Episode 336 – Unstoppable Pro Basketball Player and Entrepreneurial Business Coach Part II with Dre Baldwin
From time to time I am contacted by someone who says they have an interesting and thought provoking guest who would be perfect for Unstoppable Mindset. Such was the case when I was contacted about our guest this time, Dre Baldwin. Dre and I had an initial conversation and I invited him to appear as a guest. I must say that he more than exceeded my expectations. And now he is back for a second time with us with more stories and insights.
You may recall from my first episode with him that Dre grew up in Philadelphia. He wanted to do something with sports and tried out various options until he discovered Basketball in high school. While he wasn’t considered overly exceptional and only played one year in high school he realized that Basketball was the sport for him.
Dre went to Penn State and played all four of his college years. Again, while he played consistently and reasonably well, he was not noticed and after college he was not signed to a professional team. He worked at a couple of jobs for a time and then decided to try to get noticed for basketball by going to a camp where he could be seen by scouts and where he could prove he had the talent to make basketball a profession. As he will tell us, eventually he did get a contract to play professionally. Other things happened along the way as you will hear. Dre discovered Youtube and the internet and began posting basketball tips which became popular.
In this episode we continue to discuss with Dre the lessons he wishes to convey as well as his life philosophy. Dre discuss more about the value and need for personal initiative. He tells us the value of having a personal initiative mindset and how that can lead to high performance.
I asked Dre about how playing basketball prepared him for his work in business. His answer will surprise you. It did me. As he points out, his business preparation came earlier and in different ways than playing basketball.
I also asked Dre why he left playing professional basketball. Again, his answer is fascinating. I will leave that for Dre to tell you.
I hope you enjoy my talk with Dre as much as I. Dre Baldwin provided many lessons we all can use. Who knows? Dre, you and I may talk again. Stay tuned.
About the Guest:
As CEO and Founder of Work On Your Game Inc., Dre Baldwin has given 4 TEDxTalks on Discipline, Confidence, Mental Toughness & Personal Initiative and has authored 35 books. He has appeared in national campaigns with Nike, Finish Line, Wendy's, Gatorade, Buick, Wilson Sports, STASH Investments and DIME magazine.
Dre has published over 8,000 videos to 142,000+ subscribers, his content being consumed over 103 million times.
Dre's daily Work On Your Game MasterClass has amassed over 2,900 episodes and more than 7.3 million downloads.
In just 5 years, Dre went from the end of his high school team's bench to a 9-year professional basketball career. He played in 8 countries including Lithuania, Germany, Montenegro, Slovakia and Germany.
Dre invented his Work On Your Game framework as a "roadmap in reverse" to help professionals with High Performance, Consistency and Results.
A Philadelphia native, Dre lives in Miami.
Ways to connect Dre:
http://Instagram.com/DreBaldwin
http://YouTube.com/Dreupt
https://www.facebook.com/WorkOnYourGameUniversity
http://LinkedIn.com/in/DreAllDay
http://X.com/DreAllDay
http://TikTok.com/WorkOnYourGame
Kindly use this link for our Free book, The Third Day 📕: http://ThirdDayBook.com (we have a 3- and 10-book options too for gifting books!). You can become an affiliate (40% commission on all sales) here.
Work On Your Game University: http://www.WorkOnYourGameUniversity.com
And here's a link to a FREE training to increase business without working harder for your listeners: http://www.WorkOnYourGame.net
And Dre's text number to get his FREE #MondayMotivation text 📲: 1.305.384.6894
About the Host:
Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.
Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children’s Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association’s 2012 Hero Dog Awards.
https://michaelhingson.com
https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/
https://twitter.com/mhingson
https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/
accessiBe Links
https://accessibe.com/
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https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/
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Transcription Notes:
Michael Hingson ** 00:00
Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.
Well, hi everyone, and welcome to another edition of unstoppable mindset. And today we're doing something we've done a couple of times, but not very often, and that is that we are having another episode with one of our guests today. It's going to be Dre Baldwin, and Dre was on a few weeks ago. We talked about his career, what he's doing, his company, up your game, LLC, and we're going to talk about some of those things again. But I thought maybe, Dre, I really do appreciate you being here. And I thought maybe you could start by kind of going over your bio again and just refreshing our memory, if you would
Dre Baldwin ** 01:57
sure. So Michael, first of all, I appreciate you having me back on, but I'd be one of the few who's been invited for a return and about, just give me an idea about how long ago would people have heard the first conversation? So I know how much detail I need to go to here. Oh,
Michael Hingson ** 02:14
probably about five or six weeks. Okay,
Dre Baldwin ** 02:17
so background is in sports. Used to play professional basketball internationally for nine years, played in eight different countries. While doing that, started publishing content to this new website called YouTube in 2005 that's where I started to build a brand on the internet, and how I started to get known. 99% of my content was basketball related, until 2010 when I started talking more about mindset, but specifically pulled from basketball. And what happened is people who didn't play basketball heard that message, along with the athletes, and they started appreciating my approach to mindset, and I realized that mindset was useful for people who did not play sports. So that was the seed that got planted in my mind, that this is what I'll do after basketball, which I was still playing at the time, kept playing basketball till 2015 at that point. I dropped the basketball playing part. And then I just started focusing on mindset, pull from my sport experience, and applying it to business and life. And that's how I started to expand my audience. And then from there, of course, working with people in business and working with people in sales, and being in business and being in sales myself, I started to add things like strategy and systems and accountability and implementation into my framework, and now here we are with the work on your game approach, business, brand, etc, that I'm sure we're going to get into
Michael Hingson ** 03:34
here today. So when you quit basketball, did you quit because you just wanted to really go into the business? Or did you have to retire because the body wasn't doing as well? Or both?
Dre Baldwin ** 03:45
Great question. Well, there's only three reasons athletes stop playing. Michael, May I share them with you, sure? So one of them is physical incapability, such as your body just breaks down and you just can't do it anymore. Second reason, especially in team sports, is when the phone's not ringing, nobody's interested in hiring you anymore, so you just kind of bet you get backdoored out of the business. And neither one of those is my reason. The third reason is what we call the third day, and the third day is all about all the things that athletes do that you don't see on TV or on social media. So that's the training, that's the ice bath, that's the two and three times a day workouts. That's all the things you have to do physically in order to keep your body in position to where you can compete with the other top 2% performers in the world. And when an athlete gets tired of doing all that, on, let's say on. What's the word? What's the word that I'm looking for here, just the non glamorous work when you don't want to do that anymore, that's when it's time to get out of the game. So it came to a point with me that I just didn't want to do the non glamorous work as much. I still go to the gym and workout every single day to this day, but as a pro athlete, you need to be in the gym two and three times a day, and it's a different type of workout when you're looking to compete with people. People who are already in the top 2% and at the same time, Michael also saw a lot of opportunities for myself in the business world as an entrepreneur that I couldn't pursue if I was putting so much of my time and focus into athletics. So that's why I decided to transition into business.
Michael Hingson ** 05:19
COVID was a psychological or an absolute conscious decision to do, which makes a lot of sense, and it's nice to be able to do things on your own terms, isn't it absolutely so that's that's pretty cool that you you did that, but you played basketball for nine years, which certainly is a pretty significant amount of time to play basketball anyway, and you did that professionally. And I remember you were describing when we were here last about how in high school you you were basically on the bench, and you were not considered somebody who would be productive or all that good at basketball. But you certainly changed that going through college. And then I know you described to us that you went to an event where you were able to get some video of you playing, and that kind of helped launch the career. But it also, as you pointed out, launched the whole career of what you're doing today. Because you when that new medium YouTube came along. You put it up on YouTube as well, right?
