High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 10: The DNA of Championship Teams with Motivational Speaker & Author Ross Berstein

Episode Date: September 27, 2015

Ross Bernstein is an award-winning peak performance business speaker who’s keynoted conferences on four continents and the author of nearly 50 sports books. He’s spent the better part of the past 20 years studying the DNA of championship teams. Ross and his books have been featured on thousands of television and radio programs over the years including CNN, ESPN, Fox News, and “CBS This Morning,” as well as in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and USA Today. In this interview, Ross provides numerous golden nuggets of wisdom to help you step up your game in sports and business. For more information on Ross, visit www.rossbernstein.com.

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Today's episode is sponsored by Worldwide Access Solutions Incorporated, a 24-7 clear advantage, a call center providing inbound and outbound services, and a licensed life and health insurance agency. You can visit them at wasi.com. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset. This is your host, Cyndra Campoff, and I am absolutely thrilled today to provide you an

interview with Ross Bernstein. Ross is the best-selling author of nearly 50 sports books. The first book he wrote when he was 18 years old. He's an award-winning Hall of Fame peak performance business keynote speaker. He has keynoted conferences for Fortune 500 companies on four continents. He's also been featured on CNN, ESPN, Fox News, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and USA Today. He has spent the better part of the past 20 years studying the DNA of championship teams. And his mission today is to help us think about what it's going to take for us to raise our games to the next level. Now, what I really love about this interview is he provides so many golden nuggets of wisdom

throughout the interview. Two things that stood out to me the most was the importance of turning lemons into lemonade and how to actually do that, as well as the importance of being amazing at what you do and that the rest will follow. If you're anything like me, you're going to really enjoy this interview with Ross and the wisdom that he provides. So let's bring on Ross Bernstein. This is your host, Cindra Kampoff, and I'm excited today to provide you an interview with Ross Bernstein. And I'm really excited to talk to Ross today, to talk to him more about himself as a high performer and a very successful speaker all across the world, as well as what

he sees as the difference between the mindset of successful business leaders and entrepreneurs and athletes. So Ross, to start us off, tell us about your passion and what you do right now. Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me on. I'm a big fan of yours and congrats on all your success. And I'm very humbled and honored to be a participant in the Awesome Syndra podcast. So let me just start off by saying that. Thank you, Ross. That's so nice of you. So my passion is similar to yours. I'm a sports nut. You and I are both lucky.

We figured out a way to make our careers doing what we love and what we're passionate about. And I was always a huge sports nut. And somehow, someway, just stumbled into a career path where I get to work with really cool people. And I have two businesses. I have a book business that I write sports books, and then I speak. I speak at about 100 conferences a year, mostly at Fortune 500 organizations, big sales conferences and annual events

and a lot of big associations. I tie the two together, and I talk about the DNA of championship teams and how that relates to sales and leadership and customer service and culture. So that's kind of what I do, I guess. That sounds great. Sounds fun. Tell us about what you mean, Ross, by the DNA of championship teams.

How do you explain that? Well, in my program, it's called The Champion's Code, and it's based on two series of books that I've written. The first series is a book about how and why winning teams win and what makes the great ones great. It was a series of books called Raising Stanley, Raising Lombardi, World Series Winners. It was about what it took to hoist that trophy. And I interviewed over 1,000 professional athletes and coaches that all had one thing in common. They were all champions. And much like Jim Collins did in his iconic book, Good to Great, I was looking for the same sorts of trends and patterns and metrics that were common among these elite teams. And the results were fascinating. The other series that's

tied into the, that's the champions part of the champions code. The code part is a series of books I wrote called The Code. And there was one for hockey, which is about why there's fighting in hockey. There's one for baseball about what leads to retaliation and players getting beamed. And then there's the football code. And basically there's codes in every sport, and it's about these unspoken, unwritten rules and about the fine line between cheating and gamesmanship in sports and about crossing that line, whether it's taking steroids or sign stealing or deflate gate or any of these things, any of these sort of sneaky, nefarious things that players, teams do to try

and gain an edge. So the champion's code, it's about winning the right way. So I talk a lot about ethics and integrity and accountability and values and about what being a champion means and about how everyone has a code, kind of a mission statement, what they do, what they stand for, how they play the game, and how that translates to business, whether you cheat and golf or do all these little things that we sort of judge people and how well we trust them. So it's a lot of fun and I love it. So it's been a fun ride. What's one thing that you really learned from a thousand professional athletes and coaches? What's the most important thing that you learned from interviewing them? That's a great question. I've learned so much and so much more than I think one question.

