80. Dre Baldwin︱Slam Dunk Strategies for Basketball, Life and Entrepreneurial Greatness

Ever wondered how the discipline of sports can catapult you into a life of entrepreneurial success? Join me as I sit down with former professional basketball player turned entrepreneur Dre Baldwin to reveal how the lessons from the court can translate into boardroom victories. Dre, known for his "Work On Your Game" philosophy, dives into his personal story of grit and determination, demonstrating how mental toughness and the ability to handle critical feedback are invaluable beyond the bounds of sports.

This episode isn't just about scoring points and mastering life skills. We'll unpack the nuances of transitioning from being an athlete to navigating the competitive world of entrepreneurship. From the discipline of 'third-day' training to understanding the synergy between individual skill and team dynamics, Dre's narrative is a playbook for anyone looking to harness their sports experience into professional prowess. We even tackle the traits of agreeableness versus disagreeableness and how this shapes our ability to innovate and lead.

But the true slam dunk? It's about developing a mindset that views every challenge as an opportunity. Dre shares how adopting a Michael Jordan-esque approach to business and life ensures that your energy and example resonate with your team. We'll also explore the strategies, systems, and accountability that have allowed Dre to replicate the success he achieved in basketball in the realm of business and how you, too, can collapse timeframes to escalate your expertise. Tune in for an episode that's more than just talking the talk; it's about walking the walk of a champion on and off the court.

📚 Claim Dre's offer and get your free book- The Third Day: https://www.thirddaybook.com/

Connect with and follow Dre:
https://www.workonyourgameuniversity.com/
http://YouTube.com/Dreupt
http://LinkedIn.com/in/DreAllDay
https://www.facebook.com/WorkOnYourGameUniversity

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Follow @GrandSlamJourney on Instagram,
alone, because you know as wellas I do, most athletes don't
even make it to college level,but on pro level.
And still, the experience ofplaying sports teaches us a lot
of things.
First of all, to respectauthority.
To respect the authority of acoach or someone who has a
higher rank than you in anorganization, because we go into

(00:20):
, you go work in corporate, yougo work in an organization.
There are people above you andyou have to respect their
authority, Even if you don'talways agree with their position
.
You can disagree in a way, butat the same time, you need to be
respectful of the position thatthey have with regards to the
position that you have.
Number two, being willing totake feedback constructive,
critical feedback when it'scoming from someone, because in

(00:40):
the sports world I mean in thebusiness world people have to
sugarcoat things right,especially in the world that
we're in today.
You can't say things tooharshly to anybody, because
people are extremely sensitiveand generally I'll just call
that weak.
In sports, you get feedbackdirect.
Again, you mess up in themiddle of a game, your coach or
your teammate will yell at youright in your face for messing
up and if you fall to pieces inthe middle of the game now

(01:03):
you're useless to the team.
You have to build up the mentaltoughness to take that feedback
.
You go play an away game.
You got the fans from the otherteam yelling at you.
You have to take that feedbackthat you're getting from whoever
and not fall apart just becausesomeone's giving you
constructive feedback.
And the thing is, is what theysaid true?
I always say this to athletesand I say it to professionals.

(01:25):
These days, when someone offersyou a criticism, the first
thing you need to ask yourselfis not how you feel about it.
The first question is is ittrue?
Is what they said true that youdid mess up?
Did you make a mistake?
Is this not working?
If it's true, then you shouldappreciate it, accept it, say
thank you for that feedback.
What can we do to fix it?

Klara (01:43):
it accept it say thank you for that feedback.
What can we do to fix it?
Hello ladies and gentlemen, andwelcome to the Grand Slam
Journey podcast, where wediscuss topics related to the
Grand Slam Journey of our livessports, life after sports, and
lessons we have learned from ourathletic endeavors and how
we're applying them in the nextchapter of our lives, growing

(02:04):
our skills and leadership inwhatever we decide to put our
minds into For me personally,areas of business and technology
.
My guest today is Dre Baldwin.
Dre is a former professionalbasketball player turned into an
entrepreneur.
This is a long conversation andso I'm going to keep the intro

(02:26):
short.
Feel free to check out theepisode notes to see many
resources that Trey hadmentioned during this episode
and also find a link to a freebook that Trey offers the Third
Day.
If you enjoyed this conversation, I want to ask you to please
share it with someone youbelieve may enjoy it as well.

(02:47):
Consider leaving a review onApple Podcasts or Spotify, and
don't forget to subscribe so youdon't miss the next
conversation.
This episode is also availablein video on the Grand Slam
Journey YouTube channel.
This is your Kla ra Jagosova .
Thank you for tuning in, andnow I bring you Dre All Day.

(03:08):
Hello Dre, Welcome on the GrandSlam Journey podcast.
How are you?

Dre (03:13):
Hey, clara, I'm doing great .
Thank you for having me on.
I'm excited for thisconversation.

Klara (03:17):
Yes, and maybe just a quick intro for everyone who's
listening, Dre Baldwin, aka DreAll Day.
I actually love that.
Also known as Work On your Game, Dre specializes in helping
entrepreneurs and athletesdominate their game from the
inside out.
You're the CEO and founder ofWork On your Game.

(03:40):
You've given four TEDx talksand has authored 33 books, which
is impressive I'm going to diveinto that as well just the
amount of content you're able tocreate and produce and you've
had a nine-year personalbasketball career playing in
eight different countries, andyour framework is the roadmap in

(04:01):
reverse for professionalmindset, strategy systems and
accountability.
So that's my quick intro and Iwant to dive into so many things
with you, Jay, including yourbasketball journey, the passion
you've had and how you'retransferring the mindset into
now your own business andhelping entrepreneurs and

(04:23):
corporate leaders adopt thisathletic mindset to achieve the
next level of growth.
But before we dive into all ofthat, I want to give you an
opportunity to introduceyourself.
Anything else you want to add?

Dre (04:35):
Well, hopefully I can live up to that bio.
I'm hoping that.
Good, but as far as that, no,nothing that needs to be added.
I think you pretty muchsummarized it there, but I think
we'll get to the rest of itthrough this conversation.

Klara (04:47):
Yes, excellent.
And maybe just to dive right in, I'm always curious about my
guests upbringing, because Ihave guests from all different
backgrounds, playing alldifferent sports and growing up
in different countries andstates, so I'm curious if you
could take us back a little bitto your upbringing, of what it
was like to grow up I believeyou were from Philly, yes and

(05:10):
what helped you uncover yourfirst passion, especially in
basketball?
I know you played manydifferent sports when you were a
kid, but basketball seemed tobe really the thing that you
were passionate about the most,and so I'm curious to hear a bit
about that.

Dre (05:23):
Sure.
So this is where I would havestarted anyway, had I added
anything.
So I think it's perfect.
So I come from the city ofPhiladelphia, that is correct.
I'm now based in Miami, florida, but played sports all through
youth so I was always intosports.
I think I had an athletic geneand I was pretty tall, so I was
into trying to play a sport so Iplayed.

(05:44):
Of course, the normal backyardand where I'm from was a
driveway because it was no grassso it was concrete, but a
driveway sports, kickball, twohand touch football.
If someone had a portablebasketball court that they could
pull out of the garage we wouldplay that and things like that.
And as I got older and myparents wanted me to get into
maybe team sports, I tried alittle bit of American football

(06:07):
but I never even got around tothe part where you put the
equipment on.
So I never really playedfootball and then baseball and
wasn't really good at baseball.
I was kind of mediocre at best.
My dad is was into coachingbaseball so he actually coached
a youth team that I was on Stillcoaches youth to this day,
years and years later, stillcoaches youth.
But I wasn't really that goodat baseball.

(06:27):
My ceiling was I probably wouldhave been a bench player at
high school if I had playedbaseball, so I wasn't good Then
finally got to basketball aroundage 14.
So at first I didn't have apassion for basketball.
It's not like I just said, oh,I'm passionate about basketball
and all of a sudden I startedplaying.
It wasn't like that.
It was that I just wanted toplay a sport period and I had

(06:48):
tried all the other sports thatI saw were available to me and
basketball was the one that,where I come from, every young
man plays basketball becausegood thing is you need no
equipment and you only need oneball and everybody can play.
So I just started going to thebasketball courts and again,
since I was pretty tall, it wasexpected again where I'm from,
that you should be good atbasketball because you're tall.

(07:08):
That's just how it is in ourcommunity.
At least it was then.
I don't know how it is now.
And it wasn't good at first.
I mean, I started playing at 14, but didn't make my high school
team until I was a senior.
But I would just go to the parkby myself and just practice
just one ball, me in the courtand just practice doing things
that I saw other people doing,people who were a lot better
than me, which is pretty mucheverybody in the neighborhood,

(07:29):
even the girls, and so over timeI just started to develop and I
started to get better, eventhough I didn't have any
tangible results.
I didn't really have anytangible results in basketball
until I was maybe 17 years ofage and that was in my junior
year, and I wasn't even on myhigh school team.
This was playing on a localrecreational team, not even the
school.
I didn't play on my school teamuntil I was a senior.

(07:50):
And that year I like to tellpeople, clara, I had the best
seats in the house, front row,right on the bench, watching the
game.
I was from the bench because Iwasn't playing.
I sat on the bench my senioryear in high school and then
getting out of high school.
I high school and then gettingout of high school.

Klara (08:08):
You know, I wanted to continue playing, but of course
nobody was checking for me toplay, so I'll stop there and see
where you want to take theconversation.
There are several things thatstood out to me, including it
seems like you actually pickedup basketball quite late,
because I envision many peoplestart earlier on.
A similar thing actually waswith me in tennis, like if I
look back in my tennis career.
But going back to thatbeginning, I think starting
later at least it was for me, Idon't know if it was for you

(08:33):
I've always had this thing in mymind that I'm behind everybody
else because I missed on, let'ssay starting, and even six,
seven.
Now kids actually maybe starttoo early, specializing like
three, four, five years old andyou start developing the feel
for the ball and the racket.
I'm sure there's other thingsin basketball, but looking back

(08:53):
at it, have you had sort of thesame feeling that you're behind
everybody else and that's whyyou've got to work harder?
And how did that relate or notrelate to your confidence?

Dre (09:06):
When I first started playing basketball, I knew that
I was behind.
So I didn't feel like I wasbehind.
I was behind because I couldsee the other players in my age
bracket, even some players whowere younger than me, or peers
who were younger than me in theneighborhood.
They were just better atbasketball because they had more
experience and they had beenplaying for longer.
So I knew logically that I wasbehind them.

(09:26):
It's interesting the way thatyou explain it, the way I'm
explaining it, just to juxtapose, because females tend to aim
towards their feelings they talkabout how they feel, whereas
males, we tend to look at thingslogically what we think.
And yes, you felt like you werebehind and you used that it
sounds like you used it to kindof drive you to do more work,
which then led to you being moredisciplined and more confident,

(09:47):
whereas for me we ended up inthe same place, but for
different reasons.
I knew that I was behindbecause I just started playing
and I could see everyone wasbetter than me.
So for me it was the logicalbreakdown of it was okay.
How do I catch up to theseother players?
Because all of us come to thepark in the evenings and just
play with each other, and Ireasoned that if I only came to

(10:10):
the park and played with allthese other players, then we're
all pretty much going to advanceat the same pace.
Again, this is just the waythat at 14, 15 years of age,
that's what made the most senseto me.
So I figured that I needed todo something that they were not
doing Now.
In Philadelphia in the summertimes it gets really hot, so
around 10, 11, 12 o'clock it'stoo hot for anybody to be

(10:35):
outside on the asphalt concrete,or too hot, relatively speaking
, for them.
So I realized okay, why don't Ijust go out there and practice
during those hours when nobodyelse is out there?
So that way, number one, I canget the court to myself and I
can actually practice.
I'm not playing, but practicing, and there's a difference,
right?
So let me take this time topractice so I can get better,
and then I'll go home, they'llhave a little snack and sit in
air conditioning.
Then I'll come back to the parkin the evening when everybody

(10:58):
else is out there, and thenslowly, over time hopefully this
is again my teenager logichopefully over time I will
slowly catch up to those otherplayers, so then we can be even
and then, if that works, thenmaybe I can keep practicing and
I'll get better than them.
So that was my process.
So that was the logic that ledto the discipline of practicing
all the time.
And that discipline created theconfidence because over time I

(11:21):
started to get better.
As I told you, I started playingat 14.
I didn't really have anytangible result that I could
point to and say, hey, I didthis until I was about 17.
But over those years I couldfeel myself improving, even
though I could not tangiblyprove that I was improving.
And then, by 17, I couldactually show you hey, I had
this many points in arecreational game last week, or

(11:42):
hey, at least I made the highschool team right and I'm
sitting in the bench, but atleast I'm on the team.
And then when I got to college,I was actually playing.
So the confidence really startedto build around the age of 17,
18, 19, through my freshman yearof college, because I now
started to have some tangibleresults and the confidence came
from not only me tangiblyknowing that I was doing
something, but also I knew thateverybody else could see that I

(12:05):
was actually doing something.
So now the effort that I wasputting in.
Not only was it paying off forme looking at myself in the
mirror, but also I knew thatthey could see the results were
coming.
So that's where the confidencestarts to build.

