How To Win At Business And Grow A Massive YouTube Channel By Thinking Like An Athlete with Adam Linkenauger - 092 - Not Most People

Episode Transcript
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Bradley Roth (00:28):
Hey everyone.
Welcome back to another episodeof the Not Most People podcast.
This is your host, Bradley, andthis is the show for those
allergic to mediocrity groupthink and following the status
quo.
And in today's episode, I haveAdam Lincoln Auger joining me.
And real quickly, before we getinto his introduction, I would
just like to remind you guyslistening, whether it is your

(00:50):
first time tuning in or you area repeat listener, I always have
my one ask of you guys.
And that is if I provide valueto you that you just help return
the favor by helping me grow theshow.
And that could mean just sharingit with one person, you know,
who you think will get episodeor get value out of either the
show in general or that specificepisode.

(01:12):
Because chances are, if you gotsomething out of it, if you
learn something, if you'reentertained, if it helped you
think a new way, then someoneyou know, We'll probably get
value out of it as well.
So that's all I ask guys.
If you don't get value outta theshow, don't share it.
But just would ask that you dome a solid one if you do.
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(01:33):
Spotify is always greatlyappreciated.
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And then for not most peoplebeyond the podcast, we got a lot
of cool stuff going on.
We have our community, the NotMost People Alliance.
We got some live events comingup, social media, all kinds of
stuff.
And for all of that, the linksare gonna be in the show notes.
So that's it.

(01:54):
We're gonna get right into ittoday.
Adam, I would like to welcomeyou to Not Most People.
Thank you so

Adam Linkenauger (02:01):
much, Bradley.
It's a pleasure to be here.
And thank you for having.

Of course.
So I think I got the last nameright.
It's Adam Lincoln Audio.
Nailed it.
Yep.
Yep.
We had to, we rehearsed that alittle bit before hitting the
record button But a a little bitabout him.
He is a seven time a ACC Cchampion high jumper at Clemson
University in a ACC C championcoach for Virginia Tech.
And he also owns and helpscreate or build world-leading

(02:27):
YouTube channels and brandsacross numerous industries with
the business model that hepersonally developed that has
helped turn true experts intoworld-leading authorities in
their expertise.
His first YouTube channel thathe started named I Love
Basketball now has over 2.2million subscribers and he's
currently involved in a numberof exciting projects, including

(02:50):
athletic motion golf and urbanValor, all while building his
personal brand sport ofbusiness.
So this one's gonna be funbecause.
First off, this is the firsthigh jumper I've ever had on the
show.
I was a high jumper.
There's not a lot of us, so Iwanna talk a little bit about
that.
I'm sure people who heard thatare like, wow.
Millions of subscribers.

(03:12):
And so we're definitely gonnaget into a little bit of YouTube
and, and personal branding andthat kind of stuff, which I know
a lot of people listening wannabuild and grow YouTube channels
and personal brands right now.
But I wanna start with thatathletic part because I know
that's a big piece of youridentity and you even tied it
into what you do now.

(03:33):
And so what was, what was yourfocus or identity growing up?
Was it purely athletics?
Was that your whole life?
Cuz that, I know for me it kindof was and then I found these
other things later on.
Or was that just kind ofsomething you did?

You know, I.
It was interesting.
I was very much a, grew up on adairy farm, so worked before
school, work after school oftendidn't go to school and opted to
stay home and milk the cows and,help on the farm when, when
either needed or, you know, Ijust wanted to play hooky.
So for, as I grew up reallyfarming was my identity.

(04:08):
My older brother, he's two yearsolder than me, was, he was a
phenomenal athlete.
He had the growth spurt earlywhere I had it late.
You know, he was kind of thestar athlete going into high
school and then through highschool where I was kind of the
little, I was a freshman, I wasfive foot two, 120 pounds.
You know, barely able to touchthe net.
He went and played varsitybasketball early, was a,

(04:31):
Allstate triple jumper was areally incredible athlete.
Meanwhile, there were, there wasme when all the coaches thought,
oh, Adam's gonna be next inline.
He's gonna, kind of keep the,the, the family Lincoln auger
tradition with the, the jumpingand basketball going.
But then come freshman year, Ihadn't grown, and I was just, I
wasn't a great, I was a JB benchwarmer, didn't even think I was

(04:53):
gonna play sports.
But you know, it, it all camedown to a time when a kid on
varsity told me I wasn't evergonna be able to dunk a
basketball.
So I needed to quit trying tojump, and for whatever reason,
that just fueled me and made meso angry.
I was told what I couldn't do bysomeone who couldn't do it
either.
That call it kind of the, I lovethe Michael Jordan ex, you know,

(05:15):
story of he grew to six, six outof will.
Unfortunately, I didn't, I onlygrew to about 5 11, 6 foot.
I didn't have as much will asMichael Jordan.
I think everyone you can can seethat But I did hit a gross
spurt, came back the next yearand that really transitioned.
Everything started dunking andthen junior year a coach came
out from track and said, Hey,why don't you try this high jump

(05:36):
thing?
And I said, Hey, it'll keep mein check for basketball, might
as well.
And mm-hmm.
you know, very, a few weekslater I was state champion a few
weeks after starting, yep.
A few weeks after I had jumpedonce the year before.
Didn't really like it.
He taught me to come back outand within about four, four or
five weeks I went from, notjumping really anything at all

(05:58):
to jumping six.
Wow.

And for those of you who don't know, six 10 is
like in high school.
That's pretty crazy.
I was, I was Allstate like fouror five times.
I mean, it was a small, I was inConnecticut, small state, but I
was jumping like six four and sosix 10, like, I think I saw that
maybe once in high school.
So that's very impressive.
And what year did you say youstarted?

