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- [00:00]
A
Success is something that you are doing, is an activity. It's something that you do is not an achievement. It's not a destination. So that's the reason why I say success starts on the inside. Because you have something that you're aiming for that you set as a goal for yourself, as who you're being as a person, then at least things you do, then it leads to the outcomes.
- [00:15]
B
Hey there. I'm Cody McGuffey. My husband, dad of three, and the founder of Ever Be. Ever Be.
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A
Ever Be.
- [00:20]
B
Ever Be, where we serve over a million creators across the globe, helping them grow thriving online businesses. I believe every single human is a creator, and I believe every single creator should own a business. The business that gives them the freedom to build the life that they dream of. Built online is where creators, entrepreneurs, and leaders get real insights, real stories, and the edge to build something that actually lasts. This is where the next generation builders get built. Jerry, what's up, man? How are you?
- [00:50]
A
I'm doing excellent, Cody. Excited to be here. How you doing?
- [00:54]
B
I'm excited to be here too. I'm doing great. Super excited for this conversation. I've been looking forward to this for, I think, a while. We've had on the books, and so it's cool that we're finally here.
- [01:03]
A
Yeah, finally.
- [01:05]
B
What can. So I want people to understand kind of who Dre is a little bit. I can give the backstory, but I think it'd be valuable to come from you. Would you mind giving like the. The high level rundown of. Of who Dre is?
- [01:17]
A
Yeah, two minute backstory. Come from the city of Philadelphia, now based in South Florida. Always played sports growing up. Got into basketball around age 14, which is pretty late if you're trying to make it and go somewhere like college, let alone probably only played one year in high school. Walked on to play Division 3 college ball. Got out of college, where I did play, but nobody was checking. For me to play pro, I had to kind of sell my way into an opportunity to play pro ball. I was able to do that. Started what became a nine year career playing overseas through eight different countries at the same time that I started playing, which was 2005, I put a the footage from what I had on this thing called a VHS tape, on this brand new website called YouTube.com and that's where I started to build a brand, mostly for basketball players for about the first five years. Around 2010, I started selling my own products online, started monetizing my videos because that started to become a thing. Started self publishing books at that time and also started talking about the mindset aspect of sports, which drew an audience of people who were not athletes. That really, Cody, became the, the, the segue between the basketball world and my business career now because people who didn't play ball said, well, the mindset stuff you're talking about applies to me as. So I realized that people who didn't play sports could still use that piece. So when I stopped playing in 2015, I already had momentum for what my next thing was going to be. Unlike most athletes who are just all in on the sport and then they stopped and then they had to start at zero. I was starting with momentum. So that's what I'm doing for the last 10 years, basically weaponizing and systematizing discipline, performance and accountability in a company now that I have called work on your game.
- [02:51]
B
Work on your game. That's why I was so excited to have you on too, because we haven't had a lot of coaches. Would you consider yourself a coach or would you consider. What would you consider yourself if you had to put yourself in like a category? Because there's a lot of categories you can put yourself in. But what, what would you consider yourself? What is work on your game?
- [03:08]
A
Entrepreneur. But I. One of the hats that I wear would be coach, consultant, author, athletes. A lot of hats.
- [03:14]
B
Okay, cool. And that's kind of. That's definition of entrepreneur, right? We do lots of things and, and we're actually good at a lot of things. And that sometimes can be our curse also. Occasionally.
- [03:25]
A
Yes.
- [03:26]
B
But my point with that is, is I haven't had a people come on and actually specialize in upping people's game and be more effective with their mindset, with their, their effectiveness and like growing their business. So I'm excited for this conversation. Do you feel like you mostly focus on athletes or do you focus on entrepreneurs? Or is it kind of a mixture of both? Like what is. What is your ideal customer like, who really can get the most benefit out of working with work on your game?
