Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - David Nurse on Turning Great Basketball Players Into NBA Stars

Episode Date: April 3, 2020

In this episode, we’ll digress from our regular programming on how to lose fat, gain muscle, and stay healthy, and enter the world of professional sports with David Nurse, who’s one of the premier shooting coaches in the NBA. David once had aspirations to play in the NBA himself, but eventually, he learned the painful truth that he simply wasn’t good enough to compete at the highest levels of the sport. This was a tough row to hoe for David, who had devoted most of his life to the sport. Basketball was more or less all he knew and loved, and if he couldn’t make it as a pro, what else was he supposed to do? Instead of quitting his passion, however, David redirected it, successfully pivoting to a career of helping other good athletes become great. And today, he works with some of the best players in the world to help them continue to hone not just their physical talents but their mental game, as well. So, if you’ve ever wondered what professional sports teams do when the cameras aren’t running to achieve such superhuman feats of athleticism, you’ll enjoy this episode. In this episode, David talk about . . . - How David transitioned from failed player to coach for some of the best basketball players in the world - How a "swag reel" can help players get into a flow state - Why preparation and confidence are the true keys to success - The importance of wanting to be educated and coached - The unseen extra work that creates elite athletes Click the player below to listen! 9:48 - How did you transition from being a player to coach? 13:54 - What are some of the negative talk and self limiting beliefs that you help NBA players overcome? 17:40 - What are the things that you can do to get a high probability that can produce a positive return? How do you put yourself into that situation as much as possible? 25:07 - How do you make what you say persuasive to NBA players? 38:09 - How do you help cultivate the willingness to be coached in the NBA players that you work with? With NBA players that aren’t born with extraordinary talent, how do you persuade them? 56:50 - What is your book Pivot and Go about? 58:11 - What are some examples of shifting your mindset? Mentioned on The Show: David Nurse's Book - Pivot and Go: http://davidnurse.com/book/ David Nurse's Podcast (The 1%): https://linktr.ee/davidnurse5 David Nurse's Website: http://davidnurse.com/ David Nurse's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/davidnursenba/ Shop Legion Supplements Here: https://legionathletics.com/shop/ --- Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.legionathletics.com/signup/

Hello and welcome to another broadcast of Muscle For Life. I'm Mike Matthews and I'm coming to you from my quarantine bunker deep in the heart of Texas and if you're listening to this, you are the resistance. Okay, okay, that was me doing my best Alex Jones impression. Gotta work on it, gotta work on it. What are we here to talk about today? Well, we're going to digress from the regular Muscle for Life programming, which is usually about how to lose fat and gain muscle and stay healthy. And we're going to enter the world of professional sports with David Nurse, who is one of the premier shooting coaches in the NBA. Now, David himself, he once had aspirations to play in the NBA, but eventually after a lot of time and a lot of hard

work, he learned the painful reality that he just wasn't good enough. He just wasn't going to be able to compete at the highest levels of the sport. As you can imagine, that was a tough row to hoe for David because up until that point, he had devoted most of his life, pretty much all of his waking time and pretty much all of his energy had been given to the sport. Basketball was more or less all he knew how to do and all he loved doing. And if he couldn't make it playing basketball, he couldn't make it as a pro, then what else was he supposed to do? Well, instead of just quitting his passion and trying to find his way in some other arena of life, David redirected his love

for the sport and successfully pivoted into a career of helping other very good athletes, very good basketball players become great and make it in the NBA. And today, David works with some of the best players in the league to help them continue to hone not just their physical talents, but also their mental game as well. So if you've ever wondered what professional athletes do when the cameras aren't running and how the teams work to play at the level that they play at, and if you've ever wondered what really goes into the superhuman stuff, the superhuman feats of athleticism that you see on TV, I think you're going to enjoy this episode. In it, David and I talk about how he transitioned from a failed semi-professional player, or I guess he was playing professionally, but if I remember correctly,

it was overseas. And in his eyes though, and he'll tell you, he felt like a failure in the end. And how he transitioned from that to coaching some of the best basketball players in the world. How a swag reel, as he likes to call it, can help you quickly find a flow state and enhance your performance of literally any activity. Why preparation and confidence are the true keys to success and some of the ways that David helps NBA players better prepare and be more confident in their abilities, the importance of wanting to be educated, wanting to learn, and wanting to be coached, a behind-the-scenes look at the type of work it takes to be an exceptional athlete. It can't just ride on your talent and more. Now, before we get to the show, if you like what I'm doing here on the podcast and elsewhere, and if you want to help me help

more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider supporting my sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, which produces 100% natural evidence-based health and fitness supplements, including protein powders and protein bars, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more. Every ingredient and dose in every product of mine is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research. Every formulation is 100% transparent, no proprietary blends, and everything is naturally sweetened and flavored. To check it out, just head over to legionathletics.com. And just to show how much I appreciate my podcast, peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout, and you will save 20% on your entire order if it is your first purchase with

us. And if it is not your first purchase, then you will get double reward points on your entire order, which is essentially getting 10% cash back in rewards points. So again, that URL is legionathletics.com. And if you appreciate my work, and if you want to see more of it, please do consider supporting me so I can keep doing what I love, like producing podcasts like this. Hey, David, we are here. We've done it. Made it happen, Mike. Appreciate you big time. We had scheduling issues and then technology issues, but everything has aligned. So here we are. Let's do it. but everything has aligned. So here we are. Let's do it.

So you are an interesting dude because, well, let's just start with the work that you do is interesting. It's not every day that you meet somebody who works with top level athletes and helps them better themselves and then thereby better their performance, which is something I definitely want to talk to you about because I think that I played a fair amount of sports growing up. I didn't watch very many sports or very much sports. I watched a couple sports and a bit of a couple. And now I don't really watch much at all. I'll watch playoffs and stuff. But what we see from just the outside looking in are people doing sometimes inhuman stuff, ridiculous stuff, amazing stuff. And what we don't see is what goes on behind the scenes to make that possible. And I think a lot of people's assumption is it's just like talent. It's just some inborn thing that

they never really maybe even had to work all that hard for, and definitely not now that they're on top. And I think many people assume that these high level performers don't have very many obstacles to overcome. Definitely not personal inner game obstacles. They kind of just more or less have their shit together and they just show up every day like a robot and go through the motions, do their routine and then show up and blow everybody away with their amazing performances. But that's not true, is it? It's absolutely not true. And you're so right.

