Kaizen Blueprint

Aldosius Chandra (00:00)
Check. Welcome to the show. How are you, brother? I'm good, How are you, man? Good, good. Well, we're going to start off really strong here. We're both from a family of immigrants. I'm an immigrant myself. And let's talk about that because we we met in high school and I always thought that you were someone who is very inspirational. You are involved in so many different things. Now, outside of high school, you are involved in many different things, especially in the sports world. But I want to get in depth.

of where that kind of resilience come from. Is it from the family? Is it kind of pressure from your family? Tell us more about being in an immigrant family. Yeah, so I come from two parents that come from Mali in West Africa. Both of them were born and raised over there, small rural area. know, water has to be dragged up with wells and everybody just works very hard for everything that they have. You my dad grew up working at his uncle's convenience store on the property, just trying to take care of his family, trying to

show everybody it was possible. went to school to be a teacher over there. And when he graduated from school, he came up to my, to his aunt and he came up to her and hey man, I really want to go to America so I can get a job. If I just stay here, my kids and my kids' kids are just going to grow up here and this is all they're ever going to see. I really want to take a chance and show them that it's possible to do something else, to not just grow up and just work on the farm and then work in a family convenience store because I went to school to be a teacher. I want to be a teacher.

You know, so he took the chance he had his aunt convinced my dad his dad that it was a good idea for him to go She said don't worry about it. Just get the ticket and get going Wow And after he got over he worked in a car wash for like two or three dollars an hour for a few years saved up the money and brought his wife over So

It was very interesting to really get older and really understand the perspective of what my dad went through just to get here. Because some of us that are immigrant kids, we're like, dang, why didn't my dad come to America and move to Miami? Why didn't my dad move to Houston? Why didn't my dad move to LA? But just to get to Philadelphia, he had to beg.

So I'm just thankful that I'm here right now. And in terms of how you were raised, was it difficult? Was there a lot of pressure that put on you or they were like, you can do whatever you want now that we're here and somewhat free? A little bit of both. I felt like initially, like obviously we grew up in a household where it's like, listen.

you could be over here and be struggling right now and be begging for the opportunity to get the education you're getting. So as much as it's okay for you to work your hardest and just do okay, it's like you...

are doing this not only for yourself, to show other people that it was a good decision for us to come over here. So I always, not necessarily had pressure, but I enjoyed school when I was young. I looked forward to going to school when I was young. So it wasn't really too much of a challenge for me to get good grades in elementary school and stuff.

My mom was braiding hair in the house. We were watching PBS Kids in the living room. I didn't know about a SpongeBob and the Danny Phantom until I went to school and my friends taught me. Wow. went to school with Strait. The, what is it? Between the Lions and Cyber Chase. I was learning, reading the math.

Education was fun. That was all I knew. That was my entertainment, you know. And in terms of education, did you learn by yourself or where does all the knowledge that you gain come from? That's the educational piece, not the PBS and the fun stuff. I mean, house was not too far from the library. I was like always in the library as a kid. You know, we didn't have...

Just like all the way up until I was in high school almost we never had Wi -Fi on my parents. I was you know, we didn't really have much coming up. So when in the summertime, Liverham didn't have AC. If you wanted to be somewhere cool, we used to go to the library and hang out all day. used to wake up in the morning. used to our library cards were booked and busy every day. We used to always have three, four or five books on there, two movies, you know, always spending time in the library. That was my place of comfort when I was younger. Wow. Yeah, that's awesome. I think the library just just, you know, people underestimate

the amount of things that you could get from the library. It's free and the resources are there. And I think now with the digital age, people tend to be on their phones just doing stuff, getting knowledge that isn't really valuable to their life. And I think that going to the library and being surround yourself with even reading, right? Not lot of people read nowadays. People read one book per year. And if you see someone who reads more than that, it's like, he's a genius. But the thing is, it's crazy though, because like,

That was my place of comfort. That's where I used to go. Like I said, like we didn't have air conditioner in the summertime. That's where we used to go to cool down. And a part of that was, okay, like, you know, we need something to do. We're kids, we don't have jobs, we have bills to pay. So we wake up in the morning in the summer, it's eight o 'clock, library opens at eight, library was four blocks away, me and my two little brothers, sometimes my cousins, my friends, we used to walk down to the library, they had little quiet rooms. Sit down and crack a book open. You get an hour of time on the computer a day to play games on the computer or whatever. But that was like where we were.

to get away from everything that we didn't want to be around. We didn't want to be around the heat. We didn't want to be running around at the park when it's 100 degrees or when it's raining. Sometimes that place, it provided us comfort. It provided us a place of safety. It wasn't planned, but that also led to us learning. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Do you still read now? Yeah. I try to read. If I don't read books...

I try to at least get audio books in, I try to listen to educational podcasts. If I'm not reading directly to absorb the information, I try to find different ways to absorb information. Got it. Well, I know that you were smart. You're definitely smarter than me during high school. That's where we met. Come on, man. Come on. I don't know about all that. I think you took the But in terms of leadership, you had a lot of leadership roles, at least in high school. You were in the front stage.

and saying some speeches or talking. You were part of the president of that committee. the student council thing. Yeah, the student council, right? And that transition into what you're doing in college and you were, I think you call yourself the hope dealer. The neighborhood hope dealer. The neighborhood hope dealer. Tell us more about that. What impact are you trying to make here for the community? Yeah, I feel like it's really important, man. I feel like I'm one of those people who I don't like to complain about.

things I don't try to make an impact and change, you know.

There's something that's bothering me. I'm going to find a way to try to at least have an impact on our change or say something about it, because you can't complain about not having money if you don't have a job. You can't complain about not being in shape if you're not in the gym. You can't complain about the gun violence in your area if you're not trying to find ways to reduce it, to build up your community, to help the people in your area, to try to build up the men and women that are coming from where you come from or the people that are trying to actually be productive in society. Because for every person that's doing wrong, there's

people that is doing right is just the bad stuff is what gets glorified and gets put out on the screen and everybody would rather you know fear -mongering like look at how much bads going on look how much goods going on and let's build up the good where the people that's doing bad kind of feel bad for doing bad right so what what is the problem that you're trying to solve here I think the big thing that

Started to notice especially when I started my podcast was there are so many High -end athletes that come from the Philadelphia area, you know right now on the golden stage you had the DeAndre Swiss. Yeah Marvin Harrison jr. I'm that just got drafted this year You've generally tried a junior that comes from the Philadelphia area as well as that great as that was the Eagles player and you know lived in an area he went to st. Joe's program for the Alameda's a case you have Justin Edwards. I just got drafted. I I just got picked up by

the Sixers are undrafted free agent from MOTEP charter. You have a whole bunch of players from Philadelphia that make it pro. That they're popular and they're famous their whole childhood and everyone knows exactly who they are as a kid. And everyone looks at them as think they're the only ones that made it. But the problem with that mindset is you don't see all of the people that made it to that top 1 % level but are living regular lives now or are living better lives than they would have lived if they didn't make it to that 1 % level and become a college athlete.