Klara (12:16):
And you just grabbed something really interesting
that I also personally resonate.
It seems like you weren't greatat basketball early on, or
actually wasn't the sport youwere best at growing up, which I
would argue the same for tennis.
I had perhaps kind of rawphysical strength and skills,
just because of my biology, thatwe don't choose for ourselves.

(12:36):
You mentioned you were tall.
I'm tall as well, which intennis it can be advantage.
It's very physical sport so youneed a lot of stamina to move
around and continue to run onthe court for two to three hours
, especially long matches.
But I find that many kids,especially in that forming age,

(12:57):
when you're going through the 14, 15, 16, 17 progression, if
you're not great at somethingthey typically give up 16, 17
progression.
If you're not great atsomething, they typically give
up.
So there must have been somesort of passion you were
discovering for the sport thatallowed you to go through those
hard years where you werenowhere close to best, but you

(13:18):
were so disciplined andcommitted.
This game is really interesting.
I want to continue putting thehard work and effort to get
better.
How would you reflect on that?
What grabbed you about thesport the most that made you put
in the effort and the work tocontinuously improve.

Dre (13:35):
The competition.
So I wasn't good.
You're correct.
I thought my best sport wasprobably either football or
baseball, because those are thetwo sports that I would play.
Well, baseball only because Iwas athletic, so I had the speed
I could run and jump.
But the thing about baseball is, in order to run and jump, you
got to actually hit the ball.
I wasn't that good at that, sothat's why I didn't do much in

(13:57):
baseball.
Football I thought I may havehad a chance in football, but
again, I never got around toactually playing and thinking
about football.
Yes, you can run and jump, butyou also got to hit and or get
hit, and I don't know if my bodywas built for that.
Probably wasn't.
It's a good thing I didn't playfootball.
I think I might've been.
It's funny that you're a tennisplayer.
I might've been a good tennisplayer, but where I come from,

(14:19):
nobody plays tennis.
So there was a playground thatI grew up playing at.
There was a basketball court,there were two basketball courts
and right next to thebasketball court is the tennis
court, and we had thesebeautiful tennis courts in my
neighborhood.
It was like four tennis courts,well kept, nobody messed with
them, nobody bothered them Everyonce in a while you would see
some older people out there,maybe a husband and wife,

(14:41):
hitting the ball back and forth,and nobody else ever played on
the tennis courts ever.
The only time we stepped on atennis court is if somehow the
basketball went over the fenceand got on the tennis court and
you had to go over there and getit.
Other than that, nobody everstepped on the tennis court.
But I think I could have been areally good tennis player
because, like you just said, youneed stamina, you need agility,
you need quickness and as asolo sport and I tend to have

(15:04):
the mindset of a solo sportplayer as a matter of fact, even
though so it's ironic that Iplayed a team sport like
basketball, because I'm muchmore of an individualist than a
team guy.
But anyway, to answer yourquestion here, as far as
developing over time, I wascompeting, of course, against
the other kids in theneighborhood because I wanted to
catch up to them.

(15:25):
And again, the boys, weridicule each other.
Hey, you're not good.
You're practicing all the time.
You're not even on your highschool team.
You played in a game the otherday.
You didn't even score.
We play and pick up basketballin the playground.
You didn't get chosen to evenbe on the team.
So we ridicule each other.
So I would compete against thatbecause I didn't want that to
be the truth and really I wascompeting against the situation.
I wasn't really competingagainst any one person.

(15:47):
There was a bunch of people.
They were all better than me,so I could say I was competing
against the whole neighborhood.
But really I was competingagainst the situation of how do
I overcome this?
Because I've always been acompetitive individual and
sports was my outlet for thatcompetition.
So I'm thankful that my parentsintroduced me to sports, even
though my parents were notathletes at all.
I'm six feet four inches tall193 centimeters for those in the

(16:09):
metric system.
My dad is like five eight.
My mom's like five seven.
They're not tall at all.
They never played basketballand they had no basketball
talent whatsoever.
Again, I had the athleticgenetics, but I didn't have the.
Nobody was training me.
Nobody was teaching me, nobodytook me under their wings.
And again, I was.
I grew up in the nineties, sothere's no social media.
It's not like I can go to theinternet and get information

(16:31):
from anybody.
So I really was justself-taught and I was just
competing against thecircumstance.
And as I saw myself gettingbetter, I knew that I could
discipline everybody.
I was not out-talenting themand I hadn't outperformed them,
at least not yet.
But I could continue to show upto the park every day because I
would see, because I would goby the park sometimes in the
afternoon, I would see it wasempty.

(16:51):
Why is nobody out there?
It's beautiful, but it was toohot.
So I said that's my opportunity.
So I took advantage of thatopportunity to slowly catch up,
eventually, by again around age18, I caught up and then from
college years on, I completelysurpassed them because a lot of
them you mentioned this a momentago when you're not getting the
success, most people quitpretty easily and often pretty

(17:13):
early.
So by the time we all around age14, 15, we're all going to high
school.
Everyone in my age bracket andeverybody goes and tries out for
the high school basketball team.
Not because they're passionateabout basketball, that's not the
reason they try out.
People try out because it'savailable, it's there, so okay,
it's like the basketball coursethere at the playground.
Everybody hangs at theplayground, everybody's playing

(17:34):
basketball.
So I might as well playbasketball.
That's kind of how it works.
Where I'm from, that's thedefault.
You just play because it'sthere.
If everybody had been playingtennis, we'd be having a
conversation about tennis rightnow.
But since everybody playedbasketball, I played basketball,
so that's how it goes.
So then everybody tries out attheir high schools for the team
and if you don't make it yourfreshman year, a lot of people

(17:55):
just pretty much drop off.
About 60% of them drop off.
They don't try to takebasketball serious anymore.
They might play in theplayground but they don't take
it serious.
Sophomore year you get anotherpercentage of people drop off.
Because what happens is I findthat a lot of people just didn't
want to deal with theembarrassment of knowing that
everybody else knew that youtried twice and didn't make it.

(18:17):
So my junior and senior year itwould just be every year
there'd be fewer people tryingout for the basketball team.
My senior year it was hardlyanybody at tryouts.
It means from my grade I meanthe ninth grade, the younger
guys they tried out.
But my senior year, my seniorclassmates, very few of us tried
out for the basketball team oursenior year if we weren't
already on the basketball team.

(18:37):
So me, I just was immune to thatfeeling of embarrassment.
Oh, you keep trying, but youhaven't made it.
It reminded me because I couldfeel internally, as I said, that
I was getting better, eventhough I had no tangible proof
that I was getting better.
So that was always what it wasfor me.
So, to answer your questionhere, tying this up is competing

(18:57):
again against the field.
I was competing againsteverybody and I was competing
against the circumstance of.
I know that this can work outbecause I could feel slowly that
the improvements were coming.

Klara (19:10):
And I love what you're mentioning, especially in those
teenagers, I think it's reallyhard to focus on improving and
measuring improvements mostlyagainst yourself, because that's
what I'm kind of hearing yousay.
You've seen a big scheme ofthings.
You were still underperformingin comparison to the team, like

(19:30):
trying to make the team.
You didn't make it until yoursenior year, but you didn't give
up because you felt that theeffort you were putting in on a
daily basis is actually makingyou better at this sport, and so
you measured yourself againstthat.
I think that's so important inlife to not lose track of where
am I in the big scheme of things.

(19:52):
But as far as you're seeingthat the effort that you're
putting in makes sense for youand is creating the progress,
that at least you see your ownimprovements.
I will compare it even just now.
And obviously I work out.
I know you work out tooreligiously as well, but a lot
of people, especially in themiddle age years who haven't

(20:13):
been athletes before realizingwell, I better start working out
because I'm aging, it's notgoing to get better.
I need to start doing somethingin order to be able to get up
from a couch when I'm 70 or walkaround right, because that's
way more difficult and I findoften they come over.
For example, I invite people towork out with me and they start

(20:34):
to comparing themselves to me.
Who's had like a 15 years oftennis career where I've played
like four to six hours a day andthen worked out religiously for
another 10, 15 years?
And then they come and they'reembarrassed they can't do the
same things that I can.
And I was like look, I have likea very different background.
You can't compare yourself tome.

(20:55):
You just compare yourself tothe discipline and come and
putting the effort.
So I've had many people come in, show up once or twice and
they're like we do hard, I'm notcoming anymore, and I think
that translates to many otherareas of life.
So just to pause, anything youwant to add on that, dre, as you
now coach many different peoplein many different fields and

(21:18):
speak about sort of this levelof mindset and I've heard you
talk about the third day as well.
I don't know if that sort ofrelates to this conversation and
point.
Talk about the third day aswell.
I don't know if that sort ofrelates to this conversation and
point.

Dre (21:27):
Well, yeah, the third day does relate I mean, third day
relates to everything, becausethe third day is all about
showing up and giving your besteffort when you least feel like
it which of course everyprofessional has to deal with
and especially when you'replaying a sport.
Because when you're playing asport and you're taking it
serious, you know very wellthere are days that you don't

(21:49):
feel like doing the training.
But when you're taking a sportserious, you have to train every
day.
So there are days you don'tfeel like training.
There are days you don't feellike doing the stuff that goes
around the training.
So I don't know exactly what itis in tennis, but in basketball
we have a lot of stuff we dothat's not actually on the court
, but you have to do it becauseyou're playing a sport.
So in basketball you might haveconditioning workouts where you

(22:09):
have to go and run a couple ofmiles, or you have to go to the
weight room, you have to liftsome weights, or you might need
to do some hop in the ice tub orsomething that is not actually
on the court, which we usuallyfound fun, but it is related to
it and is one of therequirements if you're going to
be on the team or if you'regoing to be a serious player.
So the third day is all aboutthe moments when those things

(22:32):
happen and the decision that youmake in that moment is really
about the decision, not themoment itself, because the
decision is a choice.
You can't always choose thecircumstance, because you have a
coach and there's a team andhere are the requirements of the
team.
You don't choose that, but youdo choose your decision on if
you're going to show up all theway during that training session
.
You want to show up and giveyour best effort in that workout

(22:53):
that you didn't even have to do, but you have a trainer and
your trainer says we have aworkout right now.
So that's what the third day isabout, and that third day is
really about that highest levelof discipline.
And, as I said earlier,discipline creates confidence.
The more disciplined you are atthe thing that you do, the more
confident you will be, andthat's where the performance
comes from.
And discipline is a byproductof structure.

(23:15):
So all of these pieces worktogether and you're serious
about it.
Usually that means you havesome type of trainer or coach.
They create the structure, youplug into the structure, then
you become disciplined.
You're so disciplined at doingthe training Now your confidence
goes up.
And then, when you're soconfident, then you get in the
match and you perform.
So it all works together.

(23:36):
So the third day is a piece inthe puzzle, but it's a big piece
.

Klara (23:40):
I do want to go back also again to your example and
everything I've read about you,that you pretty much self-taught
yourself how to play basketball.
And, sorry, I don't knowexactly how old you are, but
reflecting on my childhood,which maybe was still slightly
different, I always joke CzechRepublic because of the
communist era.
It shifted the development ofthe country back.