Dre Baldwin ** 06:24
Yes, that's right. So I was on YouTube in 2005 and that's how I started to get people to know me on the internet
Michael Hingson ** 06:33
and know you they do and know you they did, which is, which is pretty cool. Well, so I think it's really fascinating that you have done the things that you've done. So we talked a little bit about personal personal initiative last time, and it would seem to me that that's pretty important, especially since you took the personal initiative right off to leave basketball into going to do this full time, right?
Dre Baldwin ** 07:07
Oh, yeah, absolutely. Personal initiative has been the, basically the main catalyst for all the things that I did, because everything that we talked about up to this point, and even stuff that we haven't talked about yet that either we will or we may not even get to here. Most of it Michael, has been me taking the initiative, and I'm kind of thinking while I'm talking to you, almost all of it has been me taking the initiative to create the opportunity, or what might be an opportunity, because and at the same time, I want to make sure the audience understands this, and I often emphasize this to audiences, virtually and live, that even though I would say 98% of the things that I've done professionally, whether as an athlete or an entrepreneur, were because I took the initiative to get the things started, that does not mean that everything that I tried worked. So I've taken initiative on several things that simply did not turn out to become a thing. So even as a pro athlete, I played almost a decade of professional sports, but I reached out to more teams than I actually played for because there are many teams I reached out to who were not interested, or they simply did not respond, or they just said, Hey, we like your stuff, but we already have a player, so we don't need you. So that happened many times. There many times I reached out in business to someone who maybe I was interested in collaborating with, offering my services to, or selling a product or something to, and they said, We're not interested. So there are many times that I took initiative and it did not produce a result. However, you take initiative 10 times and one times it produces a one time it produces a result that one time can make up for the other nine times it did not work, so to speak. So when it comes to personal initiative, it's everything. I don't know if we talked about this in the last conversation, but all the mindset stuff doesn't matter if you don't do anything with it. So personal initiative is when you put it to use,
Michael Hingson ** 08:58
right? Well, I know exactly how you feel, and I know exactly what you're talking about. I send out a lot of letters emails today, even about being a speaker for events that people have, and I know a little bit about the events. When we send out the letters, right and and on one hand, I can say, I'm amazed at the some of the people who say, Well, we're not interested, but that's their choice, and there's only so much can do about it. Sometimes I will follow up a second time, but if we don't take the initiative to deal with the things that we want to deal with, no one else is going to pretty much sometimes people will see something in us that we don't see for ourselves, and sometimes then they have to sell us on the idea, but mostly personal initiative is what we have to bring to the game. Yeah, and
Dre Baldwin ** 09:51
if you're gonna be an entrepreneur, you better have some personal initiative. Otherwise, you're better off getting employment somewhere,
Michael Hingson ** 09:56
yeah, well, even there, if you're a good. You will figure out how to show some initiative as well. That's right. What position did you play in basketball? I never asked you. I played the guard
Dre Baldwin ** 10:08
position. So I'm six feet four inches tall. So people in the metric system, 193 centimeters. You and Jerry West, yeah, Jerry West, I think was maybe six, maybe.
Michael Hingson ** 10:20
No, yeah, I thought it was six, three,
Dre Baldwin ** 10:23
I don't know, maybe 6365, something that range, but same position? Yes, guard. So when you play overseas, the the thing is, the big guys, the seven foot guys, if you have any coordination at all, you're going to get a chance, you know, in the NBA. So yeah, the thing is, when you're playing overseas, you can play a wider range of position, because the big guys aren't quite as big in general when you're overseas.
Michael Hingson ** 10:47
So if you're really big, then you you have advantages.
Dre Baldwin ** 10:51
Well, if you're really big, you're usually playing for the New York Knicks or the LA Lakers. That's
Michael Hingson ** 10:55
right. Why is it that so many basketball players this is a strange thing that I keep thinking about, why do you why are there so many people, I mean, even Wilt Chamberlain, who weren't great free throw shooters, even though they were certainly, clearly incredibly good at what they did,
Dre Baldwin ** 11:12
many, there are many theories on that. One of them, I think, when it comes to really big guys, first of all, they don't need to be able a free throw is 15 feet from the basket. So when you're seven feet tall and physically large, you don't need to make shots 15 feet from the basket to be effective and to be dominant and to help the team win. You could even be the best player on the court without ever making a shot from outside of seven feet from the rim. Think somebody O'Neal or these days, a lot of players play from the outside. They shoot outside, but you don't have to to be dominant. So a free throw again, a 15 foot away shot is not quite in rhythm. You're just standing there, and everyone else is standing around. It's a not a difficult shot, I mean, not an easy shot for a lot of big guys. And also, if you don't develop the touch, another thing you got to keep in mind, a basketball is a certain size, the same size for everybody, but a big guy, their hands are so big that it might be hard to kind of develop the touch that a six, five guy can develop shooting the basketball. So many theories, but there are some big guys who are actually good shooters. So never know. Yeah.
Michael Hingson ** 12:16
Well, it's just always amazed me, because I know people are basically standing around, it's quiet, but it just always seemed to me to be a little strange that some people just don't shoot free throws all that well. But I understand that it's a it can be a mystery, and it also can be that, as you said, by the time you're really done, you're only like about seven feet from the basket, then that can be tough, right?
Dre Baldwin ** 12:39
And also you got to keep in mind the psychological effect of it as well. So sometimes that can hurt players who are even shorter, just the psychological effect of if you miss a few, like a kicker in football, you miss a couple kicks now all of a sudden you can't make anything. Yeah, you just lose it mentally. So
Michael Hingson ** 12:55
the people who are so good at basketball, but who may not really be great at free throws, I assume, psychologically adjust to that, and they go, Okay, I understand that that's not the one thing that I'm all that great at. But that's not where I really need to be and what I really need to do from a player standpoint, most of the time,
Dre Baldwin ** 13:13
I would say, generally, yes, sometimes, I mean, depending on who you're playing against and how the rules are going, sometimes it can be used against you. You know, Shaquille O'Neal. They would follow him on purpose so that they would make him shoot free throws, because they knew he wouldn't. He wouldn't make free throws easily. He could make a dunk. So they would sometimes use it against them, but it's all it's all part of the game, all part of the gamesmanship and strategy of trying to win.
Michael Hingson ** 13:35
But Shaquille O'Neal knows that knew that, and so he could deal with it,
Dre Baldwin ** 13:40
yeah, and he made enough. He can make, yeah, half that was enough, and then he would beat you so bad on all the times when you didn't send him some that he made, more than made up for what he did not have at the free throw line.