So I just want to show people that like as a kid if you're not looking to like let's say right now You're a high school athlete You're in the running club at prep charter and you want to be a cross -country athlete and you want to do cross -country at Penn State You know your times might not come back to get you Penn State numbers But let's say you couldn't afford a college education before but now being in the running club or prep charter got you good enough to at least be a cross -country athlete at Millersville and get a free education

Yeah, yeah. Now you get a free education for Millersville and you get to start your life in four years debt free. It's not all about going to the Olympics and running marathons in the world stage if you're not that level of athlete. But if you are good enough at what you do to be able to get yourself an education and then take advantage of that $160 ,000 education for free. Yeah. How can you be mad at that, you know? Yeah. And people don't really validate those stories.

Yeah, absolutely. think America is like one of the only if not the only nation that allows scholarships for college and universities because I've been to other places in the world. They're like, you're great at football or you're great in basketball. Like you're not getting any scholarships to go to universities. think America provides a lot of freedom and a lot of opportunities for people who are really good at sports in order for them to succeed in life outside of the sports itself.

It just...

Levels the playing field for so many, you know, we're right here in South Philly area We went to high school not too far from here And when you look at our high school prep chart is a nice beautiful building It's on the corner 24 from McKean, but a few blocks away is the projects, know There's a bunch of kids that grew up living there Just think about the lifestyle that they had to grow up and add to low grow up in a low -income area a lot of violence in that area a lot of people that aren't making the right decisions a lot of people who are doing things that they shouldn't be doing that are being bad influences on the younger kids in the area, yeah

And a kid that grows up in that scenario, your options sometimes are numbered. Sometimes you grow up to be one of those guys that's being bad inside the projects. Sometimes you have the opportunity to grow up and you have a chance to, you know, go to a prep charter across the street, be Aldo and get a 3 .8 at prep charter and now go to college and get a scholarship and be able to do this or do whatever you want to do instead of being a statistic, you know? So I feel like...

Just that alone would be a win. But that person who, yeah, that Aldo who went to do the cross country at St. Joe's University, but because he didn't go to Ohio State, he's not a big deal. That's not true. Look at him now. Now he's working for this big real estate company. Now he has a great podcast or whatever. You see what I mean though? Those are the people that I want the, because people always say, yeah, all of the heroes, especially like in the black American culture, they say.

Either got to be a rapper, trapper, or a drug dealer. I got to be a rapper, a trapper, or a hooper. I have to be a famous person in some way, one of these groups. And if I don't fit into one of those, I'm not successful. But there's so many other ways to be successful. But why do people think like that? Because when you come up in poverty, when you come in areas where you don't really...

see a lot of people around you successful, you look at the ways people that came from where you came from got successful. And the ones that are on the biggest stage are the rappers, are the athletes, and are the, unfortunately, the drug dealers too. They get that same street because when you're 21 years old and you live in a project, you don't really got a lot of money.

You are getting on your social media and the dude on your timeline with the most money is the dude that you know is posting the bags of weed and selling and the telegram whatever. I'm not going to be federal. know that the guy that's doing the things to make his money. You're seeing that and you're like dang I want to be him or I want to be LeBron or I want to be Meek Mill. I want to be one of those guys because those are the guys that don't have to live in a project and sweep up roaches man. But even even with the social media and even people with headphones and headphones but people with smartphones.

You know, you've been on Instagram, you've been on TikTok. It's based on the algorithm that people are interested in. if you, cause I was having a conversation with someone probably a couple of days ago and he's going to be on his podcast too. He, during COVID, he started watching like finance videos. started watching business videos and that kind of persuade him into, you know, buying his first house now and, and being financially free and have that personal finance literacy. But.

But I think why does people, perhaps the people that you were mentioning here, why do they choose to watch those contents? Because obviously those contents lead them into the decision they make down the line. I think the choosing what you watch is important as the people that you surround yourself with. Yeah, I agree. But that also just comes to what you are exposed to. Like me personally.

As much as I listen to all types of music, I listen to pop, listen to country, listen to hip hop, listen to emo music, I listen to it all because I just enjoy the art of music. I used to think I wanted to be a rapper when I was high school too. We ain't gonna get into that.

You know, the thing is, when you're like absorbing hip hop, what's the things that the people in the rap songs are talking about? They're talking about how I have the most money, I have the most beautiful girls, I go to the clubs and pop the most bottles and throw the most ones on the ground. And it's all because I can go into a room, into a microphone, I can make words rhyme and I can make it sound cool and I can wear these big chains and make people want to be me. Because in reality, that's what Instagram is. A lot of the algorithm for the rappers and stuff that these people listen to, that I listen to, is you open up Instagram and you see a picture of Lil Baby.

Lil Baby got on a half a million dollars in jewelry. He has on a thousand dollar Marnie sweatshirt, a thousand dollar pair of jeans and two thousand dollars in sneakers. I'm looking at that like, dang, I'm not really flying because I don't got on what Lil Baby got on. But it's like.

Lil Baby makes a lot more money than I do. Sure. And Lil Baby is a rapper. Lil Baby could easily go when he's his taxes and say, hey, I'm a rapper. I was doing a performance. So that 200K in clothes I was wearing is a business expense. Write that off. Lil Baby just got his outfit almost for free. You're over here envying Lil Baby, wanting to emulate Lil Baby and willing to do things out of your comfort zone and do things that might be illegal and be able to put you in jail to be like Lil Baby.

Lil Baby's being a businessman, not a drug dealer like you think he is. Yeah, yeah. And I think that consumption, that envy, watching the rappers or whoever their... The asses are. Yeah, the role models is terrible. And I've met people who are like, I'm saving money for what? For like a Gucci belt. I mean, I'm pretty sure you taste a little bit of luxury before in your life. And my point is that after

you kind of taste it kind of diminishes away like right yeah it's like you know your birthday comes around and you're like you know I want to take a fancy trip and get super fly and I'm like okay like I know when the other people who are making good money are doing good for themselves if they want to look good for their birthday they got to have one of the $500 pair of sneakers but it's like

$500, what can I do with $500, you know? I've been looking at my tire like, come on, I've been needing some new tires for a couple months, and I don't want to spend my $500 on that.