- [03:54]
A
An ideal person is an entrepreneur. And these are people who have not been athletes. They may have some affiliation for sports. Maybe they watch on the weekends, maybe a couple people who played in high school or college. But I'm not mostly I'm not working with former athletes who are transitioning. So the good thing about what work on your game is about is the principles that I pulled out of the sports world are universal. They're profession agnostic. So it doesn't really matter where you come from. You could be Coming from the military, you can sell clothing, you can be teaching people music, you can have a food truck, you can be a financial advisor, you can be an accountant. And every professional, there are people in our university right now who are coaching clients. So it's not about those things. So what? My ideal person is usually a high level professional entrepreneur who's really good at the thing that they do. And they usually have struck off on their own because they're so good and they don't want to be under the umbrella of a company or corporation or boss and they want to have something that they control, something that they own. And they come to me, not necessarily to learn how to do the thing, because every profession I just listed, I know very little about how to do it. But when it comes to systematizing, structuring it and strategizing for it and the mindset that lays underneath it, that's my area of expertise.
- [05:07]
B
Very cool reason why it's so cool. I think I get excited about this because that's the majority of people listening to this right now. Probably like 99% of them, they are listening to this podcast maybe on a lunch break between their job that they probably aren't necessarily love, maybe they even hate it. And they have a dream, a bigger vision and a bigger vision for their bigger dream of their life. They have very little control of their time, meaning that they like, you know, if they get sick tomorrow, like they'll have to contemplate how they're going to call in sick, you know, and, and that is the majority of folks listening to this are motivated, they're excited to like take a leap of faith into the entrepreneurship game. But they may be contemplating a little bit of do I have what it takes? Can I? Do I have the resiliency that everyone talks about that I need as an entrepreneur? How do I build that up? How do I make sure, how do I bulletproof my mindset to make sure that I'm successful no matter what happens to me? And that's most, most of people listening.
- [06:06]
A
To this, I would say great, they're in the right place. This is the right conversation.
- [06:10]
B
You mentioned that you have you quoted Success occurs from the inside out. Your inner mental game determines your actions and those actions determine your results. Do you remember saying that?
- [06:24]
A
I know I have said it. I don't remember when or where, but yes, it sounds like me.
- [06:29]
B
What does that mean to you?
- [06:31]
A
Well, first of all, successes, success, the success process in life, Cody, is a three step process. It's what do you want to have as the outcome. Those are the tangible, measurable things. That's what most people call goals. Then you have the actions you have to take in order to achieve those goals. That's called the work or the actions. This is where people spend the majority of our lives. And then before that, you have what type of person you need to be in spirit and aura and energy and in presence. That's the question most people never ask and the reason why a lot of people don't end up achieving their outcomes despite the fact they spend so much time in action, effort and energy, the doing part. So they never ask themselves about the being part. What type of person do I need to be? And again, who you need to be is not about things that you do. If I ask somebody who you need to be, they usually start talking about stuff they have to do, right? Work hard, work hard, worker, waking up early, spending more time in the office. Those are doings. Those are not beings. Beings is your posture, your energy, how you see yourself when you look in the mirror. Those things create your presence and your energy and your gravitational pull. Then when you go and take actions, those actions are painted with the energy that you show up with. And when your actions are painted with a certain energy, they cause a different response from other people and from the universe than you get if you have a different energy. How you do things matters a lot more or at least equally to what you do. And that's about the being part. And then when you do the thing, of course you get the outcome, which is the actions. I mean, the results. So the challenge, Cody. And the reason why I talk about that is, is that success starts on the inside. A lot of people look at success as something that you can count or measure. Or you see somebody wrote a book or they have a plaque on their wall, or they have a nice car, they made a certain amount of money, you started a business, Then people say, oh, you're successful. But success, according to Earl Nightingale, Nightingale is a pursuit of a worthy ideal. That means you're in the process of going after something that you want. So as soon as you achieve it and you don't have anything else to go after next, at that moment, you're not a success, right? Success is something that you are doing. It's saying is an activity, it's something that you do. It's not an achievement, it's not a destination. So that's the reason why I say success starts on the inside. Because you have something that you're aiming for that you set as a goal. For yourself as who you're being as a person, then that leads to the things you do, then it leads to the outcomes.
- [08:46]
B
Interesting. I think I want, I want to double, double tap on something you, Earl Nightingale, which I, I've read and listened to some also fantastic teacher and full of wisdom. You mentioned that success is the pursuit of the ideal. Is that what you said?
- [09:02]
A
Yes.
- [09:04]
B
Let's, let's break that down a little bit more. Can, like, for, for someone that, the first time they're hearing that, they, that's hard for them to even comprehend because they're just like, well, I want to be a millionaire.
- [09:15]
A
Yes.