(24:01):
So actually when I was growingup playing tennis, there was
nothing like the social media.
You couldn't find, obviously,all of the science of
performance and recovery.
I wish I had access to all ofthis information that's
available now.
That would make me certainly abetter player.
So, reflecting back on that, 13, 14, 15 years old, how did you

(24:22):
self-taught yourself?
Because I'm guessing not muchof this information was
available as well.
So how did you know what to do,how to practice?
Did you observe others or werethere other aspects that kind of
made you decide this is whatI'm going to do to outperform
the other people on the team?

Dre (24:43):
I'm 42 years of age as of this recording, so anyone want
to backdate that?
That means in that age periodwe're talking the mid-90s.
So there was TV and there weremagazines and there were books,
but there was no.
I mean, the internet existed,but it was nothing like what we
have now and it wasn't.
There weren't people puttinginformation on the internet
about hey, here's how you dothis and this.

(25:04):
That didn't start till aroundthe turn of the century, around
2000,.
Moving on.
That's when you got bloggersand all of that stuff, and I
jumped into that pretty soon.
So for me, when it came tobasketball, I was 100%
self-taught and it was just myability to look at another
person doing something and, eventhough I couldn't perfectly do
it, of course, just by watchingthem I could see what they did.

(25:27):
And then the next day I couldcome to the park by myself when
there was nobody watching and noone waiting for me to do it
right.
I could just practice on my own.
So the good thing about beingable to practice by yourself is
that you can make mistakes, youcan try things, you can mess up
and there's nobody watching you,there's nobody waiting on you,
there's no clock, and you canjust basically use it as a

(25:49):
sandbox kind of, so to speak, tojust practice.
And that's all I did.
And I realized pretty quicklythere were a few things that I
needed to master.
I knew the most importantthings I needed to master was
number one I needed to be ableto make a layup with both hands.
To be able to make a layup withboth hands, so with the right
hand and with the left hand,make a layup.

(26:09):
And then I needed to be able todribble the basketball.
Those are the two things I knewI needed to master and that's
what I practiced.
I spent a lot of time justpracticing dribbling and making
a layup and then, since I wastall and a lot of people would
say, well, you're that tall, youshould be able to dunk Then I
started trying to work on how todunk the basketball.
So those are really the firstthree skills I tried to master.
And then, of course, you getthe shooting and then you start
combining all this stuffdribbling into a layup,

(26:30):
dribbling into a dunk, dribblinginto a shot.
And actually basketball is notthat complicated of a sport.
There's only a few things youcan do.
It's just the combinations ofputting them together is what
makes it look more fancy than itactually is.
But as I got older and I wasable to articulate and explain
this stuff, I started I'm surewe'll get to this I started
explaining it to other playersonce I understood the game.

(26:50):
So the biggest thing for me wasjust having that empty space
where nobody cared if you messedup.
Nobody actually knew that I waseven doing it because nobody
was paying attention.
I got to use that as mybreeding ground for my
development and my game, and itwas just the willingness to show
up consistently, my ability tojust look at somebody on Tuesday

(27:12):
night do something and saythat's interesting, what he just
did.
I can't do that.
Then Wednesday I would come tothe park in the afternoon by
myself and I would try topractice doing what I could
remember of that guy doing.
That's pretty much how Ideveloped my game.

Klara (27:24):
I love that observation that you've had and just I guess
, again going back to disciplineand willingness to put in the
work and try things out, I dowant to touch base also what you
mentioned earlier the soloplayer, that you were more of a
solo player.
Because this is interesting, Iinterview guests from different
sports.
Obviously, being a tennisplayer is a very individual

(27:46):
sport.
You have some team aspect anddoubles which I actually always
enjoy.
Usually you pick a partner thatyou match with and then you're
perfecting the game and strategyas much as you can to play
tournaments together, becausethen you sort of recognize
strength and can balance eachother out.
I'm curious about your aspectof what you consider to be more

(28:10):
individualistic type of personand how you fit into the team
sport, because I'm always tryingto kind of compare in through
my guests why did you chooseteam sport versus why did you
choose individual sport?
And that can be alwayscomplicated.
Balancing the teamwork Is thereanything you want to share on
that, trey?

Dre (28:31):
Sure, there's a lot I can share on that.
Are you familiar with the bigfive personality traits?
Clara Ever heard of it?

Klara (28:36):
Yes, I have.
But you can describe it in highlevel for anybody who hasn't.

Dre (28:40):
Sure I'm going to.
So I don't even remember whatall five are, but I know one is
conscientiousness, one isneuroticism and one is
disagreeableness oragreeableness.
So that's the one that I wantto focus on.
So the part about beingdisagreeable or agreeable and
the thing about the big fivepersonality traits for people
who are not familiar with theconcept and you can Google it,
it's easy to find it lays outfive traits that everyone has

(29:05):
some level of in life, and somepeople are high on a trait and
some people are low on a trait.
But it's not about good or bad.
It's not a measure of good orbad, where you are on the scale.
It's just a measure of who youare as a person, because every
personality is unique.
So one of those five traits isagreeableness.
People who are high onagreeableness tend to be very

(29:27):
compromising people.
They're the type of people whowant to get along with everybody
.
They like to go along and getalong.
They may be more compromising.
They just want to make sureeveryone's together.
They're the type of people whodon't like to be by themselves.
They like to be part of groups.
They're very team and grouporiented type of individuals
part of groups.
They're very team and grouporiented type of individuals,

(29:47):
whereas those who are low on theagreeableness scale.
These are the type of peoplewho are much more willing to
voice disagreement with otherpeople.
They're the type of people wholike to do things by themselves.
They are the type of people whodon't mind being by themselves
and doing things on their own.
And from the people who arehigh in disagreeableness, this
is where you find a lot ofentrepreneurs.

(30:08):
You find a lot of solo athletes.
You find a lot of people whojust do things their own way.
Doesn't mean that they don'tlike people, doesn't mean they
can't get along with people, butthey have a much more
independent streak.
Let's just put it that way.
I am extremely high on thedisagreeableness.
Of the big five personalitytraits, I'm not a very highly
agreeable person and, again,that doesn't mean you're a

(30:30):
negative person.
It doesn't mean you're a badperson.
I have a lot of friends.
I can make connections, I cantalk to people.
We're talking right here, right, so I have the ability to be
agreeable, friendly, personable,life of the party.
I'm not an introvert.
I like to be around people, butI am high on disagreeableness.
Being that, what that means isif I'm in a room full of people

(30:52):
and someone offers an opinionand I disagree.
A person who's high inagreeableness won't say that
they disagree.
A person who's high indisagreeableness won't say,
right in front of everybody, Idon't agree with that, and
they'll tell you why they don'tagree and they don't mind if
nobody else agrees with them.
That's a disagreeable.
I'm that type of person and fromthat space you usually find
people who do things that aremore individualistic.

(31:12):
So this is why I said Iprobably would have been a great
tennis player or boxer orrunner or something like some
sport that is just you byyourself, as opposed to a team
sport, because in a team sporteverybody has to do everything
together.
So even when I started playingon teams, let's say, I made the
high school team and then incollege, when I was actually
playing and I was on the team, Inever wanted to limit myself to

(31:41):
only doing Clara, what the teamwas doing, because even then
I'm thinking to myself okay,well, if we're all on the team
together, together all season,and we all have to practice this
many days per week, how am Igoing to become better than the
rest of my teammates?
Because we're all doing thesame stuff.
I need to advance faster thanthey're advancing.
I had to do more than they'redoing.
So if we had practice one houra day, six days a week, that's
six hours a week of practice Igot to do like nine or 10 hours

(32:01):
of practice.
I need to find four hours whereI can practice when everybody
else is not practicing so thatmy progress is faster than
theirs.
That's a disagreeable thought.
Just even think that, because alot of my teammates and I play
with a lot of players and fromhigh school to college to the
pros most pro players and Idon't know if this is the case
for you in tennis, I would loveto hear it but most of the pro

(32:28):
players who I dealt with, evenat the pro level, college level,
they don't really practice.
They didn't really work ontheir games that much outside of
what was required of them.
I always wanted to do more thanwhat was required because I knew
I wanted to go further.
I wanted to do it faster and Iwanted to be better than even
the people who I was teammateswith.
I wanted to make sure I wasbetter than them.
Forget the opponent, I wantedto make sure I was better than

(32:49):
them.
Forget the opponent.
I wanted to be better than myteammates.
So I always had that mindset andit linked itself perfectly to
me becoming an entrepreneur,because entrepreneurs are
usually high in disagreeableness.
Because, I mean, if you justthink about what an entrepreneur
is, clara, we are people wholooked at the landscape of
what's going on in the worldprofessionally and we said I can
do it better, I can do itdifferently than how it's being
done now.
And it's better than what'sbeing done now, because if you
were hiring agreeableness, youwould just go fit in somewhere,

(33:11):
whereas entrepreneur says I'mnot going to fit in, I'm going
to go do my thing and I'm goingto make everyone else fit in
with me.
This is a different mentality.
So as I got older and I gotinto entrepreneurship and I
started to understand thesethings, that's when I said, man,
I missed out by not being atennis player or a boxer,
because I probably could havebeen really good at it, because
I wouldn't need to get alongwith teammates.
I could have just did my thingthe way that I wanted to do it.

(33:34):
And the other thing I was goingto say here was when it came to
playing sports.
Again, as I told you, myparents were not athletes and
they were not trying to raise anathlete.
Their thing with me was theyjust wanted me to, and I have a
sister who's a year older thanme.
They just want us to go toschool, get good grades, go to
college, graduate, because myparents had not graduated from

(33:55):
college At least when we wereborn they had not and they
wanted us to at least do that ata level higher than what they
did was what a parent issupposed to do.
Right, they want their kids todo a little bit better than them
, at least to the best of theirknowledge.
They didn't know anything aboutsports, so they weren't pushing
me to sports.
They were just like, okay, wedidn't graduate college, so you
two are going to do that, sothat hopefully theoretically

(34:16):
sets you up to be moresuccessful than we.
Were my parents' mindset, andthey didn't say that, but I'm
assuming this is the way thatthey were thinking.
And when I got into basketball,it was fine for them because,
okay, he's doing somethingproductive, he's not hanging in
the streets, he's doingsomething productive.
And it didn't cost them anymoney.
See, the reason why I didn'tplay football American football

(34:38):
is because football equipmentcosts money and my parents would
always try to balance it outbetween my sister and I, like we
had to spend money on you doingthis activity.
We got to spend money on yoursister doing this activity.
Well, there's no femaleactivity that has the financial
equivalent to football, at leastnot that my parents knew about,
and that's why I never reallyplayed football.
They knew I wanted to play, butthey're like, hey, we can't

(34:59):
afford this equipment, so howabout you play baseball?
That's literally what they saidto me.
We can't afford the equipmentfor you to play football, so how
about you play baseball instead?
That is how my football careerended.
I didn't tell you that, butthat's how it happened.
Now, had they known about, let'ssay, a solo sport and I know
you know this a lot better thanI do, but from what I understand
, because I live down here inMiami, so you know tennis is

(35:20):
huge down here Tennis is anexpensive sport.
It's not cheap to play tennis.
It's like golf.
It's not cheap to play thesesports.
So had I decided to playsomething like tennis eventually
, my parents would have seen thebill for a trainer or to go to
some camp or to go to.
Had I shown any promise, whoeverthe tennis person was would
have went to my parents and said, well, look, this boy has an

(35:41):
opportunity to do this and thisand this.
So we want to send them to thisand here's how much it costs,
and they would have said, okay,that's the end of tennis.
So that would have been the endof my tennis career.
So the thing about basketball,and again coming from the
environment that I come from inthe inner city everybody can
play basketball and it doesn'tcost anything.
You just go to the park and youjust play.
So it kind of linked itself notonly to who I was as far as my

(36:05):
physical genetics, but also tomy situation.
So had I been exposed to otherthings, as I said, we'd be
having a conversation about adifferent sport right now.
But that was just mycircumstance.