But now I want to spend 500 to wear for one picture. Because if you wear a pair of Louis V sneakers, let's say for a picture, right? Pay $800 for them. You post a picture on your Instagram. One picture. How many times are you going to post a picture with those same sneakers on? You're never going to post them again. about that. The actually expensive stuff that you ever wore in a picture, you've never worn again.

You know what's crazy? Even like the richest of the rich people, they don't flaunt that much stuff. And the crazy thing is that, know, the Louis Vuitton, Hennessy and all these brands, all these like higher end brands are owned by one big company and the LMVH company and it owned by this guy named Louis Bernard. And he's the richest person in France. Right. And he's making money from, you know, maybe in the lower class to in the middle class.

where we're trying to keep up with the Joneses. We're trying to, what do call it? Trying to compete with our.

other people in terms of our consumption of materialistic goods, but in reality people who are wealthy Don't even wear that they're they're trying to hide it. Like I want to look like I'm a normal person I don't want people to to ask me for money and it just I want to be just closed doors here and just be a regular person not seeing somebody who have money and people gonna go up to me and be like can I get a piece of whatever it is your resources in order for me to be a success myself and here on a benefit? No

We want to be treated like a normal person. Yeah, man. And it's just sad that that's the reality of things. It's like, we're never going to be able to be freed from those types of problems and really stop chasing other people until you're content with yourself. Yeah. I feel like that's one thing that I really had to teach myself over the course of time was that I can't look at what other people have and what other people are doing and model my timeline for myself after them. can't say...

This person owns a house and if I don't buy a house in three business days, I'm behind because this guy has a house and he's a year younger than me. Yeah. Go go mad. Keeping up with the Joneses. That's what they call it. Yeah.

In sales, I learned it in my freshman internship. I know it's summer after my sophomore year. They called it the Jones effect as well. OK, nobody wants to be the first or the last to do anything. So it's like if I'm selling this to you right now, I'm selling you this road like it's like, hey, Aldo, like, you know, if you're if you're recording a podcast right now, I just sold 500 of these to these people and they love them so much. But, you know, I only got three of them left. I don't know if you want one. You're going to want to make sure you get it. Yeah. Before.

They run out completely because everybody wants them. You don't want to be the last one to have one You don't want to be the one person without mmm, but if they told you today, yeah, you know, I got a thousand microphones in my car I've never sold them before but I want you to try it out. Yeah, you're not gonna buy it and sales they call that sense of urgency with a social proof like if everybody's getting it you want to get one too and The fact that it's limited edition, right? This only offer today. You're like, I gotta get it today before

you kind of lose sight of it. But majority of the time, those just are marketing schemes in order for you to buy more stuff. In reality, they could make thousands more of whatever the said item is. And charge $20 less next week. Exactly. mean, those people put out reviews. That's the point of that's why Amazon reviews are really important because people look at the top products and they look at the reviews and we're like, OK, these people say it's good. So it must be really good when you never even tried yourself. I just did yesterday. I bought a new car charger. There you go.

I'm speaking about like the student athletes your we mentioned that briefly you your you have a podcast and make -away podcast and you showcase their story why I feel like it was always important to me because I was somebody that I wanted to know you know when I was coming up let's say we're watching football on TV and it is so cool to me that like

this guy's from here, he did this and he came through this and he went through that. But, you know, nobody is asking those questions about the guys who everyone on the local level or on the state level or even on the country level. Like right now, let's say, in the city of Philadelphia, I sat down with Andre Mintz. You know, he was, I think, one of my first interviews. He went to Vanderbilt.

4 .0 student almost like he had the Philadelphia Academic High School Award with me actually the school he got the four a or make other three award I got the two a award for the scholar athlete award But just think about it like he went to a Philadelphia public school and went to go get a full full scholarship to go play football at Vanderbilt Wow got a world -class education there, know a degree that's worth like what a million dollars when you graduate, know based on degree valuation, but went there got a great education was

a leader in that community still made it to the NFL. know, he's playing professionally right now for the D .C. defenders in the U .F .L. But it's still cool. Yeah. There's a lot of people who besides the 12 posts on Instagram profile don't know who he is, who never heard because that's the thing too. A sports is like we have faces we have. We're moving images on the screen, but nobody really knows about who you are. Most people who

are watching sports probably don't even know the voices of their favorite athletes unless they follow them on social media and hear their voice. Yeah, yeah. Because they don't talk. They just play the game. What struggles do you see with most student athletes on a come up? I think the biggest struggle that a lot of guys face is just some have issues with having support early on and then some also have issues like self -doubt or...

Injuries and having a bounce back from adversity. I feel like that's one of the biggest things that you have to do as an athlete You know in a game situation Everything can be going right one game. You can be undefeated and then you could be Down three scores to the worst team in the league the next game. It's not necessarily about who's the best player It's about who is the best player that day and that's always gonna ring true in sports and it translate over to these guys lives man Some of these dudes have to come from really strong and yeah really difficult environment

and having to go to school afterwards and be a full time student but still have problems back home and still have personal problems to deal with because if you're the starting quarterback of Ohio State, nobody really cares that your girlfriend just broke up with you two days ago and you just failed a test and you got to hurry up and stress about that because if you don't, you're not going to pass your class and you're trying to graduate next month and your mom is asking you when you're ever going to get married and your dad is telling you that you better get a good job if you don't make it to the NFL and your homie back home is telling you

once you make it to the NFL, he wants to be your manager. And all of these guys are just facing so many problems, but...

is just shut up and perform on a Saturday. So I like to take the dive into these guys' minds and just understand the different things they had to go through along the way. Yeah, but that's normal, right? That's normal for especially assuming that majority of your interviewers or interviewees are guys, right? We have these struggles on a daily basis. We want to strive to be better on a consistent basis and we don't want everything to be left

And we have a purpose too. We have a family, have responsibilities, we have problems, right? And for a guy, especially when you're gonna be the man of house, the head of the house, these are just normal things that you just fight on a daily basis. just as an athlete, when you're putting in a pinnacle, when you have the spotlight on you, people don't really care about all that. They just care about what's the scores and if you win and if they win their bet. Yeah, man.

I feel like the betting combined with the social media lately has been very interesting because, you know, back then...

A fan in Philadelphia wouldn't be able to contact Jordan and say, F you Jordan, you made me lose $100 today because there was no social media. There was no direct line of contact. Now, as much as we don't want to admit it, these players read comments, man. They read the stories that you post. They read your comments on their posts. They read your tweets. They know everything you're saying about them. Some of them are able to channel and use it as motivation. And some of them really struggle with it. You you see the some players that they break character sometimes and they argue with fans on social media.

Yeah.

