Episode 02: High Achievers: Are You Using the Wrong Scoreboard for Success?

0:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine this, you're walking off the field after a great game. [SPEAKER_00]: You had 135 yards receiving, you had nine catches, yeah, 50-something yards a yak, you scored two touchdowns, you blocked a punt, what a great game. [SPEAKER_00]: But as you walk off the field, you look up at the scoreboard and you realize that your team lost to the other team because the other team, you [SPEAKER_00]: Hit a grand slam home run and walk off home run in the bottom of the ninth to win the game by two runs. [SPEAKER_00]: You'd be a little confused with you. [SPEAKER_00]: But for many of us high achievers, what we do is we're still keeping track, keeping score, but we're using the wrong scoreboard. [SPEAKER_00]: Today we're going to talk about how to get to use in the right scoreboard.

0:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Hello, my name is Alan DeGraphenryte, and this is the Running Routes podcast. [SPEAKER_00]: As I said today, we're going to talk about why are we as overachievers and high achievers, [SPEAKER_00]: constantly keeping score but not paying attention to what's going on. [SPEAKER_00]: What we're going to do today is tell you my background, my athletic background, what it does in athlete, going to go through that and then I'll pivot into the message of the day, which is how are we scoring ourselves? [SPEAKER_00]: What are we going by when they're alive? [SPEAKER_00]: So for me, I'm from Cincinnati, Ohio. [SPEAKER_00]: I went to Princeton High School, [SPEAKER_00]: through middle school, I really was not a standout athlete. [SPEAKER_00]: I was just kind of a guy out there. [SPEAKER_00]: When I got to ninth grade, I was on the soccer team. [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't quite make varsity, but I played a lot of varsity minutes, let's just say.

1:22 [SPEAKER_00]: I was on the soccer team, ran track, played basketball, sat the bench in basketball, probably paid a total of five minutes to the entire season. [SPEAKER_00]: just really wasn't my sport, and I knew it. [SPEAKER_00]: My sophomore, though, things started turning around for me. [SPEAKER_00]: I can remember standing in the hallway and Harlem Barnett, HB's walking down the hallway, and everybody's celebrating HB. [SPEAKER_00]: They're talking about Harlem, Harlem, and Harlem's different stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, what's the deal? [SPEAKER_00]: What's up with Harlem? [SPEAKER_00]: So I said, he just won the Viking Cup. [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, well, what's the Viking Cup? [SPEAKER_00]: And they said, that's the award that's given to the best athlete in the school in his senior year. [SPEAKER_00]: And I looked at my buddies and I said, oh, [SPEAKER_00]: going to win the Viking Cup and they laughed and googled and they said there's no way you can win the Viking Cup.

2:03 [SPEAKER_00]: You're on the soccer team, nobody cares about soccer. [SPEAKER_00]: You're on the basketball team but you just sit the bench and in track you run to 800, no one cares about 800 and y'all say not that good at it. [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, I don't care what you guys say, I'm going to win the Viking Cup. [SPEAKER_00]: So that begins in my journey. [SPEAKER_00]: So again, freshman year wasn't so great. [SPEAKER_00]: sophomore year though, ha, I started on the varsity soccer team, scored a lot of goals. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I scored the most, but I scored like eight or nine goals, which was high for us at the time. [SPEAKER_00]: I then went into basketball season, I gave up basketball and I focused on track. [SPEAKER_00]: And in track, I ran to 800 and the 400. [SPEAKER_00]: 800, if you don't know, it's twice the round of track, [SPEAKER_00]: and I also ran the mile, but that was not as much.

2:46 [SPEAKER_00]: So, my sophomore year, I just started lighting up and track. [SPEAKER_00]: And by the end of the season, one of the guys on a 4x800 meter relay get sick, and I get the opportunity to run for our team to win the state championship. [SPEAKER_00]: I have to break two minutes and get 800 in order to do this. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, I start putting in the work, I stop playing soccer on the side, and we do actually win the state championship in a 4x800 meter relay. [SPEAKER_00]: Me, Julian Wagner, [SPEAKER_00]: Larry Matthews, and of course, Tyron Olvers and who's the King of Kings when it comes to 800 at Princeton High School. [SPEAKER_00]: So, we win the 4-B8-100 meter relay, and now I'm all of a sudden, I'm one of the top athletes in the school, and I'm like, whoa, this is kind of cool. [SPEAKER_00]: And so, from there, I become a standout athlete.