Klara (36:14):
And in many ways what you're mentioning.
I love the low barrier to entryin some ways in basketball and
the team sports is definitelyone of the things that's being
talked about in tennis.
Obviously, how do you diversifyand bring more of that talent,
even just some of theunderprivileged environments?
Because it's so expensive, andI mean it's expensive earlier on

(36:35):
but it becomes even moreexpensive as you need to get
better and need to travel aroundthe world for tournaments,
world for tournaments, and thenthe better you get, then you
want to travel with a coachbecause if the coach is there
you can practice with the coachand they can sort of observe and
see what you're doing good orbad and you can fit in more
practice within the tournamentsas you kind of play your year

(36:57):
out.
So I agree I do want to touchbase.
Going back on the agreeablenessand I love that you brought it
up I actually use it very often.
I obviously follow JordanPeterson.
That in many ways is the betterside, and be a female and have
more of a masculine side.
He sort of averages it out towhere most men and women fall

(37:34):
into and I've actually usedspecifically the agreeableness a
lot, even in our corporateworld and for women overall,
because, on average again, notevery woman actually not me
specifically, I don't count intothat group but most women agree
more often than most men would,and so I actually think that

(37:55):
agreeableness is important,especially when negotiating
salaries or promotions, becauseeven if you're just being hired
and we women tend to agree onaverage sooner than men, that
will put us into like startingat a lower pay bracket category
and that goes with likeeverything, including climbing
hierarchies in any sort ofcorporations of where most men

(38:25):
are.
I have been in male dominatedindustry and that can also
create challenges when somebodydoesn't expect women to be that
disagreeable as I am.
But I'm curious if you would bewilling to share where on the
disagreeableness level you are.
Drake is just to give one morehint.
I live with a partner who's onepercentile disagreeable, so
which means if you put 100people in the room, 99% of them

(38:47):
will agree sooner than he will,which is always fun because
we're always debating anddiscussing things.
But are you open to sharingwhere you at?
Dre?

Dre (38:55):
Well, I've never officially measured it.
I don't know if there's ameasurement, but I'm probably
close to your partner that youmentioned.
So, again, I'm the type ofperson who is not even disagree
in being negative.
It's just that when I disagree,I'm willing to openly disagree
in front of a room full ofpeople, in front of whoever.
Whoever this person is, they'reexpecting everybody else to say

(39:17):
yes and I'm going to say no.
And, on top of the fact thatI'm willing to defend my
disagreements, I'm disagreeing.
But I'll tell you why I disagreeand articulate it, and I even
have people in my audiences.
I'll put out some content andI'll say something.
I'll talk about some topic thateveryone's talking about and
I'll offer a different type ofapproach to it.
And someone will write me backand say, dre, I don't even agree

(39:39):
with what you said, but Iappreciate how you said it and
the way that you explain whereyou can back up your position
and that's one of my top skillsis just being able to articulate
the disagreement and justalways being the type of person
who, ever since I was in middleschool I can remember it this
far back I was always the typeof person who my thinking always

(40:02):
went against the grain.
So the group, the crowd, theclass would all be thinking one
way and I'll be thinking anotherway.
And again, I don't think I wasthe only one who thought
differently.
I don't think I'm just somegenius who thinks differently
from everybody else.
I think a lot of people thinknot a lot.
Let's say there are 30 peoplein a room.
There may be 10 people in aroom who don't agree with the

(40:22):
consensus, but nine of themwon't say anything, they'll just
go along to get along.
Again, that's the agreeableness, whereas I would actually say
something like no, I don't agreewith that, and here's why and I
would explain it and I didn'tfeel uncomfortable when the
group will push back against mebecause I disagree with them.
That's the difference, is thewillingness to actually stand on

(40:45):
a disagreement, not justdisagree.
Because even these days, when Isay something that I know I'm
going against the grain of whatappears to be, quote unquote,
everybody's opinion, there arepeople who will quietly agree
with me.
And this is what I tell peoplewho are in a thought leadership
space is that when people agreewith you, they do so quietly and

(41:05):
in private.
When people disagree with you,they do it loudly and in public.
So it seems like when peopledisagree with you it seems like
it's everybody, but really it'sabout half and half.
It's just the people whodisagree don't do it loudly
because they don't want to dealwith that blowback, whereas the
people who disagree with you,especially if you're going
against the grain, they thinkyou're crazy because you're the

(41:25):
quote, unquote, only one withthis opinion.
So they'll come at you andthey'll make sure everybody sees
it.
But you just have to understandthat.
And because I understand it, itdoesn't bother me to go against
the grain, especially because Iknow that what I'm saying, I
can defend it.
So that's the thing when itcomes to disagreeableness with
me.

Klara (41:40):
I actually love disagreeable people.
I think it makes for betterideas because I truly believe,
especially when you are doinganything, whether it can be in
sports, what strategy you'regoing to play for this important
point, or whether it's going tobe a business opportunity that
you're creating withincorporations there is a truth to

(42:01):
group thing.
So the more people that arethinking like you and agreeing,
I think there's less opportunityyou have to see the differences
.
And that's the beauty of havingpeople come from different
backgrounds, perspectives andhaving different backgrounds,
because if you disagree and youvoice it out loud, that makes
people think, huh, whydisagreeing?

(42:21):
How are you seeing thisdifferently than me?
And that allows at the end,always for better outcomes and
solutions, like having thisdebate and arguing between
different points of view.
So I actually think too muchagreeableness is not good for
innovation and productivity andI hope more people will embrace

(42:42):
sort of productivedisagreeableness.
And obviously you can debateand disagree at some point.
Somebody needs to make adecision and then you commit and
go with it right Once.
You kind of put everything outthere and you present your best
reasoning.

Dre (42:54):
But I really enjoyed that trade.
Can I add something to?

Klara (42:58):
that Please.

Dre (42:58):
So have you read Jim Collins' book Good to Great.

Klara (43:01):
I've heard about it.
I have to admit I haven't readit.

Dre (43:04):
Okay, you should read it.
So one of the things in thatbook that Jim Collins talks
about because the book for thosenot familiar with it he and his
team.
They researched a bunch ofpublicly traded companies that
had been successful over anextended period of time and they
had certain metrics of how theymeasure success.
And when they found the mostsuccessful companies, what they
did was break down what are thecommonalities amongst the most

(43:26):
successful organizations, andone of them was the concept of
getting the wrong people out ofthe organization and getting the
right people in.
And when he's explaining it inthe book about getting the right
people in and when he'sexplaining it in the book about
getting the right people in, hetalks about how companies would
find the best people, the bestperforming individuals, not even
for a specific job, but justthe highest level types of

(43:48):
people.
They would just find high levelpeople, get them all together,
and then they would figure outwhat they were going to do.
They would get the quality ofperson first, then they would
figure out the job second andthen, when it came time to
actually do the jobs, they wouldsay okay, here's the ideas of
what we're going to do.
What does everybody think aboutthis.
And because they were highlevel people, they did not all
agree.
They would not be in a groupthing.

(44:10):
They would disagree on what todo or how to do it or where to
do it.
They would disagree on all thedetails.
And what Jim explained in thebook and he gave many examples
of this is that the high levelworkers in the companies they
would have these knock down,drag out arguments over what to
do, how to do it, when to do it,where to do it, why to do it.

(44:30):
They would just argue and argueand argue, fight tooth and nail
over who had the better idea orhow we were going to do things,
and then they would finallycome to a consensus and then all
the people they could put asidethe fact that they disagreed
and then all get aligned andthen go do the job and they
would do it at a really highlevel.
Those are what disagreeablepeople are able to do.
What I find I don't know if youhave this experience, but

(44:52):
especially using social media, Imean especially whenever I
speak on hot button topics orwhatever they may be.
I don't do all the time, but Iam willing to do is that people
tend to take the topicspersonally.
They tend to take disagreementpersonally and that's the
biggest challenge with peoplewho are more on the agreeable
side is that they takedisagreement as if it's a

(45:15):
personal attack on them.
And I try to explain to peopleall the time I'm not attacking
you, I'm attacking your pointand there's a difference.
I can love you, but I just hateyour point.
Your point sucks.
You're a great person, but thepoint's no good.
I'm just beating up the pointand a lot of people can't take
that.
I would say like 95% of thepeople who I see engaging, they

(45:35):
take a disagreement as if I'mattacking them when I'm not.
And I don't have that problem.
If I put out an idea and youthink the idea is terrible, you
can tell me.
You can tell me right to myface that the idea is terrible,
as long as you can tell me whyit's terrible.
And if you can explain it to me, I will say you know what.
You're right.
The idea is terrible.
What's your idea?
Let's go with yours and ifyours is better, then I'm on
board with yours and it'snothing personal.

(45:57):
There's no residue from the factthat you disagree with my point
and this is why I value, as yousaid, the disagreeable people,
because we can get in a room.
10 of us can have 10 differentideas.
When we put all 10 ideas on thetable, each of us will have to
defend that point and everybodyelse gets to attack it and in
the end, the best idea is goingto win and the 10 people in the

(46:19):
room will say okay.
Nine of them are going to sayokay, that wasn't my idea, but
it is better than my idea.
I'm behind that idea.
And then you put the minds ofthose 10 people together and
that's an unstoppable team.
But you got to find the rightpeople who have the ability to
separate their opinion from whothey are as a person.
They're not taking it as thisis my child because you're

(46:40):
disagreeing with it.
It's just an idea.
Ideas are a dime a dozen, sonone of my ideas need to quote,
unquote win.
If my idea is terrible, I wantto know.
Tell me.
I want to know now.
Let's not waste time.
Tell me now that it sucks so wecan get something better,
because the outcome and I tellpeople this in my audiences all
the time that we're in aperformance and results-based
business.
This is not an ego-basedbusiness, it's about the result.

(47:02):
So whatever produces the result, let's do that.
Just because it came from medoes not mean it's going to win.
It's whatever produces theresult.
That's what I'm behind, becausethat's the business that I'm in
.

Klara (47:12):
I love everything you said and agree with it and I
have seen it in practice andcorporations that I have worked
in and I strongly believe thatwe ourselves are unable to see
fully our own biases and it'sbecause we've just been grown up
and gone through thisexperience.
So obviously the way we thinkwill come naturally or we will

(47:36):
feel that's sort of the rightpath to progress.
But it takes somebody else topoint out look, maybe you
haven't thought this through.
This could be a good idea, butif you do this then you can take
it to a next level.
So really that beautiful,productive disagreement is, I
find, so helpful and obviouslyeverything in life business as

(47:56):
well as sports right.
I think that's why, being anathlete, you kind of get to also
take disagreeableness, becauseyou're from early on, typically
have coaches and sometimesteammates are yelling at you
very straightforwardly what doyou have done wrong.
And so I find that athletessometimes can take those
disagreements and verytransparent feedback as far as

(48:18):
if somebody can explain and youknow it's true and they can
reason through it why you shoulddo this this way or that way,
perhaps a little bit better thansome of the people that perhaps
haven't seen athletics.
I know I'm making biggeneralized statement, but what
do you think, drake, because youhave experience with coaching
many athletes, as well asentrepreneurs and corporate

(48:40):
leaders?
How do you look at that?
The athletic versusnon-athletic population?

Dre (48:44):
It's a great experience to play sports for that reason
alone.
Because, clara, you know aswell as I do, most athletes
don't even make it to play atthe pro level.
I mean, most don't make it toKyle's level, but on the pro
level.
And still, the experience ofplaying sports teaches us a lot
of things.
First of all, to respectauthority.
To respect the authority of acoach or someone who has a

(49:05):
higher rank than you in anorganization, because when you
go work in corporate, you gowork in an organization.
There are people above you andyou have to respect their
authority, even if you don'talways agree with their position
.
You can disagree in a way, butat the same time you need to be
respectful of the position thatthey have with regards to the
position that you have.
Number two, being willing totake feedback constructive,

(49:25):
critical feedback when it'scoming from someone, because in
the sports world I mean in thebusiness world people have to
sugarcoat things right.
Especially in the world thatwe're in today, you can't say
things too harshly to anybodybecause people are extremely
sensitive and generally I justcall that weak.
But in sports you get feedbackdirect.
Again, you mess up in themiddle of a game, your coach or

(49:46):
your teammate will yell at youright in your face for messing
up.
And if you fall to pieces inthe middle of the game now
you're useless to the team.
You have to build up the mentaltoughness to take that feedback
.
You go play an away game.
You got the fans from the otherteam yelling at you.
Now I know in tennis they hadto be quiet, but in basketball
they don't.
In basketball they yell at youduring the game.

(50:07):
So you have to take thatfeedback that you're getting
from whoever, and not fall apartjust because someone's giving
you constructive feedback.
And the thing is is what theysaid true?
And this is what I always sayto.
I always say this to athletesand I say it to professionals
these days, when someone offersyou a criticism, the first thing
you need to ask yourself is nothow you feel about it.