Don't blame him because I think if I was rich and famous it wouldn't stop me if somebody is on Social media telling me I suck and I need to jump off a bridge and I'm the worst player ever People say some hurtful stuff to these athletes man. Yeah. Yeah, and I think you could just delete out social media now. Mm -hmm What's that mean a solution? would be a so it be putting a band -aid on something that requires surgery because at the end of the day I feel like a lot of times still makes it to you, you know Because as much as sometimes it's just fans talking about you when you get home and you turn on the

you're trying to relax, you can't watch ESPN anymore because they're talking about you on there.

If you're if you're Dak Prescott right now going through your contract negotiations, you just want it to be over. You just want to feed your family. You just want to be able to make the money that you deserve because you feel like you work so hard. And every single day you have people whose job it is to go on TV and discuss whether or not you deserve to be paid for the work that you do. They weren't with you when you were in the gym putting in all of the hard work. They weren't with you when you had to battle that adversity. They weren't with you when you had to rehab back from injury. They weren't with you when you went through all of it. So you feel like you have the accolades and you earn the money that you earn.

And now you are negotiating with your company with your job because most people negotiate with their jobs when they're due for more money. Yeah

Your job might not feel the same way and may tell you to go get another job somewhere. But that negotiation going on should be personal between you and your job, not broadcasted to the media. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's the mental struggle there and business struggle too. And I think as a student, as an athlete in general, right, there's there's a part of you that's that's like creative. There's a part of you that's creative and and you want to continue to perform in a spotlight and make sure that you work really hard. But there's

There's the business side too. Outside of you performing, you have to deal with people who are in marketing, right? You have to deal with how you interact with other people, like public affairs and public debates or discussions with the media. And on top of that, you gotta be on top of your finances with sponsorship, things like that. These are the things that people don't really see in an athlete. They just see an athlete as somebody who plays a sport. Shut up, interval. And nothing else after.

It's just interesting, man. I'm just happy that, you know, athletes are starting to have a little bit of control of what's going on in their lives. know, I feel like back then it was just shut up and dribble. It was like we're paying you. So you're going to do what we say if we hardball you with a contract is what we feel like you deserve. You can't like, you know, now these guys have a say. They're like, you know, I'm not going to practice. I'm going to hold your team back and everybody's going to suffer until my contract is done the way I feel like I deserve that you guys can afford. And if you're not willing to pay me, you can trade me to someone as

willing to pay me. Yeah. So I fully support that part of football, man, or basketball or baseball or tennis or golf or whatever sports you're in that as the player you have in the negotiation power to be able to make more money and provide for your family. I don't see why not. These organizations are making hundreds of millions or making billions off of just you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like when Tyreek Hill scores the touchdown.

Do you don't think the Miami Dolphins merch goes up like even if he's getting a little percentage? He's not getting the majority. He's not getting the big bite of the pie. Yeah, so when those season ticket passes gets old he doesn't get a cut of that. He just gets his set contract. Yeah, so I'm gonna make sure that my production is up to par. I'm getting whatever my Production allows me to make yeah. Yeah, I think most athletes are capped to the amount of salad that's provided from the you know from the bigger bigger sports world here I mean you could go

to UFC and they're getting pennies for an amount of money that UFC brings in on a a annual basis. And I feel like it's so important. The guys that are voicing their opinions and letting these leagues know that like, listen, we have some kind of union ship. We have some type of power that we don't have to listen to. We're individuals and we're going to debate this and we're going to push ourselves to the limit legally that we can based on our contract that we have in place. like.

These guys deserve to get paid. And if you have someone else that's willing to pay me, let me go to them. I don't know, I think everybody in NFL is mostly paid. There's a couple guys that are like the tier two and tier three guys besides like Deck Prescott, that's all paid. But in college now, there's the kids who, there's people who are like up and down about the new phenomenon called the transfer portal where you could like.

school because back then it was that you could you only get transfer once ever now you can transfer twice third of course you get four years and it was invented because coaches that took a new job could leave today and go to another school and you're stuck with a new coach or a rebuilding program or whatever so but now like let's say you're a junior in college and you haven't been able good enough to play at this school you can transfer down to an easier level yeah and be the best player and I feel like that's great because

People are like, he's a coward. He's running away from the work. But I just see it as he gets four years to play the sport in college. you think college students should be paid for playing in a sport? 100%. I feel like this is a business. Same way. you know, these guys' jerseys are being sold with their family's name on it.

There'd be the jerseys are selling for tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands of dollars and making money for these school bookstores. Okay, you're paying for my education. If you're like I said, Shador Sanders right now, he has probably sold hundreds of thousands of dollars in jerseys. Yeah. After the hundred thousand dollar tuition is paid. Guess what? Like the NIL that they came out with recently where now they can make money off their name image of likeness.

Chidora just got a free education, but now he can do a commercial with Ram 1500 for $50 ,000 and get a free truck. Do you think that they should take away the scholarships if the college athletes are making money themselves or getting commission out of these sales? I think that the education is the least that they could get for free.

You know, because that's just what they're getting for showing up. What I'm doing outside of this, like if I'm Shadour and I'm doing a commercial, I got paid by RAM. I didn't get paid by the school.

So I'm playing for you. I'm putting your school's emblem on my chest I'm putting your body my body in the line for your school every day The least you could do is let me go to school here for free and I have to pay you a hundred thousand dollars To read books in the classroom, you yeah Yeah in terms of like personal development for athletes, right? They're they're pretty much at that pinnacle in terms of the physical aspect Tell us more about the mental struggle that they go through a lot of athletes really

Like I said, you have to be able to balance your personal life and your athletic commitments. And a lot of times people struggle with that. There's a lot of times where you have to find time to study because let's say you're a regular football player right now. My little brother goes to Coastal Carolina. I just bought his jersey. I swear I got it. But let's say Eve's at Coastal. His day starts at 6 a

at the facility and from 6 a to 12 p he doesn't see anywhere outside of that facility. It's all football all the time they have meetings they have practice they have lift they have walk throughs they have meetings whatever from 6 a to 12 noon so for the first six hours of his day before he even sees outside. Wow. It's working. Six hours out of his 24. Yeah. You have to factor in he's gonna sleep six to eight hours a night. So half of his day is resting for football and doing football.

while the other students that go to the school have the whole 24 hours. We both have the same paper that's due at three o 'clock when we get to English class, but from midnight to noon, I'm either resting for football or doing football.

I half of the opportunity to prepare for school and have to take the same 15 credits as you. That's a struggle for a lot of guys, Yeah. Because you got to find the time and work hard. Do you think that they are doing the education piece just in case of a Plan B? mean, it's not really the Plan B because in reality, when you look at it, as much as everybody's goal is to make it to the NFL or the NBA or the MLB or whatever.