That's what the general public will see. They'll see what they're doing on a nightly basis or how they're performing at a high level. But there's so much that goes. Or maybe they see marketing, you know, sizzle reels of all the practices. And I understand from a marketing perspective, that's what you want to show. I mean, people are tuning in to watch athletic freaks doing freaky things, and you want to play that up as much as possible. Yeah. And they do. I mean, that's what people see, and that's the product that everybody wants them to see. But the stuff behind the scenes and what I call the unseen hours, I mean, that's where everything is made for these guys. At this level, at the NBA level that I've been able to enhance, everybody has

talent. So everybody has that ability, but it's the people that actually realize that there's a relentless, consistent work that they have to put in to go from, not from good to great. That's a jump everybody knows about, but it's the jump from great to outstanding. These guys are so good, so talented that if they rely on their talent alone, it only gets them so far. And I've seen example after example of this. I've been around a player that literally had LeBron type skills, like that type of gifts, 6'8", chiseled, 45-inch vertical leap, unbelievable, but didn't put in the work. And he just really never amounted to anything. To be at the elite, at the top, top level, it takes a lot of behind the scenes work, the off seasons,

just to really buy into optimizing their life. And through, just to kind of tell you how I got going and what I'm doing, being able to work with these players, my whole life was based around playing in the NBA. And if you know me at 6'2 and unathletic, not able to dunk a basketball, probably would have told me to play golf or something else, which my parents would have, but so be it. I was so driven to play in the NBA that everything that I did throughout my day was based on how can I improve myself? How can I give myself the advantage over my opponent? Everything was based for myself for basketball. And I was able to play college basketball and play a little bit overseas professionally, but not what you would think

overseas. More like the Will Ferrell movie, Semi-Pro Overseas, where the guys on my team, when I was playing in Spain, my last season in Spain, were literally more concerned about drinking beers at halftime and which club they were going to go to after the game, working a different job as it was. It was a part-time thing for them, and it was my whole life. I was putting in the extra hours. I was watching the film, studying. They could care less. So I get cut from this team. Not only is this team a joke, I get cut from the joke of a team. So all my goals, all my dreams have been turned upside down on my head and I had nothing. That's what I put everything into. So that's the point of my life where I realized, it took me a little bit of time after this,

but I realized all that I had been doing, all the details, all the studying, all the extra work on myself was how I can teach NBA players, how I can teach others to be able to do this same type of thing. What I once thought was my dream, was my goal, was my path of playing in the NBA was actually to coach in the NBA and help these NBA players. And so from there, that's what I've been able to do. Sure, it took a lot of time to get to that point. Now, how did you make that transition though? It doesn't strike me as particularly easy to go from, in your own description, a failed basketball player at a mediocre level, if we're talking about higher level athletics, to then convincing the best basketball players in the world that you can help them? Yeah, that's a great question. So I started working with a friend of mine who

played in the NBA. He was a teammate of mine in Greece and he played in the NBA for the Spurs, Aaron Baines. And he liked it and he brought in some teammates, brought in some friends. And basically I had to act like I knew exactly what I was talking about. Like I have the secret sauce to help these guys get better. And I infused this type of confidence in them by having the confidence myself for them to trust me, to be able to think like, okay, they buy into what I'm saying. They're going to use it. Like other people will be attracted to it. Agents started calling in. The Brooklyn Nets picked me up as a player development coach. So it was basically like me acting like I'd been there before in

something that I knew, something that my skill set was shooting. So that's what I made my mantra to be. Like I'm going to teach, I'm going to be the best shooting coach there possibly is. I'm going to teach NBA players how to become better shooters. And when they'd see these results, like that's what sparked their motivation and more momentum in the results that they got. So it's basically like me picking my specific in shooting, the one thing that I could do very, very well, and then believing in myself over confidently being able to teach these players. And that makes sense. I mean, we all in the beginning, there's a bit of that fake it to make it in terms of believing in yourself more than other people believe in you. And even if

that's not faking it per se, it feels like that. That's where the imposter syndrome can kick in, but it's 100% necessary because, I mean, just think about it for anybody listening, just think about the psychological effect if we're looking at it in the context of persuasion. Certainty is very persuasive. When people say things with certainty, we are more inclined to believe them whatever they are. Anybody who has any experience selling stuff knows this, that you have to fully believe in what you're selling versus somebody who does not. And I think this is where sometimes even evidence-based people, scientists in particular, work against themselves is even though they might have the facts on their side,

the scientific mode of communication is very careful. It revolves around possibilities and very few things are for certain. Whereas people who are hardcore marketers, they can have none of the facts and it can be 100% bullshit, but they know just a few key levers to pull and buttons to push in people to convince them. And a big one is this point of just sounding like you know what you're talking about. Yeah, you're spot on. And that's absolutely a lot of it. I believe that we all have a gift inside of us. We all have something that we can contribute. But the biggest thing holding us back is ourselves, is our own limiting beliefs. Because we listen to what others say that we can't be. We listen to what others think we have to be. Like a great example of this, which just happened, the Chiefs winning the Super Bowl.

I just saw an article of Mahomes saying that a few years back he spoke it into existence that he was going to win the Super Bowl and go to Disneyland. And now today he's in Disneyland. Like it's just having that ability to speak it into existence so much that you believe it. But not only that you believe it, that you speak it into existence so much that everybody else around you starts to believe it, but not only that you believe it, that you speaking into existence so much that everybody else around you starts to believe it as well. And that becomes who you are instead of you becoming who others think you need to be. So that's a great point, man. What's some of the negative self-talk and self-limiting beliefs that you help NBA players deal with? Yeah, for sure. Great question.

So in the NBA, it's so much based on your confidence. And I know that sounds like these players are making this much money at this high level that they should have the confidence, but the talk that they have themselves the most will be, are they in a shooting slump or are they struggling? Or like if they're going to get pulled in and out

of the game. I mean, the LeBrons and those kind of guys, they're not going to struggle with it as much because they're always getting the minutes and they're the go-to guy and they've got the green light. But I've worked with a lot of players on just redefining what terms mean. Like we don't ever track the normal success points. Like I never tell a guy their shooting percentage. We don't look at the points they score, the shots they make. We just, we literally, we go everything on the process. So they already know going in, like what is a good shot for them? How did they get to that area? And if they take that good shot in that area, that's great. If they miss every single one, that's okay. We're tracking based on

the process of it and trusting in that process that over time that they're going to make the majority of those shots that they have. And another big thing is for these athletes is they think on a failure term basis too. So an example is a shooting slump. That means that they're going through a really bad shooting period. So I'll ask a player when their last shooting slump was, and they'll usually say, yes, a couple of games ago, I missed five shots in a row, just won't go in. And then I'll ask them for the point of being very, very cheesy, when is their last shooting hippopotamus? And they'll just look at me like, that was the dumbest thing ever. But it's that term. It's the terms,

the words that our subconscious creates a connotation to. So if I say slump, you're already thinking something negative and you're in that mindset. And then when you're in that mindset of thinking you're in a slump, you're only going to continue to be in a slump. But if you don't think a slump even exists, if you take certain words out of their vocabulary and it doesn't even exist, then that subconscious doesn't even play into those actions. So a lot of what I do for NBA players is reframing, looking at things from a different perspective, reframing their mindset on certain terms or what failure is, what success is, and we do everything process-based. And that's a huge key because it's tough.