(50:28):
The first question is is ittrue?
Is what they said true, thatyou did mess up?
Did you make a mistake?
Is this not working?
If it's true, then you shouldappreciate it, accept it, say
thank you for that feedback.
What can we do to fix it?
That's the way that you'resupposed to respond to these
things, and I believe this isnot really what you asked me,
but I'm going to say it anyway.
I believe this starts at home.

(50:48):
It starts at home that when youare used to accepting that kind
of constructive feedback fromwhoever raised you, whatever
adults around you, your parentsthen when you go into school
you'll accept it from theteachers.
You go to sports you'll acceptit from your coaches.
You get a job, you'll accept itfrom your bosses.
And when you don't have thatfrom your upbringing, then it's
much harder to take thatfeedback from someone because

(51:08):
you're not used to accepting it.

Klara (51:11):
I love the last one you mentioned because early on
growing up I've always had thatcoach authority.
But in many ways I have beenprivileged to have some amazing
coaches that knew so much aboutthe game and I could fully trust
their feedback and guidance.
I think this is mainly in mycorporate career as I have been
building, and especially thehigher up you go weirdly.

(51:33):
Sometimes it can get verylonely and the more I find
you've got to filter through, isthis feedback true?
It may sound counterintuitivebut I have found the more senior
I get in corporations, the moreI need to be aware of the space

(51:53):
I'm coming from in my ownexperience and my intentions and
the way I say things versusother leaders, because they may
have a different style and theymay not know me fully, my style
and in business corporationsthere's actually many leaders
that don't even get to know youenough.
You work with them verycross-functionally and so they

(52:13):
may see you in just very narrowview and window to not have a
full context and see you kind ofbehind the scenes.
So the filtering through ofwhat is true and isn't true and,
as people say, one of thesethings I try to practice.
I'm not perfect at it.
But take feedback seriously,but not personally I think

(52:35):
feedback is always just a bit ofa snippet of information.
But then what you decide to dowith it and sometimes actually
disregarding it and doingnothing can be the best thing.
And sometimes actually reallygiving a deep thought and trying
to figure out there's reallysomething good here, how do I
implement it and augment maybethe way I do this or that that

(52:57):
will allow you to just slightlypivot and achieve sort of the
next level of growth 100% andwhat you said there is take it
seriously, but not personally.

Dre (53:08):
And that's really what everyone needs to be able to do
be able to emotionally detachfrom the feedback so you can
read into things and care aboutthings mentally, but not
emotionally.
I think it's the same thing.

Klara (53:26):
Yeah, I think we can talk about many of these things
forever.
I do want to go back to yourcareer, and we talked about your
upbringing.
You actually haven't been thetop player in high school or
college and despite of that, youhave been able to create an
impressive personal career inbasketball, where you played in

(53:47):
eight different countries, andso I'm actually curious, going
back to this mindset that wediscussed, if you could lead us
into that part of your life andhow have you been able to
achieve that.

Dre (53:58):
Coming out of college.
Division III college I played,but it didn't set the world on
fire and it was only D3.
So you play Division IIIcollege sports.
For those who don't followsports, division I is the March
Madness, the tournament you seeon TV.
Most pro players come fromDivision I.
Then you have Division II andand division three.
Most of these players are noteven dreaming about becoming
pros, let alone Do they actuallybecome pros, because they don't

(54:22):
have the pedigree to beprofessional players for the
most part.
So when I got out of college,nobody was checking for me to
play pro basketball.
So my first year out of school,actually, I worked a couple of
regular jobs.
I worked at a footlockerselling sneakers.
I worked at a gym selling gymmemberships, because I had no
opportunities to play probasketball.
So a year removed fromgraduation, this is I graduated

(54:45):
2004, by the way.
So this is 2005.
I went to this event called anexposure camp, which is you
probably are familiar with those, but for those not in the
sports world, it's like a jobfair for athletes and you pay to
go to this event.
It's not free, you pay and it'syour opportunity to showcase
that you have the talent and theability to play at the pro

(55:05):
level, because there's a bunchof people who are all either
already pros or want to be prosand we all come here to show our
skills and, hopefully, impresssomebody.
So the audience is agents,managers, coaches, scouts,
talent evaluators from all overthe world.
They come to these events as adestination event, looking for
talent, because they needplayers the same way the players

(55:26):
need jobs.
So I went to one of theseevents and I played pretty well.
It was only two days, saturdayand a Sunday.
I played pretty well at thisevent.
I got a good scouting reportfrom one of the evaluators there
and I had the footage from thegames.
And when I got back home I'mfrom Philadelphia.
The event was in Orlando.
So I had to drive to Orlando.
Me and a couple of teammatesformer teammates rented a car,

(55:47):
drove to Orlando 19-hour drive,played pretty well there, drove
back, had to be back at work onMonday and that's when I started
cold calling basketball agentsbecause I needed an agent.
And usually the way agents workin sports is that the agents are
calling the players because theagents are looking for players
and they want to represent youbecause they think they can help

(56:08):
you get a contract and if youget a contract and you get paid,
they get paid.
But no agent was calling me soI had to call them.
So this is not usually the waythat it works.
So anybody listening to this,you don't know the sports world.
This is abnormal the way thingswent for me.
So I was calling agents andtelling them hey, here's who I
am.
Now I had some proof, I had thescout report and I had that

(56:28):
footage and of the 60 who Icalled, I was able to get in
touch with 20.
The 20 who I spoke to, theysaid, okay, let me see your
footage.
Now this footage was on thisthing called a VHS tape.
You remember those?
Yes, I do, okay, so the VHS tapeis what I had to send them.
So I was making copies of thetape because you didn't have a

(56:50):
link, there's no link.
You had to physically mail thema tape.
I sent this tape out to 20agents.
Of the 20 who I sent it to, oneof them I was able to reconnect
with and he said OK, I willrepresent you.
Because basically the reason Iwas sending the proof of the
scouting report and the tape wasto show these agents that yes,
even though I came out of aDivision three college, I am a

(57:10):
pro level player and I need toprove it to you Once.
I prove it to you now.
Hopefully that made them wantto represent me and then they
will go and call who they knowand they can get me a job
playing basketball.
That was my mindset, that wasthe process.
So I found one agent who agreedto represent me and he did
actually give me a job.
So I got my first job inLithuania in late summer of 2005

(57:32):
.
So that's how I got startedplaying pro basketball.

Klara (57:35):
And I know you went through eight different
countries.
If I remember correctly,Slovakia was one of them.
Was it Macedonia or Montenegro?
Montenegro.
I don't know which other Mexico.
I wonder if you had a favoritecountry that you had played in,
and I don't know if that countryis tied to perhaps the culture,
or mostly to the team and theresults that you create as part

(57:57):
of the team.
How would you evaluate that?

Dre (57:59):
Favorite country, I would have to say I could really cheat
and give you three answers.
So I'll give you three answers.
So number one I would sayLithuania is number one, and
these actually know inparticular order.
But I would say Lithuaniabecause that was the first place
I went, so that was the firsttime that I even left the United
States was to go to Lithuania.
So it's like your first bornchild You're never going to
forget that one.

(58:19):
So Lithuania number one.
And also because just the itwas surreal just walking around
in Kaunas and I don't know ifyou've been to Kaunas, but
you're from Europe, so you knowa lot of tall black guys is
walking around Kaunas, countlessLithuanians.
So everybody knows you're abasketball player.
Everyone's looking at you twiceand a lot of people don't speak

(58:40):
English.
But at that time a lot of theyounger people around my age, at
that time they'd grown upspeaking English, watching TV,
american TV so they would speakto you.
You're signing autographs,taking pictures with people they
don't even know who you are.
They just know you're abasketball player.
So they're taking pictures withyou, girls looking at you,
wanting to talk to you, all thisstuff.
So that is number one.
Number two answer I would giveis Mexico.

(59:01):
And a lot of people aresurprised, especially Americans
are surprised when I say Mexico,because Mexico is a third world
country.
So it's nothing like Lithuania,not like any of the places I
was in Europe.
But Mexico was very fast andfree is what I would say about
Mexico.
There were no rules.
You didn't know what was goingto happen day to day.
It was very wild.
Mexico's a very wild experience.

(59:22):
I would not want to do that now, but I would do it then.
I was only 24 years of age whenI went to Mexico, but it was
very fun because it was justwide open.
Anything goes.
That's how Mexico was prettymuch on the court and off the
court.
The third third place I wouldgive is uh, hercygnovi.
Montenegro and those who arenot familiar with Hercygnovi is
basically like uh, I don't knowwhat town I would compare it to

(59:44):
in America.
It was like Miami, but inEurope and not as warm, not no
tropical climate, but it's rightthere on the water, right on
the Bay of Kotor, and it doesn'tget that cold in the winter
maybe 50 degrees is the coldestthat you get.
It's a tourist destination inEurope, at least in that area.
People know that place is aplace to go for vacation and my

(01:00:05):
team was right there in thatcity so I could look out my
window from my apartment overthere they call it a flat.
Out of my flat I could see thewater and it was beautiful.
And Montenegro was a place wherethat was the first time I had
negotiated my own contract.
I negotiated that whole deal bymyself because my agent no
longer had that agent and Ireached out to the team myself.

(01:00:25):
They responded I negotiated thewhole contract, did everything
and on that team we practicedmore on that team than I did any
other team.
I was ever on just the practice.
We practiced twice a day, everyday, monday through Friday, and
the games are only on theweekends.
So it was just so much practice.
My jump shot was automatic.
When I was playing inMontenegro, I could have made

(01:00:46):
three pointers with my eyesclosed because we practiced so
much.
That's all you did.
So I was probably as far as myshooting that was my best time
was there in Montenegro becauseof the amount of practice that
we did there and it actuallybled into the rest of my career
and something that I would eventell my audience.
I developed that 10 to 1 ratio10 practices for every one game
from my time playing inMontenegro.

(01:01:07):
So those are the top threeplaces Kaunas, mexico,
herzegovina.

Klara (01:01:11):
Anything you want to call out when it comes to your
basketball career.
When it comes to yourbasketball career, any games
that really stood out orexperience that you like to
reflect on.
This is some of the best gamesin place or teams that I have
had yeah, I can give you threegames in particular while you're
talking about that.

Dre (01:01:32):
So number one was I remember I was in mexico.
Mexico, Mexico's basketball isdifferent than European
basketball.
In Mexico the whole thing isabout scoring points, getting
stats, basically like theplayground, but professionally.
I had a friend, an American.
He's the one who introduced meto the job.
He introduced me to somebodywho knew somebody.
He got me the job playing inMexico.

(01:01:52):
I remember he sent me a textmessage because I told him my
first game was coming up.
He said don't pass the ball toanybody, Shoot it every time.
That's what he told me.
He said don't pass anything,Shoot every time.
Because he explained to me thewhole deal.
There they judge you by how manypoints you have.
They judge you by your stats.
So if you score 30 points,you're a superstar, and if you
score 10 points you're a bum.
That's how it is.

(01:02:13):
Even if your team wins and youscore 10 points, you're not good
because you only had 10 points.
So he says score as much as youcan.
That's how they judge you.
You want to make more money inMexico.
You got to score more points.
So I did exactly what he said.
I just shot the ball everysingle time.
I scored about.
The most I ever scored in a proprofessional game was I scored
40 points in Mexico.
And because I shot the ballevery time, I didn't pass the

(01:02:35):
ball I.
And because I shot the ballevery time, I didn't pass the
ball, I just shot it every time.
And after that game people werelooking at me like I was
Michael Jordan because I scoredall these points.
And that's how he was right.
So everything he told me wastrue.
So that was number one inMexico.
So number two was in Montenegroand on this particular team,
European basketball is waydifferent than Mexico.
Mexico, you're an American, youplay the whole game, you shoot

(01:02:55):
as much as you want, Nobodycares.
In Europe, you could be thebest player on the team and you
don't even start, You're noteven in the starting lineup and
you might not even play half thegame.
And you're clearly the bestplayer on the team because
you're not playing and you'resitting on the bench and you're
like why am I not playing?
I'm better than everybody onthe team.
Remember, we played a game, aroad game.
I didn't start.