Like you gotta remember that only 1 % of the guys make it. you can't really look at the, like the pro is, as much as it's plan A, because it's your goal and it's what motivates you to wake up every day and work hard, the pro is really the plan B. Like the education that you're getting, every class that you get has a potential job. When you go to school, programming one, if you're a computer science major, you become a programmer. You become a video game designer. If you are in criminal justice, you are...

learning how to be a police officer or learning how to be an intake person at a precinct or learning how to be an FBI agent. Like if you are in education, you are learning how to be an English teacher or math teacher. what you're doing is what you're doing in school and as long as you're not taking underwater basket weaving like you're gaining valuable life skills to propel you forward for rest of your life. One of my teammates, Sean, he played football with me all the way through school. But now, know, shout out to Sean. He's a certified HVAC technician. So he works

In the age back, he got the job as soon as he got out of school. He wanted to play football. I know when he was 12, he had a dream of playing in the NFL and being a big famous football star. But because that didn't work out, the work he was putting in with his other 12 hours of the day is putting him in position to take care of his family. Yeah. Yeah. And that's that's really important. That's where I was kind of kind of want to go here because and in these bigger leagues or even like the leagues underneath that you're so limited. There's thousands, if not millions of kids and people on a come up that

wants to be in that in that league. And there's only so much people that they could bring on and play. I just wanted to know, like, what's what's that second second plan here? And you mentioned it was like the educational piece and the jobs outside of football or basketball and outside of the sports. Yeah, because in reality, the NFL is right here. All of these kids on the table is their goal to make it. You're not going to tell a 12 year old kid who plays football who's running those sprints that he's not going to make it.

to the NFL, wouldn't play. But the goal is through football, you have to be eligible in high school and get good high school grades. You have to do good work in high school. Now you have a 3 .0 while you're getting recruited and you get a college scholarship. That 10 to 15 % of guys that are good enough to play in college football now win. I'm in school. The NFL is still up here. I got a long way to go between college and the NFL, but.

Because I put in that hard work, I'm already past all of the people that didn't work hard enough to make it to college. Because most people that go to high school don't go to college or graduate. Not even to talk about athletes. So now I'm already a leg ahead of all of the people that didn't play sports or that played sports that didn't make it to college. I'm in college not even to talk about being a college athlete. Now you're working hard in college, doing all the work in college, getting good grades, getting internships and experience while you're in school, going to these conferences, and still being a good football player.

You tear your knee a senior year. Yeah, but you graduated in the month. You didn't make it to the NFL, but you're software developer. Yeah, you're a consultant. You're a real estate agent. You're this. You're not making a million dollars a year, but.

You can make your way to a million dollars from doing a bunch of other different things throughout your life with using the second 12 hours of your day to prepare for it. Yeah. Yeah. What are some crazy occupations that you've seen in your circle or in other athletes are like, they thought they were going to be here, but you ended up being here. Yeah. But any crazy like occupations that you've seen? One of the coolest ones is my boy, Paul. He was my teammate at Lockhaven when we graduated. Well, he graduated a couple of years before I did. I think he graduated like 2018.

He graduated and I think he first got an internship at Baker Tilly, left Baker Tilly, didn't even have master's degree, and locked himself in and said, I'm not working anywhere that's not a big for consulting firm. And right out of college, after like a year or two, got a job at Ernst & Young. Wow. Worked there, Ernst & Young as a consultant for a year.

He left there now. He has been working at Chase as a product manager for the past two years nice So he's in you know big finance He's in big finance product management, you know, and he was just playing division two football a couple years ago and I guarantee you he's probably one of the only people that he went to high school if that's a product manager might be the only one in this whole high school graduating class and

You know, when you're training and when you're working out, doing all these things to be the best that you can ever be in sports, what are some things that you took away, whether that's your own personal experiences or perhaps conversations that you have with student athletes that transition into their everyday life? Is there a certain processes and thought process mindset that goes behind working really hard and then transferring that over into life? Yeah. So when I was in college, my head coach, Coach Taylor,

He was a really good guy. I'll say he he made a conscious effort to try to put our team in the best position he could to win. Obviously, we didn't win the most games. We didn't lose the most games. We lost the next round of games, though. But one of the biggest things that coach T taught me was the one more than you approach is waking up every day knowing that there's somebody out there that's working just as hard as you and you have to get one more than that guy every single day. So, you know, right now.

I'm a consultant, I work for an IT firm and it's cool to know. But I work with a team on a delivery project where we're...

where we're resolving tickets and we're trying to provide support to the vendor. So one of the things I try to look at is, OK, we don't get work assigned to us. We just have an available queue of work and everybody just gets compared to how much work did you do throughout the week. So I just kind of pace myself throughout the week like, OK, whoever's doing the most, I want to make sure I'm doing a little more than them. And that is what gets me through the week. That's why like it doesn't feel like I'm doing extra work. It just feels like I'm working just a little bit more than the

best person and now when we get to that Thursday weekly meeting and they're like my gosh man shout out to this guy killing the game for his team you guys need to get more like him but his reality is just

I just know what the bar is. I'm just going a little bit above the bar so I could be known as the new bar. Got it. So there's a little bit of competition and accountability at the same time where, you know, you have that certain coworker that's perhaps are doing really well for themselves. And you're like, I want to be like that guy. But even though we're in the same company, perhaps in the same team, like we I want to work together at the same time. I don't want to like, you know, completely decimate him. It's important because if you don't, you're not

understand the levels that you can go to. Now I'm finally at the point with my team where our team lead kind of stops me in the morning meetings and she's like, like, I want you to take this on. And this is something that we had never really asked you to do, but I want you to learn how to do this in case of emergency. And now, hey, instead of this being this person's job, I'm going to ask you to take this up. And it allows you to learn how to do different things or understand more intricacies with the project that you're working on because

by showing the person that you work with how hard you work, you're opening the groundwork for them to trust you with more work later on down the line. Yeah. Because people think promotions and such are based on time served, know, jail or offense. But it's like, instead of time served, that has to really be the quality of the time put in. You know, how much people trust you. Because that's all work is, is people trusting you to do a job that you're assigned to do. Yeah, it's not just about the time, but it's all about the politics too.

You know, it's to make sure that the people who are decision makers in terms of getting you to a higher level see that you're doing a work and making sure that you took initiative outside of just, you know, your job description to do more and provide value for the company. Exactly. Because then when you're in that higher position, the people below, you're going to have a standard for them to work it that way because you don't want to promote the lazy person. And now they are OK with people being lazy beneath them because that's how they got there. Yeah.

that's gonna work hard and be eager to work hard because they're gonna encourage people beneath them to work hard as well. Yeah, that's what I've seen in most athletes and military people like ex -military ex -athletes is you guys have a tremendous amount of work ethic. I mean it's like you're you're you get tested mentally you know you get pushed to the limit a lot you get taught that like

When you are completely out of gas, you still have five more miles than you. You know, you always thought that you have to just push yourself and push yourself and push yourself. lately, I've been on this little binge where my one friend on my timeline was like running miles every day. And I was like on a binge where I didn't do cardio for two years straight. I woke up one day. I definitely see that in your story. Yeah, I'm like, I saw this girl. She's just running these miles every day. And I'm like.