- [09:16]
B
And that's success to me. Can you break down of why that is actually just a layer of, of, of the mission. And like, if you achieve that, that doesn't equal that you, like, can you break that down a little bit further? What would you say to somebody that was a customer or a client of yours that you're trying to coach?
- [09:32]
A
Absolutely. So if they say that their goal is they want to be a millionaire, I'm not going to discourage them. Okay, let's work on getting you to be a millionaire. Let's get clear on what exactly you mean by that. And that's the goal. That's the outcome. Whatever those things are that are the outcome. Now we have to ask ourselves, working backwards, that's the happy working backwards to the doing. Okay, what kind of behaviors are going to be required for. For you to get there, for us to get there. Because they're probably going to be different than the behaviors you're taking right now. As you're saying you want to be one, which means right now, let's assume you're not one. So your actions are going to change in some way. We're going to figure out what those actions are. Usually most people spend their lives in this loop. I call this the do loop. So it's what I want to achieve, what I want to achieve, what I have to do. Then it's go back and forth, have I achieved it yet? No, do more. Have I achieved it yet? No. Do more. This is why you hear the common, the common refrain from quote, unquote, successful people. You ask them why they're successful. What's the first thing they said? I worked harder than everybody else. I'm just out working you. No wonder, no wonder. Kobe Bryant's a great player. He just worked hard. And everybody else. Maybe he did work hard, but that's not the reason he was a great player just based on hard work.
- [10:32]
B
And there's a Lot of people probably that worked harder even than Kobe Bryant.
- [10:35]
A
Exactly.
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B
It's not the only factor there.
- [10:37]
A
Yeah, exactly. They're hard workers sitting at the end of the bench whose names you don't know because they never take the warm up shirt off. And they're hard workers playing at LA Fitness. Right. So just because you work hard does not mean you're going to be Kobe Bryant. The question is, who do I need to be? Because when you ask yourself, who do I need to be? If Kobe was around, he would say, hey, my goal was I wanted to be the best player in the world. I wanted to have people put me right in the same conversation as Michael Jordan. Now it's one thing to say, is another thing to believe it. Now to believe it, you have to take actions behind that belief. The actions behind his belief shows that he actually he really meant it. He wasn't just paying lip service to it. So for the person, back to the example you asked me about, person who wants to become that millionaire, the success piece is you've decided that you want to be this person. And when we ask the question, who do I need to be in order to get to this outcome that you don't yet have? The hard part is that of course we know the actions have to change. Most people usually logically understand it. I'm going to have to do something different. And I'm sure you see this, Cody, just talking to people. I asked them, okay, well, you want to achieve this outcome. This conversation between me and you is not the first time you thought about achieving this outcome. I'm probably not the first person you talk to about it. Why haven't you done it yet? And they'll mention the actions that need to be taken. And it's not like the actions are new to them. It's not as if they don't know, I need to do this. I need to make more phone calls, I need to get more leads, I need to run more ads, I need to launch more funnels. Whatever it is, okay, why aren't you doing it? The reason they're not doing it is not because they don't understand. It's because of who they're being. Their being is allowing them to not take actions that they logically and consciously know they need to be taken to achieve a different outcome, or at least they reasonably believe lead to that outcome. So until we change the mindset, the internal posture of the person, they can have all the information in the world to achieve an outcome, at least that they think will achieve the outcome. They still won't act on the information because they're being. Their internal posture has not become the type of person who would do those things. Does that make sense?
- [12:29]
B
That makes sense. Now, the question, of course, for anybody right now listening to this, including myself, well, then, how do I make. How do I make sure that I change my being?
- [12:38]
A
That's a great question.
- [12:39]
B
Yeah. So how do we do that? Let's talk about that.
- [12:41]
A
But that happens through a process called mental conditioning. So mental conditioning is about how you condition your mind to think and not just the conscious mind. So right now, everyone who's listening to this conversation is processing these words through their conscious mind. They're listening to what I'm saying. They're thinking about what it means to them. And you may miss something I say now because you're thinking about what I said 10 seconds ago. That's conscious processing. The subconscious mind controls 85 of our thinking. It controls most of our behaviors. It controls most of what we do. You look at any person who's 25 years old, 30 years old, 50 years old, they are a reflection of their subconscious programming, not their conscious thinking. Because consciously, you could tell. Let's say I walk into a room of 100 basketball players and I say, okay, how many of you want to play in the NBA? Everybody raises their hand. Okay, here's what you have to do. How many of them are actually going to do it? Only the few who already have their mind programmed to do exactly what I'm saying. The others, some of them whose mind is not programmed. That way, they will be motivated and inspired by what I said. And that might make them work hard in practice for the next three to five days. But are they going to keep doing it? No, because they haven't become that type of person yet.
