meeting or whatever, we just kind of like mow some doughnuts, show up and hope everything goes well.

Speaker 10 Yeah, and that is a major problem. I mean, one of the things that makes high performers high performers is consistency of output.

Speaker 10 Now, any speaker speaker will tell you that, I mean, they're not at a 95 out of 100 every time they take the stage. We're human beings, so we're fallible.

Speaker 10 So there have been times that I've gotten off the stage and I thought, man, that just, that wasn't the best I was capable of. Hopefully the audience doesn't know it, but I know it inside.

Speaker 10 Then there's other times I get off the stage and I think, man, that is the best performance I have ever had. And the goal is to make sure there's a minimal gap between the two.

Speaker 10 And the consistency of preparation is what will determine the consistency on the stage.

Speaker 10 See, guys like you and I know that if the performance we give on stage is dependent upon how we feel, what we want to do, whether it's convenient in our schedule, whether we had a flight delay or not, we can't let all of those parameters dictate what we do on the stage.

Speaker 10 And the same thing is true in sport. And I'm glad that you're taking it to this place with the same thing if we use sales as an example.

Speaker 10 You need to create a template and a process and a system and a routine to prepare for every sales call, every sales sales meeting, you know, everything that you do that is client or customer facing.

Speaker 10 You should have templates for different types of emails that you send out. You should have a standardized process for following up with prospects.

Speaker 10 And then once they become a client, what are some of the standard timelines of when you're going to follow up with them?

Speaker 10 Are you actively reaching out to anticipate their needs?

Speaker 10 Our good friend from Speak and Spill, Phil Jones, talks all the time about telling is not selling. So are you working on the basics of asking insightful questions and being an active listener?

Speaker 10 Like those are the fundamentals. If you want to be a great basketball player, then you work on your footwork religiously.

Speaker 10 Well, if you want to be good in sales, you learn to become an insightful question askerer.

Speaker 10 I don't even know if that's a word, but you learn how to ask insightful questions and to be able to navigate conversations in that way.

Speaker 10 And what I tell sales professionals all the time that I work with, I ask them, how much role-playing do you do? And they usually look at me like I just grew a second head.

Speaker 10 It's like, well, why why would you not practice different scenarios with a colleague that you're more than likely going to face when you're in front of a customer why would the first time you hear this objection be when you're in front of a a prospect and not something that you're doing in practice one of the things that makes mike jones at the mathis so great is every single practice there is a component dedicated to working on fundamentals so shooting and passing and ball handling drills there's a component that works on competition so teaching players how to compete against each other they could be shooting drills or one-on-one drills or three-on-three.

Speaker 10 And then there's what he calls time and score, where he creates game-like scenarios. And he says, all right, blue team, you're up three points.

Speaker 10 It's white team's ball and there's a minute, 37 seconds left.

Speaker 10 Joey, you have three fouls on you. White team, you have one timeout.
Blue team, you have no timeouts. And let's just play the remaining 137 on the clock.

Speaker 10 And it puts players in a position to practice the scenarios they're going to see.

Speaker 10 You know, if there's three seconds left in a game and Damatha is going to inbound the ball under their basket, whatever inbounds play they call, they've done that a million times in practice.

Speaker 10 This won't be the first time that they've tried it at a sold-out game against St. John's where Ryan Hanley's refereeing.
This is a game that they've practiced.

Speaker 10 And I want to say the same thing for sales. Like you should have a system and a process and standards for every aspect of the sales process.
You should practice role-playing.

Speaker 10 You should practice listening. Like there's so many of these things.
And if you do that, you will consistently outperform sales professionals that don't.

Speaker 10 Now, will you still find some times where a customer comes up with an objection that you weren't prepared for?

Speaker 10 Yes, but you've narrowed the number of times that will happen if you're actually practicing.

Speaker 10 And I think the utility between sports and sales is almost as high as the utility between sports and professional speaking.

Speaker 8 Why do you think people don't do that? Like, I, I, like, why is that not intuitive for some people?

Speaker 10 One, it takes a lot of work. I mean, it's, it's a lot of preparation.
I mean, I know that most basketball players, once they've reached a certain level, they feel that they're above the fundamentals.

Speaker 10 They feel that they're that, you know, well, I'm in college.