I wanna do that too. I don't know if I got two with me, but I got one. So I just went outside one day and I ran them out. It sucked. It sucked. But I woke up the next day, like, you know, I'm gonna try it again. And then this time on the first lap, gonna try not to stop for the whole first lap. Okay, let's do it again.

I just kept doing it now. I'm like 40 miles in this year. Wow. And I didn't run a single mile last year. Yeah. You you compare yourself to who you were yesterday. That's the most important thing, not who somebody is today. I think...

what you're doing here, doing it on a consistent basis. Yeah, you never ran the past year or so, but you're starting in that initiative. People are just so afraid of like, they're looking at a marathon runner and comparing themselves to that and they're like, there's no way you're going to be in that person. mean, eventually, yes, but there's no way you're going to do it by tomorrow. And you need to make these small progressions of like, maybe today I'll just put on the running clothes just in case. And then tomorrow I'll walk out the door and tomorrow I actually going to run a block.

and then eventually it adds more and more and more and I think that taking that first step is the most important and everything else just works out. and you know a big thing is too it's good to get a little bit of positive affirmation too like you get online and like I have my friend Justin he's really really consistent he goes out there every single day and runs every day I think I think he posts like he's a few hundred miles in the past couple years. Wow. when

Get up every day and I'm on my way to the gym getting myself dressed. I'm half dead in the morning about to drink a little cup of tea because my stomach hurts at four o 'clock and I'll get on and every day at 412 my friend Justin is posting a clip of his posting The stereo of his car because he's driving to the gym

and every single day he just posts that car stereo. And even if I don't watch the rest of his story, I know that's where he's going. So like, if I wake up and I roll out of bed and sometimes I don't feel super great in the morning, it's good having a friend that I can look at his social media and say, okay, he's already up for the day and gone. Have you ever heard of Strava?

No. So Shrava is like a social media app. It's like a social media for but for athletes, predominantly endurance athlete. So me and my accountability partner, Ben, he we would we would just because we have like either a watch or something that records our runs and that automatically uploading it to Shrava's because if we post on Instagram and everybody watches it. on Shrava is predominantly like athletes who doing these endurance sports. So every time that I wake up and he wakes up pretty early, he wakes up at 430 a

I'm every day, almost every day. And by the time like 5 .30 or like 6 .30 hits, he already finished his workout, whether it's a run or a workout. And I'll wake up around like 5 .30 and I see that and I get so mad. I'm like, God damn it, this guy's already, and absolutely killing it. But that waking up early and doing the hard things translates into other aspects of your life. If you're going through tough times where that's work, whether that's family or just anything, you're able to fight

Just because you're able to go that extra mile and that morning or whenever it is during the week Yeah, so critical man. and not even that just it just shows you that like in life, but let's say right now I'm running this mile and I'm at about point eight

In reality, it's less than a lap left. But sometimes it just sucks if you don't want to do it, you know? But that last point too, like just powering through it, just ducking your head and just running and leaning forward and just saying, I gotta just make it through that line. I just gotta make it to the end of the street, whatever. You know, it's just a reminder that like, if I got this problem going on right now, work is hard right now, life is hard right now, family issues hard right now, money is hard right now.

If I just tuck my head and just finish running, or I just make it to the end of this, I get paid on Thursday. If I just put my head down and keep running, I'll make it to Thursday when I get paid. Shout out to my bank, I get paid a day early. Most of the time I get paid on Wednesdays. Getting paid on Wednesdays is so sweet, not gonna lie. Really? I never heard about that, getting paid on Wednesdays. Is it the bank or your... It's the bank. It's the bank. Do you get those, banks that kind of...

pay you ahead of time and then when your paycheck comes from the actual company like so you get reimbursed. So what happens is my company deposits to check the I think Sunday at midnight of pay week they'll submit the check and it usually takes three to like three business days to clear. So like the the the businesses usually will set it up or like have the funds available to them every Thursday.

But if the bank already has the money and they're familiar with your jobs, check that comes every week, they trust that check writer, so they'll like...

As soon as they see the check, they can process it faster. So since they can process the check faster, they'll be like, OK, we know that this is legitimate funds, so we'll give you access to it a day earlier than usual. Yeah, yeah. That helps. Yeah, so you just basically get money ahead of time. Wow. That's That's goals. So you've been an athlete in school and in universities, and now you're making an impact for other athletes. What are the next steps?

for you now in terms of the Makeaway podcast or just how you're showcasing storytelling from all these student athletes? I think the next step for me is I want to be able to, you know, get my feet on the land. I want to be able to get closer to the people, actually go and see these environments of these kids and actually build the relationships with these communities because my goal, like five years from now, 10 years from now, I want it to like...

be able to sit down and call the coach from any school and be like, hey, your kid had a good game. Send him down to the studio. And they already know who I am. They know what I'm trying to do. And they know what the goal is. And I don't have to introduce myself or let them know or reach out to them. They already know I'm coming. And they know the goal is to make it onto his show. The goal of putting in the hard work is I get to sit down with him and talk to him about what I just did. So I feel like my goal is just build up my brand where

people are looking forward to being on my podcast and their goal is to work hard to make it onto my podcast because it'll get them the exposure they need. And in terms of exposure, are you trying to have like the podcast to showcase to other avenues like Scouts or all of that? So like let's say right now.

during the season, want to interview high school players and the kids that have a really big game. So if you're Shamir Joe at Prep Charter High School and you 40 points in the game, I want...

to be able to sit down with Shamir and talk to Shamir and so that the people who are watching my podcast, there might be other kids in the area. There might be high school coaches from the area. There might be a you coaches from the area or they might be a coach that knows a college coach that says, coach, watch this video. I think this kid will be good for you. I just watched the highlight. He was really good. He just dropped 40 for prep charter high school. That's my goal is like for my podcast to be almost like if this kid is on there, he's legitimate. Check him out. Yeah. Yeah.

In a world where social media is a huge thing, I think you mentioned this on a podcast, Montay, that everyone have a highlight reel. Everyone have these short form videos that they could send out to colleges when colleges can watch them. How is your podcast better than that and give more exposure than what social media provide for many people now? I feel like the big thing is coaches only have so much time.