3:27 [SPEAKER_00]: My junior year I go on play soccer, go to state again and track. [SPEAKER_00]: My senior year, my junior year, I also decided to join the football team. [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't play any positions. [SPEAKER_00]: I was the kicker. [SPEAKER_00]: I was the guy that did the kick off. [SPEAKER_00]: It's my junior year. [SPEAKER_00]: Kick the ball off. [SPEAKER_00]: Wherever they want to kick it, I kick it so they go tackle the guy. [SPEAKER_00]: If they want to tackle the guys, kick that back at the end zone. [SPEAKER_00]: Whatever they wanted me to do. [SPEAKER_00]: Then my senior year as a kicker, I ended up winning the award. [SPEAKER_00]: I ended up being the first team all-state kicker, which was a big deal. [SPEAKER_00]: And for some reason I was up for all these different awards around the city, that that's my boy award. [SPEAKER_00]: Some kind of collegiate [SPEAKER_00]: NCAA award. [SPEAKER_00]: I held these different awards I was up for. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure exactly why. [SPEAKER_00]: So I was not the star of the show. [SPEAKER_00]: I was just a guy that got a lot of media play.

4:09 [SPEAKER_00]: And also we won state. [SPEAKER_00]: So we won the state championship and football my senior year. [SPEAKER_00]: Couple of notes, a record for the 4,800 meter relay has never been broken. [SPEAKER_00]: We did that way back in the 80s. [SPEAKER_00]: Also my state football team, no one's won state at that school since then, although they're very good this year. [SPEAKER_00]: Congratulations on being moldy of the league guys. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's there. [SPEAKER_00]: So we're going into my senior year and I'm doing my thing and I'm getting a lot of media play. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it news about a different stuff, this award, that award, the other award, and all of a sudden, I'm a standout athlete. [SPEAKER_00]: And lo and behold, guess what happens? [SPEAKER_00]: I win the Viking Cup. [SPEAKER_00]: So first thing I'll stay kicker, I win the Viking Cup. [SPEAKER_00]: So it made perfect sense to me to say, hey, I think I'll walk on and be a kicker for the Ohio State Buck guys.

4:52 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the biggest school in the state. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll walk on. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be a kicker and everything will be great. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be the first black kicker and I'll get on TV. [SPEAKER_00]: This is going to be awesome. [SPEAKER_00]: What happened my spring is once again went back to state in the 4-800-me-to-re-lay Anchor the relay were these funky red socks, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And we ended up taking second. [SPEAKER_00]: 100% my fault. [SPEAKER_00]: Pauzy said the guys Gordon or GB Joseph and Jeff, I'll be apologize to the day. [SPEAKER_00]: I'll leave this there. [SPEAKER_00]: But anyway, we lose the race. [SPEAKER_00]: But what I didn't realize was that Ron Zook, the second dairy coach for the House State Book Eyes, was in this dance watching the race, and when I got on the podium, they announced my name.

5:33 [SPEAKER_00]: So Zook looks to the guy next to me and says, hey, we got a kid coming to kick to it for us from Princeton to the named Alan D. Graffinger. [SPEAKER_00]: They said, yeah, that's the same kid. [SPEAKER_00]: And he says, [SPEAKER_00]: The kid runs like that. [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't play football. [SPEAKER_00]: What were we talking about here? [SPEAKER_00]: And they said, I think he played soccer and he just kicked the football. [SPEAKER_00]: So I get to call that summer and they say, hey, Alan, would you like to come and play wide receiver for us? [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, sure, that would be fun. [SPEAKER_00]: At the time they didn't take any time to ask me, Alan, do you know anything about catching the ball? [SPEAKER_00]: No, [SPEAKER_00]: What's it covered? [SPEAKER_00]: Covered? [SPEAKER_00]: No. [SPEAKER_00]: I knew none of this stuff. [SPEAKER_00]: And I showed up at our house date, 155 pounds soaking wet.