But I think the big thing, what it really comes down to, and the thing that I really stress the most in my programs is authenticity and relationships. You know, there's a lot of cliche answers about hard work and discipline and so forth, but I think the better you're able to build relationships and build deeper, more quality relationships, the more success you're going to have whether you're an athlete, whether you're a coach, whether you're in business as a CEO of a Fortune 100 company or you're just climbing the ladder and trying to make your way.

So I really think authentic relationships and building relationships and just being a nice person. I had a chance to meet some great people, people like Kirby Puckett and Harmon Killebrew and Wayne Gretzky and so many amazing athletes and individuals. There's certain ones where you go, man, that guy, he just gets it. He's just – what a good guy. Those are the people that we like to connect with. Those are the people that people like to connect with. Those are the people that people

still talk about, you know, all these years later and they're, they're, they're kind of immortal. And I think those same life lessons kind of ring true in business is that, that, and a big part of my program is I believe that we like to do business with or be influenced by or listen to people who we like, who we trust and who just get it it. That's really what my program boils down to is about sharing examples and stories from the sports world and how that relates to the business world. I've just been having fun doing it. It's fun when I get to do neat stuff like this and be on really cool podcasts like yours where people want to talk shop.

Just having fun. That's what we're doing today, talking shop. So Ross, tell us, you get to go all over the country speaking to businesses and entrepreneurs and business leaders. Tell us the differences that you see in teams that work really well on the business side versus those that don't. What do you see the difference? Like you, I'm at a lot of different conferences and events, and you can tell pretty quick what a team's culture is. When you walk into a locker room, a press box, a dugout. I've been a member of the media for the past 20 years in Minneapolis with the Minnesota Vikings and the Twins and the Wilds and the Wolves and the Gophers.

So I do spend a fair amount of time in locker rooms. You can tell culture. You can tell attitude. You can tell momentum pretty quickly, and you can also tell it in business. I'm at a lot of conferences where you walk in and you can tell pretty quickly what the vibe is. I like to come in early. I like to stay late when I'm working with a client. If I can, come in the day before, maybe tour a factory, maybe just meet the C-suite, have dinner, do the dance, build a relationship.

But you can tell pretty quick what's going on above and beyond Google search of their stock index and anything that's happening to their corporate landscape. You can tell if people like each other. There's an old saying, people don't quit jobs. They quit bosses. So I talk a lot about leadership and I talk a lot about different coaching philosophies and styles and how they connect and create buy-in and how they're able to lead effectively. Sometimes you walk into a company and they're going to say, hey, we just fired 5,000 people. Go rally the troops. Or other times they can say, hey, we you know 12 consecutive growth quarters and how do we

sustain this momentum and get even bigger and better and how do we keep doing this and and it's the same analogies for dynasty teams and in in sports and if you're a minnesota sports fan where we both live you look at the 87 and 91 minnesota twins and you go wow you look at the culture and you look at the the locker room vibe and. You look at the culture and you look at the locker room vibe and you look at the clubhouse leaders and the veterans and the rookies and how everyone came together and all their roles and the great management philosophies

under Tom Kelly and how he built that organization from rookie ball and Elizabethan to Class A and Double A and Triple A and how he'd gotten those kids to come up to the ranks and got the right chemistry and they talked about how everyone rode and AAA and how he'd gotten those kids to come up to the ranks and got the right chemistry. And they talked about how everyone rode the boat together in the same direction. And that was always a big commonality that you hear.