If I can build my podcast to the point where they can just know that if I go to him, if I go to this platform, this is where I can find the balls or this is where can find the best kids. It'll save them a lot of time because right now, let's say a kid makes a highlight tape for a coach on average a highlight tape for high school player is about three or five minutes. Head coach, high school, mean a college coach watches on average about 30 seconds to a minute if they even take the chance to click the link and watch the ad. So, know.

You're not always going to be able to get that personal time with that coach or the coach is not always going to open your email. But if I could build this up to the point where coaches know like, OK, this kid, if he's on here, he's one that I have to go looking for, even if I've never heard of him. There's a lot of recruiting. It's like monkey see monkey do. Yeah. Scouting is monkey see monkey do. If a coach is going to offer you a scholarship, sometimes it's going to be because they genuinely like you and sometimes going to be just to the school in the adjacent conference doesn't get you. Got it.

Check, if you can send a letter or you could write a letter to your younger self, in prep charter days or maybe even before that, you know you're gonna be involved in so much of storytelling and perhaps being an athlete, what would you tell yourself? Is there any differences that you wanna, is there anything they wanted differently?

The only thing I probably would have told myself at a younger age was just believe in yourself. You know, I feel like a lot of times I had lot of self -doubt as a kid. didn't really, I didn't really bloom early on. I didn't really feel like I was as good as I could have been early. And a lot of that just came from self. You know, I didn't really think that I could ever go to school and get a education and be able to play in college and be able to graduate college and do whatever. Like I just...

It was a point when I was in ninth grade, I didn't even think I was going to college. I thought I was just gonna try my luck at being Vine famous or being a rapper or something because that's what I knew was getting people rich, you as we talked about earlier.

As time went on, I started to learn more about myself. When I got to 11th grade, that was probably the first high school year where I really worked my tail off to try to prove to a coach that I was good enough to be productive for him. That's when I really decided that I could be something. So I can imagine in seventh or eighth grade or fifth grade, I could tell my younger self, listen, like.

Surround yourself with these people, work hard, know, take yourself to these places where you can learn more and develop more. Who knows who I could have been? Who knows what I could have been? Because I'm not one of those people that I ever lied to myself and say, my gosh, I was a superstar. I was this blockbuster player. But by the end of my story, I was one of the hardest working kids around. So I would love to just.

tell myself at a younger age to be the hardest working person around. two questions here. One is what caused you for that limited belief of like, I just want to be this much. And the second one is like, what's the triggering point from that into going hard at 11th grade? I think when I was younger, I was just playing because I just wanted to play.

And it was fun. It was a pastime for me. And it wasn't really because I was trying to be competitive or be the best or be dominant or be the best out there. I just wanted to be on the team. I just wanted acceptance. I just wanted the gratification. know, some people play for the love of the jersey and some people play for the love of the game. I think when I first started playing in high school, I was playing for the love of the game. I just wanted to be on the football team. I wanted to have friends. I wanted to feel accepted. But as time went on, that wasn't satisfactory anymore because I was putting in the same hard work that the good players and the productive players was putting in.

And my 10th grade year, my first year playing in high school, because I played middle school and then I didn't play ninth grade. My 10th grade year, we had one of the best rushing attacks in the history of the city of Philadelphia. We had Vion Dolo, we had Tarman, we had Quaadir Struthers, we had a really good running back room.

slash quarterback room quarterback was going to get it running and Our offense just so dynamic. It's so explosive, but I didn't play much in 10th grade You know, I was watching those guys my friend Eric Taylor Zeus. I was watching him. I'm Kell McElhart. I was watching Kell. I was watching to little I was watching Rand I was watching my friend's room I was watching all these guys and I wasn't really a big impact player, but I was working just as hard as him I was pushing myself in the weight room. I was doing all the things I was doing but

I was just at the status quo. I was just doing what I was told to do at practice, at lifts, at meetings, at workouts. And I wasn't really pushing myself beyond that level. So that 10th grade year of not being one of the faces of the team, not being one of the faces of what's going on, it just kind of reminded me like, that's not good enough.

You know, just being on the team isn't good enough. Just making the lifelong friends that I made, my Karamo, all of these guys, is not good enough. You know, I want to play. I want to be productive. I want to work hard. I want to show people that I can really be a good player. So I really took my head down to work, man. I found different ways to work out. There was this thing called the Skills Academy with Keita Crispina in North Philly. was a coach at St. Joe's Prep at the time. Now he's the coach at Eastern University.

He used to have free workouts for all of the kids in the city. I used to take the train all the way up on Broad Street to go work out for free with them every week. And I found new and creative ways to get myself better. So that over the course of high school, I got better, man. My senior year, was finally all conference and it was all it felt like if my career ended that day, I'd be content because it was all I wanted. Wow. So it's not so despite the fact that you were working hard as the other athletes and the ninth or tenth grade there, it wasn't enough.

It wasn't like yeah, you were putting all the work. That's great but it wasn't like a kick up and you decided to go to this workout or with the coach here and you start being creative and I think that's that's the most important thing of people and not just an athlete but in life too we all can be working really hard whether that's at work or or in our business, but if we don't be creative and differentiate ourselves from other people we're still gonna be as mediocre if

But no the fact that we work really hard compared to other people exactly Yeah, exactly If you have a nine -to -five and you're just working from nine to five You can't be mad that you only have the money that you got from your nine -to -five. I live paycheck to paycheck that sucks or I only make an extra a thousand dollars a month and after I go to the movies with my girl and take her on two dates and you know Go to go to McDonald's drive through once a week and buy coffee on my way to work. I only had 200 bucks left

But imagine you use that 200 bucks to develop yourself in something else or do something that you're passionate about Because let's say you know you you have a vlog or podcast or whatever or you create music or anything that you're doing The the joy that you're getting from it Doesn't have to be money. You don't necessarily have to

only make money to be happy afterwards because there's people because let's say you're you know you're making art let's say you're a painter you use that $200 to buy yourself a brush kit and some paint and some canvases and you come to your house you start painting eventually you might learn how to paint get good at painting to make a hundred thousand dollar painting one day but it all started from a one two hundred dollar transaction the money you just had to in your account you know you might use it to start a real estate business and and and buy a phone to do some cold calling some cold calling you know and and do

your first wholesale contract. And now that $200 phone just turned into $10 ,000 that you used to sell your first contract. whatever you do...