6:14 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going through meetings at our house date and it's, are you kidding me, like, type of things? [SPEAKER_00]: I have no idea what they're talking about. [SPEAKER_00]: One day they're talking about cover 2, the next time it's 3, then it goes to 4, then it jumps all these 7, then it jumps all these 25 and I'm like, what are we talking about here? [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just totally lost out there being a miss fit. [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm in my freshman year at Ohio State and I'm running around the best I can. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just following the cue cards doing what I could do. [SPEAKER_00]: And for three years, that's what I did. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't want to get into all of what those three years were about. [SPEAKER_00]: I just want to kind of tell you the results of my time at Ohio State. [SPEAKER_00]: So as I said, I walked on there. [SPEAKER_00]: I was 155 pounds. [SPEAKER_00]: I was doing sets of 135 when I could.

6:54 [SPEAKER_00]: And three years later, I earned a full-right scholarship to play football for the book guys. [SPEAKER_00]: I like to point out to people that I earned my scholarship going against Vinnie Clark and guys like that that were more like current or third drop pick versus the guys that earned their scholarships and high school kids. [SPEAKER_00]: I just like to point that out to people. [SPEAKER_00]: Earned a scholarship, got a full ride scholarship, play football for the book, guys. [SPEAKER_00]: Continue to get bigger, faster, stronger. [SPEAKER_00]: I did become a starter. [SPEAKER_00]: I started at Y receiver at Y receiver U. [SPEAKER_00]: And we had some balls. [SPEAKER_00]: We had some balls back then, too, just like they do now. [SPEAKER_00]: So I started Y receiver at Y receiver U. I went from 155 pounds by the time I left it by 205 pounds. [SPEAKER_00]: So I made some changes, right?

7:35 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm in my senior year, and I've been through some great coaches at Coach Huey [SPEAKER_00]: I had a coach Sullivan who went on a coach of the Lions, and then Coach Stock, Mike Stock, was my coach my senior year. [SPEAKER_00]: He had just come to us from the Cincinnati Bengals. [SPEAKER_00]: And later in the season going into like November, I make this catch on the sideline against this guy, and I body him out, make the catch, toe touch out of bounds, and he walks me and he says, that's going to really be effective next year when you're in camp. [SPEAKER_00]: And I look at him and I say, coach, I thought you know, I'm a senior, he says, yeah, you're a senior. [SPEAKER_00]: He says an NFL, aren't you going to NFL? [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, I never thought about he said with your precise speed, hands, he said you can easily make a roster an NFL and I never thought about that.

8:22 [SPEAKER_00]: So I started obsessing about becoming an NFL while receiver and I started to do the work. [SPEAKER_00]: So the season ends and I announced that I'm going to pursue a career in NFL. [SPEAKER_00]: Now, between rolling on the floor laughing at me, a lot of the people [SPEAKER_00]: Can a guy that had eight catches in his entire career here at Ohio State? [SPEAKER_00]: That's right, it had eight catches and one catches my sophomore year, one catches my junior and six catches my senior year at Ohio State. [SPEAKER_00]: And they look at me and say, how can a guy with eight catches in his career at Ohio State make it to the NFL? [SPEAKER_00]: And they remind me back to the guys that said, [SPEAKER_00]: Allen, you can't win the Viking Cup.

9:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Allen, you're going to walk on a house day to play football, you've never played football, you'll be home, you'll be home by Thanksgiving break, having failed. [SPEAKER_00]: It's played back in my head again and I'm like, I keep doing these things and you keep saying I can't do it. [SPEAKER_00]: So what did I do? [SPEAKER_00]: I went to work. [SPEAKER_00]: Come January for three months. [SPEAKER_00]: I did two days every day. [SPEAKER_00]: I would not every day, but I would get up. [SPEAKER_00]: I would condition the lift early. [SPEAKER_00]: I would stretch and sprint at in the afternoon. [SPEAKER_00]: I would work on my starts, all those different things. [SPEAKER_00]: I did it for three months, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And when the scouts came to our pro day, because I was not invited to the combine, obviously, but eight catches. [SPEAKER_00]: But when the scouts came to our combine, I ran a 4, 3, 8, 40 are dash. [SPEAKER_00]: I weighed 25 pounds and I've been to press 225, 19 times.