Speaker 10 I don't need to go back and work on my left-hand dribbling, and I don't need to work on my footwork because I'm pretty good because I'm in college.

Speaker 10 Well, one thing I learned being around Kobe Bryant and LeBron James and KD and Steph Curry, those guys never leave the basics.

Speaker 10 They'll spend 10 to 15 minutes working on pivoting drills to make sure that their footwork is flawless so that they can then level up and build on top of that.

Speaker 10 I'm not saying they only do the fundamentals.

Speaker 10 I'm saying the fundamentals are a staple of their preparation and then they level up and they practice all of these things because that's the only way that you get good at anything.

Speaker 10 The only route to skill mastery is repetition, repetition, repetition. So I think part of it is sales professionals thinking, I'm pretty charismatic.
I'm a good-looking guy. People like me.

Speaker 10 I can talk my way into most situations. I can pretty much just show up for this sales meeting tomorrow.
I'm sure I'll knock it out of the park.

Speaker 10 And maybe in history, they've done that pretty successfully.

Speaker 10 But if they would go back and do the little things and have more preparation and do role-playing and ask insightful questions, the vet, the prospect, they'd perform at an even higher level.

Speaker 10 So I think it's a combination of some just don't know because they haven't made the connection between practice and play. Some of them don't want to do it because they feel like it's beneath them.

Speaker 10 Like I've been selling for 20 years. Do you really think I'm supposed to role play every Monday morning for 30 minutes? That sounds a little stupid.

Speaker 10 Well, it may be, but if Kobe Bryant's willing to get in the gym at four in the morning during the offseason and work on pivoting drills, I think a little role-playing with your sales colleagues on every Monday morning for 30 minutes is more than appropriate.

Speaker 8 Yeah, that was a game changer for me in my career as a salesman was when

Speaker 8 it was two things really. I started listening to my father-in-law, who I was working for at the time.
He was, he's, he's a master salesman. And what I did was I stopped fighting the way that he sold.

Speaker 8 And I started literally just sitting in his office and listening to him take phone calls and just listened and listened and listened.

Speaker 8 And then I took his stories and I started morphing them into my own. And we role-played off of each other some of the younger guys in the office.
We would tell stories back and forth.

Speaker 8 Like, and really, there was none of the stories were even our own. They They were all just these morphed stories from our father-in-law, from my father-in-law, who was their, you know, their boss.

Speaker 8 And,

Speaker 8 and that process really took all of us to the next level.

Speaker 8 It was a breaking point in our careers where all of a sudden we started, all of our hit rates started going up because we armed ourselves with stories to respond to common objections.

Speaker 8 And we told those stories over and over and over. And

Speaker 8 a good friend, or you know, I don't know how well you know him, but a good friend of mine who you probably also know is Marcus Sheridan. Oh, yes.
Yeah. Love Marcus.
Yeah,

Speaker 8 he pounds me over the head every time we see each other. He's like, he's like, you don't need new stories.
You just need to get better and more consistent at telling the stories you have.

Speaker 8 Like, just get, he's like, just get sharper and better at the stories. Like, people want to hear the same stories over and over again because each time they take a little more out of it.

Speaker 8 And I think the same thing is true. for your prospects if you're selling insurance or you know whatever you're doing you know to

Speaker 8 better and better at those fundamental aspects, whether it's a sales story or overcoming an objection or walking an employee through a difficult situation or combativeness in work or whatever,

Speaker 8 it's just refining those things. You don't need to always look, and we're all guilty of this, right? Like we always see the new shiny thing or we want that new, you know, whatever.

Speaker 8 But yeah, that was really a breaking point in my career when I started role-playing.

Speaker 10 I love that. Well, think about this.
And I am by no means a sales expert. I'm not a salesman other than I've been a self, you know, I've owned my own businesses my entire life.

Speaker 10 So I've had to sell to some degree, but I'm no Marcus Sheridan. I'm no Phil Jones.
I'm no Ian Altman, but I've learned from those guys. And but my commitment to craft, let's just say we've got a

Speaker 10 mid-sized business and you have 10 sales professionals that sell either your service or your product.

Speaker 10 You can't convince me that one of the most valuable things you could do would be to, let's just say, set aside one hour a week, just one hour during the entire work week.