It was my junior year, so junior Of my
junior year.
Yep.
And then I did indoor and thenoutdoor my senior year and ended
up jumping seven foot indoorsand seven foot and a quarter
outdoors in high school.
Wow,

that's incredible.
So the, the drive though, themotivation came from that guy
telling you that you wouldn't beable to dunk and so you trained,
you did, I'm guessing a ton ofplyometrics, lifting all kinds
of stuff to be able to jumphigher.

Yeah, I, I didn't have a direct, I didn't
have a weightlifting coach oranything.
I had an incredible track coach,a motivator, but he, he was a
throws coach.
He had no idea what high jump,really anything about it.
Still remember he printed outYahoo, went to Yahoo, how to
high jump and printed outdocuments.
We sat there on, on the, theHighJump mat reading about the

(07:13):
fosbury flop trying to, youknow, make sure I was doing it
right.
And, you know, it was reallyinteresting though.
But, but yet it came back towhatever reason that one moment
triggered me and I went into theweight room and I didn't have a
freaking clue what I was doing,but in my mind, everything I was
doing was perfect.

(07:33):
I didn't try to learn how to doit.
I just went in there and justdid, and this isn't, this isn't
advice for those who were, wantto get the weight wrong, but I
think it speaks to the mindsetof, because I didn't know
whether what I was doing wasright or wrong.
and I convinced myself it wasright.
It played a huge momentum for meand pushed me forward to kind of
that the next goal.

(07:54):
And then of course, luck and,you know, things fall into
place, weirdly enough especiallyif you kind of are so focused.
I was weirdly focused on thegoal of dunking to where it, it
almost kind of had to happen,so, mm-hmm.
it kind of started there andthen it just kind of kept
snowballing and snowballing withhigh jump.

Hmm.
So at what point did you get, doyour first.

Sophomore year I was able to, I had that growth
spur.
I probably went from about fivetwo to about five 10, was able
to, you know, get it over and doa little one hand, two hand
dunk.
But, you know, come, come junioryear and senior year, that's
when I was able to do a lot ofreally, really cool stuff.
And, I had a really, really funsenior year.
Like I was telling you before wehit record.

(08:33):
I learned that I did not have ajump shot.
Shooting was not my strong suitSo, and at that point,
especially senior year, weweren't a good team.
So my, you know, in my mind, ormy, my teammates didn't take it
very seriously.
I wanted to mm-hmm.
but at the same time, I had ascholarship laid on me.
I didn't wanna get hurt, so Ikind of used it as, to be
honest, like a highlight reel.
I wanted to see like what dunksI could do and, see if I could

(08:56):
dunk on people.
And I had a lot of fun.
Yeah.
And, you know, but yeah, it was,it was really, it was a good
time.
It was really cool.
Ascension from basketball andbecoming that high jumper.

It's very cool.
Yeah, I remember I started highjump, I think it was my freshman
year and same thing, I had areally late growth spurt.
I was like 5 1, 5 2 end offreshman year of high school.
I was tiny.
And then like, I think I got upto like five, six, maybe five
seven sophomore year.
And things kind of took off fromthere.
And I ended up transitioningfrom basketball, which was, you

(09:29):
know, my first love growing upstill is really, but to high
jump to an indoor and outdoorand that sort of thing.
And it was funny cuz when peoplethink a high jumper, they don't
think of like, you know, you'reshort white dude like that's not
the prototypical high jumper.
So it's always kind of fun.
I, I kind of thought of myselfas not most people in a sense

(09:50):
there, right.
And absolutely competing andlike going into meets and people
underestimate you and then you,you know, you jump through the
roof, you beat'em and that, sothat was always something that
was kind of fun.
I was always a silentcompetitor.
I don't know how you were, where

you I was, I was as nice as I could be until
someone challenged me.
And it's kind of a similar storyto the dunk story.
Going into my freshman year atClemson, we had two other seven
footers on the team.
I had literally the week beforeI lost to, you know, the girls
have their competition, then theguys had theirs.
Chauncey Howard from GeorgiaTech, who went on to be like a

(10:28):
multiple Olympian, jumped likesix, seven that week.
And then I jumped like 6 4, 6 5,redoing my steps trying to
figure out mm-hmm.
you know, in high school it wasrun and jump.
I didn't really have steps ordidn't have, yeah.
Didn't even know what apenultimate step was and mm-hmm.
you know, I had to learn allthis stuff and it, you had to
break me down to kind of rebuildme.

(10:48):
So I had lost that, you know,week before to not only the
god's competition, but the girlscompetition as well.
And then we're getting ready.
We're in, we're at Clemsonfreshman year.
Indoor accs, my first ever ACCchampionship, so I'm already
nervous.
You know, my family comes downanyway, we're warming up the
Georgia Tech high jumper, whowas, I believe he had won the

(11:09):
ACC the year before, or he wasmore or less kind of next in
line.
He was the guy, right?
Mass Massey was his last name.
Nice guy after this, but heprobably doesn't even realize
this, but during that, thewarmups, he came up and he said,
Hey, where's Terrence?
Which Terrence was the, the goodhigh jumper at Clemson at the
time?
He was a junior, a senior.
And I said, oh, Terrence ishurt.

(11:30):
He is not gonna be able to jump.
And he just kind of turned, andhe didn't mean it like rudely
towards me.
He was like, oh man, I washoping I was gonna have some
competition and that just, it,it just unlocked something in
me.
And yeah, you know, ended upjumping seven two and a quarter
qualifying.
Wow.
Miss Jump.
And during my approach I wasliterally sa saying to him, this

(11:55):
is the competition.
This is the competition as I wasrunning my curve.
And it, you know, that again wasjust another example of it.
Spring loaded me forward towhere, my, my mouth slash my ego
was, you know, casting, castingthe checks.
Mm-hmm.
and my body was gonna have to,you know, have to keep up.
Yeah.