9:45 [SPEAKER_00]: as a wide receiver. [SPEAKER_00]: So I did more than some of my teammates that played other positions they weren't wide receiver. [SPEAKER_00]: So I done the work, Ohio State, put me in the right direction, put me in the right place, coach Kennedy, all my receiver coaches, coach Cooper, they made it possible for me to do what I did. [SPEAKER_00]: But when it came time to do it, it was me that did it. [SPEAKER_00]: So the draft came the draft went, I was picked up the next day by Cincinnati Bengals as a free agent. [SPEAKER_00]: I was with the Bengals, you know, for the better part of this season, through January, it was funny because I was a practice squad guy. [SPEAKER_00]: So I go out and practice every day and I have guys that were asking me to leave what you thought I was gonna be and I'm like, man, it just wasn't what I thought I was gonna be. [SPEAKER_00]: I thought I was gonna be this. [SPEAKER_00]: Not so much a party all the time, but just a little more.

10:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, of course I was playing for the Bengals and at the time the Bengals were struggling, we were oh and nine, we're nine. [SPEAKER_00]: And they finally decided to put me in the game. [SPEAKER_00]: So I played in the 10th game of the season, and we beat the Raiders. [SPEAKER_00]: So my first game for the team, we actually won. [SPEAKER_00]: So we were one in nine, then we lost a couple more. [SPEAKER_00]: I think we were one in 11, and they let me go. [SPEAKER_00]: They released me, and when they released me, I got picked up by the Kansas Chiefs, went to Kansas City. [SPEAKER_00]: So I went from team that was one in 11, maybe. [SPEAKER_00]: One in nine, one in 10, one in 11. [SPEAKER_00]: to the Kansas team. [SPEAKER_00]: So now I'm playing alongside Joe Montana, Marcus Allen, Derek Thomas, Neil Smith, Will Sealed, JJ Burton, who just wrote a book, if you haven't read his book, get his book, Willie Davis, you know.

11:10 [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he was just, it's day and night. [SPEAKER_00]: Money shot and timers, they had coach, it's just, it's just day and night different. [SPEAKER_00]: Real quick story, I first get to Kansas City and I'm walking back and Darren, I can't, I, I, I think it [SPEAKER_00]: Dan's the equipment manager taking back to my locker. [SPEAKER_00]: He's excited to meet me. [SPEAKER_00]: He's like, ah, I got a big buck eyes fan and we got a coach here that who did a lot of things with the buck eyes back in the day and walked back to my locker. [SPEAKER_00]: And I look in my locker and there's like seven or eight pairs of cleats. [SPEAKER_00]: There's like turf, two pairs of turfs and there's sneakers and there's molded cleats and there's crew and cleats and there's all these different cleats. [SPEAKER_00]: And I look at [SPEAKER_00]: This can't be my, this isn't my locker whose locker is this.

11:53 [SPEAKER_00]: It says your locker. [SPEAKER_00]: I said What's up with all the shoes? [SPEAKER_00]: You said all those years shoes. [SPEAKER_00]: I say, man I'm not making enough money to pay for all these shoes. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not paying for the shoes, man Just take the shoes out of my locker. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not paying for the shoes He's like where's somebody I said come on make why you why you don't me like this, man You don't like I can't afford the shoes, man. [SPEAKER_00]: Just take the shoes out of my locker I got some shoes I brought with me. [SPEAKER_00]: They're not that great. [SPEAKER_00]: He's looking. [SPEAKER_00]: He says Alan calm down [SPEAKER_00]: This is the Kansas City Chiefs, we're owned by Lamar Hunt. [SPEAKER_00]: Those shoes are yours, we're giving you those shoes to wear in the games and in practice because we want you to be the best you can be, and how it's life. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like a wake-up moment like you've been in one place and that's not to knock the bingles. [SPEAKER_00]: It's just a different place and you go over here and these these people just so it was just so different.