It's tough not to look at a box score and see the points and the rebounds and all the stats that everybody else sees, but we have to see and trust in the process that we've set for their game plan. And that process, what does that look like? I'm just curious. So you're talking about the mechanics that go into take shooting, the mechanics that go into ultimately producing the results that you want, like looking at it from what's the system that's going to do it as opposed to looking for just shortcuts or hacks or something like that. Yeah, absolutely. And it'll be like, if a guy's a very high level corner three point shooter, we're going to see how many corner threes can you get open in a game. If you

get 10 corner threes in a game, that's unbelievable. If a guy's really good at getting to the hoop and finishing with his right hand on the right side, we're going to try to get to that every time we possibly can. It's how many of the high level attempts that they can get in. So it's almost like a personal playing plan as opposed to, you're not talking about just practice, but you're talking about how they play the game and how they fit into the team. Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. I mean, just to apply that to life, it's a matter of knowing what your strengths are

and strengths would be, you could even just define that looking at it probabilistically. What are the things that you can do that have a high probability of producing a positive return? And how do you put yourself into that situation as much as possible? Mike, that's such a great point. I want to go on that with strengths. That's a main way that I work with NBA players to really achieve their potential and find their unshakable confidence is we focus on the strengths. A lot of people will focus on the weaknesses just in life in general and like you got to make sure your weaknesses are there, but you really don't. Because if you just are average at a lot of things or just good at a lot of things, you're not playing in the NBA. Give me a player who's good

in every area and he's playing over in Europe. Give me a player who's great, great in one area and weak in others. He can make the NBA. And for example, I grew up with a guy, Kyle Korver, who was one of the best NBA shooters of all, three-point shooters of all time. And in high school, he wanted to do everything. He wanted to handle the ball. He wanted to cut, slash. He didn't have that in him until he realized that I'm just going to focus on shooting and being the best shooter I can possibly be. Like now he is, he's 38. He's, him and LeBron are the oldest players in the NBA. They're still playing and he could probably play for another five, six years if he wanted to, just because he realized he's only focusing on his strengths. Like I've done ball handling drills with him and it would look like somebody who just came off the street trying

to bowl a basketball, but it's the strength focus is so important and something that I think a lot of people in general in life just miss the boat on. Because we all have strengths, but if we're trying to just put all our time and effort and energy into something that we're not, we're never going to be fully what we are. You know, it makes me think of a book that I often recommend called The One Thing. Have you read that? Love it. Yeah. Great book. Yeah. Good book. And I'm not big on self-help or self-development books. I often don't like them or don't find much personal value in them. I find a lot of them cheesy and redundant. True. And some even almost pandering. But The One thing which you at first you'd look at it, you'd think it'd be one of those books. I actually felt like it was not. I thought there was actually

some enlightened thinking in there and some very practical, useful information for not just work, but any area of life. And for anybody listening who hasn't read the book, why I'm thinking of it is he talks about the idea of finding whatever activity we're talking about, finding one thing that if you did just that, well, it would more or less make everything else you could do unnecessary. And that's a good way of thinking. It's a thinking in terms of finding high leverage activities, and it could be in work or it could be really in anything that you're trying to do. And so this just makes me think of that where because your buddy is such a good shooter, it sounds like a lot of the other elements

of the game unnecessary. Like he just has to be great at this one thing because this one thing is worth a lot of money because it helps teams win games. And it doesn't matter that he's not a good ball handler by professional standards or I don't follow basketball, so I don't know ultimately all the facets that go into that game. But that concept makes sense to me. And that's smart. If he consciously made that decision, that's smart. And what's funny about that is that one decision, think of the effects that that

had in his life. If he would have taken a different decision, it of the effects that that had in his life. Like if he would have taken a different decision, it sounds like he would have not made it in the NBA and he would have been playing over in Europe, which is fine, but he would not be the Kyle Carver, I think you said his name was? Yeah, Kyle Carver, yep. That he is today. People wouldn't know his name. Yeah, you're so true. I mean, that's exactly right. And like I was saying, I think a lot of us struggle with that in our professions. And we try to be a lot of things when we should just focus solely on one thing. And that's going to help you reach your full potential for what you were made to actually achieve. So in my case, for people

listening, just how, because I've used this concept in my work quite a bit. So my one thing is producing content, stuff like this, podcasts, articles, books. Those are, I would say actually in terms of importance, books is number one, articles number two, because they feed into books and podcasts and then podcasts would be number three. So I know that so long as I keep those three things going, my businesses continue to grow and things continue to hum along smoothly.

And so those three things form a trio of activities that if I just do those, well, more or less everything else that I don't do is unnecessary. So people ask me sometimes with social media, right? I'm not very active on social media. I don't pay very much attention to social media. And I don't have that big of a following in social media across all the networks that people use, maybe a couple hundred thousand, which by social media standards is pretty dinky. And oftentimes people will ask me like, why? As if I'm making some huge mistake. And I'll explain what I just explained. And some people get it, but some people still don't. And they just, they don't get that having books that sell

three, 400,000 copies a year, having a blog that gets over a million visits a month, having a podcast that gets 700-ish thousand plays a month. Those assets are so much more valuable than having a million followers on Instagram. You couldn't, it'd be by a factor of probably 10 to one, but I know that. And so I'm totally okay with looking at my Instagram at 84,000 followers and being like, I don't need to work on that. I don't need to put time into that because I put time over here, which serves my strategic objectives a lot more effectively. Yeah. I'm sure in your work, you have, there's some similar form of that where there are probably a few things that you know you're really good at. And if you just focus on those things, like even focusing on shooting, like you said earlier, that's a good example of applying that type of mentality.