(01:03:15):
When I finally got in the game,in the middle of the second
quarter we were already down bylike 25 points and I'm like why
am I not playing?
And this is how it is in Europe.
You'll see players who will bein America.
They'll play Division I.

Klara (01:03:34):
They'll be Conference Player of the Year, division I
in America go to Europe and theydon't even start for the team
they play for in Europe.
That's how it is.
Sorry, just to interrupt.
Why did they do it that way?
It?

Dre (01:03:40):
seems so illogical.
Yeah, that's how it is.
If I could explain it then, Idon't know, maybe I would have
been playing more, but thisstill happens to this day,
because I see players allconference in America They'll
play in Europe and they're notstarting and the game is 40
minutes.
They might only play 19 out ofthe 40 minutes of the whole game
and they're clearly the mosttalented player on the team, but
that's how it is.
They just have a differentstyle.

(01:04:01):
In Europe, the game is not aboutthe individual.
See, in America South America,central America the game is
about the individual.
How many points do you have?
Who's the superstar, who's thebest player?
That's what our culture is whenit comes to basketball is
proving that you're the best guy.
That's what our culture is whenit comes to basketball is
proving that you're the best guy.
In Europe, the game is aboutthe team, is about the team, is
about the town, is about thecountry you represent.

(01:04:23):
If you represent, the countryis not about the individual,
ever about the individual.
Even if you're a really goodplayer, you must fit into the
team structure, no matter howgood you are, and this is why in
Europe, you never see somebodyaveraging 35 points a game.
In Europe it doesn't happenbecause you don't play enough to
score 35 points and you won'tshoot the ball enough to score
35 points.
It's impossible, and if you tryto play like that over there,

(01:04:44):
they'll send you home.
You won't play, whereas inMexico they want you to score
100 points and shoot every timeto score as much as you can, and
in the NBA as well, you seethis.
So over there it's all aboutthe team, it's all about the
town that you're representing,it's all about the pride of the
town, not the person.
So in this team we're down by25 points.

(01:05:04):
I'm getting in the game in thesecond quarter and I remember
this particular game.
I didn't miss any shots.
Every time I got the ball,pretty much I shot it, but it
wasn't in a selfish way.
It wasn't the same way that Idid in Mexico.
I didn't get as many shots, butevery time I did shoot, I made
it and we still lost the game.
We still lost by about 20points, but I had a great game
and after the game all myteammates are coming up to me

(01:05:26):
shaking my hand and everything.
Even the management came up tome and said man, you had a great
game and, man, if I had gottenin the game earlier maybe we
probably would have won the damngame, but I played a great game
.
That was my best game playingin Montenegro and it was
important because up to thatpoint I hadn't been starting any
of the games.
I never started a single gamethe whole time I was in
Montenegro not one, even thoughI was the most talented player

(01:05:48):
on the team and we were notalways winning because the coach
wasn't putting me in the game.
But that game I had a greatgame and everybody could see.
Okay, when this guy plays andhe's playing more we probably do
better, but the coach did whathe did and again, that is
universal in Europe.
That happens all the time.
So the third one was in.
I was in Germany.

(01:06:08):
I was on this team Actually, Iwasn't even on a team yet
Technically I was messing withan agent because I go on there.
I was on the team.
Then that team basicallycouldn't keep me, so I was in
Germany looking for a team.
I connected with an agent.
Now this guy had gone to schoolin America but he was a German
guy and he said I'll take youaround to some teams and I'll
help you find a team.

(01:06:29):
And the reason he wanted to dothis, clyde, is because, again,
if he could help me get acontract, then he would make
money.
So he saw me as someone who hadpotential to make money.
All right, I'll help you out.
So he brings me to this localteam.
He says, all right, play withthis local team.
In a couple of games.
And I remember playing in a gameonce and I sat with him at

(01:06:50):
dinner after the game and hesaid well, dre, you didn't do
that good, you weren't veryimpressive.
And I was like well, over herewe measure Americans by.
You got to score.
You got to be a person whoscores.
You got to score easily.
You got to get points.
He was basically sounded alittle bit like Mexico Not
exactly, but a little bit closer.
It was a similar thing.
You got to score points.
You got to make it look easy.
You got to dunk on guys.

(01:07:11):
You got to do all these things.
American players, you all areheld to a higher standard.
American players, you all areheld to a higher standard.
You can't just play goodbasketball.
You got to look like.
You got to go like Kobe Bryantout there.
You got to look like LeBron andI'm like that doesn't even make
any sense, because I was doingall the right things.
But he was saying it wasn't thatgood.
I said, okay, all right, so wehad another game the next day.

(01:07:31):
I said, okay, so he wants me toscore points?
Okay, I'm going to just dropthe ball every time.
I scored a whole bunch ofpoints.
We won the game.
After the game, he was likeyeah, that's how you got to play
, just keep doing that.
That was one of my favoritegames, just because of the
circumstance, that game also.
I'll tell you one last thing.
When I was playing in that game, there was an American guy.
He was a player.

(01:07:51):
He wasn't on the team we wereplaying against, but he was part
of their system, because inGermany you may have a team that
has three or four levels ofteams.
So he was on one of the otherteams, but he came to the game
to support his guys and we'replaying against his guys.
So he's in the crowd talkingtrash to me from the sideline.
He's in the bleachers talkingtrash to me because we're not
the Americans in the gym.

(01:08:11):
So he's talking to me and I'mtalking back to him during the
game and we ended up winning, sohe shut up by the end of the
game.
After the game he came over andshook my hand and said good
game.
So those are my top three games.

Klara (01:08:22):
What is interesting really stood out to me is how
you actually had to adjust tothe different cultures within
the teams and countries, and Inever would have thought that
there's actually a different wayto play basketball or a
strategy to play as a part of ateam as a result of, it seems
like, the culture that theleague and the country has
created, and so that isinteresting.

(01:08:44):
It seems like in Mexico youfound out through a friend who
guided you, but some of theother times it seems it was just
really finding through your ownexperiences that you then kind
of had to level set or otherpeople who guided you.
This is what you have to do tobe successful within the team
and the league.
Is that accurate?
Anything else you would want tocall out that really helped you

(01:09:05):
adjust faster?
I?

Dre (01:09:07):
remember the first place I played Lithuania.
I didn't really know anythingabout European basketball.
Again, this is 2005.
So it's not like you can go onthe internet and somebody has
written a book about it.
It's you just show up and youjust figure it out along the way
.
So I remember my first practice.
We were just doing a drill andyou had to catch the ball, go to
the basket and make a layup.
And I went and I dunked theball and all the players were

(01:09:29):
like Whoa, I guess they hadnever seen anybody do that.
So it was like surprising tothem to see someone do that.
But I knew I needed to do thatto impress.
I knew I needed to impress fromthe very first day, because the
way it is in Europe inbasketball, especially as an
American player, is that yourjob is on the line every day.
So if you don't look impressivein practice, you may have just

(01:09:52):
gotten there two days ago, butif you don't look impressive in
practice, they might say wedon't like this guy, he's not
that good, and they'll get ridof you.
They'll send you right back.
You just left two days ago,you're right back home, and it
happens like that.
I've seen it happen to players.
So I knew I had to come in andimpress, and there would be
coaches asking me to do thingsthat I had never done before.
But they expect you to be ableto do it because you're an

(01:10:13):
American.
You're an American, so theylook at Americans like you're
Superman when you're playing inthese places and they expect you
to do it, and if you can't doit, they will find someone who
will do it.
That's pretty much how it goes.
So you have to make youradjustments on the fly, and for
me, it was always just all right.
Let me figure out what it isthat they want from me and let
me prove that I can do it, evenif I didn't know I could do it.

(01:10:33):
I need to figure it out andprove that I can, because the
alternative is I'm back home andnow I'm looking for a job all
over again, and the jobs arehard enough to get one.
Get one, lose it and I have toget another one.
So I'm just figuring out how doI adjust in the moment and do
whatever is being asked of me Ifthis is what they want.
This is what I had to do,because when you're playing

(01:10:55):
basketball professionally andtraveling the world again, all
these places that I named.
I never would have gone to theseplaces had it not been for
basketball, had it not been formy ability to go out there and
perform and all my friends backhome.
Because, mind you, this is theearly days of social media.
So I'm writing blog posts andposting pictures on Facebook and
all my college friends arelooking at it and they're

(01:11:15):
looking at me like you're livinga dream, like you're living a
movie, because you're travelingthe world playing basketball.
So I didn't want to lose that.
I mean, it was good for me too.
It wasn't just the matter ofwhat they were saying, it was
what I was saying to myself,because I wanted to play
basketball.
Mind you, my first year out ofcollege, claire, I was working a
footlocker.
So this was not some guarantee,right?
I needed to keep these jobs.

(01:11:36):
So, whatever I needed to do tokeep the job, I was at least
willing to try doing it.
That wasn't always successful,but I wanted to try.

Klara (01:11:44):
Yeah, I love hearing you and describing your career and
all of the lessons you havelearned traveling around and
adjusting to different teams andcultures within the teams to
thrive.
It seems like you were in aposition where you really needed
to set the level for the restof the team, or there was the
expectations, because you comefrom the US, a country of

(01:12:05):
basketball, and so you have beenput by in some ways.
I want to say default to thisleadership position and if you
weren't up to lead then theywould pick somebody else who
would.

Dre (01:12:16):
That's right.

Klara (01:12:17):
So there's a lot of pressure that comes with that
and the need to level up yourgame to meet, as you mentioned,
those expectations that othersput on you and sort of standards
.
Any tips you want to share ofwhat was the mindset and what
helped you step into thatmindset, to thrive on that

(01:12:39):
pressure?
Because sometimes when you havethis pressure, there's, I
believe, two types of people Onethat break underneath and they
play worse, versus another thatsee it as an opportunity to
thrive and then step into thoseshoes to then play better, and I
think that's what the bestplayers do, whether it's Michael
Jordan Kobe.
Better, and I think that's whatthe best players do, whether

(01:13:00):
it's Michael Jordan Kobe.
When you're in the mostimportant points, you need to
find a way how to believe inyourself and score.
That's what the best of thebest do, and it's in any sport.
What's your reflection on that,dre?
Or any tips you would want toshare, even how you coach people
through that.

Dre (01:13:15):
I remember reading even though the internet wasn't much
of the internet when I firststarted playing I remember
reading books of, let's say,like Michael Jordan, for example
, and he talked about how, whenhe first came to the Chicago
Bulls, his whole thing was toimpress.
He wanted to make sure from thevery beginning, that everyone
realized that they made a goodchoice in picking this guy as
the guy.
And I remember hearing storiesand people said people who were

(01:13:38):
on the team at that time theysaid you could tell from the
first day that he was the guy,he was going to be the guy
because he showed up with theright energy, with the right
skills, with the right mindsetand all of those things.
So when I got my chance to play, I wanted to do the same thing
and that wasn't quite MichaelJordan, but I was looking to do
the exact same thing.
And when it comes to people whoI work with these days, a lot

(01:14:01):
of them are not athletes.
They are people who run theirbusinesses, but they're in
leadership positions.
One of the things that I alwayseventually need to tell them is
that your energy is going totrickle down to the rest of the
team.
So however you show up is howeverybody else is going to show
up, and they're not as good asyou.
Usually they're not on yourlevel.
They might be 80% of what youare.
So, whatever you want them tobe, you need to be that and more

(01:14:25):
.
They're never going to beexactly who you are, because
you're the person, you're theguy, you're the girl.
They're going to be about 80%of your level.
So you have to show upconsistently every day with the
right energy, and no one shouldbe able to tell how good or bad
you're feeling based on yourenergy, based on how you show up
.
Your energy should be consistentevery day, regardless of what's
happening, and that's what anathlete needs to do as well,
because if you had a terriblelast two games, that has nothing

(01:14:47):
to do with this game that wehave today, and if your last
game went amazing, that hasnothing to do with the game that
we have tonight.
So it's always being able tohave the and I put this under
the umbrella of mental toughnessclutter, being able to clear
the mental sleep you got, toclean your sleep, regardless of
what happened in the last match.
Whether it went terrible orwent amazing, it has nothing to

(01:15:09):
do with this match.
You have to show up as if thelast match did not happen good
or bad because this one is abrand new game.
So that is a discipline.
It does require mentaltoughness and it's something
that's very difficult for a lotof people to do, but through a
sporting experience I learned itvery well and that's how I can

(01:15:30):
help people who have not playedsports at a high level.
I can help them understand it.