And what did he jump that day?
I wanna say

you probably went about six 10 maybe seven
foot.
I'd have to look, but I, itwasn't a jump off.
Wasn't anything overly right.
You know, I'd beat'em by atleast one or two bars.

I love those stories because I feel like
it's, there's like any, anysport, there's the people that
you, you always know they'rethere cuz they're always
talking, they're always, youknow Right.
Making a scene and sometimes,and usually, you know, they're
pretty good.
They got an ego and then there'salways kind of the silent
killers too, right.
Like the people who you don'treally notice until they go and
jump seven two or until theydrain a shot in your face.

(12:52):
You know what I mean?
And so,

a hundred percent yeah.
And I was very much that thesilent and don't get me wrong
mm-hmm especially at that level,there were still head games,
like, oh yeah, because I, cuz ofbasketball really, and, layups
and.
I had the unique ability that alot of the high jumpers I was
competing against didn't towhere they would put down a mark
and they'd measure their stepsand everything would have to be
perfect.

(13:14):
Mm-hmm.
I would do that to find my, mybest mark.
But what I would do in warmupsis I would just say, Hey, is
this your mark?
Yeah.
Oh, cool.
I'm just going to, I'm gonna gofrom here and see how I like it.
And then I would either try tosizzle what they just jumped or
try to just bomb the bar thatthey missed.
and Uhhuh you know, that was oneof the strategies outdoors.
I'd tell them, Hey, you know, itwas one of the I forget it.

(13:35):
Oh, it was Jerome.
Jerome from Georgia Tech, Iforget his last name, but
Virginia Guy jumped with him at,at, in my senior year of high
high school as well.
Jumped against them.
I would tell him that, Hey,watch your step at, you know,
the track.
It's, it's.
and that would just, oh, itwould just mess him up so much.
His he had one of those like 12step approaches where he was
springing.
Yeah.
Like nonstop.

(13:56):
Oh.
I would always tell him, Heyman, you gotta be careful.
You're gonna fall And it wouldjust so bad.

That's funny.
I, I feel like that's kind of a,an analogy for life.
There's the people who youalways know what they're doing.
You always like, because theylove to talk about it.
And then there's the people who,you know, are underestimated,
who kind of keep things tothemselves.
And it can really be anadvantage because people can't

(14:22):
read you, they don't know whatyou're thinking as much.
Right.
And that's especially importantwhen you translate that into,
sports.
It's one thing, but to somethinglike business where it's, you
know, the competition is not,one day or 40 minutes, it's
years.
And people who.
Kind of keep things close to thechest, keep people guessing.
They drive the loud people, thecraziest.

(14:44):
Right.
Because the loud peopleabsolutely.
They want, they want you toreturn it.
They want you to like play alonginto their game.
And when you don't, it's, it'slike a lot of power through
silence in a way, if that makessense.

A hundred percent.
And it's, you know, it's funnyyou said again, freshman year,
sophomore year at Clemson, noone really knew who I was.
But come junior year, senioryear, I hadn't really lost any
of the championships.
I was kind of known as the guywho would win.
Mm-hmm.
They started to figure that out.
So they'd stopped the trash talkand people would be quiet and,
wouldn't cheer for me.
And it was really interestingwatching the transition of them

(15:20):
starting to realize, hey, usgetting in his ear is only
firing him up more.
And he's right.
You know, when I did, I actuallycompeted better.
Mm-hmm.
when they would make me up,angry or mad or, you know, I
just, they would, they wouldboost the ego to a point I had
to back it up.
and they realize like, Ooh,okay, maybe I, we, we should be
friendly with them.
And it's just, it's interestingyou say that cause I completely

(15:41):
agree.
It's the same way in business aswell.
That mentality translates.

Yeah.
And I think it's important tohear, because a lot of people
who wanna do big things, butthey're like, oh, you know, I'm,
we're, and we're gonna get intobuilding brands and that kind of
thing.
But Sure.
They're like, oh, I'm, I'mintroverted, I'm quiet.
I'm not the kind of person whocan do this or that.
I'm not a natural salesperson.
Whatever it might be.
Just know that there's still ahuge advantage and playing to

(16:09):
your strengths and, you know,not trying to be that loud
person.
when it's not you.
So, absolutely.
Yeah.
That's something

I had to learn.
You described me perfectly.
I mean, they, you described mein a nutshell.
I don't want to be loud or, youknow, obnoxious and, I don't put
myself out there and, you know,try to get it be a spectacle.
That's not my style.
And I've definitely found waysto, still build, build brands
and build audience and besuccessful without the need of,

(16:39):
you know, mistakenly thinking.
Because so many people do that.
That's how you have to do.

Exactly.
Galley for me in this podcast,like growing up, my biggest fear
by far was public speaking,talking in front of the class,
anything.
And so for years I didn't putout any sort of content or
anything, and then I foundpodcasting and, you know, I
don't like, love to hear myselftalk like a lot of people do who
start podcasts, but I bring onawesome guests and then I can be

(17:07):
the kind of the listener, thequestion asker.
I don't have to be.
Like, I, I can bring a ton ofvalue through a podcast, but it
doesn't have to be just me thewhole time.
So it's kind of almost a hack,like a, a content hack, if that
makes sense.