Yeah, you're super right. And I mean, for me, I have to put a ton of time into studying, into studying what other players are doing, into studying what my players are doing, reading into body languages and reading into just performance-based metrics. So a lot of my time is done even more so behind the scenes studying. Like when I would want to be out, like I want to be out there as much as I can, but I also know that to give my clients the best results that they can get, I have to do a ton of studying on my own. And that's the case for any high level performer. I mean, coming at it more from a business perspective, but I've yet to meet a single business person who, well, actually, let's say more about expertise. I've yet to meet someone who's a true expert in anything who isn't constantly studying in their field, constantly. constantly. And I've yet to meet anybody who's been very successful in business who also doesn't regularly study. Maybe they're not. Some people I've known are more diligent than others, but I've

not known one who has not read at least a handful of business-related books in the last six months. I think one of the most obvious common denominators among people who are doing well is they're constantly educating themselves. But you mentioned something earlier about a shooting slump, right? And how you redefine that. But how do you make that persuasive? Because just calling it a shooting hippopotamus doesn't convince them that, you know, they're like, yeah, okay, dude, but I'm still in a shooting slump. What's your point? Yeah, no, that's a great point. I mean, some guys will buy into it right away. Other guys won't. And there's other factors that go into building the overall unshakable confidence blueprint of what I call it. And redefining terms is just one part of it. Confidence through comparison. So like we were just talking about also about studying, a lot of people think comparison is a bad thing, but it's actually a great thing. I'll have my players study the players that they most emulate and that they want to as that player that they, let's say Michael Jordan, for example. A lot of them will have Michael Jordan or Kobe and they'll see their hands in that player's hands. So, now they are becoming that

person. So, they feel like they can do anything that those hands have done. So, empowering them to be like the person that they're studying, but also completely in-depth comparing themselves to that person and studying them. That's smart. Yeah. There's research. I'm sure you know that. For people listening, thinking that's a bit out there, woo-woo, there's actually research

to show that that type of visualization works. You will perform better if you do that type of stuff. Yeah. It's very powerful. That one's been a huge key in helping players' confidence. We talked about the strength focus, the redefining vocabulary, and focusing on the process and not the results. And I know that sounds kind of cliche, but when you don't even allow someone, when you take something out of somebody's even realm of,

I guess, ways to track progress, like There's no ways to track progress other than the process. It takes some time for sure. And it's not like a quick fix on them redefining their vocabulary. But the more and more that it's done and the more that you basically have to unwire the myelin in the brain that have created that muscle memory in that area and rewire it in a different way. And the players that want to do it at the core, I mean, that's the only players that will want to change, but great players want to be coached. We're talking about the business aspects and how much you have to study yourself. Another thing is great players are always learning, but they want to be coached. And that's huge for anybody and

anything in life, knowing that you've got to consistently have someone who's coaching you in that area. And also very big on creating personal highlight reels for our players. And what I mean by that is, so they're able to get in to their, what they like to call swag zone, where they feel the best they've ever felt. They'll have their best game they ever played call swag zone, where they feel the best they've ever felt. They'll have their best game they ever played, whether it's high school, college, or the NBA. I'll have a clip for them that they can watch. They'll watch before every practice, before every game at halftime. So they're seeing themselves doing what they do at the highest level that they've ever done it. So when you continue to see yourself just killing it, maybe you're giving a

talk or you're in a business presentation and you just, that time that you just crushed it. So when you continue to see yourself just killing it, maybe you're giving a talk or you're in a business presentation and that time that you just crushed it. If you continue to put yourself back in that frame of mind, like time and time again, you feel that same type of energy that was created during that time. And you're able to go play like you're in that frame of mind. You know, a lot of people talk about the flow state and how do you get into the flow state. To me, I don't think there's any way that you really get into the flow state other than seeing yourself already in the flow state before. There's no secret trick to doing it, but the visualization and sense as you say it. Yeah, that's clever. I like that. As far as the flow state goes, I really liked that book and it's a book I've recommended and I've went over my takeaways a number of times. And for me, getting into a flow state mostly comes down to what I've experienced for myself is having enough sleep. If I haven't slept well, I find it harder to get there. That seems pretty key. And then just doing the work undistracted for a while, it would never make any noise. It would just vibrate. And now I have no notifications and I leave it. So basically the only, if my wife calls, I'll answer that. Otherwise I'm not answering a single text message or a single call. Nothing is urgent that requires my immediate attention if it's coming into my phone. So my phone is basically just inactive unless my wife calls. And I like to use Brain.fm. I've tried a lot of different

auditory things for focus. And I've found that Brain.fm, because it's kind of droning, I don't know. I haven't looked into the supposed science behind what they're doing. I don't have necessarily a reason to doubt it, but I haven't looked into it personally. However, I do like some of their options for focus where it's melodic and, but not distracting. What I've found with lyrical music's the worst that just fucks your flow up completely is when I'm thinking more with like, we really have to focus on something deep work. Classical is okay, but if it has too much variety, if it's too complex, it actually distracts me a little bit because my attention goes to it. I need something kind of simple and just droning and that's brain FM and just getting, you know, maybe 10 or 15 minutes

of doing it and I'm there, but I could see how adding the swag reel technique would just get, help me get there faster. I could totally see that. Yeah. And it's something that's very key. I think it just, I mean, people being able to see things and see themselves have success because success breeds success and compounds and compounds and compounds. And the more that you can put yourself in that frame of mind, I just think, I mean, the more successful potential for success that you actually have. Totally. And a question regarding slumps. Have you ever talked about, I'm sure you have, that statistically, I read about this, I forget which book it was, but I'm sure you've come across it, Statistically, I read about this, I forget which book it was, but I'm sure you've come across it, that the idea that the opposite is also not true. There are no real streaks and there are no real slumps. Statistically, you just have an average and sometimes closer to performing well again because you regress to the mean. And when you're performing really well, not that you have

to get down on yourself, but statistically speaking, it's not going to go on forever. Eventually you're going to regress to your mean, even if your mean is going up. And that's great if it is. I just think about that because that's also something that I keep in mind in my business when good things happen and sometimes bad things happen. And that mindset has helped me just stay level headed about it. And hey, when sales are randomly up for no apparent reason, that's great. We'll take it. I'm happy. And if they're randomly lower, I'm not too concerned. Or even if something catastrophic

happens, that's part of the game. You don't always win. Sometimes bad shit happens and you have to understand that's part of the game. You can't say, I want to play a game, but I only want to win. I only want good things to happen. I don't want to have any adversity. I want no hardships. Anyway, I just wanted to get your thoughts on that because I'm sure that you've had this type of discussion before. I'm curious though, how you go about it. Mike, that's a great point. And what I do for NBA players on this aspect is I give them cue words. So each person will come up with their own cue word. So they know that when things are going really rough, if they miss like five shots in a row, or they're just really, really killing it on an ultimate high, they'll say this cue word back to themselves, and it'll bring them back to the place, to a level place. Some of them will be in the moment.