And there weren't cliques. There's so much drama in baseball. When you walk into a dugout with blacks, whites, Jews, Muslims, Latinos, Dominicans, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans, Koreans, Japanese. It's crazy in there. So you get a four-game road trip in Toronto, Boston, New York, L.A., and you've got all this drama. You've got guys that want – this clique wants to go out to dinner here, and this clique, they want to go – they want to talk this language. This clique wants to go listen to this music. This guy hates that guy.

This guy is chasing that guy's girlfriend, and it's just constant drama. And in baseball, there's a shared vision. When you suck in baseball, they fire everybody. There's no golden parachute for the dude at the top. So they're all in it together. And great managers will lean on these clubhouse guys like Harmon Killebrew, or now with the Minnesota Twins, Torrey Hunter, who just turned 40 and he said, you guys were too used to losing. He had to come in and change the culture. They have dance parties now after they win games and it's just hilarious seeing these gangly Caucasians dancing in the locker room after games. But they've changed the culture and when you look at how great organizations do it from top to bottom and how they keep the cupboards full and they recruit good talent because people are going to leave and they're going to get injured

and things are going to happen, but they do little things consistently over and over and they create a culture of winning. It becomes a habit, as you know, talking about it from a very, very high level for what you do. So I get to see it and I get to be a part of it in a very small scale and write about it and kind of celebrate these things. But you definitely do see commonalities among winning teams, and it's true for every sport going back all the way to the Yankees teams in the 1940s and 50s where I interview people all the way up to today, whether it's NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB, whatever it is. And it's really fascinating.

And when you see a team win it, it's amazing. It's magic. And when you see a dynasty team win three, four, five championships in a row, that's when you go, wow, there's something really special going on there. So, Ross, let's think about you as a high performer. I think about your success in the public speaking realm. You have the highest designation in the National Speakers Association, the certified speaking professional. So tell us, you know, for you, what do you think has been one or two things that you've done as a high performer to have the success that you've had?

Well, thank you. That's really nice of you to say all that nice stuff. It's really a lot of little things. For me in my business, it's meant staying focused. It's meant building relationships and not getting too sucked into things I don't want to do. Distractions disguised as opportunities, as they say. I was pitched to do a reality TV show on Discovery Channel. It sounded really cool, but it really would have taken me off of my focus. It would have been a lot of travel. It would have been a lot of crazy drama. So I said no. I don't do social media. I don't do a podcast like you do. I don't do a blog. These are things I probably should do but I don't because I'm not passionate about them and if I'm not, then I'm colleagues to get business and to just really follow the laws of karma

and to help people, help them get on TV, to help them – because I'm doing a lot of that with all my books and stuff, and I have relationships with TV producers at Good Morning America and the Today Show as well as the local affiliates and helping colleagues get gigs and make better relationships. For me, it's kind of working smarter versus harder, to use an old cliche, and to really try and grow my business organically that way and just to really stay focused. Other than that, I don't know. I've been really lucky and I think it comes through. If you really love what you do, you can't fake authenticity, I think. Like you, I found a good niche that I really enjoy and I'm just enjoying the ride.

Ross, I really like the distractions disguised as opportunities. You know, I think all of us experience that who are entrepreneurs in terms of looking for the next thing or, you know, making sure that we are following our passion and how they can easily be distractions that really are opportunities for us. But the importance that you're talking about is following your passion, working smarter, not harder, and following one course until success. So, Ross, tell us why you do what you do. You know, keeping your why front and center is really essential. So tell us why you do it. I love it.

I love speaking. I love the moment when I'm done speaking. And sometimes there's a standing ovation and people run up and hand you their business card and they go, wow, you got to come talk to my company. And we're having our conference in Hawaii or Australia. And you go, wow, that's so cool. And that's the high for me. I love booking. I'm a sales guy at heart, I think.

I grew up in a fourth-generation chain of family furniture stores in southern Minnesota and just learning those simple life lessons from my great-grandpa and my grandpa and my dad and my brothers and just about customer service and just making your customers happy and trying to do right by them. And I don't know. I'm just really lucky that I stumbled onto this, I guess. People say like, well, how do you become a speaker? It's like, you know, you don't find speaking. Speaking finds you. You have to do something in life, have successes. You have to have massive failures before you can speak.