Michael Hingson ** 13:54
What lesson can we take from that discussion into business? Well,
Dre Baldwin ** 13:58
well, not everybody is great at everything. I mean, we all have our strengths and weaknesses, and we all have our advantages, and if you want to call them disadvantages in different aspects of business. So the job is not to necessarily erase the disadvantages, because it may take some resources or time that we simply don't have, but to figure out where you have the advantage and then just stay there. All right, just hang out there. So if you're secure, O'Neill, don't hang out at the free throw mile. Hang out next to the basket where you're dominant, because nobody can beat you there. It's kind of like if you're gonna wrestle with an alligator, you're better off doing it on land than in the water. You're probably gonna lose in the water, but you got a chance on land, and
Michael Hingson ** 14:36
you better stay away from the open mouth and try to get the mouth when it's closed. Yeah, exactly.
Dre Baldwin ** 14:41
But even on land, if the mouth is closed again, wasn't gonna do I guess it can eat you, technically, but in water and water can drink water, you can keep breathing, that's
Michael Hingson ** 14:51
right. So there's a lot to do, yeah? So what's the most important thing you think that people take away from you and all the. The knowledge that you've amassed, and all of the the speaking that you've done and teaching that you've done, what, what's the most important thing that people take away from you? Most important
Dre Baldwin ** 15:10
thing, I think, if I had to one through mine, it's really just the the mental toughness, the discipline, the staying focus, which, if you're talking to people who are over the age of, let's say, 30, working in a professional world, I'm not the first speaker they've heard of, not the first quote, unquote motivator they've been exposed to. So it's a reminder sometimes, for people, it's a fresh perspective on things that they have heard before but maybe haven't plugged themselves into as strongly as they want to. So I would probably say that if I had to just say one thing that I hear most often, it'd probably be
Michael Hingson ** 15:46
that, well, you know, we talked a lot last time about mindset, and of course, the title of this podcast is unstoppable mindset. What's the connection between mindset and execution when you're dealing with high performance?
Dre Baldwin ** 16:00
Well, the way we think leads to the things that we do. So your mindset leads to your behaviors, and behaviors lead to your actions, actions. Well, behaviors are your actions, and actions lead to your outcomes. So the connection is, mindset is everything, because when you lose your that, when you lose that lock in mentally like specifically the confidence, because everything else is confident is what we see on the surface, and it's what we generally tend to be focused on. We're thinking about how we feel and how we're putting ourselves out there in our work. Use that confidence, then everything else collapses. It's just like we were talking about with the free throw shooters or a kicker in in football. As long as you have the confidence, you have a chance. Same thing with a professional speaker. You get on stage, if you're not confident in what you're sharing, the audience is not really going to hear it, even if you have the script, even if you have the whole speech scripted out perfectly. And you can have a mediocre or a terrible speech, but if you're very confident, the audience is going to believe you. Doesn't matter what you're saying. So it's the thing that we should all keep in mind is that the human, the human animal, takes things in more non verbally than we do verbally. So it's not really what you say, it's how you say it, and it's not really necessarily what you do is how you do it. How you do things has a bigger impact on people and it they are more likely to remember and retain how you did or said something more than there to retain what you did or what you said. So is the energy is everything, and energy is, I tell people, it's 85% of the job in life. Michael, if you have the energy, the right type of energy, even if your skill set is not there and you're technically not all the way on point, you can still win,
Michael Hingson ** 17:43
yeah, well, and I understand that, and I do know that the better speakers are the people who really can convey that energy and get their audiences to feel that energy. That's right, you do have to have something relevant. To say, I have heard some extremely boring speakers, and you can tell because they don't have the energy. Some have been athletes, no less. But the bottom line is that if you don't have the energy, and if you can't think about and project what you want in a very substantive, positive way. People aren't going to pay attention
Dre Baldwin ** 18:26
to you. I agree with that 100% and I've heard a bunch of boring speakers as well. Yeah, yeah, we got a buddy in the meeting
Michael Hingson ** 18:33
planners. Yeah, well, maybe there, or there, or the meeting planners are hoping. But, yeah, that's exactly it, and it's really unfortunate, but more more people who want to speak need to really learn how to be a speaker. And you know, my belief is that part of being a good speaker is including stories in what you you talk about. You can talk about concepts all day, but stories are what brings a lot of it home to an audience, because that's where people really relate to you. I think I'm so
Dre Baldwin ** 19:09
glad you brought that up and I tell this. Here's a story for you right here. So yeah, so several years ago, and this will connect a couple things we talked about. So when I first got into speaking, Mike, I don't know how you got in, but how I got in is nobody knew who I was. So the my mentor, who was a full time paid speaker, said, Dre, you just need to go out there and do some stuff for free. And no, just get some get your feet wet, because you need some proof. Because often, when I would reach out to people, they say, Well, do you have a video of you speaking? I didn't have any. So I would go and do free gigs. I would fill out calls for speakers. I would submit proposals, and I did hundreds of those between 2015 and probably 2017 so there was an event in St Louis. I'm based in South Florida. So they I filled out the form to present myself as a possible speaker. No, no fee, no money, no nothing. They. Said, or you can come speak. So I came and gave a speech, and it was a what they call breakout session. This is when it was eight people speaking at the same time, and you just pick which room you want to go in. And I gave a speech called work on your game, and they called me back, and again, I had to pay for that. I paid to travel. I paid for the hotel, and I did not get paid. So I get called back by them about six months later, and the person running the event says, Hey, Drew. Says, Hey, Dre, the feedback that we got from your presentation was so good that we want you to come back and give that same speech next year, but we want you to be the keynote speaker and we'll pay you this now, which is what I did. So I came back next year and gave the keynote. Now they had, this is a two or three day conference, and they had two keynotes, so one on Tuesday. One on Wednesday, I gave the Tuesday keynote. There was someone speaking on Wednesday, so I stayed through Wednesday afternoon just to hear the other speaker, because I'm still relatively new at speaking. So I figured this person is a keynote as well. Let me hear what they have to say. Maybe I can borrow some stuff, maybe I can steal a couple tactics from them. And I went to their speech, and their speech was all information, and this person had probably bought 100 sides, and it was just side after side of the side, and they were just going over the information that was on the side. And I'm like, this sucks. And it actually kind of annoyed me more than it bored me, because I'm like, Well, they probably paid this person the same amount they paid me, and that that didn't seem fair to me, like when, when I looked at that because I said, this person is not doing anything near what I'm doing. So when I give my speeches, in to going back to what you said about stories, and I tell people this. I use a formula, I tell a story, I give an explanation of the story, and then I tell people how they can use it. So story, point application, or point story application, however you want to do it. That's the format I use every time I give a speech and I and the good thing about that because some people may be listening to this and thinking, Well, man, how can I they may have seen you or seen me, Michael, on stage, and you give a 60 minute keynote, and someone's like, well, how can you give a 60 minute speech with no notes and not forgetting what you were going to say? And I tell people that if you build your presentation around a story, you don't need notes to tell a story. All you have to do is remember the just what is the story. Then you tell the story. And I can extrapolate a story off for an hour if I want to. But what I do in my keynotes, I usually have anywhere from three to five main points I want to get across. But I always, always come up with a story to illustrate the point. Then I tell them what the point is, and then I give them the application, but the story takes up the bulk of the speech. And the reason why this matters is not because we're tricking the audience. The reason why it matters is because people do not retain information. They retain stories. That's how the human brain is wired to retain narrative, not information. And the example that I use with people is, tell me something that you learned in class when you were in the 10th grade. And most people can answer the question, but then I said, Okay, when you were in 10th grade, you were 15 or 16 years of age. Tell me something that happened in your life when you were 15 or 16. Everybody can answer the question, why? Because we remember the stories. We do not remember the information, even though you got the information, because most people graduated from the 10th grade, you moved on to the 11th, 12th and got a diploma. So clearly, you got the information somehow, but you can't even remember what it was, but you can remember the story, and that's what I tell people all the time. You want to get better at speaking, get better at telling people a story and kind of painting a picture for them. And information does not paint pictures. It bores people.