12:35 [SPEAKER_00]: I can say and when you think about the NFL there's a lot of different levels to what's going on out there. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm sure it's not as different as it used to be but it's just a lot of different lot of different rules going around but that's just a quick story. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm still Darren some of the K. [SPEAKER_00]: But yeah, just a quick story, I'll do that from time to time. [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, I'm with the Chiefs, AFC Championship game. [SPEAKER_00]: We end up losing to the Buffalo Bills who go on and lose to the cowboys. [SPEAKER_00]: But, so anyway, trying to get back to my career, spent the better part of two years with the Chiefs, came back that next year. [SPEAKER_00]: And then the year after that, 1995, they sent me to the world league. [SPEAKER_00]: So I got to go to Scotland, got to visit Europe, shout out to Scotty Scoops Cooper, Yomurphy, all the guys, George Cake, Clark Hill, all those guys, had a great time over there.

13:22 [SPEAKER_00]: And you got to see all of Europe. [SPEAKER_00]: There were six teams. [SPEAKER_00]: You got to visit five different cities, plus you have five home games as well, it was a great time, great opportunity for me. [SPEAKER_00]: Came back to Kansas City, was actually released at the end of camp, I just got married. [SPEAKER_00]: So we came back to Cincinnati. [SPEAKER_00]: The next spring, I signed with the Green Bay Packers, moved to Green Bay, was a living in a hotel, getting training, training, training, training. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I had a great time in Green Bay, really small town, and that was actually the year they won the Super Bowl. [SPEAKER_00]: They won the Super Bowl. [SPEAKER_00]: I was not on team anymore. [SPEAKER_00]: They decided to let me go and kept some guy named Desmond Howard. [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know if you guys ever heard of him. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure why to kept him. [SPEAKER_00]: Well, maybe it's because he took the kickoff back for a touchdown when the Super Bowl 4, but I don't know.

14:04 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe maybe maybe it's some other reason I'm not sure. [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, so, got let go there and then from there, I went back to the world of the 1997. [SPEAKER_00]: I was with Yo Murphy and some of those guys at second time around, I had a really good time. [SPEAKER_00]: Much better team had a much better record, really great coach. [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, really good time, really good times in Scotland both times. [SPEAKER_00]: Second time probably better where in Glasgow. [SPEAKER_00]: And then after that, I'd signed with the San Francisco 49ers, which was amazing to be in the [SPEAKER_00]: In the huddle, it's like Jerry Reichs, who's the greatest, I mean, just the way his work ethic was was phenomenal that the guy that's out here, he's the best guy who he's out working everybody else. [SPEAKER_00]: It's frightening how hard that man worked.

14:44 [SPEAKER_00]: He was amazing. [SPEAKER_00]: It was amazing to learn. [SPEAKER_00]: But after that, you know, I've been five camps. [SPEAKER_00]: I had not really worked out for me, so I decided that time. [SPEAKER_00]: I was going to go ahead and quit playing football. [SPEAKER_00]: So that brings us to the next question of what are we going to talk about now? [SPEAKER_00]: So yeah, made the decision to give up football, step away from football. [SPEAKER_00]: And that's really what I want to talk about today. [SPEAKER_00]: It's really the transition from being Allen the football player to being Allen, a guy that's just a guy, a former football player, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And for many of us, I know we struggle. [SPEAKER_00]: And I know that here I'm talking about me in football, but if you've been one day you were married and now you're divorced. [SPEAKER_00]: If you were one day you're married and now you're widowed or widowed. [SPEAKER_00]: There's all kinds of transitions we go through in life.

15:25 [SPEAKER_00]: And how do we make that transition as smoothly as as possible? [SPEAKER_00]: It's really what I'm here to talk about. [SPEAKER_00]: I know for a lot of us that are athletes, former athletes, especially professional, it is challenging because sometimes you were in the eye of the, of you, everyone saw you all the time. [SPEAKER_00]: And so you walk into a room and people walking up to you to say, hey, it's you, you can get autographs, that type of thing. [SPEAKER_00]: And then that comes the time when you walk into a room and people don't even know who you are, what you've done. [SPEAKER_00]: And so that's, it can't be frustrating, but it's just very much a big change. [SPEAKER_00]: So why, when I played football, made a point to never ever think of what was going to happen next. [SPEAKER_00]: I was living a dreamy life, I was making good money, I was seeing the world playing football.