You have to make a conscious decision that this is what you want to do to add to your life. Because right now you can easily just wake up, work a nine to five, come home, eat dinner, take a shower, go to sleep every day. Yeah. But that five to nine is what makes you human. You know, that nine to five is just what provides for the five to nine. Yeah. Yeah. Stop being mediocre and start doing other things. Simple. There you go. Any tips for a student athlete? Perhaps they're in high school or in college. What do you any advice for them?

here. Just don't see other people's success and feel like you're not doing enough. Look at what you're doing. Look at who you want to be. Look at what you bring to the table and use that to propel yourself forward. I'm real big on

pushing yourself past who you were yesterday like you were saying. Understanding what you can do, what your current capacity is, and what you can do to improve yourself past that. I was always one of those guys, like I said, I never had the God -given ability. My boy John Davis had the best hands on the team. Kwadie was the fastest on the team. My mood was super athletic. Kareem was big, strong and fast. Yeah, Kareem, I'm a big strong fan. I was just the guy who I showed up every day, I worked hard, and I played football.

until I found out that, my gift can be how hard I work and develop a motor that I get to play super duper hard that is gonna piss people off that's playing across from me. That works because that's what got me on the field was understanding my role in our team, my piece to the puzzle, and being able to move forward. Everybody in life is not gonna be the superstar. Everybody can't be LeBron, everybody can't be KD. But if you can compartmentalize that.

Understand that everybody is going to be the best player on the team. Find your role and be the best you could possibly be at that role and exploit that as much as you can. That's my...

That's good. That's awesome. Any tips for someone who is in your stage? Like they've been an athlete now. It seems like they're not pursuing the NFL spectacle or NBA, but they have like alternative jobs and things like that. Just things to get by. Any tips from them here? Yeah, I mean, the biggest thing is you just have to face the identity, the identity crisis. You have to understand that you're not an athlete anymore.

Let's be really be honest here. The Brian Ames that were just we keep talking about him. It's 40 years old, right? Got drafted in 2004. He's been playing in the NBA for 20 years. If he retires at 40 years old, he doesn't plan on dying at 40. He has a long life left to live. Sure. So even the guys who make it pro, who played pro for 20 years.

or five years, or three years, or one year, or six months, or whatever, how long they make it, eventually you are going to have to assimilate back into society one way or another. Some people are gonna have a lot more money than others, but if you have a job, if you run a business, if you're a manager, if you're a military, whatever you're doing, you have to be content that that is your life, and if it's not the life that you're content with, what are you gonna do to change that? Got it.

That's the biggest message I got for them. Great messages from different people and parts of life. Check. So I named this podcast Kaizen Blueprint. Kaizen is a word that comes from Japanese, is a Japanese term, means continuous improvement.

Everything that we talk about is continuous improvement, whether that's 1 % better than yesterday. Having the mental capacity to go through any tribulations in life. But is there certain habits, systems, or tools that you're doing on a daily basis that benefit you, that could benefit other people? Yeah, I definitely think the biggest thing I do is consistently try to seek new information and new knowledge. You I'm really big on, like you were saying earlier, how your friend has the

social media feed that leads into all finance stuff. I sit there and I search little tips and tricks for like little entrepreneurship paths that I want to go on. Like I just recently opened up an LLC with my cousin and one of my best friends. Nice. And you know, I'm sitting there and when I'm in the car, it's the little setting on chat GPT where you can press the headphones and have a conversation with chat GPT instead of like typing in. So while I'm driving, I'll have a whole conversation with chat like, hey, you know, can you do a market analysis on this? Could you look into this? Could you tell me about based on this profit?

margin how much I would make doing this. You know, I have a whole conversation with the AI to try to get the answers to the questions that I'm looking for. And in that way, and it's recording all the information for me so I could just put it into a Google Doc later on. Yeah. Yeah. So always learning something new. didn't know that you would have a full blown conversation with Chad. yeah. I'm aware of that, man. do it the time, I think honestly now I have to pay. I'm going to just pay for Chad GPT premium, man, because I think

Over the past month, I've probably had a conversation with Chad GPT once a day, every day. I'm very, very big on it because it's not like, like I said, they don't have the keys to life. It's a computer. It's generative AIs based on pre -existing data. And that's all it's doing is regurgitating information to you based on the research that it just did.

It speeds up the process. Absolutely. It's like walking into the library, standing at the door and screaming to someone to check the encyclopedia for you and come back. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. What are a couple of things that you're learning right now? Or what are some obsessive stuff that you're learning? So I've been learning a lot about business brokerage. I'm looking at a couple of different options for, you know, because everybody wants to be that cool entrepreneur, that cool startup owner. But

I feel like there's a lot of benefit to like...

an existing business that someone just isn't running properly. That like I would love to just like take over and build it up better because like before I began to consult and I was working at Sherwin's I was working in you know residential repair re sales. So it was cool. You know what. One and then running my own retail business and learning how to stock shelves and learning how to do product orders and learning how to do cycle counts and learning how to price products and learning how to get a profit margin and learning how to do the deposits and all that good stuff.

Imagine now I come in and I buy a convenience store or whatever type of business and I've been trying to learn as much about that as I can. Can't give you all the gems yet because it's in set in stone yet. But you know.

Just doing that little bit of research has been so cool. Yeah. Yeah. Have you ever heard of Alex Hamozi? Yeah. Yeah. So he talks about, mean, he does basically this. He's a venture, I think for lack of a better word, like a venture capitalist for business. His name is actually acquisition .com because he acquires businesses and makes them grow. I don't know how real is that. Obviously, I'm limited to information that is provided online, but he provide a lot of great insights. If you listen on on his podcast, it provides like

really good information about business acquisition. So it's super cool. Any final word for people who are listening or perhaps athletes and people who don't know much about the student athlete world? Just don't give up on us, A lot of these guys are working really hard. People have these goals, these big lofty dreams, whether it's men and women.

their lifelong dream to play the sport. So, you know, it really pains me and people are like, you know, just give up, just quit, just over with, man, your 30s, it's like, eventually your body is physically not going to let you be able to play anymore. Sure. So the people that are playing high school, college, youth.

Just support them. Be there for them. Root for them. It feels good to have people come watch you play. It feels good to have people support you. It feels good when you're running a 5K and you see your family holding up a sign at the end. It's all cool, you know? So for the people out there, support your friends and family that's playing. And if you play, support your friends and family that are playing if you're not playing at the time. Awesome. Check, final thing. Where can people find more about you? So you can find me on all of my social media platforms at Makeaway Podcast. No dots, no underscores. YouTube.

Instagram. But yeah, man, I listened to my podcast. I love my podcast. We've been taking a brief intervention before we head into season two, doing a lot of rebranding a lot of planning, but it's all for the better. I'm trying to make sure I'm getting you guys the best product I can. So very much stay tuned. Have a lot of really cool episodes out. So go back down there and tap in. Awesome. Well, we'll put the link down below and all of the social handles that check have. Well, check. Thank you so much for being on a podcast. We'll see you on the next one.