Michael Hingson ** 23:29
You know, what's interesting is that I, I do remember a number of things that I heard in classes in high school and so on. And I reason I say that is because I was blessed. I had teachers, a significant number of teachers who liked to tell stories. I remember my geography teacher in ninth grade was talking and I, what I don't remember is exactly what the subject was. I think it had to do with Benjamin Franklin or something in the in in around that time. And what he said was people underestimated this guy. And then he proceeded to tell a story about himself, where he took aptitude tests, and the aptitude tests all said that he should be a plumber. And he said, Well, I'm not a plumber. I'm here teaching geography. And I thought he did a great job. I thought Mr. Campbell did a great job of teaching geography, but he told that story. And I've had a number of teachers who included stories and everything that they did, and so I I learned a lot about telling stories from from them, and trying to do it myself as as I went forward, I remember in college, an English teacher that I had told us all to write some sort of a story about something, and I and so I chose. To write a story, but I had my first guide dog with me, so I actually wrote the story with the guide dog telling the story. And that impressed the English teacher. But I think, yeah, but I think that that's really important. Stories are so crucial, and if you don't include stories, people aren't going to take much away from what you say. You're absolutely right. That's
Dre Baldwin ** 25:26
right. You got lucky with your teachers. My teachers did not tell stories.
Michael Hingson ** 25:31
I heard some who didn't, but, yeah, but, yeah, but, but some of them were, were great at telling stories and and I was really blessed to have them. Then later, of course, once I started speaking and I again, I was blessed because I had essentially right out of the box, escaping from the World Trade Center as a story that people wanted to hear about. And so I started to talk about that. But other things along the way. I had one situation where a speaker's bureau asked me to go deliver a speech to the national Property Managers Association. And I said, Okay, what are they? And she said, Well, they're the people that take care of rentals and so on. They manage your property. If you've got a house and and you're you're moving or whatever. And I said, Well, that's perfect, because I have a house that a property manager is handling right now. Well, I got to the event very late the night before, and I like to get in early. I'm like you both for getting early and staying late. If there are other people speaking before I speak, I want to hear them. And if there are keynotes after my keynote, I want to hear them as well, for the same reason, but also especially for people before me. I customize every talk, and I will oftentimes find things that people say that I then can include in speeches in my keynote that I'm going to give but anyway, I got there too late to hear any of anything that anybody said the previous day, and my keynote was going to be at breakfast. So I go down for breakfast, and I am sitting there listening to some people talking at the table where I was sitting for breakfast. It was like 10 minutes before I was supposed to talk, and what they were talking about were subjects that just didn't seem anything to be related to managing property and apartments and all that. So I asked one of the people, what is the national Property Managers Association? And they said, national Property Managers Association is the entity within the government that manages anything physical that the government owns that's totally different than what the speakers bureau told me, and here I am 10 minutes away and have to shift the entire talk. Well, fortunately, I was had enough experience that I was able to do that, and they actually asked me to come back as well because of that, because I was able to relate to people and again, getting good, positive reviews. But I really believe that it's important as a speaker to monitor your audience, to know what's happening with your audience, and if they're not reacting well to what you're saying or how you're saying it, you need to be able to sometimes shift to get them to to relate to you again, because you're the one that has to draw the audience in. That's right, and it's so important to be able to do that.
Dre Baldwin ** 28:32
Yeah, very true. I'm looking them up while you're talking and I see that, MP, NP, Ma, is that the organization? Yeah, you think is one thing is actually another,
Michael Hingson ** 28:41
it's actually another. Well, and I had had experience in negotiating GSA contracts and other things, and even contracts with agencies, as I put it to the group, that if I talked any more to you about them, then we'd have to make you disappear. So yeah, and they laughed, and they love that, because they knew I would, you know who I was talking about, but you know, the the bottom line is that it's really all about relating to the audience. They're going to remember you if you relate.
Dre Baldwin ** 29:10
That's right, very true.
Michael Hingson ** 29:14
So you did basketball for nine years, what would you say? Or how would you say that playing basketball really prepared you to go in and do business and have a business.
Dre Baldwin ** 29:25
That's a good question. I would say it did not. I would not credit basketball with me being an entrepreneur. I would credit first of all that I had a solid home background. I was lucky enough to have a mother as an educator who was big on making sure her kids could read and write from a very young age, which opened me up the books and writing myself. Secondly, because of that, I think it made me a more open minded person, which is how I got introduced to Network Marketing when I was in college, which is what really planted the seed for me becoming an entrepreneur. And third. Was that I've always been a natural salesperson slash marketer slash enterprising individual, and I have I applied those to help my basketball career happen, and then I knew, based on things that I had seen, that I didn't want to go into a regular work situation after basketball. And the other option that I saw was to become, excuse me, was to become an entrepreneur. And because I had read Robert Kiyosaki, because I read Tim Ferriss, and because I read in many other books about sales, marketing, business, and also the perfect timing of the internet becoming the internet around the time that I got out of college, and then no starting to blow up at the time that I stumbled upon it and started using it, all of those things conflated into it, and the fact that I played sports just helped the story, because it gave me a it kind of gave put some glue to the story of, okay, this guy's going to talk about how the mindset of an athlete applies to the business world. Well, what's your credibility to talk about it? Well, I was a nine year professional athlete, and what makes this all the pieces fit, it makes sense. Was, well, I struggled to make the team in high school, Barry struggled to make the team in college, Barry was able to get myself a chance as a pro, and then I used the internet to get myself in when using the internet was not a thing for the mainstream person. So all the things that I did as an athlete, Michael simply contributed to the story and contributed to the credibility piece of what I was talking about and why. But me being an athlete is not what made me an entrepreneur. And I'll add to that by saying that there are a lot of athletes I know who I played with and against who do not have what it takes to be entrepreneurs. So it's not being an athlete that qualifies you to be an entrepreneur at all. There are some who have done so successfully. There are many who have tried, but it ain't for everybody. Were
Michael Hingson ** 31:53
you pretty disciplined before you started playing basketball? And the reason I asked that question is, if you learn more about discipline while being a basketball player, did that help in terms of going into being an entrepreneur and starting your own business?