16:07 [SPEAKER_00]: And why would I think about anything else? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's just a post to do. [SPEAKER_00]: And I tell you it's difficult for me to sit and tell young guys, make a plan, make a plan, make a plan, because I know in my soul souls, I always thought, as soon as I start thinking about the next thing, the next thing gonna come sooner. [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe I'm not gonna give as much effort on the field, or something's gonna go wrong. [SPEAKER_00]: So that was difficult for me to do. [SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, if these young guys can do it now, that's great. [SPEAKER_00]: And another making money in college. [SPEAKER_00]: So I hope that didn't change just things for them as well. [SPEAKER_00]: That's kind of a fixed amount of money for at least four or five years. [SPEAKER_00]: And like guys get guaranteed money now too. [SPEAKER_00]: So that's a little different than it was back in my day. [SPEAKER_00]: But I'll tell you, once I left football, it was probably two, maybe three months, just solid on the couch.

16:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Just what am I gonna do next? [SPEAKER_00]: Well, my first challenge was, did I really accomplish enough? [SPEAKER_00]: Which is strange, you think, a guy with my background makes the leak. [SPEAKER_00]: He should be fine with that. [SPEAKER_00]: But in my mind, I was like, remembering back to all of people in high school and before that said, you're not going to make it. [SPEAKER_00]: And then my mind, I guess, what did I make it? [SPEAKER_00]: Did I make it? [SPEAKER_00]: Is what I did enough? [SPEAKER_00]: Do I need to figure out how to get back and shape and go back and get back in the football? [SPEAKER_00]: And so I really struggle with that, and I still struggle a little bit without being honest with you. [SPEAKER_00]: But I struggled with that, especially when I first came out of football. [SPEAKER_00]: And then my wife was like, baby, I know you got money in the bank, but we need to find something to do something, you need to get a job or something.

17:32 [SPEAKER_00]: So luckily for me, I found a job. [SPEAKER_00]: And in an effort to try to find something else to feed that competitive edge, I got into sales. [SPEAKER_00]: So I wanted to say, I was in financial services, [SPEAKER_00]: And I was good at it. [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I went right to the top of the board. [SPEAKER_00]: I was the top dog in my office. [SPEAKER_00]: I was the top dog in the region. [SPEAKER_00]: I was winning trips to Vegas. [SPEAKER_00]: I was winning trips to all these different trips and things of that nature because I was good at it. [SPEAKER_00]: And I was competitive and I was winning. [SPEAKER_00]: And it felt good. [SPEAKER_00]: Didn't feel as good as the NFL, but it did feel good. [SPEAKER_00]: And their money was good. [SPEAKER_00]: Never really great, but the money was good. [SPEAKER_00]: So [SPEAKER_00]: For me, I think I took the am I making it and moved it over to I'll just come in here and compete and I'll win a bunch of awards I get a bunch of promotions and that's I mean, that's that's that's still what I do to this day is I'm and I don't know if that's yours what you do well for me I took [SPEAKER_00]: Basically, you'd think of my life, I said, okay, first thing I'm gonna do is I'm gonna walk on a house date.

18:30 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm gonna earn this scholarship, I'm gonna become a starter, I'm gonna make it to the NFL and boom, boom, boom, and then I just change that into, I'm gonna take this job, I'm gonna be the top salesperson office, I'm gonna get all the promotions, when all the awards, and it was the exact same thing all over again. [SPEAKER_00]: in an effort to prove my worthiness to these people that probably were paying no attention to me, but in my mind, everybody's watching me. [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody's wanting to see what I'm gonna do next. [SPEAKER_00]: Am I gonna rise or am I gonna fall? [SPEAKER_00]: Am I gonna fail or am I gonna succeed? [SPEAKER_00]: And in my mind, and I don't know if that's how it is for you overachievers out there, but for me, it was just trying to figure out how to win, when, when, when, when, when, when. [SPEAKER_00]: When in reality, I'm trying to keep the wrong score.

19:12 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not thinking, you know, [SPEAKER_00]: My daughters at home and I haven't seen her a week because I'm working 80 hours a week. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not spending time with my brand new 10-12-month-old daughter instead I'm over here chasing this, these people in these phones trying to get them to invest with me, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So it brings me to time, I was at Merrill Lynch, I was a finance advisor and once again, someone would tell me I couldn't do something they were telling me that hey, there hasn't been a black finance consultant here since in the last 20, maybe 25 years. [SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to make it, no one wants to invest with the brother. [SPEAKER_00]: You can't just to get investments from the brothers to be successful. [SPEAKER_00]: They're just telling me it's just not going to work out. [SPEAKER_00]: You're not going to make it. [SPEAKER_00]: So what I do, what I always do, I went to work. [SPEAKER_00]: I was a guy that turned the lights on every morning.