Speaker 10 And for the sake of argument, let's just say it's Monday morning at nine. No one is ever going to schedule calls Monday morning at nine.

Speaker 10 We're all going to meet, and here's the practice we're going to go through. And this practice could have a variety of components.
One, it could definitely have some role-playing.

Speaker 10 So maybe as the team leader, you have 10 index cards with 10 different potential objections or scenarios, and you're going to randomly pass those out and let folks pair up.

Speaker 10 And one time you're the salesperson, one time you're the prospect, and work through those.

Speaker 10 And then everybody everybody come back together and share some of the things that worked and share some of the things that didn't.

Speaker 10 Another component could be, you know, everyone, you had a certain number of sales calls this past week. Can someone share some of the things that worked really well in those calls?

Speaker 10 What's something out of the ordinary that either you did impromptu or you've been doing regularly that really helped you close the deal?

Speaker 10 Because I don't want to take for granted that your other nine teammates know what it is that you did that works. I want you to share that and pour into them.

Speaker 10 Conversely, did anyone hit a stumbling block or step on a landmine? Did anyone get caught with their pants down with the prospect and realize they asked you an objection you weren't prepared for?

Speaker 10 Can you share that with the group and let's discuss?

Speaker 10 Something else would be, and of course, this would only be if it's allowed and permissible, but maybe you record your sales call and then you play it in front of the team and let the team break it down like you're breaking down game film and say, okay,

Speaker 10 here's some things Alan said during this call that he did really well with.

Speaker 10 Here's a couple of times he stepped on his own feet and got in the way uh and maybe create some friction with the prospect but it's something that everyone can learn from and if you were to take that one hour and work on the fundamentals of sales in general and this could also be adding in you know we've we've got a new product available so let's talk about how this is integrated with our other products uh let's come up with a list of the best questions to ask prospects to see if they're the right fit you know and work on this stuff all of the time and all it would take take would be one hour a week.

Speaker 10 And I think you'd see a tremendous increase in output and performance from those 10 sales professionals just by practicing those basics and being open enough and vulnerable enough to share the things that work and the things that don't.

Speaker 8 Yeah. And I think, I think the key there, because I 100% agree,

Speaker 8 from a management perspective, is creating the space that allows them to have those conversations in a constructive way that isn't judgmental,

Speaker 8 which isn't sometimes, especially if you're in an alpha situation, you know, not just alpha male, but alpha female, alpha male, just an alpha situation, that can be difficult to do. But to me,

Speaker 8 that sits on management, leadership, whoever is responsible for

Speaker 8 that conversation. If you can create that space, I think people want to open up about these things.
They just don't know when it's appropriate.

Speaker 8 And they don't, I think a lot of times we don't want to feel weak.

Speaker 8 Now, one thing that I appreciate about about our culture in general versus even, you know, when we were kids, because we're basically the same age, like

Speaker 8 you, you can be more open in

Speaker 8 environments like that, and it is much more acceptable, which is an enormous positive of our society. But it's still, especially in sales or those type of situations,

Speaker 8 you kind of have to let people bring, you know, as a leader, if you can bring your guard down, that will allow others to feel safe to bring their guard down.

Speaker 10 And that's how those things happen yeah and but you have to create that as you said the key word a safe environment and you also have to get to know your people like if right if i'm the manager and you're one of my 10 sales professionals and i found through spending time with you and connecting with you that you feel embarrassed and emasculated if i kind of break down your film in front of the group Well, then I simply won't do that with you because that's actually going to decrease your performance, not increase it.

Speaker 10 So this also goes into you can treat everyone on your team fairly, but you don't treat everyone equally you know where I on the other hand might say hey guys you can tape every one of my calls and you can put the damn thing on YouTube if you want because I don't care as long as I get information that's gonna allow me to get better It doesn't matter to me, but this is when we've got these customized individual differences and then one other aspect to that team practice would be with the concept of team and I know this is challenging in many sales environments because you and I work for the same company, but we each have our own quota and it's it's kind ofly wired wired into the compensation package that I get more money when I hit my numbers.

Speaker 10 So it kind of creates this almost me verse you instead of me and you. And that's not good for the bottom line of the company.