Dre Baldwin ** 32:09
Well, I was disciplined because, again, with respect to my parents, they were just about discipline. It's just me and my sister. They were just very No, no video games or playing outside on school days. No, do your homework every day, be good in school, get good grades, etc. So they instilled the discipline in that realm. But when it came to me, personally, when it came to discipline, I didn't really start to notice it until around the same time I started playing basketball, which was my mid teens, which is also the time when I started working, because in the state of Pennsylvania, the legal aids to get a job is age 15. So when I turn 15, everybody in my neighborhood, the parents will say to the kids, okay, we're covering the food, clothing, shelter, but you want anything extra, go get yourself a job. And whatever little money you make, you pay for it with that. You want to go to the movies, you want to hang out at the mall. You pay for it with your paycheck, and you go get a job. So I had always had jobs since I was 15 years of age, so the discipline just came from that background, and then I applied it to sports. And then by the time I got to college, and I was actually showing that I could actually play, and people were noticing me and saying, Hey, this guy is actually no kind of good that's when I realized that the discipline that I had used to make myself good at basketball was a a tool, because I looked around the other players who I was playing with, and I noticed that they didn't have this one. They didn't come to the gym practice by themselves. They didn't go to the weight room and workout. They just played when it was assigned to us, to play, like practice and games with the team. But they never did it on their own. Voition, so when I realized that other people didn't do it on their own volition, that's when I realized, okay, there's a there's a competitive advantage to this. And that was around age 1819, then I started to figure that
Michael Hingson ** 33:50
out. But then you started playing professionally, and nine years later, you started your own business, which also sends the message, ah, there's an opportunity of using discipline. So that's pretty cool, and you you were pretty disciplined right from the outset. I again, I appreciate that. I know for me, since I don't get to use some of the same kinds of tools that people with eyesight get to use, there's a lot of need to be more disciplined. And I also had teachers in college when I was majoring in physics, who also talked about things like pay attention to the details. And that's something that always stuck with me. I actually was at UC Irvine earlier this year, and I was was asked to come and do a speech. Actually, I was inducted into phi beta, kappa as an alumni member, they also asked me to give the speech at the induction dinner for everyone, and I talked about the fact that physics professors said, and I took it very much to heart, because it was true. Pay attention to the details, because the details are what are going to help you and guide you into. Having success in the bigger things. So I did that. Yeah, so how do you handle pressure and high takes? How do you handle pressure and high stakes situations?
Dre Baldwin ** 35:16
Give me an example of a high stakes situation.
Michael Hingson ** 35:20
I uh, you're in a store and there's a robbery going on around you, I don't know, or you're trying to negotiate a multi billion dollar contract?
Dre Baldwin ** 35:31
No, for me, I don't look at it as pressure those kind of things, because I know what I can do. I know what I'm offering, and I know the way that I'm the way that I'm showing up and presenting myself is going to go, how it however is going to go as a salesperson, I never feel, I have never felt pressure in the middle of a conversation, even if I'm really like, hey, wanting to close this deal or I really want to make whatever the money is, I never feel pressure in that moment, because I've already prepared ahead of time. So what I tell audiences that preparation is the hallmark of the professional. The professionals are always prepared ahead of prepared ahead of time for the situation that is coming. Doesn't mean it's always going to go your way, but you are prepared for it, and you're prepared for the contingencies of it. So, so that's one thing when it comes to that type of pressure. The other thing about pressure, and also with, I guess people couple pressure with stress is that they're actually good things, depending on how you frame it. Pressure and stress are good things when you use them the right way. I find in my line of work, Michael, that a lot of people would benefit from some from some pressure, because many people are masters at procrastination, going slow, doing things later, and doing things at their own pace. And the problem with that is that we are all working on with a limited amount of time our most finite and most valuable resource. So when we don't have pressure on ourselves, or we try to alleviate or eliminate or avoid pressure, what it allows us to do is to grow complacent, go slower and to delay. And those are problems for people who claim that they want to be high level performers, and they claim that they have things they want to achieve in life that they have not yet achieved yet they allow themselves by alleviating pressure and whatever, whatever way they use to do it, they allow themselves to continually add time to a situation, as if they have a they have a known budget of time to give away. So pressure is actually a good thing when it's used the right way and framed the right way, along with stress. So how do I handle pressure? I actually look forward to it, because it tends to reveal who you are and bring the best out of you. And if you've been doing the work and putting good stuff in you, then pressure actually will actually elevate you more than it will bring you down.
Michael Hingson ** 37:44
Yeah. The reality is that pressure, in the traditional sense of the view of the word, is self imposed, and that's right, the fact is, things happen. You know, you have a contract you gotta do work on. You've got a certain amount of time to do it, because you usually know when it's gotta be done by. And the bottom line is, you can create the pressure by, as you say, procrastinating or worry. But the reality is, the better thing is to prepare and do it right from the outset. And I'm assuming that's the kind of thing you advise for other people as well.
Dre Baldwin ** 38:17
You mean to do things right
38:20
Yeah, exactly.
Dre Baldwin ** 38:22
Of course, prepare. But also, let's just say there are things that you haven't done yet, and you weren't supposed to have done them yet, but you just know you want to get them done. So let's say you had 10 things on your list, and you say, Oh, I'll do five today and five tomorrow. Well, you can put pressure on yourself and see, let's see if we get eight done today, or how about all 10. So the pressure, just what it does is it condenses time frames. Yeah, and this is an important concept that I tell to people, especially people who say that they want to be high level performance, is that you have to condense time frames because we don't know how much time we have left. So we can't conduct ourselves as if we can put things off until the quote, unquote, tomorrow, because you are not guaranteed a tomorrow or next month or next year. So we put pressure on ourselves. We take something that was going to take two weeks and we get it done in five days. Now we just bought ourselves nine days of time, because now we took a 14 day task and we got it done in five so now we just got we have nine extra days, and then those nine extra days we can do another thing and condense more time, and condense more time. And if you really think about it, a well lived life, that's pretty much what it is. We're taking what most people take 80 years to do. We're trying to get it done in 40 and then we get get another 40 years to live of doing what we want to do. And usually a well lived life means the stuff that, all the stuff that we thought about and know, dreamed about doing the the proverbial bucket list, we actually cross everything off the list. The only reason, only thing that stops most people from crossing things off the list, aside from their own fear, is they run out of time. So what pressure does is gives you more time because you get the same things done just faster.
Michael Hingson ** 39:59
The other part about that is that you get it done faster, which also means you have a lot of time to even let your subconscious think about it, and you may come up with other things to add to it, to get it done better, or to augment what you already did. And you don't get to do that if you wait till the last second, if you allow yourself to worry and really, as we've both said, not prepare and do it right from the outset. That's right. And I like to get things done early when, when I possibly can. So if I end up doing something late, it's probably because I didn't take good notes and I forgot. But I don't like to do that, but you know, anything can happen.
Dre Baldwin ** 40:44
Yeah, that's right. And sometimes you get something thrown in your app where you don't have the luxury of doing it early, because there's only a little bit of time left, but usually, high level performers usually get those things done.
Michael Hingson ** 40:55
But the other part about that is that with everything else that you've done, when something suddenly gets thrown at you. You've you've got a mindset, you've prepared to be able to deal with whatever has to be done, and you don't worry about it. You just go do it. Yes,
Dre Baldwin ** 41:11
that's right, and that's usually why you were the one who was asked to do it in the first place, because some kind of reason to believe you can get it done. Lucky you.