19:53 [SPEAKER_00]: I was damn near the guy that turned the lights off every night, except I would go home to see my 10-month-old daughter when I could. [SPEAKER_00]: So, for me, it was the same thing, compete, compete to win, thoughts don't really well, and then the dot com bubble started to burst, started to sizzle, things were getting, things were going sideways, and in my mind I'm thinking I need to find a way to get out of here, but at the same time as a competitor, trying to find a way to win, how to get to this, I think I was trying to get to $5 million in assets under management, which ended up being a lot more money that I thought it was going to be, as I work towards that goal, though, as having a conversation with the guy, and I'm trying to find a way to win, how to get to this, I think I was trying to get to $5 million in assets under management, which ended up being a lot more money that I thought it was going to be, as I work towards that goal, though, as having a conversation with the guy, [SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't necessarily having the greatest day, many walks up and he says, hey you guys, what do you call the finance consultant that Merrill Lynch is making $100,000?

20:39 [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, I don't know what he called me, he said, of failure. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm sitting there making $65,000 a year thinking, yeah, maybe this isn't something I wanna do. [SPEAKER_00]: Because the hours were already killing me. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm only managing it. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not even managing $5 million, it's like, eh. [SPEAKER_00]: So it took a little bit out of my chest, took the battery out of my back and it helped me to realize there was just something else I needed to do. [SPEAKER_00]: I needed to pivot, do something different. [SPEAKER_00]: But they've really more than anything else bringing me to the point I want to talk about today. [SPEAKER_00]: I think at some levels, a Maryland story, just kind of tells you where it all started for me. [SPEAKER_00]: From there, I was in and out of positions, in and out of fields.

21:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Most of the fields I went into, some kind of major catastrophe happened. [SPEAKER_00]: I was a mortgage guy when the [SPEAKER_00]: When the mortgage bubble burst, I was in education, when the education bubble burst, so I was in a lot of places when the bubble burst, and that's not as something I can get trolled, wasn't something that was controllable for me. [SPEAKER_00]: However, when I think about my life, my jobs are career, whatever you want to call it, I think I can pair it to my high school, college, and the league. [SPEAKER_00]: In high school, I was just working to move up, up, up, up, up, up, and college was again, boom, boom, boom, boom. [SPEAKER_00]: And for a lot of us high achievers, we're still trying to keep score based on like I did back in the day. [SPEAKER_00]: How often is my name in the paper? [SPEAKER_00]: How often am I on TV?

22:01 [SPEAKER_00]: How many stats that I make? [SPEAKER_00]: And we're still trying to control or manage our lives using that same old system. [SPEAKER_00]: And what we need to realize is that old system is outdated. [SPEAKER_00]: And as we get older, it's not effective. [SPEAKER_00]: because once you get your 40s and 50s, you can't outwork that 26-year-old kid that just came out of college and he's hungry because he's trying to get married, he's trying to get kids. [SPEAKER_00]: You can't outwork that kid. [SPEAKER_00]: So you've got to find a way to pivot and do something different. [SPEAKER_00]: And so the system you're using is not the right system. [SPEAKER_00]: So really quick question. [SPEAKER_00]: So when I was with the bingles, we had a playbook and the playbook had plays in it, right? [SPEAKER_00]: There were just plays. [SPEAKER_00]: It was like you just take memorize this play, the memorize this play, memorize this play.