- [13:47]
B
It's not their true identity. They haven't, like, shifted.
- [13:50]
A
Exactly. That's right. So how do we shift the identity? When people talk about identity shifts, what they're talking about is the subconscious mind. Subconscious mind is programmed or altered in three specific ways. Number one is repetition. That's doing or hearing the same thing over and over and over and over again. This is the reason why everyone understands words and everyone listening to us can understand English. Because in kindergarten, you sang the ABC song a million times. So you now you understand the letters. You understand letters become words, words become sentences, sentences become thoughts. That's repetition. That one is the easiest one to do. But it also is the one that takes the longest amount of time because you have to repeat enough until the subconscious Mind is, here's that knock on the door enough that it opens the door and it lets that thought in.
- [14:29]
B
And what's happening here? I want to ask you this, too. What's happening here is that when you do repetitions, what we're actually doing is we. We have to rewire our neural pathways inside of our brain in order to, like, go to something automatically versus being forced. That's why the repetition is so important. Right? So it's almost like shooting a basketball. It's like you have to literally muscle memory. Like, you have to just, like, feel it, feel it, feel it a million times, maybe a couple million times before you just, like, hit this thing in your sleep with your eyes closed. Same type of thing, right?
- [14:58]
A
Exactly. So you do something often enough, eventually the subconscious mind realizes, okay, if you're going to keep thinking this or you're going to keep doing this, obviously, this is going to become a normal thing. So let me take over this task. The subconscious mind says that to the conscious mind, you stop thinking about it actively. I'll take this over and I'll just do it every single time without thinking. So, for example, go ahead.
- [15:19]
B
It's almost like I want to nail that into. It's if for someone who's like, no, I've never heard of this before, I don't know if I believe this. That's not how it works. Think about this. I mean, think about. Maybe this is an example. You drive to work. You're driving the first time you drive to work. You have to focus. You have to, like, literally look at the maps. You have to, like, pull up MapQuest back in the day. Right now you use Apple maps, and you're just like. You have to pull in to make sure that you're, like, parking the right spot, park at the right time, make sure you get through the doors. You have to think. And that's operating primarily, primarily from the conscious mind, which is, again, taking the load. But eventually, you do this so many times, you repeat this over and over again, that your subconscious. Basically, what Dre was just saying is that it takes it over for you because its job is to help you. It thinks it wants to help you, and it'll just take it over and say, I got this. From now on, you don't really have to think about this. You can think about a million other things right now, while I take care of this drive, while I park, while we go through the door. Say hello to Linda when we walk in. Like, it'll take care of all that for you. Is That a good example?
- [16:13]
A
Yes, that's a good example. Also, even more simple, tying your shoes, brushing your teeth. You do it every single day to the point that you don't consciously think about that you're doing it. So you can be thinking about a whole bunch of other things. You still do it. But if somebody asks you an hour later, did you brush your teeth? You know you did, but you can't remember the act of doing it. That's the subconscious mind when it takes over a task. So that's the subconscious gets programmed. One way that's only one way is the repetition. The second way is through emotionalization. Emotionalization is when you experience something, feel something, think something, see or hear something that touches you emotionally on in such a way that it can make an instant change to your subconscious programming, even with one repetition, maybe two, maybe three, maybe five. But if you are emotionally triggered enough by whatever it is that occurs. And that can be any emotion. It could be anger, it could be frustration, happiness, sadness, anything that could change your life and alter you immediately just because of the strength of that emotion. Because emotion contains energy, and energy is one of the key investments to make any type of change in life. So let's say you're a person. You always keep telling yourself, I gotta stop texting and driving. And then one day you get an accident, texting and driving, and you don't pass away, but the other driver does. All right, you're never going to text and drive again. Because the one time that it was your fault, doing that thing you weren't supposed to do, even though you heard it a hundred times, you needed to have it emotionalized because you were just consciously, logically processing it. But now that it became emotional, now you've surpassed. You bypass a thousand logical repetitions with one emotional experience. So emotion can program the subconscious mind a lot faster than repetition can.