Michael Hingson ** 41:19
Right? Yeah, exactly
Dre Baldwin ** 41:20
what
Michael Hingson ** 41:22
is the thing that you think that you've most taken from your career in sports into your career as an entrepreneur and as your as a business person, the
Dre Baldwin ** 41:33
scoreboard that sports is a performance and results based business that regardless of how anybody else feels about you, regardless of what anyone in the audience has to say, regardless of what their own teammates or opponents have to say at the end of the day. To borrow a cliche, all that matters what the scoreboard says, All right, that's the result. And sports is a results based business, and it all comes down to that, what does the scoreboard say after all the conversation and all the talk. Now, what I explain to people, especially entrepreneurs, is that, though there are many parallels between the business world and the sports world, this one is not one of them, because the business world is not a meritocracy. Business world is not about the result, so to speak, the business world is not necessarily about scoreboard. It is, but it isn't. Because in the sports world, let's say, if your dad is the coach of the baseball team, and you suck, but he keeps putting you in the game because he's your Dad, you're going to get exposed on the field because the performance is going to make it obvious that you can't play. But in the business world, if your dad is the boss, you can keep getting elevated to positions that you have not earned, and it's harder for you to be exposed, because there's not one objective scoreboard in the business world, same way there is in the sports world. So in the business world, you have to add some extra pieces, because in business, Michael, I mean, excuse me, in sports, Michael, if you're a really good performer, you don't have to have friends. Nobody has to like you. You don't have to shake any any hands. You don't have to have any networks or connections. If you're a good enough performer that will elevate you to the highest levels of the game, no matter what anybody thinks. Now, you may get some negative press or a lot of negative press behind you, but the performance still stands in the business world. On the other hand, if you're a really good performer, but you don't have friends, you don't have the right connections. People simply do not like you, especially in your own industry. Now you can get buried and find yourself completely out of the game. So that's one big difference between the business world and sports world. But I still always come back to this is a performance and results based business, because you still do need to perform in business, and you do want to produce results in business. Now you combine that with the relationship skills, the strategy skills, the political skills, then you get magic.
Michael Hingson ** 43:48
Yeah, well, and again, it ultimately all goes back to the preparation. And at the same time I do, and I'm sure you do as well. You love to get feedback when you go give a speech, when you do something. And obviously feedback can come in in a number of different ways. It can be they they buy your product or or when you're doing speeches, they write very positive things about you. But I like to get those, and I like to get the other comments where somebody maybe isn't totally happy with with you and what you said, if they're substantive enough to be able to give you information that then you can take to heart and learn from that's a good thing too.
Dre Baldwin ** 44:32
Yes, I agree with that. And of course, you gotta weigh where it's coming from. Yeah, you do? Yeah. I'm looking at, I want to know what the what the tech writer has to say, not necessarily to people in the audience. I'll take the feedback from the people in audience, but they're not ultimately making a decision on whether I get some good referrals or if I get invited back, right?
Michael Hingson ** 44:54
But if enough people love you, then, then they'll invite you back. But yeah, I know what you're saying. Yes, correct. Right? So there are people who have a lot of skills and who have a lot of talent, but you would say that consistency is more important than having talent or skills and achieving success. Why is that?
Dre Baldwin ** 45:13
Depending on what game we're talking now, Michael, if we're talking basketball, height is a talent. So if you're five feet five and you can't jump, and somebody else is six five, and they can jump out of the gym. The talent differential does matter. You can't out consistent. That lack of talent, that talent deficiency, you can't beat that with hard work. So this whole the concept that everybody's heard the same, Hard work beats talent with talent doesn't work hard generally, is directionally true? Is better for me to say directionally true. However, it depends on how big that talent gap is. Gap is big enough, then you can't outwork that gap. But let's just say people are relatively equal. Then yes, what you said, the consistency, the discipline, is showing up. That does make a difference. So what was the question again?
Michael Hingson ** 45:59
Well, it was essentially, why is consistency more important than talent or skills and achieving success? Oh,
Dre Baldwin ** 46:06
well, well, first of all, people know you for what you do. You are what you repeat it. We do. I believe it was Aristotle who said that, and human beings are creatures of habit. We come to know people based on their consistent behaviors. So whatever you consistently do is the reputation that you develop, and your reputation, as they say, precedes you, and your reputation can work for or against you without you even being in the room, because people come to know you based on your consistent behavior. So when people are pretty equal in resources, skill, ability, etc, etc, whoever's more consistent, more reliable, more dependable, that's the person that's going to get the call. Because human beings, some people say that they like surprises, but we really don't. We like the surprises that we want, but we generally want things to be pretty consistent and predictable and reliable over and over again. So when we come to know a person to be like that, we'll call on that person, because you know exactly what we're going to get.
Michael Hingson ** 46:57
And if you're a person that analyzes a lot and you get too many surprises that you don't want, then there's a message there somewhere about what you need to learn, or me need to refocus what you do.
Dre Baldwin ** 47:09
Yes, not everybody
Michael Hingson ** 47:10
learns it. That's right, that's right, but it surprises are nice, but nice surprises are what you really want to, want to get. But when you get too many negative surprises, if you're really good at self analysis, then you're going to go back and look at that and say, Why am I getting these reactions? Or you should?
Dre Baldwin ** 47:31
Yes, you should. I would agree with so
Michael Hingson ** 47:34
if you meet someone who is just starting out in their career, whatever that might be. What would you advise them to do? What kind of advice would you give them? Number
Dre Baldwin ** 47:44
one, figure out what game you're actually in. Sometimes people think they're in one game, but they're actually in another. So for example, when playing basketball, of course, you believe you're in the basketball business. But for me, coming from where I was coming from, Michael, I was really in the marketing business because I had to market myself to get an opportunity to play basketball. If I hadn't marketed myself well enough, I never got a chance. It's the same thing in speaking business, for example, a lot of professional speakers think they need to develop a better speech when you really just need to get better at selling the speech that you have. Because if you can't get good at selling yourself to get on these days, doesn't matter how good your speech is. Now you should have a good speech, because when you get on there, you don't want to be terrible. But assuming your speech is good enough, you need to get better at how do I market and position myself so that I'm actually getting a call and getting invited to actually stand on the stage? So you even off those two examples. I say, for most people, most professionals in most industries, you're really in the marketing business. Almost everybody's in the marketing business. Marketing business. When you have a job, you're in a marketing business because you have to market yourself to get the job. You got to market yourself to the company to keep the job. And then if you want to get a different job, you got to market yourself again. And as entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, there are no exceptions. Or you're an entrepreneur, you are a marketer. That is your number one job. And what happens with a lot of entrepreneurs that they think they're in the business of their craft? Well, I'm in the food business, or I'm in the clothing business, or I'm in the teaching people how to play piano business or the book writing business. That's not really the business you're in, because the thing that you do does not matter until you can sell someone on allowing you to even do it. So that's the number one thing, is finding out what game you're in that I would tell a new professional. And the second thing is, go find some people who are already playing the game and doing pretty well, and attach yourself to them and start consuming whatever they're sharing. So if you know them in person, stay around them as much as you can. If you know them virtually, subscribe to their podcast, read the books, get on their email list, so whatever sign up for their course, join their mastermind, whatever it is that they're offering, so that you can stay close to them and get their message and soak up their material. That's the other thing. So I would start with those top two,
Michael Hingson ** 49:51
and that kind of, in part, answers the next question I was going to ask, which is something about. What are some of the initial steps that people should take to level up or improve their career? And I think you're answering that already.