Speak consistently anyways. Anyone can get a gig. Any professional athlete can get a gig. But to do, you know, 50 or 100 at a very high level for a very high fee, it's a business. That's what I love is focusing on that. My books really feed my speaking business and vice versa, so it's really kept me focused on that. Life's about stages. For me, at this particular stage, I have a kid who's in eighth grade. So it's just about kind of seeing the world and embracing the lifestyle. I mean I got to bring her to nine countries with me last year. And I thought at one point there might be a chance she was going to flunk the seventh grade.

But it's fun. And I've just really embraced this lifestyle of seeing the world. And we're going to China later this year. It's just I'm kind of all in right now because I don't know how many years I've got left where my kid can't come. She's got traveling soccer and cross-country and theater and friends and Instagram. How many more years is she going to be able to do these things with me? I work with CEOs all over the world that make crap loads of money and are miserable. They're spending it all on therapy for their kids because they're

gone all the time. So I'm just all about enjoying the experience as much as I can with my family. And there are weeks when I'm traveling and I'm on the road, but there's lots of other times when I get to bring them with me and I thoroughly enjoy it. And I love being a dad and I love being able to go to all the soccer games I can and all the cross-country meets I can and just to be present because it is a grind and you are on the road but I do get to home office so I love that and you know that's just the biggest thing whatever you do in life you really have to just stop and smell the roses a little bit in amidst this chaos and really ask yourself, why are you doing this? Is it for the right reasons?

Are you really taking care of the people who matter most in your life? Traveling a lot is difficult, as you know. You're on the road doing it too, but I think if you can find that balance and do the right things, it really makes a difference. For me, I'm lucky I get to see the world. You mentioned you can't become a speaker unless you failed and that you have some life experiences. Tell us about a time that you failed, what you learned from it, and how it could help the listeners learn something about themselves. I fail all the time. I'm really good at failing. You fail your way to the top. You take risks. You fail. You're going to have successes. If you read the bio of every Fortune 500 CEO, you'll read failure, failure,

failure, success. You just got to perform the autopsy. It's what you learn. My biggest failure is part of my signature story. And as speakers, we all have a signature story. And mine is unique, and I'll share it briefly because it's about my biggest failure. But I grew up in Fairmont, Minnesota, a little town six miles from the Iowa border. I was a huge sports fan, and I wasn't that good at sports, but I got sucked into watching hockey as a 10-year-old kid when I watched The Miracle on Ice in 1980. It was amazing, and I fell in love with Herb Brooks, my hero. I later met him that year at his hockey camp. I begged my parents to let me play hockey. And as I say, Southern Minnesota, this is not hockey country. It's not like Northern Minnesota where they're pulling them out of the wombs by

their skate blades. This is wrestling and basketball territory. But I begged them to let me play and they let me play. And I went Herbie's hockey camp, and I won the most improved award, which goes to the guy who sucks the most, and that was me. Herbie and I became friends. Years later, I went to the University of Minnesota, and I wound up walking onto the Gopher hockey team. I was a crazy leap of faith that i had become friends with a bunch of gopher hockey players and uh they'd encourage me to do so and i had a cup of coffee and and um it didn't it didn't last long i wound up getting cut from the team but uh um afterwards coach woog told me that there was another job opening on the team and

and as i like to say it wasn't quite as sexy as All-American Defenseman, my first choice, but it was close. It was the team mascot, Goldie the Gopher. And I wound up making lemonade out of lemons and became a giant smelly rodent and had a ball. I got in a lot of trouble, so much trouble that as a senior, a publisher approached me and asked to write a book about all the trouble I had gotten into. Apparently, it's not appropriate to throw Kraft cheese singles at the Wisconsin band. Who knew? I said, well, I'm flattered, but I don't know who's going to want to read your book. I begged my mom and dad to let me use my graduate school money they had saved for me to write and publish a book.