- [17:51]
B
Can you do emotionalization, like, on purpose without having, like, the accident happen? How. What's. What's somebody that says, like, okay, I want to be mentally strong to become an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur, or yeah. And they're just like, cool. I want to start training my mind to do this vicariously. Yeah.
- [18:08]
A
So how do they do that vicariously? Through others who can tell their story. There's a reason why if you go to a business conference, there's almost always at least one motivational speaker. Why they have one person there to motivate. It's so that the emotional, the subconscious mind is open through the emotion. And in that open space, now we can insert some of the logic Some of the information and that emotion gets you to say, okay, now that I'm in this environment and I'm around all these other people who are also emotional and excited. And I mean, I've been at conferences and depending on who the speaker is, there are people crying and hugging and, yeah, all kinds of things. And again, the information is not that much different than what they've been reading in books at home. What's the difference is that they get emotional. And when you're emotional, you're more likely to change than when you're logical. And most people, most humans are much more altered by their emotional states than they are by their biological processing. So that's why the emotion matters so much. So absolutely. So the way you do it, to answer your question, is you can get that energy transferred to you by another person. Because remember, all conservation of energy says energy is neither created nor destroyed. It merely moves from one object to another and it changes forms. So if I go to a conference and Tony Robbins is speaking, maybe it gets some people or me emotional enough that now I'm willing to listen to the logic that I've heard a hundred times but did nothing about. So also, why do people listen to music? When we work out, yeah, it feels good and it's a distraction so we don't hear the other sounds. But also we listen to music that we like because that music gets us into our zone. And then we run faster or we hit the bag harder, or we can get through that last set more easily with the music than if we were just listening to the sound of our own body saying, I'm tired. Right. So that's the reason, one of the main reasons music exists, because music touches us emotionally. So that's. The second way is emotion. So we got the repetition, we got emotion. The third one is immersion is. The third way is to immerse yourself in a state, energy, location, etc. To where nothing else can communicate with the conscious or the subconscious mind, so that the subconscious mind has no choice but to engage with what it's in. So think of submersion. If you're submerged in water, unless you're a deep sea diver professionally, you're probably not thinking about anything other than, let me be sure I only stay here long enough until I can get back to the surface and breathe again. And when you're immersed, one of the examples that I just said, you go to a conference. Why do people go to business conferences? Often it's not because we are trying to hear what the speaker has to say. And even if you do, you already heard it. If you watch them on YouTube, they said that already. You read their book, they said that already. You go to the events, you can be around a thousand other people feeling the same thing at the same time with the same energy. So you're immersed in that energy. It's an escape from your normal routine. And when you're immersed in a certain energy, you are more likely to do. You're more likely to do things that you wouldn't do if you're home by yourself. It's much easier to get a table rush of people buying your course if you have more in one room at a conference than if you try to sell it to them on the Internet. Why? Because at home, they're all distracted by their surroundings. You get them in that one room, you can control the environment a lot better. So the immersion is about putting yourself in a state where you can't consume anything other than the state that you're in. The good thing about all three of these is that anybody can do these to themselves. You can do this to yourself. You can immerse yourself in the energy. It's being able to. This is the reason why people do meditation, mindfulness exercises in the morning, and yoga. Why do you do that? The whole purpose of it is to detach from what's happening in your environment, mentally detach and take yourself somewhere mentally where you're only considering what you want to consider, whatever that may be. Your subconscious mind is open if you are doing it quote, unquote, right. It's called a practice for a reason. But if you're doing it, subconscious mind is open. You insert what you want to insert, and you tell yourself, this is my intention for the day. This is what I'm going to do today. This is the reason why people have. What do they call it? Just auto suggestions or the affirmations that people do at the beginning of the day to get your subconscious mind open to programming. Those can be emotionally triggering. You do it every single day. So it's all three. Immersion, emotionalization, and repetition. You combine all three. You can reprogram the subconscious mind to be anything that you want it to be. Interesting.