And and, and, you know, just, we'll talk more
about it, I'm sure, but evenfrom mm-hmm.
from my experience, I have hadmore success working with that
type versus the person whothinks that they're the, the
entertainment the show.
Mm-hmm.
they're the reason that peopleare showing up versus their
content, you know?
Yeah.
The, the introverted, you know,I'm doing this cuz I wanna push

(17:43):
the brand forward.
I wanna help people.
If I don't, I'm not helpingpeople that, you know, very
passion-based person is going tobe very successful if they keep
it up compared to the personthat I want a podcast because
I'm so awesome and everyone'sgonna see how awesome I am.
So don't get me wrong, we'veseen both sides succeed, but
personally I enjoy working withthem.
Have had more success with the,the, the quiet the quiet and

(18:06):
passion.

Yeah.
When it's the passion and valuedriven versus the ego-driven,
like the ego-driven, drivenpeople are always the least
coachable,

right?
Mm-hmm.
and they drop off quit too.
Oh.
And they, yeah.
I've seen'em drop off after onevideo.
It didn't, didn't explode.
Like they assumed everyone'sgonna love them, so they were
done.
YouTube doesn't work.
YouTube's broken it couldn't beanything.
It couldn't be me.
It couldn't be, you know, I lovethe analogy of they're the type
of people that would say aplane's broken just because they

(18:37):
don't know how to fly.
Yeah.
It's just, you know, it's kindof a, a goofy way of looking at
it, but that's the way it seemsto me.
Yeah.

So what was it like when, cuz like you said
your brother was kind of, youknow, this megastar sports
athlete, and then you didn'tseem like you were gonna be, but
then you had your growth spurt,you got good at high jumping and
all this stuff.
How did that dynamic or youridentity shift when that
happened?

You know, it was surreal because it happened
so quickly.
Um mm-hmm.
you know, I was going intojunior year, I had no plans of
college or, you know, heck, mygoal is, hey, I'm gonna finish
high school and I'm gonna helpon the farm.
I'm gonna be happy as can be.
That sounds like an incrediblelife to me.
That's what I wanna do.
So when this happened, andagain, in a matter of weeks, all
of a sudden all these collegeopportunities started coming

(19:23):
and, I was getting courted and,making all the all American
lists and all this stuff justkind of came outta the woodwork.
You know, it was, it was hardnot to go to your head when
you're 16 years old.
Yeah, in a way it really droveme to be better and kind of
continued to prove myself.
It was motivation in a lot ofways, but also because it
happened so quickly, one of mybiggest fears was I was gonna

(19:47):
wake up one day or show up atthe meet, and it's almost like,
one of, I forget the moviewhere.
you know, the kid was weird.
Is Michael Jordan's sneakers orwhatever it was, and all of a
sudden game, it starts working.
Yeah.
I think, was it like Mike or thebetter, you know, a really good
example was the baseball moviewhere the kids, you know, he's
got the gun, he breaks his armand he has the gun.
Yeah.
He's just firing it.
But come, you know, the, theninth inning of a big game, it,

(20:10):
it goes away.
In my brain, that was my biggestfear because it came so quickly,
maybe it's just gonna stop, youknow, and maybe it's just gonna
disappear one day.
And I think we all can relate tothat with business as well.
We think, Hey, maybe this isgonna stop.
So my thought there was, that'swhy I went from, Hey, I get it.
I had the talent here, but Ineed to learn foundationally how

(20:31):
to be successful at the sport.
Mm-hmm.
So that's when I became astudent of high jumping versus
just letting my talent, youknow, kind of keep me going.
And I did the same thing inbusiness.
Had a, you know, really goodstart, really had great growth
over the first four or fiveyears.
Then it's like, okay, instead ofgoing out and becoming a
consultant or a coach or this, Iput another five or six years in

(20:52):
mastering everything that I didinternally for the business and
my other businesses.
Then it, okay, now I feel like,hey, I'm in a foundational spot
where I can go help more peopleand I can teach people kind of
how I did it, cuz thefoundation's finally there.
Yeah,

for sure.
But it's interesting because Ithink that growth spurt is
another, like, I'm just seeingall these parallels, right?
Between sports, business.
Mm-hmm.
and I think you were workinghard.
Even though you, you hadn't hadyour growth spurt, you were
working hard.
You're like, I'm gonna dunk.
This is my goal.
And then your growth spurt camelike, I think in business too,
like you work hard enough atsomething, like eventually

(21:29):
you're gonna have that growthspurt.
You don't know when it's gonnahappen or, or how or whatever.
But then all of a sudden thingsare gonna happen and then you
know, it, it is, like you said,it's easy to get kind of caught
up in that sometimes and like,oh, this is gonna be easy and.
You know, last forever orwhatever.
But I think that's an importantlesson too.
Like you just stay in likecompletely, you know, I'm, I'm

(21:51):
still, it hasn't really happenedfor me yet with what I'm
currently working on, but I knowthat growth spurt is coming
Percent.

Yeah.
And I think, I love that, thatyou mentioned that because had I
not been in the gym and buildingup my confidence and working
hard and working towards thatgoal, that growth spurt very
well was gonna come.
You, you, you could argue maybeI drove mentally, just pushed
myself to grow, you know?
Mm-hmm.
I have to think uh, sciencewouldn't back that up, but let's
just assume that that growthspurt was gonna come regardless.

(22:20):
Would I have mentally been inthe same place to accomplish the
goal had I not kept driving andworking and pushing and, you
know, right.
Even if I was just slowlychipping away at it I wouldn't
have mentally been in this spaceto be to, to, to, conquer that,
that accomplishment.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I think that you bring up agood point is, hey, a lot of
times, and I love the, theanalogy of.