Dre Baldwin ** 50:10
Oh, no, go ahead. Then, yeah. So talking to us, yeah, someone wants to level up in their career, first thing you have to get you have to clearly define what leveling up means. So what do you mean when you say level up in your career? Because I remember, I was talking to some high scores many years ago, and this player said, as a basketball player, you said, Well, my goal is to be an excellent basketball player by next year. And I helped him understand that excellent is too vague. It's not, it's not, is very subjective, and it's not measurable. So what do you mean how many minutes you want to play on, how many points you want to score? How good is your team going to Yeah, I got some real goals. Yes, for Yeah, really. So you have to be very clear on what exactly you mean when you say leveling up, what has to happen or be achieved, or that you can count that you can say, Okay, now that I've done this, this and this, now I know I've leveled up, that's the first thing. Second thing is, go find people who have already bubbled up and find out either what they're doing or what they did. Usually, you can find out both. Good thing about the world we're in today is that people who have leveled up to the point that it's publicly noted, whether general public or in within your sphere there is publicly noted. Usually, these people are doing things like what we're doing right now. They're either creating their own content, they're being interviewed. They're being asked about it over and over again. So they probably giving you the whole answer of what they did or what they're doing, if you just consume all their stuff. And for the most part, in the world we're in today, Michael, you can get access to the stuff at no cost. So that's the next thing is, find out what the people who are out there getting to the higher level are actually doing. And the third thing is, get in proximity to these people. Get in their spaces. So like I just talked about it, there's a mastermind, get in it. There's some accountability group, join it. There's a coaching program. Join it. Whatever it is, be in the room where it's happening, because the energy of other people will rub off on you. And as they say, you become the average of people you spend the most time with. Whether it's one person, 10 people or 1000 whoever you're spending time with, you're going to become more like them. So you start by eliminating the people who are not where you want to be, and then you get around to people who are where you want to be.
Michael Hingson ** 52:09
You know, one of the things that I told every person who I hired to sell for me is it's never wrong to ask questions. And if you're really looking at this right, you should be a student for at least the first year. Of course, you're always a student. But there's nothing wrong with asking questions when you go to meet with customers, don't act like you know everything, because people really do want to, by and large, not everyone, but people, by and large, really do want to guide you and teach you and give you the information that you need. If you really project that you're interested and truly want that information.
Dre Baldwin ** 52:52
Yes, absolutely. And one of the best ways you can repay a a mentor is to just follow through on what they're telling you. So it's a validation to them that what they have done and what they told you actually worked.
Michael Hingson ** 53:06
Yeah, and it's really important to to deal with that, because the fact of the matter is that people really do want to communicate. And I know we're living in a world today where the art of conversation seems to be going away so much, but I think in kind of the areas that we're talking about, and in so many different ways in our world, people really do want to connect, and they do want to communicate, and it works best when you're willing to take the initiative to ask questions. Don't act like you know it all right, so important. So talking about our world, it is a pretty chaotic world. How do you stay balanced and consistent in a chaotic world? If that makes sense
Dre Baldwin ** 53:53
for me, the world doesn't seem that chaotic to me, because I'm part of the reason is, I'm in it, you know, I'm I'm in the myth in the mix of all this stuff. So I put out material. I put out a ton of material. Day. I consume a lot of it. So I'm listening to audio books. I listen to podcasts on two XP, YouTube videos on two XP, reading articles I'm always consuming. So for me, it doesn't seem that chaotic, because in order for me to output at the volume in which I do, I had to input. Because all of this is not just coming out of nowhere from my own brain, it's me mixing my own thoughts and perspectives with things that I'm consuming from other people. So for me, it's having the structure, because the world in general can be chaotic, but when you have a structure, and you fall on your own structure, then the discipline naturally is the byproduct of it. So the biggest thing is putting together a structure, and that can be as simple as for the listener at home, is just figuring out a daily routine for yourself. And if you don't have a daily routine, and we start with a night routine or a morning routine, or a routine for going to the gym, just start putting routines in place for all the things that you. Do so it's very easy for you to get things to fall in place, even when you have other stuff going on, because you know what the routine is, you just need to get back to it.
Michael Hingson ** 55:09
You said something really interesting, that is that you listen to podcasts and YouTube and other things at 2x speed. Do you find that hard to do?
Dre Baldwin ** 55:19
No, I find it hard to listen that 1x beat. Yeah, I
Michael Hingson ** 55:21
it's it's interesting because I like, with my screen reader, I have it going pretty fast, and I'm used to listening to things at 2x to 3x speed when I'm on an airplane. Many books I read because I'm using a head my earphones, I'll play them at 3x speed, and I'm can understand them just fine. And people say, Well, how can you do that? And so what I tell them, I love to say this, is that I grew up in LA with Chick Hearn, the fastest and best basketball announcer in the world, and he talks at 2x to 3x speech. So I learned how to do it. But the reality is, I've just it's all practice, and it isn't hard to do. Yeah,
Dre Baldwin ** 56:02
I think as long as the person is, I'm assuming you're a native English speaker, sound like it someone's a native English speaker, I can put them on at least 2x and I can understand there's some people talk a little bit faster. You might have to just keep it a 2x but most people, you could put them at two and a half to three, and it's pretty good.
Michael Hingson ** 56:19
Well, the other, the other thing that we have today with the technology being what it is, is that you can do something that when I was in college and some and so on, I couldn't really do it just started coming into its own, and that is to be able to increase speed without changing pitch. Because when I was in college, we didn't have the technology to do that. So it did get a little bit harder to understand some readers when the pitch got so high, it just the words were too distorted. But today it's so much easier to do.
Dre Baldwin ** 56:53
Yeah, I never even thought about that, so I'll take your word for it,
Michael Hingson ** 56:56
yeah, that's not a big it's not a big problem. How can people learn to handle disappointment and turn it into future wins. That's
Dre Baldwin ** 57:06
a great question. I think, first of all, it starts with your makeup, type of makeup that you have as a person you're wiring so I'm a person who can transmute disappointing, disappoint, the energy of disappointment, transmute it into anger, and then transmute that anger in a positive activity. Now not everybody goes through the process that same way. Some people get tripped up in those steps, and the reason I'm able to do it is because of my mastery of mindset, my own mindset, and my understanding of mindset and how it works. So that ability to transmute is a high level skill that any human can benefit from because at that point when you can transmute energy, because this is just a reflection of law, conservation of energy. Energy is neither created nor destroyed. Merely train changes forms. That's transmutation, or it moves from one object to another. That's transfer of energy. So I can be happy and make you feel happy. I can be angry and make you angry. So any human can benefit from this because of the scientific law. So you should be using it, and most people do use it, but they use it unconsciously. They're unaware of it. So when you find a disappointment is not that you need to act like you're not disappointed. You can actually be disappointed. It's a matter of how long do you allow yourself to stay there before you're able to transmute that energy into something that you actually want that'll help you get to the point where you are not disappointed anymore. And that doesn't mean it's going to happen in five minutes. That might mean you lose the championship this season and you come back win the championship next season, but you put the the transmutate, transmuted energy of disappointment into the discipline of Okay, now here's how I need to train this off season, and here's how I need to play next season, so that this time next year I'm in a winner's position instead of the runner up position. So that, again, goes to the strategy. I mean, excuse me, the structure, then that leads to the discipline, then that leads to the confidence and the performance. Because this is a long term thing, not a short term thing. And the last piece I'll give you to the answer is this concept called time perspective. And we were talking about time earlier. And time perspective first person I heard talk about this guy named Brian Tracy, probably familiar with him. And one of the things with time perspective is that the more successful the person, the further out into the future they project the ramifications of their actions, and the less successful person only thinks about short term results of their actions, also known as instant gratification, whereas the more successful person thinks about the long term ramifications of their actions, also known as delayed gratifications. So there's a there's a balance that needs to be structured. And I don't even like using that word so much. You have to, you have to kind of understand how each works because I just said 10 minutes ago, we want to compress time frames so we want to do things faster. Now I'm talking about how thinking further into the future and the way gratification. So it's a matter of what I tell people is knowledge is understanding all these pieces that I've said, and Wisdom is understanding how, when and where to use them and when not to use them. So there's no black and white one. Right answer to any of these things. It's a matter of, what is the situation, who is involved, what's the goal that we're trying to reach? Okay, which information and which knowledge do we use here, and why? And which information do we leave on the sideline for now, but we might pick it up tomorrow, because we're going to need it for that other situation. And this is the, this is one of the complexities of, let's just say humanity complexity is a life that confuses a lot of people. Because I'll say this, the education system we have here in America teaches people that there must be a black and white answer to everything when, and the reality is there is not
Michael Hingson ** 1:00:33
that's right and and sometimes, even though you're dealing a lot with delayed gratification, which is extremely important. The instant gratification comes from you internally, knowing that you're thinking about long term solutions. So you're you're gratified to know that you are preparing and you're doing what you need to do for the long term, which is also part of it. It's all about introspection. I think a lot of it is and we just don't get taught how to do that very well,
Dre Baldwin ** 1:01:04
no. Well, school is not capable of teaching this because the in my experience, most of the teachers don't have this understanding, so they can't teach it. And I don't know if there's a class on it either. So this is why it's good that in the world that we live in today, now you can get access to and Nowadays this is becoming more commonplace. People, their main source of information are podcasts like this one and YouTube channels and some independent platforms, as they say, as opposed to back in the days when we got all our information from, let's say, mainstream news, our parents and teachers. And this is the reason why someone like myself and I'm pretty sure you as well, Michael, that is why we're interested in books and reading, because you can get a lot of there's a lot of knowledge and wisdom and insight you can get from a book that you would not otherwise get from any other source, right?