- [22:15]
B
I love this. And. And the person that. The logical side of anyone, right. Is saying, okay, cool. Let's say I do all these things. It's like. It's a checklist. I'll just listen to Dre. I'll just bang, bang, bang. Cool. How long do I have to do this for before I reprogram my mind?
- [22:29]
A
Well, it's a process. That's the reason why success is a process. It's not a thing that you get to. There's not an end. There's no end date. So I'll give you an example. When I was making basketball videos on YouTube, it was about 2009. Players would always ask me about dribbling the ball. That's the main. One of the main things you got to be able to do to play. And I did this set of drills, and I told him, Do 100 of these every day. Like, different drills to do. Beth, do 100 of each one of these every day. And at the end of the video, I said, do these every day for five years, and you will be a very good ball handler. Because every player wanted to be good at dribbling. And the main comment that I got from a lot of players was either, thank you, or the other one was, damn, do I have to do these every day for five years? Like, it was, like, too much work they were considering. And I said to them, well, how long do you want to be good? Because being good is not something it's not. You get to a point, okay, I'm good. Steph Curry didn't get to a point, okay, I'm good at shooting three pointers. I don't have to practice again. I'm just good. He practices more than everybody. He's the best. So the best performers are the ones who continually keep their game sharp even once they get to the point of being good. So there's no point where it's over. You get to a point where this becomes who you are as a person. In order for something to remain who you are, well, guess what? You got to keep doing it is if you stop doing it, you're not that anymore. As we said, success is pursuit of an ideal. If you're pursuing it and then you win the trophy and you don't have a next goal, you're not successful anymore. Very next day, you're. You're now unsuccessful because you're not going after anything. So success is something that you continually do. It's who you are. It's not what you do. So if someone asks that question, they're using it as an example here, Cody. But if someone were to ask me the question, how long before I get there? I say, well, that's the wrong question, because you're asking a question based on doing, not on being. Being is not something that ends completely.
- [24:05]
B
Agree with all of this. I love that. Thank you for that, man. What are you most excited about? For the future. I mean, we. It's funny. We're already 25 minutes in. You dropped already so much gold for us.
- [24:15]
A
What are you most excited about?
- [24:16]
B
The future. I know I can go all day.
- [24:18]
A
Yeah. What I'm most excited about in the future is really making more of an entity out of the entire work on your game framework. So I built my business over the last. I've been full time entrepreneur for 10 years. So over this last 10 years, has been a lot of Dre as the main character, as the engine of this whole thing. So I want to be more of the driver and then eventually more of the passenger and let the engine be the entity of work on your game. So a lot of these things that we're talking about and many others that I've helped people with over the years, Cody is just getting it all codified, getting it all on paper to where somebody can learn these things without having to have a conversation with me. So that's the main thing I'm in the process of doing, doing right now. So we can kind of enterprise this thing up to where, let's say a company like Microsoft, they have a million employees, they want to learn what I know. Doesn't mean I had to meet with a million different people. How can we get the system into your system? They all can learn it and never have to shake my hand. That's the next level for us.
- [25:15]
B
Who do you. Who are you inspired by to do this? Because, I mean, you mentioned a couple names. Earl Nightingale, you mentioned Tony Robbins. I'm sure you follow a lot of other people. Who are you inspired by that helps you level up your game.
- [25:26]
A
Wow. So many people. When it comes to. Well, just in sports, I say Michael Jordan is my favorite. When it comes to business, I. I tell people this. I listen to a lot of people. I probably can't think of all the names, but if someone said Dre, you can't listen to anybody else anymore. You got to pick one person on the subject. Let's say business or marketing. And you can only listen to their stuff, everything they made, but nobody else. Just them forever. I would go, a guy named Dan Kennedy. You familiar with him? I am, yeah. Yeah, I would go with Dan Kennedy. So I heard about him through Russell Brunson, who I'm sure you know of, and Russell's kind of his protege. And Russell kind of took Dan's stuff and made it his own way. But then when I started actually listening to Dan, I said, let me listen. I like Russell, too. But as I started listening To Dan, I said, this is the source right here. Yes, exactly.
- [26:11]
B
Another source before Dan. We just don't really know because that's how human.