I had two older brothers who had gone on to get their Ivy League MBAs, and this is what they wanted me to do. I wanted to write a book. I remember my dad swearing a lot and just finally saying, fine, you can have your money, but don't come crawling back to me when it's all gone. I said, great, and I dove in, and I started writing this book as a senior in college. I didn't know what I was doing, but I knew that I wanted to do it, and I was really passionate, and it wasn't going to fail. One of the first phone calls I got out of the blue was from Herb Brooks, who was coaching the New Jersey Devils in the National Hockey League. He heard about my book and he said, ìHey, Iíve seen you as Goldie. You made me laugh. Letís get together. I want to help you with your book because I want to grow hockey.î

We became connected and years later, he asked me to write his biography, which was a huge honor. We were about a year into it and I was actually golfing with Herb the morning of August 11, 2003 the morning Herb was killed in a car accident it's kind of where you were when Kennedy got shot if you're a hockey fan but Herb had a speak engagement in Chicago that day

and he had to leave our charity tournament early and I was devastated and he just inspired me so much I decided to write a book about him called Remembering Herbie and then I helped to create the Herb Brooks Foundation with his family. Today, I'm the president of the organization and I donate proceeds from all my books and speeches to the foundation to grow hockey. I've written a couple of books about Herbie now and try to keep his legacy alive. He always loved the fact that I made lemonade out of lemons. Even though I wasn't good enough to play gopher hockey, I still wanted to do my part. The charity today, the women's Olympic team trains at our dryland

training facility. We raise millions to get inner city kids playing hockey and disadvantaged kids with autism and Down syndrome and sled hockey. Philanthropy is a big part of my business and I'm involved in a lot of different charities. All the books I write, we always create charitable foundations because I'm a big believer that people don't want to be sold, but they love to buy and they love to buy from causes that they believe in. So that's been a big thing. So my biggest failure of not making the Gopher hockey team turned into my biggest success. And I wrote my first book as a senior in college called Gopher Hockey by the Hockey Gopher.

It became a cult bestseller, and 50 books later, I've somehow made it as a complete poser. So it's like I say, it's not what happens to you. It's how you choose to react to it that matters. My first choice would have been hoisting the Stanley Cup, but as I talk to you today, I'm leaving tomorrow to go speak to the Colorado Avalanche at their team retreat. So even though I'm not good enough to play, here I am, dumb luck. I still get to hang out with teams, and they're going to let me practice with the team, and I get to hang out with these guys for a whole day and all these amazing athletes.

So crazy stuff, but who'd have thunk? You know, I think, Ross, what I really got from that story is, you know, at the time that you didn't make the Gophers hockey squad, you know, I think that can be disappointing, but it was part of your journey and you wouldn't have gotten where you are today without that opportunity, without being the Gopher. So thank you for sharing that with us. Ross, one of the things that we believe here at the High Performance Mindset, that if your dreams don't scare you, they aren't big enough. And so what that really means is, they aren't big enough. And so what that really means is that you should have big dreams. And if you just dream small that you won't be pushing yourself. Do you have a big dream that might seem a little scary or anxiety provoking? Oh, big, hairy dreams like Jim Collins calls them. Exactly. Big, hairy,

audacious dreams. Yeah. I mean, that's a great question. I definitely have dreams. I'm kind of living it in time ago and meeting his amazing, lovely wife, Susan, and seeing their life. She travels with them to all their speeches. They just travel the world together. That's all they do. Their kids are all grown. And I remember meeting him and telling my wife, I said, that's my dream. I want to be Mark Schoenbrock when I grow up. And I'm on that path to where that's what we're going to be able to do,

just travel the world speaking and writing books. Who knows where we're going to wake up? We'll be in Vietnam and New Zealand and China. Who knows? You work hard to get to that point, I guess, and then it's like, okay, what do you want to be when you grow up? I still haven't found out. I'm still a big smelly rodent at heart, I guess. But I don't know. That's sort of a dream, I guess. And I don't know. How about you? Let me ask you, what are you

dreaming of? Oh, man. I'm dreaming about, you know, I really love football. So I'm dreaming about being the kind of the go-to person in sports psychology in the NFL. That would be my big dream because I love the energy of the game, and I love helping athletes. That's cool. So that's my big dream. You're a giver, and you're a really giving person, and you're super smart, and it's exciting to see your momentum as you started out in the speaking business and all the success you've had academically and running your business. But now getting into the speaker world, there's no