I have guys that want to serve where he's just, he'll say serve. That means he's focusing on how can he make his teammates better? So he's not caught up in his own, whether it's failing or whether it's succeeding, but it brings them back to a level, even playing field. It's such a great point that you make too, that people want things and players want things only on a success basis, but not taking the failures and the negatives with it. And one thing that in the news, obviously Kobe Bryant passing is super, super tragic. He's one of the most overall amazing, talented basketball players, but his mindset and his work ethic are like none other. I've spent a lot of time around

him and Jordan had the same mental coach, which goes to show like Kobe tried to copy everything Jordan did, even to the point where he'd respond to interview questions the same way Jordan did. And this is a great example of looking at someone's hands and who you want to be like and imagine that you are them. And Kobe emulated Jordan closer than anybody ever has. But one thing that he did in his rookie year, I remember him saying this, is he missed a ton of shots in the playoffs and airballed some shots. And he said he was thankful that that happened. He was happy that that type of failure on a huge national stage like that, that happened because he knew he was going to grow from that.

He embraces the struggle because he knows it's only making him better. Most of us avoid the struggle and how can we get away from those negative situations? But in reality, we all know it that the only way that we can really, honestly grow is when we go through painful times in our lives. And remind this to NBA players, some of them get it more than others do. But then they look at times where they have really bad games and they realize, hey, if I had two bad games, I play the law of averages, like we were talking about, and I'll have two great games. To some of my smarter NBA players, I'll talk about the stock market with them and compare success on the court to the stock market. You're going to have little dips. You're going to have rises. Overall, you're trending up, but there's going to be some fluctuation throughout the way. Makes sense. You mentioned earlier that how important it is

to want to be coached. Can you talk more about that? Because I totally agree. And I think, again, that extends to, it's not just a sports thing, but we apply it to any area of life, a willingness to be, whether you want to say coached or educated, taught, it doesn't matter. But for example, very few people educate themselves in any meaningful way at all. Statistically speaking, this was a 2018 statistic. I'm not sure what 2019 came out as, probably similar. The average American read one book a year. And that's an average, which means that what that really means is you have a small number of people reading a lot, and then you have a lot of people reading very little, and you have a lot of people not reading at all. And that's how the average just comes out to be

just one. And what I've seen just observing people over the years and seeing how their lives pan out is many people are impressively married to their ideas and impressively stubborn and uninterested in even considering any other alternatives. And whether it be from advice from a friend or family member or advice from a book or advice from just any source of information, no matter how credible that source might be. So take someone struggling in business, trying to do things their own way. I can think of an example of just this, of somebody I know who is simply not interested in the advice of people who are repeated winners, like multimillionaires. The type of people I wish I had just calling me up every day saying, hey, Mike, so tell me a bit about this aspect of your business. And I'm going to tell you

what you're doing wrong. I would be like, yes, please. Here we go. Even if they were a dick about it, if they're like, yeah, you're an idiot for doing that. Why would you ever? That's stupid. You call yourself a business person. I wouldn't even care how brusquely they would communicate to me. If they just give me some good ideas, I'd be like, you're right. Yeah, that's dumb. I'll stop doing that. Perfect. I'm on it. But that's so rare. It's the complete opposite is what is out there. It seems to be the case with most people. Yeah, you're so right. Like we all have, or a lot of us will tie ourselves so much to the identity of what we are or what our beliefs are that we're so stubborn to hear anybody else give us advice when we know deep down that we need

the advice and the advice will help us, but we're just so caught up in our own, I guess, egos that you don't take it. Like I would die for the chance for the best business coaches and even the best, I mean, obviously the best basketball coaches in my profession to just be giving me advice. And that's, I mean, that's basically how I have grown. I've just reached out to top NBA coaches and bless that my uncles just won the NBA championship. He is one of the top NBA coaches, but I'm picking their brains constantly because I know I have to continue to keep learning. And that's what these best NBA players do. Like Kyle Korver. How do you help cultivate that in the players you work with, that willingness to be coached? Because some people just have it, but what about the guys

who initially don't? How do you persuade them? How do you court them? How do you woo them? Yeah. The way that I do it is I have them around players that want to be coached, that are better than them, that they see this standard that they've created and just through being around these type of people that they realize, okay, shoot, if I'm going to get to that level, then I got to do what they're doing. And now that I'm seeing that David has this backing with these players that are very good players and they're coming to him for personal coaching, yeah, I'm going to need to do directly with them trying to reason or trying to, you know, convince them. It makes me think of the old adage that you're the average of, you know, whatever the five people you spend the most time around. So it makes sense that you just,

Hey, let me bring you into this group and I'm going to do my thing here. And then you just watch and you ask yourself and you don't have to say these things just happens. But you know, that's really the message is like, do you want this? Yes or no. And you can show them like where their career can be. I'll show them examples of where their career can be at the end. If they take on this coaching, if they really decide that they want to pour into themselves. And I show them different examples of people that have just tried to get on by their talent alone and how quickly they fade out, they phase out. It's really all about building up your foundation and your consistency,

the habits that you create and turning your habits into a lifestyle. And that's like when you talk about how you know your number one thing, your number two thing, number three thing, and you know no matter what's happening, if you're going down a million in sales or up a million in sales, you have that foundation built of who you are and know how that you found your success. But it's taken some time for you to get to that point. But it's because of the habits that you've put into your daily process that have led you to understanding that. And that's really the key for anyone being able to achieve success is what I call relentless consistency of habits day and day and day and day again. Hey, if you like what I am doing here on the podcast and elsewhere,

and if you want to help me help more people get into the best shape of their lives, please do consider supporting my sports nutrition company, Legion Athletics, which produces 100% natural evidence-based health and fitness supplements, including protein powders and bars, pre-workout and post-workout supplements, fat burners, multivitamins, joint support, and more. Every ingredient and every dose in every product is backed by peer-reviewed scientific research. Every formulation is 100% transparent. There are no proprietary blends and everything is naturally sweetened and flavored. To check everything out, just head over to legionathletics.com. And just to show how much