Klara (01:15:34):
And I guess, going back to you, I'm always curious how
people decide to quit theirathletic careers.
It's typically something quitehard we have to go through
because the sport becomes ouridentity, and so you literally
go through identity crisis andnow you have to move on, through
all the hard work and effortyou have put in and decide who

(01:15:56):
you want to be next.
So I'm actually curious.
You have had this impressivecareer that less than 1% in the
world achieves to playbasketball professionally.
What made you decide to retire?
And I want to dive a little bitmore into your transition,
which is fascinating.
Dive a little bit more intoyour transition, which is

(01:16:18):
fascinating.
I want to build on everythingyou said about basketball and
the skill sets that you havebeen applying now to creating
your online presence coaching,business, speaking, business.
But yeah, first curious aboutthe journey of deciding to quit
basketball and then startingsomething else over.

Dre (01:16:34):
Well, the first thing I never considered myself retired.
I don't know, it sounds like anold person, it sounds like my
dad or something.
I never considered myselfretired.
I don't know, it sounds like anold person, it sounds like my
dad or something, but I neverconsidered myself retired.
I just stopped playing.
That's what I like to say.
Retired makes it sound like I'm65 years old, but anyway, when
it came to moving away frombasketball, we would have to go
back in the story and I'll makethis quick.

(01:16:55):
I got introduced to networkmarketing when I was in college.
Now I did not build a career innetwork marketing, but I did go
to a few of the meetings and inthose meetings I got introduced
to two things.
Personal development was numberone, which I didn't know about
before then.
I was always into reading booksbut I didn't know there was a
whole category for this stuff,like books on just making
yourself a more valuable person.

(01:17:16):
And number two, I gotintroduced to the concept of
entrepreneurship because thespeakers at those meetings they
were just breaking down yourfalse beliefs about how to make
money and how to do business andinserting new beliefs about hey
, there's alternative ways togenerate income in life besides,
just go and work somewhere,which is what school was
preparing me for anyway.
So I kept that in the back ofmy mind because I read two books

(01:17:38):
that kind of drove home thesetwo concepts.
One was Think and Grow Rich byNapoleon Hill and the other was
Rich Dad, poor Dad, by RobertKiyosaki.
And as I read both of thosebooks, think and Grow Rich told
me that there was a way that youcould consciously and
intentionally change yourpatterns of thought, to alter
your behavior, which alters youroutcomes in life.
And Rich Dad, poor Dad, taughtme that there's a way to again,

(01:18:02):
an alternative way of doingbusiness in life outside of just
going to work.
And then you work, you get paid.
Now, as an athlete, that waswhat I was doing.
Now, again, as you said, I'mdoing something only 1% of
people get to do, but it isstill a job.
Now, when you play basketball,it's a job.
You get hired, you get paid.
If you're not hired, you're notgetting paid.
So I always had in the back ofmy head after basketball I want

(01:18:23):
to go into business.
And that's because the seed wasplanted through Robert Kiyosaki
, rich Dad, poor Dad and mynetwork marketing experience,
and because I understood, clyde,that basketball does not last
forever.
Athletic careers are very short.
The average basketball careeris like four or five years.
I happen to go longer than that, but that's an anomaly.

(01:18:43):
And by the time you're mostbasketball players, by the time
you're age 40, you're out ofbasketball, it's over.
So you still have another 40,hopefully, years to live and you
need something to do.
So I already knewentrepreneurship was the way.
So, going to the middle of thestory here about 2009, I found
myself unemployed.
I was a free agent and nobodywas calling.

(01:19:04):
I did not have any offers.
So this is when I ballplayerswatching me just how to dribble,
how to practice, how to shoot,how to dunk, just basketball
stuff.
They had begun to ask mequestions about mindset because

(01:19:24):
they found out one year of highschool, walked on to play D3
college.
You kind of hustled your wayinto playing pro basketball,
everything that we've beentalking about here.
They knew about that because Iwould respond to the comments
and every once in a while Iwould make a video just talking
about high school or college ormy experience.
So they wanted to know what wasthe mindset behind a guy who
would keep trying despite thesesetbacks.

(01:19:47):
And I started talking about themindset pieces that I had been
using myself and how they couldapply to basketball.
I just started talking aboutthem just on a mindset basis.
I wasn't really talking aboutsports, I was just talking about
mindset period.
So I started talking aboutdiscipline and confidence and
mental toughness and takinginitiative, and I called it the
weekly motivation and I didthose videos every Monday and it

(01:20:09):
would just be a little two tofive minute selfie video before
selfie videos were a thing Againit's like 2009, 2010.
Were a thing Again.
It's like 2009, 2010.
And I did that video, claudio,every Monday for 400 Mondays in
a row, and that laid thefoundation for where we are
today.
Because what happened was twothings.
Number one is I realized thatthere was an entire framework

(01:20:32):
here that was valuable forpeople.
As I kept explaining it, Istarted to realize I got more
material on mindset than Ithought I had, because the
players were asking for it andthey were starting to tell me,
like Dre, this stuff is reallyvaluable.
I can use this because you'reshowing me how to dribble and
how to shoot, but when I get inthe game, I'm not doing it.
They realized that the mindsetpiece was missing.

(01:20:53):
I have the ability, but I don'thave the mentality.
So the mentality was themissing piece for them.
And the other thing was peoplewho didn't play sports started
finding those videos and theywould say to me, dre, I don't
even play basketball, but Istill follow you on YouTube
because that mindset stuffyou're talking about is
applicable to me in my situation.
So this told me this is goingto be my segue from sports to

(01:21:18):
the rest of the world.
I don't have to just talk toathletes, I can talk to anyone
with this mindset stuff becausethey're already telling me that
they need it and they don't playsports.
So I always knew I wanted tostep outside of the realm of
sports.
I knew that after basketball Idid not want to be a coach, I
didn't want to be a trainer, Ididn't want to be an analyst, I
wanted to do something that hadnothing to do with basketball,
and that's exactly what thisoffered me the opportunity to do

(01:21:40):
.
So that was 2009.
Luckily, the phone dideventually ring again.
I kept playing and I didn'tstop playing until 2015.
But by then I had already againlaid out the foundation of what
became Work On your Game, thiswhole framework.
I had it in place already.
I started writing books, so Ihad books written.
I was already creating courses.
Eventually, very quickly,someone came to me and said hey,

(01:22:03):
do you offer coaching?
I started coaching people and Ihad an audience, an audience of
people.
They were already following meon the internet and my business
was going to be online anyway soall the pieces that someone
would want if they're going torun an online business.
I already had a lot of thatfoundation in place while I was
still playing.
So when it was time for me tostop playing or when I decided

(01:22:25):
to stop playing, I already hadall the pieces in place.
So it wasn't a very difficultdecision for me.
I could have kept playing if Iwanted to.
I stopped playing.
I was 33 years of age.
I could have gone a couple moreyears, but I decided that there
was an opportunity for me tocapitalize on what I was doing
business-wise and I took thatopportunity and ran with it.

(01:22:45):
So that was in 2015.
So my decision to stop playingagain was a lot easier than it
is for most players, because Iknew exactly what I was going to
do the very next day, whereas alot of players, when they stop
playing, they put 100% ofthemselves into just that thing
and they haven't even thoughtabout the next thing.
So now they're starting at zero.
I wasn't starting at zero andagain, it's not because I wasn't

(01:23:07):
focused on basketball when Iwas playing.
It's because I was focused andnobody was calling back.
Nobody was answering the phone.
I wasn't getting any calls.
So I had to start thinkingabout what are my alternatives
here, because this might be over.
And what a lot of people don'tunderstand about sports is that
you often don't know that yourcareer is over.
You're often the last person tofind out that there's no more

(01:23:28):
games At 2009,.
I was thinking to myself thismight be over.
I might not get another call,so let me figure out what I'm
going to do next, just in caseit's right now.
Luckily, I got a few more years, but that's how my transition
started, way before I wasactually done.

Klara (01:23:48):
And what a just, beautiful example and beautiful
note and like what you had to gothrough.
But it reminds me of sometimesthe hard times that makes us
realize something new and learn,and it probably must have been
such a hard year for you, right,because that's what you wanted
to do in basketball.
But it made you face anotherreality and I love how you
embrace it, because in many ways, you could have just sit there
and continue practice, but youdecided to again continue with

(01:24:11):
your grit and resilience andmental toughness that you have
built and you beautifullydescribed through your example,
even in childhood and yourbasketball career.
Actually, through that, thatseems like carries over as the
through line to everything,including hassling to create
your basketball career and then,obviously, using that gap year

(01:24:32):
of having a contract inbasketball as something what
else can I create and how can Ibe useful here?
And then you put in your fulleffort and consistency into
creating your brand and valuefor people in a different way,
which is just a beautifulexample on its own.
And what strikes me when I'mlooking at your online presence

(01:24:55):
and YouTube video and obviously,the books 33 books alone to
write.
It's just the amount of volumethat you're able to produce, and
so, in my view, just goingthrough and listening to your
story, it seems like you'reapplying the same principles of
what made you successful inbasketball, and it's like the
not giving up getting out therepracticing and you only can

(01:25:19):
improve by practicing andgetting better, because I find
it as well in my podcast.
If you listen to your firstpodcast, it's probably very
crappy versus like the 25thbecomes better and the 50th and
we'll see when I get to my 100thbut there's always something
that you learn and improve.
So any other things you want toshare and leave for listeners,

(01:25:42):
anybody who wants to starteither their influencer presence
or any other business thatthey're creating, what have you
found are the things that workthe best when it comes to some
of these growth principles thatyou have uncovered again from
basketball and applying togrowing your entrepreneurship
business now?

Dre (01:26:01):
Wow, well, we could have a whole other conversation just on
that alone.

Klara (01:26:05):
But I know big question.

Dre (01:26:08):
To answer your question.
I'll just tell you the fourpieces of what we do now.
Our framework is based aroundmindset, strategy systems and
accountability, so I'll gobriefly over each one.
So mindset is the foundation Ibelieve, I've always believed is
the foundation of all success,is the foundation of all failure
and everything in between,because the process for
achieving anything in life isbeing, then doing, then having

(01:26:31):
so, be do and have.
So if you want to change youroutcomes in life most people
think about their outcomes,their goals, which is a good
thing to think about you shouldthink about what you want,
because if you don't have atarget, you can't score.
You don't have a goal, youcan't score, and usually people
understand that you can't getsomething for nothing.
So we had to do some kind ofwork in order to get to our
goals.
That is a good idea too.
I mean, I'm the work on yourgame guy.

(01:26:53):
I'm not going to tell you notto do work.
Now the challenge is mostpeople only think about those
two things.
They never ask themselves thequestion who do I need to be as
a person, or how might I need tochange as a person so that,
when I do these things, I canget the result that I want, and
most people are the same personby the time they hit puberty and
through the rest of their lives.

(01:27:14):
They never change personally,even though they do a whole lot
of different things.
And then they wonder why thethings they're doing are not
producing the desired result.
It's because you haven'tchanged your being.
You have to change who you areas a person, and by change what
I mean is you have to changeyour energy, your honor, your
mindset, your thought processes.
You have to eliminate the ideasof what you can't do, those
limiting false beliefs.

(01:27:35):
You have to eliminate the ideasof what is impossible can't do,
those limiting false beliefs.
You have to eliminate the ideasof what is impossible, what you
could not possibly get donetoday, maybe eliminate some
ideas of things that you thinkare true but actually are not
true.
You got to get all that junkout of there.
You got to get all that junkout of your mind so that your
mind is clear enough to insertnew ideas, new beliefs.
And when you change yourbeliefs and then do that, you
can do even the same actionsthat you did before, with a

(01:27:57):
different set of beliefs and adifferent energy.
It produces a different outcome, and this is the key right here
.
When people really understandthis, this is when things start
to change.
You can do the same thingstoday that you were doing last
week with a different energy anda different understanding.
They produce a different result, because energy matters.
Energy is 85% of the game inlife.
So energy starts with the wayyou think, not with what you do.