question you're going to be doing amazing things. You already are. I'm so proud of you. It's so exciting and awesome to see your success. And you're an amazing speaker and I couldn't be happier for you. Ross, you're making me feel so good. I can see how people love to hear you speak. And so, you know, one of the things I really liked about you, the story that you provided is you saw Mark Sharon Brock and you just said, you know, you saw him as a role model. And I talked a few last week on the podcast about how we can get stuck in this comparison trap where we can compare ourselves to other speakers or other athletes, you know, other people that maybe have a little bit more success than us. But we tend to do it in a negative way. But what I heard you just say was that, you know, you saw Mark and you thought,

wow, that's kind of my dream life. And he's more of a role model. And you're comparing yourself in a positive way is just something that you can go after. Yeah, I thought that pretty cool. Thank you. So Ross, which of the top 10 traits of high performers do you think that you can go after. I thought that was pretty cool. Thank you. So Ross, which of the top 10 traits of high performers do you think that you most exhibit? Well, I was looking at your patterns and I'm torn. I like number one, they're gritty because I'm all about scrappy and gritty. And I think companies that achieve success, it's just an all hands on deck mentality where they just get stuff done. I just work with the Red Wings.

It's an amazing organization. They have the longest winning streak in professional sports in North America right now, 25 consecutive seasons they've made the playoffs. And oh, by the way, doing so in a city that filed bankruptcy, playing in the worst, oldest, crappiest, lowest revenue-producing arena, the Joe, the Red Wings, with 100% turnover multiple times, find ways to win. And they do it by being gritty. And Chris Chelios was a guy who retired at the age of 48. They just couldn't get rid of him. He just epitomized gritty. He would mentor the kids on the road and show them how to get, you know, tell them you had to get enough sleep and to sign your autographs the right way and slow down and to eat right because they're going to let their teammates down if they don't.

They've got to take care of their bodies and to not do stupid stuff on social media. The people that are watching all the time, everyone's paparazzi. He was playing next to kids younger than his own kids, but he would do the dirty work. He'd get two minutes a night and he'd be an energy guy, an agitator, disruptor. He'd go out there and he'd fight guys and block shots anditator disruptor he'd go out there and and and he'd fight guys and block shots and do this stuff no one wanted to do kill penalties but they couldn't get rid of him and that's the thing in life and business it's just how bad do you want it you know how bad do you want that big hairy dream and uh the people that are really willing to work

for it and go for it and just say just not not accept no for an answer. They're the ones who succeed. And there's no off season for those guys. They just do it. And it's a privilege you and I have that we get to hang around these people. It's like the fountain of youth, you know, hanging around professional athletes because their passion is sports and they'll do it ever it takes. This is their drug. They're addicted and you cannot tell them no. They will do whatever it takes. This is their drug. They're addicted. And you cannot tell them no. They will do anything. So I think Gritty is the one that sticks with me. The other one I was torn between was how they dominate the moment because I'm a big fan of seeing how big players play their biggest on the biggest stage.

And they really rise to the occasion when it matters most. And you do see that, that big players want the ball with the game on the line. And they're the ones with ice water in their veins. So they're all great. I love your high performer top 10. It's very cool and very honored to be a small part of answering one of your questions. So very cool, very cool stuff. Ross, which one do you think could be something you could still work on in terms of the top 10 list? Oh, man. I mean, I can work on all of them.

You know, I think that probably having a clear purpose to my work is probably something I struggle with, where it's an online learning platform where you're delivering your content and companies by them as a digital platform. And this is sort of the new all the rage thing. And I vowed I wasn't going to do this because it was a distraction. And now one of the biggest restaurant chains in the world just said, we need you to develop more content for us that we can deliver to all our managers who can't be here. So now I'm torn. Do I go do this and do I dive into this and go down that path, which I said I'm not going to do? But it's hard. It's a huge opportunity. So you weigh your options and you go, well. So I think having a clear purpose is going to help me.