I appreciate my podcast peeps, use the coupon code MFL at checkout and you will save 20% on your entire order if it is your first purchase with us. And if it is not your first purchase with us, you will get double reward points on your entire order. That's essentially 10% cash back in rewards points. So again, the URL is legionathletics.com. And if you appreciate my work and want to see more of it, please do consider supporting me so I can keep doing what I love, like producing podcasts like this. I would think, and this is again, me being ignorant because I don't really follow sports, but I would think that that would be in place. Like I would think that, and I'm sure many people think, well, isn't that how these guys and, you know, in female sports, how these women, isn't that how these people got to

this level? Yeah. You know, a lot of them actually got to this level on just pure talent. Like they were just physically superior than everybody else. And they'll draft a player in the NBA based on potential. So if you see an 18 year old kid who's seven, two, and has an eight foot wingspan, he's going to get drafted no No matter what his work ethic has been, people think that they can draft him and then mold him, which is not always the case. It's just like anything in life. If someone rises really, really fast in something, if I see somebody rise really quickly to fame, I know they're going to burn out because they haven't done the years and the legwork and the unseen hours to set a foundation

for when they do fail, can they bounce back? And it's the same thing for the NBA. There's so many talented players that'll be drafted in the top 10 and they'll just burn out quickly because they don't have the structure of the habits put in place and they don't have the mindset of what it actually takes and they don't have the willingness to put in the work to be coached and they'll just burn out. Yeah, it totally makes sense, especially when you think about what's the normal trajectory of these people starting when they were kids. And I've had this talk, a couple of cases, parents who had ideas, maybe their kids were going to, maybe they should like push them into becoming,

trying to become a professional athlete in one sport or another. And I was just kind of speaking from, well, if it were my kid, like, here's what I know. I've known a few people have made it to the professional level. And if you just look at the stories of a lot of professionals, the typical story is the kid starts playing the sport whenever he starts playing it, usually young and not always, but usually quite young and quickly is the best player on the team. And he just is good right away. And that's where the talent comes in. So he's a bit more talented. And then he starts getting more attention from coaches and that makes him even better, kind of builds his advantage. And so he goes and starts playing with better kids and he crushes all of them too. And then they're like, okay, they move

him up to the next up. He's better than all of them too. And whether, you know, especially when you're younger, anybody growing up playing sports, we weren't students of the game. Even if we played at kind of high levels, we weren't students of the game like pros are. We just showed up and if we played enough and we got good, and like you said, we just kind of got by on our talent. And if we were good, we were good. And so basically that was the experience for most of their lives up until maybe it's college, depending on what sport it is, but they're just always the best. And oftentimes it didn't feel like to them, they had to work that hard for it. So I could see that going from that experience to then making it in the big leagues where everybody was like that, everybody's super good. And it doesn't work anymore because that's how they got there too. And now they've, in many cases, spent years really refining themselves

and refining their games in a way that you can't just shortcut. You either do the work or you don't. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, that's absolutely the case. And it's a gift and it's a curse to be very talented, basically. And one of the words that is thrown around there so much that's a deadly word is potential. Because when you realize that you have potential, it causes you to not always have the same willingness to work. But it's the people in the NBA, players in the NBA, it's the people in life that realize they have to do the extra work to get to where they want to be. They have to do the small, what I call with my NBA players, the extra 1%. What are you going to put in 1% more than your opponent that's going to separate you? Kobe and Jordan were amazing at this. They

would go into every game knowing every single movement of the defender that was guarding them. So most of the time you will think you'll go into a game, you're like, okay, now I got to react to how my defender guards me, but they were going in there proactive. They already knew every movement of the defender and they were always on the attack. And that just changes the game up completely where you already have that advantage that you've prepared and you know exactly what the defender is going to go. It's almost like cheating on a test, but it's the preparation that they put in, the extra studying of film, the extra detail, the extra work that separated them. And that's the same thing with LeBron. That's why he could be the greatest player of all time. He's not only just studying, he invests $1.5 million in his body. Sure, he's got a lot

of money, but it's still an investment he makes in his body so he can recover in hyperbaric chambers. He can be the top of his game 82 games out of the year and perform at the highest level because he knows how important that is. Most players don't even understand the first thing when it comes to nutrition. I do a lot of nutrition coaching for my players just by having them be around me and follow what I do. And you would be mind blown to know what a lot of these players were eating or thought were actually good for them. Like a lot of them think pasta, carb loading, eating a bunch of fettuccine Alfredo is the way to go. I know it sounds funny, but it's just a lot of these players haven't been coached or

haven't been taught at this level. And people assume that they have and they don't seek it out. And that's when they burn out quickly. You know, that point you just brought up regarding Kobe studying his defenders and just the extra work that the great, great players put in, you know, it makes me think of a quote from George Lucas regarding Star Wars in the Star Wars Archives book where he was talking about how he learned from a Japanese filmmaker. I forget, it's his famous Kaukoyas.

I'm not gonna pronounce it right. A famous Japanese filmmaker who just talked about the importance of paying attention to every little detail and the effect that has on viewers, even if they don't notice every single detail, by paying attention to every single detail, you create something that has authenticity to it and that allows people to suspend their disbelief and really feel like they are participating in not just seeing, but participating in something

that's real and how Lucas took that to heart in Star Wars. And so he paid attention to every little bit of grime and dust and rust, but that was intentional and that was strategic. And I totally agree with that. And that's why I'm bringing it up because one of those little anecdotes that stuck in my mind that I would say that applies to what we're talking about here applies to pretty much anything. Like if you want to produce a great anything, the number one easiest, even though it's not actually easy, but the surefire route to do it is to put a shitload of effort into it. Put a shitload of effort, put more effort than anyone would think is even reasonable. And if you have a decent system in terms of the quality of that effort, if it's invested in the right things in particular, that's where outstanding is.

And I like that because it makes, in my mind, greatness more accessible. When it's not accessible is when it's just, oh, it's just talent. They just have it. I don't know. They just show up and do ridiculous things. Who knows why? Then you just go, some people, that makes them mad and they get envious. I'm not that kind of person. I just go, okay, I don't have that. So I don't know what to say. But hard work? Oh, I can do that. And I'm smart enough. And most people, most people are smart enough to figure out again, a simple system that if they just put enough work into it can produce outstanding results in any activity. I really do believe that. I think intelligence is overrated in many ways. You just got to be smart enough. You don't need a 150 IQ to become a millionaire. If you have a 100 IQ, you still can do it. It might be a bit harder, but if you're just a normal person of normal intelligence, of average intelligence, which you could confirm if you wanted to, just go take a standardized IQ test and then you'll know.