(22:41):
you know, if you could, if afootball team simply can average
two and a half yards a carry,they're unbeatable.
They don't have to throw bombsevery play.
If they can average two and ahalf cart yards a carry, they'll
never be stopped.
And that's my mentality when itcomes to anything I do, is I
don't have to, throw a touchdownor help Mary every, every day.
If I can just go two and a halfyards a day, I will be

(23:02):
unbeatable.
I will accomplish every goal.
I will score every touchdown.
And you know what, to yourpoint, eventually you keep
running up the middle, thedefense adapts, someone slips,
something occurs.
You do play action and you throwit over the top and you have a
40 yard play.
And I think that that's whatwe're, what we, if we continue
to drive, we all will have our40 yard

place.
Yeah, exactly.
And yeah, if you were notputting in the work, then an
opportunity comes along andyou're not able to capitalize on
that opportunity.
Right.
So, yeah, it's, it's amazing allthe parallels.
But I want to get into, youknow, We talked a bit about the
kind of athletic background.

(23:42):
You did that through college.
You were kind of at the top ofthe game there.
And then really, unless you'regonna be an Olympian after that,
your career is essentially over.
There's nowhere to like, youknow, you can go play
basketball, pick up into yoursixties if you want high jump.
It's like there, you don'treally do that after college
unless you're an Olympian.
So, correct.

(24:03):
What, what was it like afterthat trying to, I don't know,
transition, reinvent yourself?
Cuz that had probably been sucha strong part of your whole life
and identity.
That whole time.

Yeah.
I mean, to your point, I was Ijumped a standard going into the
Beijing Olympic trials.
So I was one, I think JesseWilliams, who's a multi
multi-time Olympian, he hadjumped a standard and then maybe
one or two others had jumped astandard.
And in order to go to theOlympics, you have to hit a
standard and you have to, youknow, in your trials you have to
compete and, you know, come in.

(24:38):
I believe it was top, top two ortop three.
Mm-hmm.
Anyway, I was, I had signed adeal with Brooks, had an AIDS
and everything was looking good.
Jumping the best I'd everjumped.
It was unbelievable how good Iwas jumping, going into, you
know, the months prior to thistrial occurring.
And one day I was warming up andI ended up just popping a

(24:58):
hamstring, just in a normal dayhere in Mor, Roanoke at Roanoke
College.
Out on the track ended up justtweaking, popping a hamstring.
It wasn't a bad injury in thesense that it put me, it wasn't
like a career ending injury, butit kind of was because mm-hmm.
I was no time for me to actuallyrecover.
Mm.
Get back to my elite level to bethe best I can be.

(25:19):
Cuz if I don't show up and I'mnot my absolute best, I'm you
shot, I have no chance, no shot,no shot.
So, and I remember, I, ithappened and literally sitting
in the, on the track, I ended upcalling my agent and letting him
know what happened and he waslike, okay man, you know, I
thought he was going to, Hey,we're gonna get you some medical
attention.
We're gonna get you somesupport.
We're gonna get you fixed up.
We've got a way to, you know,still make this happen.

(25:40):
No.
He said, Hey, I, I need toconcentrate on my other
athletes.
You know, if you're still aroundin four years, let's talk.
If you're still competing at ahigh level, he knew as well as I
did.
There's no chance I'm not gonnabe there in four years.
So he ended up dropping me,obviously, Brooks, which again,
it, it was high jump.
It was just a, like a cl a geardeal.
It's not like they were payingme a bunch of money.

(26:02):
And they ended up, you know,both, everyone kind of went
their separate ways at thatpoint.
There was a huge identity lossin crisis because I, not only in
my mind was the high jumper, Iwas going to be the Olympian, I
really thought I had you know, Ihad it in my head that that was
going to be kind of the icing onthe cake.
The cherry on top.

(26:22):
Yeah.
And then when it didn't happen,especially I'd, I'd had a run
where, you know, a lot of crapjust happened.
It worked out.
My brain and my body just kindof made things occur.
So when this did, and I, I wentinto the what a lot of athletes
deal with the depression, thestruggle alcoholism partying.
I didn't go back to Clemson.

(26:44):
I ended up going home saying,Hey, I'm done with all of.
And weirdly enough for about ayear I ended up playing online
poker and well, probably abouttwo years before the ban of
online poker.
That was kind of where I, youknow, 12 hours a day I was
making money.
And that's where I could focuswithout having to leave the
house get in front of everyone.

(27:05):
To me, everyone in my mind,everyone was just look at me
like, I'm just an absolutefailure.
Now, the truth was everyonelooked at me just as
successfully as, you know, maybenot as had I gone to the
Olympics, but they looked at meas this, elite athlete that was
an ACC C champion, didincredible thanks.
So it took me roughly two orthree years I want to say.

(27:28):
Slowly getting this online pokerwas making the money, starting
the online business, gettingthe, you know, I developed
social anxiety, didn't want togo out.
I would drive to like a grocerystore, sit in a parking lot and
then turn around and drive back.
Cuz I didn't want to go insidecuz I was afraid.
Literally I would, someone wouldsee me and say, Hey, what
happened to the Olympics?

(27:49):
I just did not wanna deal withthem.
So it took me a while to getover that.
But really what helped me wasYouTube.
Cause I could shoot my ownvideos privately, I would put
them on, and then I realized thesupport, the credibility that I
was being given from, athletesall over the world who looked at
my credentials and said, thisguy's good.
He knows what he's doing.

(28:10):
He can help me.
And that's really what kind ofstarted to work me out of the,
you know, kind of that, thatidentity loss and finding out
who I was as I transitioned tothe coach and business person
and not the

app athlete.
Hmm.
Wow.
So, The first channel that youstarted was the, I Love
basketball.
Right around that time, 2008,2009.
What kind of, it was uh,

freak athletics that transitioned and
became, I love basketball.
Yep.

Gotcha.
Huh.
So what, what was that firstearly content like?
What kind of stuff were youputting out there?