- [26:14]
A
Right, Right. So I. I purchased because Russell bought Dan's company, you probably know, a couple years ago, and then he sold, like, this package of everything he ever made. And I bought the package. So I've listened to his stuff, and he name drops a lot of older people, and he comes from before the Internet era. So his stuff is just straight up marketing 101 Internet or not. And I like it because a lot of the stuff he says applies whether you're online or you're offline. And he's. His whole thing is no bs, and that tends to be my style. So I like Dan.
- [26:42]
B
I like that a lot. I think it's perfect. Time segue to move into the rapid fire. Questions. You ready?
- [26:48]
A
Yes.
- [26:49]
B
What is your Favorite business book?
- [26:51]
A
48 Laws of Power by Robert Green.
- [26:54]
B
What's the one thing that you wish that you knew before starting a business.
- [26:58]
A
That you had to sell people what they want while at the same time giving them what they need?
- [27:05]
B
It's not the same thing always.
- [27:07]
A
It's almost never the same thing.
- [27:09]
B
Break that down just quickly on that.
- [27:12]
A
Yes. It's kind of like feeding medicine to a dog. Dog needs the medicine. But if you just give them the pill, they won't eat it. So you have to hide it in some deli meat so they actually eat it. And it's the same thing with human beings. A human says, I came to you, Dre, because I want to make more money. And they do want to make more money, but in order to make more money, we have to re. We have to rejigger their systems, rejigger their processes, rejigger their strategies, and change their mindset. They don't come telling me they need to do that, but that's what they actually need in order to make more money. So I sell them. Okay, we're going to help you make money. We're going to do this, this, this, and within a year, we're going to be making this much. This is the plan. They say, okay, great. They sign up now, for us to actually do that, I have to give them all the stuff they didn't even ask for. But they can't get to the outcome without those things.
- [27:52]
B
I love that. What's the worst advice on business that you've ever received?
- [27:56]
A
You need to have a website and an LLC before you start your business.
- [28:01]
B
That was the worst advice.
- [28:04]
A
The worst one?
- [28:05]
B
Yeah. Why is it the worst.
- [28:06]
A
Oh, why is it the worst? Actually, nobody told me that, but I hear it so often these days, it's frustrating. The reason is the worst advice is because it's an excuse that a lot of people use to not actually get started and do what it actually takes to have a business was to have somebody giving you money. That's all you need to start a business. If somebody gives you money, you're in business. So people use myriad excuses to not do the thing that will lead to that thing.
- [28:29]
B
Perfectionism. And they feel like they have to have all the ducks in the row before they start. But really, it's a matter of just like trading value with a human.
- [28:35]
A
That's right.
- [28:36]
B
How many hours do you think you work on your business per week?
- [28:39]
A
It's a great question, because this is something I've been working on. So I've been a. I've done what I've done basketball to business through grinding. I've been a grinder, Cody. This is wake up early, stay late, work harder than everybody else. I mean, my brand is literally called work on your game because I just put in the time. But you get to a point, I was talking about this with a guy who helps lawyers, and they're notorious for this. That you get to a point where you're like, okay, how much longer do I have to do this? Because I don't see an end to this. This. It can't. This can't be it. Even if you're making money, even if you're quote, unquote, successful, okay, I started the business so I could have some time and some freedom, and now I have money. I can't spend it. I can't go anywhere because I got to work. So how do you get out of that cycle? And that's something I've been working on a lot, especially this year, 2025, and we're recording this. How do I. I want to do business Kind of like a lion or an alligator eats. All right? They hunt, they kill something, and then they rest for two to seven days before they hunt and kill something again. They're not just constantly hunting all the time. That's how predators move. And they're apex predators. They're at the top of the food chain. So the. The metaphor here, to answer your question, first of all, I've been a 60 hour a week guy, but I'm getting that down. I'm trying to end my work days an hour earlier than usual now. So I'm trying to go from about 8 to 4 instead of 8 to 5 ish. Have kids. Now you understand that when you have children, you can't just keep working. I mean, you can, but you can't. Right. So at some point it has become more about effectiveness than just productivity. Now, a lot of entrepreneurs I talk to are looking for productivity when what they really need is effectiveness. So if you're looking to make ten grand a month, okay, how can we make ten grand a month in eight days a month of work? Rather than, let's just work 30 days. Just to say you work 30 days, if that makes sense. So for me, I'm trying to get it down to, I mean, I'm not, I don't want to stop working. I like working, but let's just say 40 hours a week, that's what I'm aiming for, but I don't count.