(01:28:18):
So when we change the thinkingthat's the mindset then we can
do the stuff and get the outcome.
So that's the mindset piece.
The second piece is the strategy.
Strategy is just a plan ofaction.
What are we going to do?
Who, what, when, where, why,how, what exactly is going to
happen here?
And a lot of people who I workwith they want help with
strategy for their business.
I want to get to this outcome,but I don't know exactly how to

(01:28:39):
do it.
So what we do here is what wecall the roadmap in reverse,
where we basically deconstructfrom where you want to go to
where we are right now and thenwe map out a plan for how to do
that.
The third piece is the system.
The system is just how do weexecute on the strategy over and
over and over again so you canget a consistent result.
So you think of a company likeStarbucks, anyone that you go to

(01:28:59):
.
If you go to the Starbucks andI believe you're in Texas- yes,
Austin.
Okay, so you go to Starbucks inTexas and I don't even drink
coffee.
But if I go to the Starbucks inMiami, then the coffee comes
out exactly the same, and it'snot because they're calling each
other on the phone and saying,how'd you make yours, how'd I
make mine, it's because theyhave a system.
The system is if someone ordersthis drink, this is how you do

(01:29:20):
it, and it's exactly the sameeverywhere you go.
And many big businesses,national companies that's
exactly how it is.
You get the same experience, nomatter which one you go to,
because they have a systematizedprocess.
So this is what I help peopledo, and this could just be one
person.
You don't have to have anational company.
You can have a system foryourself.
So I would guess, clydon, whenyou were playing tennis, you had

(01:29:46):
a system for how you warmed upbefore your workouts, right.
You had a system for how youcool down.
You had a system for stretching.
You had a system for foamrolling.
You had a system for working onyour serve.
You had a system for working onyour backhand, right.
Whatever you did in tennis,there was a system for it.
You did the same things, thesame way every time.
That's what a system is.
And the fourth part isaccountability.
That is just making sure thateverything is doing its job,
because just because you have astrategy doesn't mean it's going

(01:30:07):
to work.
You have a strategy, it justdoesn't work.
I got this plan, this is whatI'm going to do, to jump higher,
but you're not jumping higher.
Okay, we got to change thestrategy.
It's not working.
Or this is the system thatwe're going to use to achieve
this outcome, but the system'snot working, so we got to change
the system.
So accountability is aboutmaking sure the pieces work and,
of course, it's about makingsure the people work.
So a lot of times as a coach,I'll get people coming to me

(01:30:27):
saying Dre, I already know whatthe things I need to do.
I just need someone to hold thepieces, make sure everything is
working the right way.
So those are our four piecesMindset strategy, systems,
accountability.
They apply in sports, same waythey apply in business.

Klara (01:30:45):
Love it, dre.
I think we could go forever,but I want to give you one more
opportunity Open mic, anythingelse you want to share.
Really love the perspective andhow you have taken everything
you have learned through yourbasketball journey.
That hasn't been easy at all,but I think because of that and
the fact that it hasn't beeneasy for you, I'm actually even

(01:31:06):
curious how much it actuallyhelped you understand these
principles, because as I talk toguests, it seems like,
especially the things that don'tcome naturally to us, we often
become better in explaining them.
So I'm wondering if that's alsotrue for you.
Because you had to learn all ofthese steps by yourself, you're

(01:31:27):
actually now better in helpingothers understand them and
obviously, anything else youwant to mention.
Then I have a couple quick,short questions for you for
closing.
Quick, short questions for youfor closing.

Dre (01:31:36):
Sure, and I would agree with what you said, your
assessment there, your insightthere, in that it allows someone
to become an expert when theyhave kind of experienced the
full scale of something.
So it's hard to be an expert at,let's say, confidence if you've
always been very confidentbecause you don't know what it
feels like to not have any.
So how are you going to helpsomeone who doesn't have any?
You don't know what it feelslike to be them, and this is

(01:31:58):
another reason why you see a lotof the best athletes like the
people who are the superstarsand the hall of famers.
A lot of times they are notvery good coaches or trainers
because they don't know what itfeels like to be the guy at the
end of the bench, because theycan't relate to them.
Does A lot of the best coachesyou see in basketball who used

(01:32:18):
to be players?
They were okay players.
They weren't like the residents.
They were okay because theyknow what it feels like to be
the guy at the end, the guy atthe middle Maybe you're a
starter for a little while, butthey can relate to pretty much
everybody because they've beenin every position.
When it comes to the mindsetstuff that I talk about, I have
been the person who was againcounted out, or I wasn't even

(01:32:39):
counted period, but not evencounted out in.
I wasn't counted at all.
So I had to develop thediscipline to work on my game on
my own.
I built up my own confidencebecause nobody was telling me I
was going to be somebody.
I had to be mentally toughenough to keep dealing with the
setbacks and I had to have theinitiative to even try in the
first place.
Because, again, it's not like Ihad the whole neighborhood

(01:32:59):
behind me saying you're going tobe the best basketball player
out there, so go do it.
I had to do that on my owninitiative.
It was a personal choice.
It wasn't like somebody waspushing me to do it.

Klara (01:33:08):
So, absolutely, when it comes to that and I forget the
other piece of your questionthere- Anything else you want to
leave with people when it comesto what they should know about
what you do and your business.
I actually have like sidequestions.
I even left Dre all day.
How did you come up with thisslogan?
So it reminds me just of yeah,really sort of catchy phrase.

(01:33:32):
So anything else you want toshare that you want people to
know about what you do.

Dre (01:33:35):
Yeah.
So everybody has a game, whetheryou're playing a sport any
sport whether you're running abusiness, whether you're in a
career, whether you are astudent, a teacher, a parent, or
you're just trying to figure itout, because there's some
people listening to this who arejust trying to figure it out.
What am I, who am I and what amI?
What am I going to do Is thatwe all have a game.
So first thing you must do isfigure out what game you're in,

(01:33:56):
and I find people who I workwith a lot of times.
I find people think they're inone game but they're actually in
another game.
So you need to know what gameyou're actually in.
That's number one.
Once you understand that, thenyou go, develop your ability to
play that game.
Then, when you get youropportunity, you have to perform
, because we're in aperformance-based business.
When you perform, you mustproduce results, because this is

(01:34:17):
a results-based business, andif you produce results, you get
whatever rewards you wish, andyou can name your rewards when
you're producing resultsconsistently.
So that is what Work On yourGame is all about.
Our focus is Work On your GameUniversity.
That's the place where you canfind out what we're doing and
see about us.
Again, that's just WorkOn yourgame, universitycom and as far

(01:34:39):
as Dre all day.
To answer your other question, Icame up with that because I
knew around, probably around2002, I saw where the internet
was going and it was oh, you canhave your own website with your
own name.
Call it whatever you want.
I said, all right, I want tohave a website that's by me and
about me.
So drebaldwincom doesn't reallyring off, it's not really

(01:34:59):
memorable.
So I said I need somethingbetter than that.
I do own drebaldwincom, but Ineeded something better,
something that was more ringy,more catchy.
So I remember reading this bookcalled Pop, p-o-p and his
body's often named Sam Horn, andin the book P-O-P stands for
pithy, original and purposeful,and the whole book is about.
In the book, pop stands forPithy, original and Purposeful,
and the whole book is aboutcoming up with phrases and

(01:35:20):
titles for your stuff.
It could be a course, a book, awebsite, a business, whatever
that is Pithy, original andPurposeful.
And one of the things that shetalked about was trying to find
something that's alliterative,so where the sounds rhyme, and
short enough that people canremember it.
So it has to be simple enoughthat people can remember it
without writing it down.

(01:35:40):
So I was just trying to figureout how can I do that?
How can I make that work?
Baldwin, nothing rhymes withBaldwin, so I didn't know how to
do that.
So then I was thinking Dre Allright, a lot of stuff aligned
with Dre, that sound, that Asound.
So how can I do that, dre?
And I just kept playing aroundwith it and I just followed.
She has some exercises in thebook and I just kept messing
around with it in my mind,trying to figure out what to
come up with.
And then I just came up withDre All Day.

(01:36:02):
So that's where it came from.
I just made it up Dre All Day.
It was perfect.
When you hear it, I mean youget it, you remember it, you
don't forget it, and it worked.

Klara (01:36:15):
Love it.
I'll try to go find the bookbecause I think coming up with
these slogans sometimes thehardest thing, so kudos on that.
Last two questions.
There's lots happening in thisworld, obviously ongoing wars,
economy, anything you want toleave people with in 2024, what

(01:36:36):
would you want to invite them tobe doing more of or less of?

Dre (01:36:40):
Collapsing your timeframes.
That's the most important thingyou can do and that's the
biggest focus that I have formyself right now in life is
collapsing timeframes, and whatthat means is, instead of
getting something done over thecourse of a month, let's see if
we can get it done in a week.
Instead of it taking three days, let's see if we can get it

(01:37:00):
done in three hours.
That's what collapsingtimeframes means, and the
biggest impediment to someonecollapsing a timeframe is not
can you just move faster and runfaster and sleep less and drink
more coffee?
That's not.
Yes, that can be part of it.
If that's what you want to do,you can try it.
But the biggest part aboutcollapsing timeframes is our

(01:37:21):
limiting beliefs about what wecannot do, what's not possible
and what is not logical.
That's the biggest reason whymany of us take as long as we
take to get things done, becausewe think that's how long it's
supposed to take.
But if we remove those thoughtsfrom our brains and say, okay,
well, instead of just taking 10days, let's see if we can get it
done in 10 hours, you probablycould, as long as you don't have

(01:37:43):
the belief that you can't.
The biggest thing for a lot ofpeople is what they think is
true, but it's actually not true.
And if we can remove that, thenthe world opens up to you.
So that's the biggest thingthat I'm focused on right now.
So opens up to you.
So that's the biggest thingthat I'm focused on right now.
So anybody wants to know.
That's it.
I mean besides working in agame university, but I mean, for
me personally, biggest thingI'm focused on is how do I
collapse timeframes?
And instead of it taking thislong, let's make it take this

(01:38:07):
long.

Klara (01:38:07):
It's a good challenge, even for me personally.
I'll see how I can perhaps addsome of specifically maybe to my
podcast production.
So thank you for that.
I know you have a bunch ofresources.
I will add your website, yourYouTube channel, instagram, to
the episode notes, but is therea best way for anybody who's
listening want to reach out, getin touch with you?

(01:38:29):
Do you have a preferredplatform?

Dre (01:38:32):
Yeah, best way would be, of course, through any social
platform.
My number one social platformis probably Instagram.
I use that the most actively.
It's just my name at, DreBaldwin.
I do offer people a free copyof one of my books.
Can I share that?
Yes, please, yeah, that'd begreat, are we on video?

Klara (01:38:47):
Yes, we are.

Dre (01:38:48):
Oh good.
So this is my book.
The Third Day the Decision thatSeparates the Pros from the
Amateurs.
You asked me about this earlier, so I've read a whole book
about it.
It's all about how you share itand give your best effort when
you least feel like it.
So the book is free.
We'll send you a paperback copyof this book to your physical
mailbox.
All you have to do is cover theshipping.
Just go to thirddaybookcom.

(01:39:09):
Thirddaybookcom.
Show up, give your best effortwhen you least feel like it.
This is what our pros do On ahigh level.
People do this.
So thirddaybookcom.

Klara (01:39:23):
Excellent.
I'll ensure to add the link aswell so people can easily click
and find it.
And thank you so much, dre.
It's been a pleasure.
I think the two of us couldtalk for hours and still have
fun things to say, so yeah ifyou have a trip to Austin,
please let me know.
Happy to take you on the tenniscourt.
I'm awful basketball player,but if you want to give me any
tips, I'll take them.
We can trade lessons from oursports on the actual courts, so

(01:39:45):
that would be fun too.

Dre (01:39:46):
Excellent, I need to get out to Austin, if you enjoyed
this episode.

Klara (01:39:49):
I want to ask you to please do two things that would
help me greatly.
One, please consider leaving areview on Apple Podcasts,
spotify or any other podcastingplatform that you use to listen
to this episode.
Two, please share this podcastwith a friend who you believe
might enjoy it as well.
It is a great way to remindsomeone you care about them by

(01:40:11):
sharing a conversation theymight be interested in.
Thank you for listening.