Speaker 10 You know, if you're my teammate, I should want to do everything I can to help you hit your quotas and make sure you're facilitating sales.

Speaker 10 Even if occasionally that means, you know, I lose the prospect because you signed them to the account. and I didn't.

Speaker 10 Overall, it will still work out best if we're all enriching and empowering each other.

Speaker 10 So another thing would be just talking to the team and saying all right who do I know or what can I do that adds value to any of you you know Ryan you're trying to close this deal with this company over here I might have some contacts that can help you do that I'm not going to see any commission for that I'm not going to get anything but I'm going to help you do it and you mean something to me because you're my teammate so I want to be able to do that and when we create that type of atmosphere it's just human nature that at some point you're going to turn around and go well Alan I you've done me a solid on these last two accounts I've closed I actually know someone that can help you with who you're, and we all get better for it.

Speaker 10 So, creating a safe atmosphere where it's not me versus you, it's me and you in sales is incredibly important to the fabric and culture of the organization.

Speaker 8 Wow,

Speaker 8 we could go.

Speaker 8 We could go all day. I'm sure.
I want to be respectful of your time and that of the audience.

Speaker 8 This has been absolutely tremendous. We've gone so many different places, which is my favorite type of podcast episode.
I want to do two things, or three things, actually.

Speaker 8 I want to direct people to your book, Raise the Game. Where can they get that?

Speaker 10 If they go to Raise Your Game Book. Raise Your Game.

Speaker 8 Sorry.

Speaker 10 Yep, that's okay.

Speaker 10 If you raise your game, you will raise the game. So it all works out.

Speaker 10 If you go to raise your gamebook.com, you can get the book. If anyone wants to order it for your whole organization, I can offer a 42% discount on a team order, and I can even sign each copy.

Speaker 10 And then I just released a facilitator guidebook and a team member workbook that that allows you, if you want to do a book study with your group or your organization, to really bring the principles of the book to life and put them in action.

Speaker 10 And then if anyone's interested in speaking or anything else I have going on, you can just go to AllenSteinjunior.com.

Speaker 10 And I'm at AllensteinJunior.com on all the major social platforms and love engaging with folks.

Speaker 10 So if anything Ryan and I talked about today, from refereeing to sales performance struck a chord, hit me up on social. I'd love to continue the dialogue.

Speaker 8 So that was going to be the next thing I said.

Speaker 8 For everyone, for all my insurance friends out there who run events in our space, if you remember a few years ago, I introduced you all to Marcus Sheridan and he ran through the industry and did all the events.

Speaker 8 You all should be hiring Alan as well. You're going to get the same quality performance with a difference perspective,

Speaker 8 but the level of value and quality is exactly the same. So I'm hoping that some of you will pick up Alan for your next event.

Speaker 8 I'm always willing to do a breakout session underneath him or

Speaker 10 whatever. That's tag team at you and I, man.
I don't know that there's an event out there that could take both of our energy.

Speaker 8 Dude, I made the mistake of following Marcus one time, and I literally have a clause in my contract now that is will not speak directly after Marcus Sheridan ever again. No, I don't have that.
But

Speaker 8 no, I just encourage everyone.

Speaker 8 The group that we keep referencing, Speaking Spill, Alan comes incredibly highly recommended inside that group. Go watch his YouTube videos, and I hope that

Speaker 8 some of my insurance friends out there who are listening to this, that you guys will have a chance to interact with him live. Dude, it has been such a pleasure, man.

Speaker 8 Thank you for giving us the time that you have. And hopefully we'll be able to connect in person in the future.

Speaker 10 Can I tell one real quick story? Please do. All right.
It now jogs my memory that you said you did the Damatha St.

Speaker 10 John's game way back in the early 2000s because now I vividly remember after the game, Coach Jones went into the referee's locker room and he saw the cell phone that was laying there and he figured one of the referees left it and and I said I think it was probably Ryan's phone and he said oh it was definitely Ryan's phone and I said well how would you know and he said well it had 17 missed calls

Speaker 10 there you go very good

Speaker 1 perfect exit

Speaker 1 I appreciate you brother all right man be good yep

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I know, I'm putting them back. Hey, Dave, here's a tip: put scratchers on your list.

Speaker 9 Oh, scratchers, good idea.

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Flows, we help. You save.

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