It was just me and a basketball.
Jim started off doing a lot ofdunking and I put out a lot of
content that was supposed to befor athletes, but it wasn't, it
was for me, it was for me toimpress the other coaches and
trainers that I was good at whatI was doing.
So, you know, I was creatingcontent like you know, Dorsey

(29:09):
Flex and, and penultimatetechnique for, increased
explosion.
Right.
And at the end of the day, it's,you could, you know, that's a
really neat headline.
Sounds really fancy.
Or you could just say how tojump high rinse on Yeah.
You know, I know which one, ifI'm a 14 year old, 13 year old,
I know which one I'm clicking.
So, I had to learn how to do acouple things, get better at

(29:30):
YouTube and understand what myaudience is actually looking
for, but also drop the ego andstop creating content to try to
impress people, but insteadcreate content to help the
people are actually looking forit.

Yeah.
So you started that and did itjust start kind of almost
unexpectedly growing?

Not really.
It was about a three year periodwhere I was losing money.
I was not, not having a lot ofthe success.
I had launched a, a program, itwas called the Become a Freak
Program.
Again, going back to kind of thefreak athletics brand name.
Yeah.
And it didn't do very well.
I thought I was just gonna, youknow, put it out there and I was
just gonna go berserk and itdidn't.

(30:09):
So I had to kind of go back tothe drawing board did another
launch and started continuing togrow the audience and build,
build relationships in, in thespares.
It did a joint venture launchand had a few other people help
me launch become a freak versiontoo.
And it did better, but it stilldidn't do good.
Mm-hmm.
So about three years after Istarted, I had the concept of,

(30:31):
you know, the best way I learnedhigh jumping.
I had already had strength andfoundation, I need to learn
technique.
But in basketball there was nojump technique in mm-hmm.
jumping in regards tobasketball, no one was talking
about jump technique at all.
So that's what I did, is Istarted talking about hair
here's, you know, this thingcalled jump technique and how I

(30:52):
learned it as a ACC C championhigh jumper, and how I took it
into the gym and what it did forme and what it can do for you.
And it was really interestingbecause the audience really
connected to it.
But when I went to do anotherjoint venture launch for a
program on Jump, jump technique,the joint, the joint, the jbs
were like, no, like, no one canincrease their vertical

(31:14):
instantly.
Like, this isn't real, thisdoesn't work.
That I'm like, you know, like,I've been doing this a while.
I think I, I know what I'mtalking about here, right?
Like, I can go to a gym, grabathletes and prove it.
And, you know, long story short,they didn't promote it.
I did just exactly that as Iwent to the gym, grabbed random
athletes, had them go through itin real time and we would just

(31:35):
pause frame to show how much,they would grow, increase their
vertical, two inches, threeinches, four inches.
And I ended up launching thatprogram.
About halfway through the lunch,every one of these JVs hit me up
saying, I want a lunch, I want alunch, I want a lunch.
And it was actually, I'm sureit's been beaten, but it was one
of the biggest sports specificclick bank launches ever.
I think it did like 115, 117grand in four days, which wow.

(32:00):
You know, when you're staring atzeros in the bank, that's a
pretty significant, it's lifechanging, know for anyone,
right?
Absolutely.
It was, yeah.
You know, it had that nothappened, I don't know what I
would've done cuz I was kind ofat that point where this, this,
I'm in year three, still notreally taking off.
Yeah.
But that momentum really pushedeverything.
Talking about the 40 yard playthat changed everything.

(32:20):
And it seemed like for, fromthat point on for years,
everything really started togain momentum.
Wow.

And so from there, you just continued to focus on
that, that material, butrefining it, maybe learning the
ins and outs of YouTube a littlebit better.

Yep.
You got it.
I learned a lot, I learned aboutcopywriting and, you know, back
then I had to create my ownpages.
I couldn't go.
The optimized press finally cameout, which is awesome, but back
then you had to kind of HTMLcode where I'd have ugly, very
image based pages that I madeRight.
And, build, building a productusing, you know, it was

(32:58):
literally a software productthat was like a dot exc file, so
it wouldn't work on Mac.
It was, it was hard.
It was, yeah.
It's so much more challengingnow from a competitive
standpoint today, but from aneffort and output standpoint.
I mean even uploading a sixminute YouTube video on dial up
internet, I mean, you werelooking at hours to get a six

(33:20):
minute video up.
Yeah.
You know, and hopefully grandmadoesn't call, you know, like it
would kill, kill that internetand you'd have to start over.
So, I just, I always think aboutkind of now verse then it, when
I would've rather started and Istill think then, cuz I was
willing to put in the work, butnow with the tools and the
ability, like it's so mucheasier.

Wow.
That's crazy.
It's those things you don't eventhink of today, but it can you
still buy that program?
Do you still have it available?

N no, the it was called ebook Pro was the
the, the software tool and theyended up going out of business
like, I mean it's probably been10, 10 years or so at this
point.
But yeah, I ended up having topull everything.
It was such a good program.
But we've recreated it and do,done newer versions, but I still
keep a lot of the old you know,one, one and a half by one and a

(34:11):
half inch videos of me doing afour second, you know, pixelated
jump drill or something.
It's, yeah.
So interesting to look back atto see how things have changed.

For sure.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
So people listening are like,okay, I wanna start a YouTube or
grow my YouTube.
So what are one or two thingsthat, you know, is super
important, but most people don'treally know about or think the
wrong way about or somethinglike that?