And you know what? You take risks. You win some. You lose some. You're in a position where you can fail, okay. But I don't know. There's a lot of them. I think I can work on all of them. That's one thing I've learned a long time ago is that I am a work in progress and I just need to keep working, working, working. You know, and I think we all are a work in progress. You know, there are things that I do really well at every single day. One of those is grit. I'm very gritty and I work really hard at going after my dreams and my goals. But, you know, there are some that some days I'm just not as strong on.

So what I like about that, Ross, is you're being honest and forthcoming about, you know, that you're not perfect, which nobody is. So, Ross, let's go to the speed round. So if you could think of the first thing that comes to your mind when I ask you this question. So if there is a book or a person to follow or maybe a podcast that you listen to that you'd recommend our audience to check out, what would that be? There's a lot of people. One of my best friends is Sam Richter, S-A-M-R-I-C-H-T-E-R.com. He's amazing. He talks about technology and he's just real and super authentic. I love his stuff. He wrote a book called Take the Cold Out of Cold Calling.

He's all about using the internet and technology to build warmer relationships that when you do talk to someone, you know so much about them and that the conversation can be about them and not you. Even this conversation is weird for me because I don't like talking about me. I want to rather talk about you, but he's real good at getting people to think about the other person, and that's how you do business, developing relationships, is to really think about that. So Sam Richter would be the guy I'd recommend. It makes sense to me, given what you said at the beginning about how you see that the champion's code is really to build deep relationships

and to be a good person. I think that resonates with what you're talking about, Ross. What is one word that people describe you as? Well, the one word I do get a lot and I'm very honored to get is passion. I know it's cliche, but I'm very dynamic or very animated on stage when I present. I'm sweating profusely, and it's a performance. And I always say if you're not sweating after a sales call or whatever it is, then maybe you're not working that hard. So I am super passionate about what I do. I give birth to my books. I love them. I love giving them away, and I love talking about them at conferences as a way to help people to grow their businesses so that they have more money and more time to spend with the people that they love or golfing or hunting or fishing or spending time with their family or watching Gilligan's Island reruns. I don't care, but it's all about getting people to be better. And I'm really passionate about that. Which one of your books is your favorite one?

It's like, which of your kids do you love the most? The one that has probably brought the most success is a book called The Code. It's about fighting and hockey. And we've turned that into a few movies. Most recently, a project with Alex Gibney, who won an Academy Award. I'm only in the movie for like four minutes. So if you watch it, don't blink. It's called The Last Gladiators, but it was inspired by the book. That was really cool to kind of have something like that happen. And so I'm very excited about that. And that one's fun. And also my book, America's Coach, about Herb Brooks and the Miracle on Ice, because it's just such a very deep, emotional topic for me.

And it's for such a great cause. And I'm very honored to keep his legacy alive and to keep the charity going in his name. And what's the best piece of advice you've ever received? Oh, wow. You know, in the speaking business, and I think it really applies to any business, when I was a newbie and I was just starting out, I was at our National Speakers Association annual conference where there's thousands of speakers in a room. It's a giant freak show, as you can imagine. And there was this woman there who ran a very big speaker bureau, and she was a whale in the industry.

And I remember just getting up the nerve to go talk to her and give her my business card and, and as everyone else was trying to do. And, and I walked up and blurted out my, hi, I'm Ross. And, you know, I'd love to meet you and get on your radar. And, and she just kind of looked at me and she smiled and she said, she kind of just took my card and kind of handed it back. And she said, look, just be really amazing at what you do. and we'll hear about you. And when we do, we'll be in touch. And it was very humbling. It was like, whoa. And last year she called me. We did some business together.