But if you have average intelligence, totally fine. I don't even know what my IQ is. Maybe I have average intelligence. I haven't done an IQ test. I don't care though, because I just know that I'm smart enough. Whatever I lack in intelligence, I can more than make up for in just what you're talking about. Just willingness to grind and pay attention to the little things and always be looking for what else can I do? How else can I make this a little bit better? How else can I put more effort, more quality effort into this than my competitors, so to speak? So I really like that. I totally agree with that. Mike, that was gold. I encourage people that are listening to this, rewind that part and go back and hit it again, because you really just hit the nail on the head of how to be successful, how to gain ultimate confidence. It is through preparation. Confidence is through

knowing that you put in more work than anybody else and you can rest in that knowledge. And that's where you gain the confidence. And that's real confidence. And it won't be easily shaken. It's not, you didn't do the work. You know, you didn't do the work. You know, you should have done the work. And now you're trying to hype yourself up with cheesy affirmations or something that maybe get you into a semi, a place of semi confidence. But when somebody even just makes a comment to the contrary, it starts to crumble because you know, it's bullshit. You know, it's a house of cards. Whereas what you're talking about, it builds that true confidence where you don't care for the people don't believe in you as much as you believe in yourself. You can prove it. You don't care if people are going to counter signal your ideas because you've really thought about them

and you've really fleshed them out and you can really stand behind them. It's a very good point. Man, that is so good. And I love the point that you make too is like you don't have to be overly like a genius to succeed. For myself, being a living example of this, I mean, I grew up in this small, small cornfield town of Iowa, middle of nowhere. I didn't get amazing grades, wasn't given anything, didn't come from anything, but was able to create the ultimate life that I've been able to live right now is through basically just believing in myself and knowing that I'm going to outwork the person next to me. No matter what, if he has more talent than me, I'm going to outwork him. Having that kind of mindset and the confidence and knowing that you can outwork anybody if you want to is so powerful, man. Totally agree. It's really a superpower to be kind of cheesy, but it really is.

And speaking to intelligence, something also to consider is there's so much about the brain they don't understand. And many things are said as if they're settled science, so to speak, and they're completely not, but take intelligence, right? So I was just reading about this recently. I think a fair statement of like the current weight of the evidence is that while our peak, our ceiling of intelligence is likely fixed at birth, like we're only going to get so smart, our working intelligence, I believe is the term that was used, is fluid, meaning that we can increase our IQ on a test. We can increase our ability to solve problems and to think.

We can prove it quantitatively by doing certain things. Like, for example, some of the stuff we've been talking about, studying, for example. Regularly studying is a reliable way to increase the amount of our intelligence, our total possible intelligence that is available to us, so to speak. So if we could test 100 IQ on a test, which is probably right, I think that's probably the average IQ, give or take a couple of points here in the United States. And then we could work on ourselves coming back to this point of just work. It's just work, not just studying, but also for example, building vocabulary and clarifying things that we don't understand and connecting ideas in ways that we've never connected before.

So you do the work, do the work, do the work. And then we could go get retested and score 110 or even 120. Now how high it can go will depend on inborn things that nobody really understands. But even that is something that is absolutely improvable, even though, sure, there's a ceiling. And I would argue though, that for the vast majority of people, that ceiling is high enough to do well in life. And that doesn't just mean do well with money or in career. Because again, I think that in many ways, life is a big IQ test. You have a lot of decisions to make every day. You have a lot of data you have to interpret and you have a lot of problems you have to solve. And generally speaking, the better you can solve problems, which is what IQ comes down to, the more resourceful

you are, the more creative you are, the more ways you can connect things and figure out solutions to the many predicaments of life, the better you're going to do in your relationships and in your, obviously your work and with your body and so forth. And so that is something that can be learned, so to speak. Just want to throw that out there for anybody, because I know that I've heard from people who are, they have going back to those self-limiting beliefs, but for example, they're concerned that they're not smart enough to make it basically. And my honest answer is like, yeah, maybe. Maybe right now you're not.

You might be right, but you can change that. 100% you can change that. I couldn't agree with you more. And I think it's a very exciting and encouraging having that knowledge that it's on us. We can create it because it just comes down to the hard work and it comes down to the relentless, consistent attack of that hard work. And if you just continue to do it, 1%, 1%, day after day, after day, after day, it just compounds. And think of where you'll be a year from now, two years, five years from now. It's so encouraging to know

it's literally in our hands. We have the ability to do it. I get so passionate and juiced up telling people that because I know what I've done. I mean, what you've been able to create. And it's just, we know the formula and there is no secret quick formula. People love, obviously, the quick fixes, but if you get a quick fix, you're going to quickly burn out too. You hit the nail on the head, man. It's the work that we put in. We all have the ability to do it, no matter how smart we might think we are. I love it. Tell to find your success. It's called Pivot and Go. And it's about making what I call mindset pivots, which are small, different perspective shifts, looking at things from a slightly different perspective that can change your entire perspective. So it's really for anyone who has felt stuck in a situation. And we've all been

there, no matter what we felt stuck in something we might not want to be in, something we know we can be doing more of. And it's how to get out of that stuck situation and take a step forward to what you want to be doing, what you actually were made to be doing. And it's the hardest thing for people to make changes and take risks. But this book is set up on a 29-day mindset blueprint. So you'd create your own of 29 days. 28 days, a lot of studies show is to form a habit. And I love habits like we've been talking about. Habits are great, but you've got to change that into a lifestyle. What if you could have all your habits together in a lifestyle? And that's on that 29th day, you're able to make that decision to turn it into a lifestyle. What are some of those mindset shifts?

I'm curious. I like the concept because really this comes before the building of the behaviors, right? Because like we were talking about right in the beginning is if you have certain self-limiting beliefs, if you think about yourself in a certain way, you think about other people in a certain way, you think about the environment in a certain way, it can be very demotivating. It can be misleading. It can distract you into doing things that are destructive. And so I think it's a logical place to start is addressing first like mindset. And there are definitely, I agree with you, key pressure points, so to speak, that are

much more important how you view certain things in terms of bottom line results in your life. You can have a lot of bad ideas and do quite well. So long as you get the right things, you have the right ideas about the right things, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And that's, I mean, everything that we do in life is a circumstance and it's not the circumstances that happen to us, but it's our reaction to those circumstances. And how do we view them? Do we view them in a positive light or do we view them all in a negative light as things are happening to us? And I'm big on like the why, finding out your why. I think everybody's big on finding

out your why. I mean, it's really overplaying, but this book is the how. I think that's missing in so many things. People will tell you, find your why, find your purpose, but how? And this will show you the action steps of how to actually do it. And one thing I've been huge on in my life is placing cue cards or note cards throughout my environment that I'm going to have daily reminders on, whether it's, I'll have one above on my ceiling. First thing I see when I wake up, I'll have something on my fridge, next to my coffee pot, in my car, next to my computer, just daily little reminders that I've created that's going to put me in this positive state of mind and put me in this. What are some of those? Yeah.