- [30:41]
B
This is not, not a question I had a planned, but I'm also a past athlete. Played my entire life, all through high school and then played college, college football. Didn't play at the professional level. But I would say that if you, if I summarize my athletic career, it was, I was not necessarily gifted in any means, but I always got by, by working harder than everybody else. I was always in the weight room twice a day, double everybody else typically. I was always on the field catching more passes than anybody else. I was always studying a little harder than everybody else. So I got, I kind of ingrained in my DNA that grinding mentality and, which was great. It served me for so long. But it's interesting I'm now coming up on this, this time in my life where I'm like, this doesn't really serve me like it used to serve me anymore. And, and it's, it's a new thing for me though, if I'm honest, because I just thought that would just be part of my DNA forever. And that's just, well, how. It's how I'm supposed to be. But I'm now changing my mind of like, huh. The perfectionism that came from doing every rep perfect, catching every pass perfectly, running every route perfectly is actually, it was served me then and it served me up to this point, but it's not necessarily serving me anymore. Curious if you have any experience in feeling that way with your, with your own athletic career.
- [32:07]
A
Absolutely. In sports, I mean, the difference between sports and business. Cody, I'm sure you understand, sports is as close to a meritocracy as you're going to get. It's all about the productivity. We have an objective arbiter known as A scoreboard. Whereas in the business world, the arbiters are people and people have different energies, feelings and emotions day by day. So things change. So in the sports world, you can outwork your competition and win because you outworked them. In the business world, you can outwork your competition and still come in last place. Because it's not necessarily about the effort, is about the outcome. And what you were saying reminded me of something that I didn't say in the first part of my answer is that there comes a point in entrepreneurship, and this also can be in sports, but it's much more in business that the hard work and the grinding is necessary until you get to a certain point of understanding and ability and knowing what you're doing. Then you get to an inflection point where you have to evolve. If you're going to grow, you have to evolve past. Let me just be the grinder who outworks the world to how do I put systems and processes in place so where I'm being more efficient and more effective without the same amount of grind. Because human beings, I mean, eventually we all want to retire, we want to walk away, we want to go on vacation. Eventually we all die. And if the whole business is based on you doing everything, as soon as you stop, everything stops. Just like in sports. In sports, you stop playing, the paycheck stops that day. It's not, it's not a wind down period, it's that day. It's over. No more money because you're not playing. So you're trading your effort for dollars. In sports, even if there's a lot of dollars, and a lot of people don't understand that watching sports from the outside in. And Most athletes ain't LeBron James or Tom Brady. In the business world, a lot of business people are set up the exact same way. They're trading their efforts for dollars. The problem is your efforts eventually run out. Your talent runs out, your time runs out. So how do you create another entity that's not you, but it may be based on you that can still do the work without you having to do all the work, but you still collect the money. That's where you're building what some entrepreneurs say, a quote unquote, real business. Technically it's a business even if you're doing all the work. But you get what I'm saying? Yeah, real business, when it's not about you having to do everything you can take, money still comes in.
- [34:22]
B
Exactly. Can it grow without you? Right. It's usually the measure I'm like Can it grow without me? Okay. That's, like, exactly. Different level. Different levels of business, Right? Dre, this has been awesome, man. Super valuable. We're just about out of time. I want to ask, where can people follow you? Where can we learn more about you? You work with you on a closer level?
- [34:43]
A
Sure.
- [34:43]
B
Where people find you.
- [34:45]
A
Sure. So I'm on every social media platform, so whichever ones you like, you can just look up my name. Dre Baldwin. I'm on all of them actively, and all my profiles are public and online. You can just go to work on your game dot com. Work on your game dot com. That's the portal that'll send you to everywhere else that we have. We got a lot of stuff going on.
- [35:01]
B
Beautiful. And for anyone listening or watching this, we'll drop all those links to Dre in the show notes or the description below so you can find them all there. So don't feel like you have to write them all down or remember them. Dre, this has been an absolute pleasure, man. I really appreciate your time as. As I mentioned earlier.
- [35:17]
A
Absolutely. Cody, thank you for having me on. I appreciate the opportunity.
- [35:20]
B
Cool. Talk soon.
- [35:21]
A
Thank you.