It was kind of a cool moment for me. I'm sure she didn't remember me from that moment, but it was cool for me because I remembered it. And that sort of said, okay, I better be awesome so I can someday take your money and work with you. And it happened. So that felt kind of good. But yeah, just, you know what? Just be great at what you do. And people hear about you. Word of mouth, referral, all that kind of stuff. That's what makes the world go round. All this social media stuff. I mean, yeah, it's okay, but it's about referral business. It's about people liking you. It's about people recommending you. It's about people hearing about you in positive ways on social media if there is such a thing. So I'm just all about that. I don't try and force feed anything else. For me, it's just relationships and doing

the right thing and working hard. If that happens, good things happen. And Ross, what about a success quote? Do you have one that really seems to resonate with you? Well, I do have a really good one. It's from my hero, Herb Brooks, and I asked him three weeks before he died how he'd want his tombstone to read, and he said, the name on the front of the jersey is always more important than the one on the back. And Herb died during the making of the movie Miracle. And the producer from Disney came to me because they knew I'd buy this boat, and they asked me for a lot of the stuff and information that I could share with them, and it was cool.

That quote made it into the movie from Herbie. So that was a great one, and it really rings true today. Herbie was just all about the team, and there was no I or me. It was always about we and us. So as a team expert, PhD, I know you talk about those things as well, but that would probably be the one that resonates most for me. Ross, I got so many things out of this interview that I wrote down. You should see my sheet here.

I think the most important thing that you told me was just being amazing at what you do, and then people will find you. And this could be for athletes, for coaches, for entrepreneurs, business leaders who want to make the next step is just being amazing at what you do. And that's what's most important. I also heard from you the importance of having deep relationships and being a kind person. And then the rest will take care of itself. And I heard distractions can be disguised as opportunities and making sure you follow one path and follow your passion.

So two questions I have left for us. What advice do you have for those high performers who are listening? Any other pieces of advice you can give us? Well, I work with a lot of top producers, especially in financial services. I work with a lot of big banks and financial advisors and just worked with 10,000 life insurance salesmen, top producers. And they do have similar DNA. And for them, I think it's just the same kind of stuff we've been talking about. It's just a routine. It's picking up the phone, it's smiling and dialing, and there's no shortcut. There's no elevator to the top. You take the stairs and you work hard and you build

relationships and hopefully a lot of them are strategic and you give. You can't get until you give. This whole karma thing, I would never dream of asking someone for something unless I gave first. For me, my currency, as I call it, are my sports books. The first big puppy wet kiss for me is not my brochure or, hey, can I buy you coffee? It's, here's a bunch of my sports books. The first big puppy wet kiss from me is not my brochure or, hey, can I buy you coffee? It's, here's a bunch of my sports books because I know you're a huge football fan or something that's of value. Hey, can I help you? I know you're writing a book and I know all the big publishers. I've self-published. Can I help you with that? That's currency for me. Hey, I know you wrote a book and I know you'd probably love to get some media time. Could I

introduce you to the producer at the CBS this morning? I just was on and made a relationship. So donít ask until you give. I donít like when people just take. People like to do business and be around giving people and thatís why youíre magnetic, Cynra, because youíre a giver and certain people are and they arenít. I donít think you can teach it. You either have it in your DNA or you donít.

Itís not about you. Itís about them and if that happens, other people will help you. If they don't, then don't help them. It's a dead end. And Ross, I know your website is rossbernstein.com and they can find you there and your contact information there. One of the things I really liked on your website was watching your speaker highlight film, your reel. And I literally watched the whole thing. I was so engaged. So if people want to check out your speaking, they can go there and you have a website for your books,

rossbernsteinbooks.com. Is there anything else you'd recommend us and a way to follow you? Yeah, I mean, my main stuff, it's bernsteinbooks.com for books and rossbernstein.com for speaking and honor for me to be on it with you today. So I'm a huge fan of yours.

Congratulations to you on your success. You're a rising superstar in the speaking world, and I'm very proud to be your friend. So thank you very much for having me on today. Thank you so much, Ross. I really appreciate the time and the wisdom and the insight that you provided all the listeners. And I wish you the best in your business. If anybody would like to hire a motivational or inspirational speaker, Ross is the man. So check it out, rossbernstein.com. Thank you so much, Ross.

Thanks, Sindra. Cheers. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. Are you signed up for Sindra's weekly email with free mental tools and strategies for high performance? Why the heck not? Text MENTALLYSTRONG, all one word, to 22828.

Or visit syndracampoff.com.