I would say number one, it, it sounds
cliche, it sounds, you know,obvious, but it really doesn't
happen that often is those whopick something that they would
actually wanna put content out.
If they never made a penny outof it, it would be a, a.
they're, they have such apassion for it.
Like for me, the high jumpingand the jump training and stuff,

(35:00):
I love putting out content andhelping people.
Yeah.
You know, all of the brands I'veworked with, and I've worked
with some, don't get me wrong,that are more business minded.
They're just, they, they putsystems in place and they grind
and they're still putting outgreat content.
So I'm fine with it.
They're very few and farbetween.
And I'd say the majority ofthose types of channels fail.

(35:21):
The majority of the, you know,the money centric.
I wanna make money with this.
Mm-hmm.
I want this to be a career.
It's hard to make that work ifthat's kind of the central
motivation.
Yeah.
But if you can parallel passionand enjoyment with, Hey, I'm
gonna build systems to makemoney, that's the winning
formula 100%.
Mm-hmm.
Secondarily, it's, it'sdifferentiation.

(35:42):
It's standing out like yourpodcast for example, it has a
very clear theme thatdifferentiates itself from what
else is out there.
And, you know, there can beother competitors.
There's nothing wrong with that,but, you know, if someone wanted
to create a a basketballtraining channel, it would be,
it would be a tough game forsure.
But if they wanted to very nichein and find a, a gap that they

(36:04):
can really specialize in,whether it's shooting or ball
handling, you build thatfoundation around, an entry
point that you can work with andyou can make work that's not
overly competitive or overlykind of, you know, hundreds of
videos you're competing with.
You start there, you buildfoundation, and then you can
spread, then you can widemm-hmm.
and then you can makeconnections and you can really,
you know that the first 2000,3000 subscribers is, if you do

(36:27):
that, you're gonna make it.
Yeah.
You just have to keep going.

Yeah.
I know.
I tell people that with you,with podcasting as well.
Like when you start, it's reallyimportant that you keep your
content really dialed in ontopic in your niche, and then
eventually once you kind ofbuild that base, then you can
kind.
you know, still stay within yourrealm, but branch out and get a
little bit more general.
And so, absolutely.
My next question would besomeone's like, okay, well I

(36:53):
wanna start a channel, or maybeI just started a channel.
What do you think about peoplestarting like a theme or a brand
type channel versus like apersonal, like the channel is
their name?

Yeah.
To me it's very much, it can goeither way.
Mm-hmm.
and I am the type, you know, ifI love basketball two, you know,
still number one in the spacetoday, it's grown to 2.3 million
subscribers.
Heck before a millionsubscribers, I was done.
Like I physically was in suchbad shape with my knee, I

(37:27):
couldn't go on the channelanymore.
Mm-hmm.
So I look back at that and Ithink, Hey, had this channel
been called Adam and LincolnAuger Jumping.
One, it would've just been ajumping channel.
I never could have realizedthat, hey, 95% of the people who
are watching my jump trainingcontent are basketball players
wanting to dunk, right?
Hey, let's expand this to myfavorite sport basketball, bring

(37:48):
in basketball trainers and growthis into a business.
So I think that, and what Iwanted to say, I kind of wanted
to back up here too.
I think bulk creation issomething that's so incredibly
overlooked.
I just wanna make sure I mentionthis because I should have said
that earlier.
I, when I ever, I, we work withsomeone or I partner with

(38:08):
someone, we don't start theYouTube channel until they have
a month of content.
And when I say a month ofcontent, not shot, but it is
shot edited, it is ready to beput out.
Gotcha.
The reason why is life gets inthe way you're most exci.
You've got two of the mostexciting points when it comes to
growing a YouTube channel.
It is starting.
and it is a, the, the, maybethe, the 3%, 4%, I don't know

(38:31):
the exact percentage that whenyou hit a hundred K and then
when you hit a million mm-hmm.
those are probably the threemost exciting points.
Mm-hmm.
one of those we all get, andthen from there it's a very
slick and very quick downhilldrop.
Right.
Until we, we start to build thatmomentum.
So get ahead and get yourself ina sequence with bulk creation.

(38:52):
We would go to the gym, rent agym out one day a month, and
shoot eight to 12 videos.
Mm-hmm.
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
Just take one day a month andshoot your content, and then
eventually, as soon as possible,higher editing, higher thumbnail
creation.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, I think anyone shouldstart with the hiring, thumbnail
creation even off of fiber.

(39:12):
You can get great thumbnailcreation for, you know,
literally five, five to 10 bucksa hop and that will speed up
your growth probably one or twoyears.
by having quality thumbnailsversus creating your own on
Canva that look like crap, butyou didn't have to pay for'em.
Like there is a littleinvestment there.
Not saying go out and pay athousand dollars a month to an

(39:34):
editor.
I don't mind people startingediting their own videos.
But unless you're a greatdesigner, those thumbnails
definitely something that thatshould be outsourced.

Gotcha.
And so when you say like a monthof content and you said eight to
12 videos, so do you think kindof a sweet spot for most
channels would be two to threevideos a week?

What I recommend starting with one long
form video a week, so four amonth, getting at least four
videos ahead, getting thatsystem in place and YouTube's
gonna be fine if you ramp up, ifyou go from one to two videos
and then even from two to threevideos a week.
But what YouTube doesn't like isif you start off with four

(40:17):
videos.
Then, a week later your twovideos, then it's one videos,
then you take three weeks off,then all of a sudden you upload
one.
YouTube's not gonna like that,and we have to look at it
through their eyes as aplatform.
Their goal is to bring peopleback to, to YouTube so they can
monetize content, get peoplecoming back, number one, and
then watch some contentconsistently so they can

(40:38):
monetize.
YouTube has to put trust in thecreator to continue creation.
And YouTube is not a fan.
If you, if they put a lot oftrust in you give you these
subscribers and then you, you,you know, disappear.
Mm-hmm.
I'm a big component about howmentally, you know, a big, big,
big believer about the mentaldrain that content creation can
be in.
You can lose passion andenjoyment, I think everyone

(41:00):
does.
Mm-hmm.
So you gotta get that monthahead so you can have that one
week break or even a two weekbreak.
Right.
You can do that and I thinkthat's where bulk creation is so
valuable.
And, you know, another funlittle internal step.
I have never seen a channelsucceed that only creates a
video at a time.
Mm-hmm.
in the how to space.