Michael Hingson ** 1:01:54
How true? So how do you I think the last question, I think we have time for is, how do you approach dealing with personal with personal development, as opposed to other coaches, how do you teach it or handle it?
Dre Baldwin ** 1:02:12
Well, when it comes to personal development, I think there's an aspect of it that goes into anything you're going to teach in any person. So Well, I'm going to teach you how to play the piano. Well, I'm going to teach you how to run a marathon. Well, I'm going to teach you how to build your business. I'm going to teach you how to fix broken iPhone screens for a living. There's some form of personal development, development that goes in it, because in order for me to change your physical behaviors, I have to change the way you think. And personal development I have I define it as material that you are engaging with in some way, in order to make yourself a more valuable individual, and in order to develop a physical skill, again, you have to change the way that you think so that your mind is open to developing the skill. Your mind first accepts you don't have it. Your mind understands that it's valuable for you to have it, and then your mind is going to listen and learn when I'm teaching you how to get it, whatever that ability happens to be, or I'm just coaching you on through, here's what we're going to do, and here's why we're going to do it. So I believe anyone teaching anything has to have an element of personal development involved, even if what you're selling, so to speak, is not per se personal development. And the interesting thing is, Michael, if people would just buy personal development the way that they buy iPhones, I would just be in a personal development business. That's all I would do. But doesn't quite work that way. Human beings aren't that idealistic, where they just want to get better and develop themselves. So you have to package it up into something else, such as, I'll help you make more sales, or help your business do more money, more revenue this year than it did last year. Or every once in a while you can, of course, you had the motivation piece of it, but it doesn't last with a whole lot of people. So the metaphor that I use, Michael is kind of like I see in your background here was, we're recording. It's kind of how you feed medicine to a dog. You can't just give them the medicine. They're gonna spit it out, but if you wrap it up with some peanut butter or some deli meat, they'll eat it.
Michael Hingson ** 1:04:07
Yeah, this dog is alibo, who is my current guide dog. We just decided to make a background last week, and he stood still for it, so that worked out. Well, well, I have to ask this really tough question. You've used the example many times in our discussions today and last time teaching playing piano. Do you play piano? No, it's
Dre Baldwin ** 1:04:26
just fresh in my mind because one of my coaching clients is teaching people how to play piano. I didn't even realize I kept saying it, but that's okay. I was just curious my dad's opinion. My dad knows how to play piano. Though I didn't pick up the music gene. I picked up the athlete gene,
Michael Hingson ** 1:04:40
I learned to play piano. The problem is my piano teacher wanted me to play while reading Braille music, which meant I had to keep one hand on the music land on the piano. That wasn't nearly as wasn't nearly as fun. Sounds like it. But I want to thank you. This has been a lot of fun again, and I'm glad that we had a. Chance to do a second chat. We'll have to do more of this, but I really appreciate you coming on and Yeah,
Dre Baldwin ** 1:05:07
well, I'd be happy to do a part three. You just let me know when. Well, appreciate it. Thank you for sharing your platform.
Michael Hingson ** 1:05:13
Well, we'll have to do that. Well, I want to thank you all for listening. It's been great as always. I'd love to hear your comments. Please email me at Michael h i at accessibe, A, C, C, E, S, S, I, B, e.com, go to our website to find more about podcasts. You can go to Michael Hinkson. That's M, I, C, H, A, E, L, H, I N, G, S o, n.com/podcast, and check out all the different podcast episodes that are there. And again, we'd love to get your comments and your thoughts, and for all of you, Dre, including you, if you know anyone who you think would be a good guest for unstoppable mindset, we'd love you to let us know, introduce us. We're always looking for people to come on, because I think everyone has a story to tell. And the reality is, we usually sell ourselves short when it comes to this whole concept of being unstoppable, and we're a lot more unstoppable than we think we are. So you know, anytime you have any thoughts, anyone and again, Dre, including you, we'd love to hear from you about that. But again, I want to thank you for being here, and this has been a lot of fun. Again,
Dre Baldwin ** 1:06:17
absolutely. Well, I appreciate you having me on again for an encore appearance, and I appreciate you sharing your platform as usual, Michael,
Michael Hingson ** 1:06:28
You have been listening to the Unstoppable Mindset podcast. Thanks for dropping by. I hope that you'll join us again next week, and in future weeks for upcoming episodes. To subscribe to our podcast and to learn about upcoming episodes, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com slash podcast. Michael Hingson is spelled m i c h a e l h i n g s o n. While you're on the site., please use the form there to recommend people who we ought to interview in upcoming editions of the show. And also, we ask you and urge you to invite your friends to join us in the future. If you know of any one or any organization needing a speaker for an event, please email me at speaker at Michael hingson.com. I appreciate it very much. To learn more about the concept of blinded by fear, please visit www dot Michael hingson.com forward slash blinded by fear and while you're there, feel free to pick up a copy of my free eBook entitled blinded by fear. The unstoppable mindset podcast is provided by access cast an initiative of accessiBe and is sponsored by accessiBe. Please visit www.accessibe.com . AccessiBe is spelled a c c e s s i b e. There you can learn all about how you can make your website inclusive for all persons with disabilities and how you can help make the internet fully inclusive by 2025. Thanks again for Listening. Please come back and visit us again next week.
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