So one of mine is on my ceiling. I have today could be the best day of your life. Like I just wanted that to put in my frame of mind that, hey, today actually could be the greatest day that I ever lived. I have one by my coffee pot is the one that says puzzles over problems. So if I have some type of problem, I'm now going to view it as a puzzle. And I loved puzzles when I was a kid. I think a lot of people love puzzles and it's a challenge. I'm going to look at it like a challenge. I've got a picture of myself right by my computer when I was eight years old. And that puts my mindset back into what I call the younger you mentality. And they're all over my house. And I have them in this book as tear outs. At the end of each chapter, there's action steps. And there's actually these tear outs of cards that tell you exactly where to put them throughout your environment. And then you're just continuing to get these reminders all the time throughout your day. And it turns into subconscious

reminders where now you are speaking life into yourself constantly. And no matter what we say, the person that we talk to the most in our day by far is ourself, like by far. So it's, most in our day by far is ourself, like by far. So it's what are you telling yourself? Are you feeding yourself negative self-limiting beliefs or are you feeding yourself positive, I believe in myself type of words and phrases? And at the core, that's what this book does. It helps you create that type of lifestyle that you can be living in constant self-belief and self-confidence to where it's no longer just accidents when you have success, but you turn things into potential breakthroughs daily. That's great. I like that. It also then it encourages you to take the right actions, which is where really the deep change occurs, right? Like once you start, you know, I've been

talking a lot about habits. Once you are habitually doing the right things, that's where you really build up momentum. And in my experience, where you open up the real opportunities, now truly great things can occur when you have your routine in place and you know that you are doing all the little things that add up to the bigger things. I think it's a good way of looking at it. Yeah. It's a way that you can continue. You don't have to do every single one, but you know if you do one of these things in the book, it's going to help you improve. And then after you get one done, you can do two. And then you're excited about doing three. It makes change easy. Now, I know change isn't ever going to be easy, but it makes it a way that it's like, okay,

it's not a daunting task anymore. And no matter what situation I'm in, even if it seems so, so terrible and I'll never get out of it. If I just literally shift my perspective in a small degree, that could change my entire life. Like for myself, that's why I gave my example at the start of this podcast of my whole life was playing in the NBA. I was just down and out. Everything that I put all my time and effort and energy was taken away from me. But then once I did it, just a small perspective shift, I realized all that I put in was to coach in the NBA. And that's when I really flourished. All right. Well, so the book is Pivot and Go, and it looks like it's coming out in June,

right, of this year? Yeah. June 2nd. People can pre-order right now. It looks like currently it's just the hardcover. Yeah, there's just the hardcovers. Are you going to be doing an ebook or an audio book? Yeah, we're going to have an ebook. It'll probably, I don't know if it'll be out by June, but there'll definitely be an ebook. Okay, cool. You need to do an audiobook too. Audiobooks are... Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Cool, cool. Audiobook. I like to think that I have a voice like Barry White, so I'm going to definitely do an audiobook.

I think you have a good audiobook voice. It'll work. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. But for everybody listening, if you want to just pre-order it now, the hardcover is available pre-order on Amazon and I'm assuming the other formats will be up along the way. So, hey, let's wrap up with where people can find you and your work and if there's anything new and exciting outside of the book that you want people to know about? Yeah. So I have a podcast, which you blew away my guests on, the 1% Podcast with David Nurse, anywhere podcasts are found. My website, davidnurse.com, I give out a lot of free information and mindset optimization. Instagram, I'll do a lot on Instagram, mostly on social media as davidnurse5. And then anytime if you're out in LA, I might be giving a

talk out here or somewhere throughout the country, but that's the main spots to search me up. Mike, man, I just wanted to thank you. You are literally an inspiration to me. I see the lives that you're changing and it juices me up. And it's like, personally, I am following the bigger, leaner, stronger that you've created and it's helping me incredibly, but not even- On the program. Yeah. I'm literally on the program and I can't wait till I get to be a picture like you guys too. I was in great shape before, but I want to take that great to amazing, like I'm teaching my

NBA players. Let's get you jacked. But what I realized, Mike, what I realized is you know this stuff so well. You don't just know it from the physical standpoint, but you know it from the mindset standpoint. You know it from the business standpoint, the whole kid and caboodle lifestyle. And those are the people that I want to be around, the people that I want to follow and learn from. And that's why I have so much admiration for you, man, because you're not doing it just for a dollar. You're doing it to really help people change their lives. That's powerful, man. rooted in what works. And it's cool that to do what you do at the level, like to work with athletes and be able to hang in that world and make it, you have to be able to get results. And so that's one of the things I really like about what you're doing. Anybody can buy some self-help books and swipe some other people's ideas, put together their own little self-help training and start marketing themselves as a life coach or something. And I see a lot of that. And with what you're

doing though is not that. Again, you don't get to work with some of the best athletes in the world and keep them as clients unless you really know what you're talking about and know what you're doing and can get results, especially in a world like that. It's bottom line results is what they're after. So the fact that you can do that is impressive because it's the world that you operate in is not necessarily, it's not easy to navigate. I would say it's more difficult to navigate probably than fitness than just how to lift weights properly and how to eat properly. Like, of course there is a bit of an inner game and there is some psychological stuff to address. But in my experience, that's not the biggest problem for most people. For most people, they just don't really know what to do in

the gym. They don't really know what to do in the kitchen. And so when they do try things and then it doesn't work, they get frustrated and demotivated and understandably so. But once I start showing them what to do and they start seeing real results, the rest kind of takes care of itself. That's not always the case, but that's often the case. So anyway, I really like what you're doing too. And I admire that you've been able to pivot from what I can only imagine was a rough time when you stopped playing basketball, but then figured out, all right, how can I take my passion and how can I turn this like a puzzle? Not a problem. How do I rearrange these puzzle pieces into something that is meaningful and something that I can make a living at?

And that's not easy to do. Yeah. Thank you very much, man. Thank you very much, man. And I think that's why we hit it off so well is we're both on the same mind track of the relentless consistency mindset and the habits that we create and the lifestyle that we have is set in what we put into it. Yeah, man, it's just so fun talking to you, man. I'd love to do this every week. You pump me up. You can be my personal motivation coach too. Yes, yes. Life coach. Life coach. I prefer that. We just need to get you on the West Coast. You're just on the wrong coast. I can't. I can't. I love everything about you except for where you live. No, no, no, no. Good idea. Don't sell out. Don't sell out. Yeah. No. Even where I live now, my days are numbered until it turns into California. It's

coming. All right. I'll influence you. The culture just too much for me. It's too much. I feel you, man. I feel you. But yeah, man, no, really appreciate it. Look forward to the next talk.

Thank you. All right. Well, that's it for today's episode. I hope you found it interesting and helpful. And if you did and you don't mind doing me a favor, could you please leave a quick review for the podcast on iTunes or wherever you are listening from?

Because those reviews not only convince people that they should check out the show, they also increase the search visibility and help more people find their way to me and to the podcast and learn how to build their best body ever as well. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then simply subscribe to the podcast and whatever app you're using to listen, and you will not miss out on any of the new stuff that I have coming. And last, if you didn't like something

about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts. Let me know how you think I could do this better. I read every email myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback. All right. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.