22:44 [SPEAKER_00]: It was outdated. [SPEAKER_00]: The offense we were running was outdated. [SPEAKER_00]: What I mean by that is, [SPEAKER_00]: probably five, six years earlier, that's the same offense that won the Super Bowl for the New York Giants. [SPEAKER_00]: But now we're using that offense five, six years later, and now that offense is antiquated, it's not as effective, right? [SPEAKER_00]: So then I go to the Kansas City Chiefs who were using the West Coast offense. [SPEAKER_00]: West Coast offense in the 80s and 90s was the hottest offense out there. [SPEAKER_00]: The great thing about the West Coast offense was that it was a system. [SPEAKER_00]: The quarterback could say the same number of words and mean two totally different plays, but everybody knew the different positions and got to the right places. [SPEAKER_00]: And it was a system. [SPEAKER_00]: So you plug yourself into that system and once you knew that system, I could sign with any team that played the West Coast offense and I knew the system because I knew how it worked, right?

23:33 [SPEAKER_00]: So system was the key. [SPEAKER_00]: Over here with the Bengals, it was a group of [SPEAKER_00]: and Kansas City was a system, right? [SPEAKER_00]: And so a lot of us, when we think about our lives and we talk about the scoreboard, Rome scoreboard, a lot of us are using a playbook and the playbook we're using is outdated. [SPEAKER_00]: And what we need to do is identify a new playbook that can get us to our new levels, because maybe at our age, maybe our physical standing is different, maybe, we're not doing the things we used to do, some things we're not doing now is because we can't do them anymore, because we aren't at that age to be able to do those things, [SPEAKER_00]: But we're using an antiquated system to try and be successful in a different world, right?

24:15 [SPEAKER_00]: So the reason I bring this up is because I've found a lot of us as high-teasers. [SPEAKER_00]: We're just trapped. [SPEAKER_00]: We're trapped because we're trying to do that. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm still doing the same workout from 30 years ago thinking I'm going to get the same results. [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just not. [SPEAKER_00]: I know I'm not, but I just do that because I love doing those same exercises over and over. [SPEAKER_00]: But in the reality, I'm not ever going to look like I did when I was 26 years old. [SPEAKER_00]: Just not going to happen. [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm still using that antiquated old school system. [SPEAKER_00]: So what I actually need to do is I need to find a new system. [SPEAKER_00]: So the reason I bring this up is because I, over the years, like I said, I've gone up and down, up and down, but I've developed different systems that have allowed me to become better.

24:59 [SPEAKER_00]: Like if I go into a rut, I was specific system. [SPEAKER_00]: I plug myself into and that system brings me out of that rut. [SPEAKER_00]: and what I'm looking to do with you all is to share my system with you. [SPEAKER_00]: The running routes podcast was mostly created to come out here and talk to people that are higher-teavers, talk to you about where you were, where you are, how you've gotten here, what if your struggle's been, but at the same time say, if you're still struggling, hey, here's a way to get out of it, and I've developed a full-blown system. [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be presenting that the next podcast, [SPEAKER_00]: So when I think about my journey, the ups and downs, the ins and outs, the successes, the failures, the thing that I think of is I wish someone somewhere at some time would have given me a system.

25:43 [SPEAKER_00]: Some kind of something I could just plug myself into that would give me the ability to get out of the rut and move on to the next level of my life, be it because I'm older, whatever reason it might be, to get me going back to where I used to be, or you feel like I used to feel right, [SPEAKER_00]: So what I've done is in the last 15, 20 years I've developed a few systems and these systems are the systems I knew I can use right now if I want to click out of a rut. [SPEAKER_00]: If I find myself being down for too long a period of time, I know exactly what to plug in to make sure that I can bounce back to where I want to be. [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of times I get hung up in life and a lot of times I'll stay in a rut because I'm just comfortable in a rut. [SPEAKER_00]: It's like the wooby. [SPEAKER_00]: But if you're in the will be and the rut, you're way too comfortable, you're not excited about life anymore.

26:28 [SPEAKER_00]: The system I'm gonna talk to you about next week is a system you really wanna consider, right? [SPEAKER_00]: Tune in next time, I'm gonna talk about this system and an opportunity that you can take advantage of right now as you can go into the nose below, click the button. [SPEAKER_00]: It's called the running routes index. [SPEAKER_00]: Gives you an opportunity to start figuring out what's going on in your current situation, start to measure what's going on in your current situation, so that we can start getting you out of the route you're in. [SPEAKER_00]: So as I always say before I check out, legacy is not what you did, it's who you helped along the way. [SPEAKER_00]: Have a great day. [SPEAKER_00]: See you next episode. [SPEAKER_00]: Peace.