(41:21):
I haven't seen it.
Someone that's, Hey, I'm justgonna shoot a YouTube video
today and put it out tonight, orput it out tomorrow, then next
week do it again.
They, they follow off.
But the bulk creation, I mean,I've, well, we've got guys that
have 30 or 40 videos.
I mean, urban Valor right nowprobably has 35 videos in the
tank.
You know, 35 weeks almost a, youknow, two thirds of a year of

(41:42):
content already.
Just because hey, we're, we'rebulk creation Hmm.
Gives you time to, for thebusiness

as well.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So my podcast, I mean, this,this episode I think will be
episode like 91, 92, somethinglike that.
And you, for YouTube, I.
Couple videos on there, but I'mjust now getting the YouTube
going and I'm like, I got thisbacklog of 90 episodes.

(42:08):
And so once we can get thatsystem going and get'em
scheduled out or whatever, thatcould do two or three a week for
the next year or two.
So I think it's, if I had triedto do it when I started the
podcast, it just, it wouldn'thave worked.
I had aspirations to, but I alsoknew, it's kind of the same
thing, like YouTube, likeconsistency.

(42:29):
I don't wanna, like, you know,throwing up here, throwing up
there, maybe I'll get to it,maybe it'll stress me out extra,
who, you know what I mean?
So, absolutely.
So it's an interesting way tolook at it for like a podcaster,
right?
Mm-hmm.
It's like, okay, if you're gonnafocus and, and nail the audio
and it, it really depends,right?
Because there's podcasters whohave the full teams,

(42:50):
everything's outsourced.
you know, maybe they cut yourYouTube and everything for you,
but for the kind of likegrassroots podcaster, right?
Like I was starting fromscratch.
Not a huge following one-manteam, or maybe two-man team,
like maybe focus on getting youraudio dialed in and then later
on you don't have to stressabout YouTube.

(43:12):
You're like, all right, I gotall these videos, I just gotta
kind of format'em, get'em up,whatever.
And yeah.
So

yeah, I mean we, we've got, we've got the
team, we've got the system, andwe still do exactly what you
just said.
You know, urban Valor, sixmonths, just focus YouTube, then
we add Instagram and we addTikTok, then we add the podcast.
We did it, you know, reallybecause of focus.
And even if we have thecapability to.

(43:41):
Going deep and really focusingon one or two areas really
drives things, to a new level.
To your point, getting the audioright likely wouldn't have
happened.
It would've just gotten goodenough had you had five other
things on your plate.
Right.
At least that's how it is forus.
So it's really important to, forme, whenever we do anything is,
hey, be patient.

(44:01):
Tell everyone I work with, hey,it's probably gonna be a year
before we really, you know, see,see the fruits of the labor.
It's probably gonna take a year.
Yeah, yeah.
And they must know that.
But then come that year,everything's in a place where,
hey, we, we know what we'redoing foundation's in place.
We've got content in the tank.
Everyone's life that feels likea part-time job versus a, you
know, two full-time jobs.

Exactly.
Yeah.
And I want to, I want to getinto that cause that's a really
interesting thing you broughtup.
But first, when you mentionedlong form content, like what,
what length are you kind ofimplying with that?

Yeah.
It it's channel to channel,market to market.
If I put out 45 minutebasketball training clips, it
would be an absolute bomb for a13 year old.
They would've been on fortnightvideos and, highlight tapes and
whatnot.
Way before they even got throughthe intro.
Probably would kill the clip.
The rate when they saw in thecorner, it was 45 minutes,
wouldn't happen.
Right.
Something like Urban Valor, Imean, we do full 45 minute to an

(44:59):
hour.
I mean, we put out an hour and20 minute podcast, the other
video podcast the other day, andit's one of our better vid
videos.
Cuz you know, it's an entirelydifferent genre audience.
There's, you got it.
60% of that audience is watchingon their tv, so they're
literally sitting down andwatching this like a TV show.
So you have to keep that in mindwhen the average, you know, and

(45:23):
everything from the, the emailsyou write to the social content
you put out to, you know, the,the, the products you make.
who is it for?
You know, with, I lovebasketball.
When we started, everyone wasusing 10 fingers and had this
gigantic screen in front of, ona desktop computer.
Now we're back, we're down totwo thumbs and two and a half
inches.
Right.
So we have to adapt what we'redoing to make that work and, you

(45:46):
know, meet the audience wherethey're at because they are not
going to meet us where we're at.
We have to go to them.
Yeah,

yeah, for sure.
And for a podcast, I mean, JoeRogan is kind of the
quintessential example, right?
And he has his full length, he'sgot the Spotify deal and all
that.
So everything's on there, butthen he has the clips on
YouTube.
So for a podcast, do yourecommend having the full

(46:13):
episodes and the clips, a mix ofboth?
Just the clips, like what do youthink for that?
If it's like a longer podcast,let's say.

Right.
Yeah.
So I, I'd recommend taking,taking the, the vertical clips
and creating native sorts thatcan be mm-hmm.
kind of, kind of the way that wedo it is we'll put out some
before the long form videodrops, maybe have a little call
to action at the end.
We'll use it for stories.
We'll use it for TikTok.
Mm-hmm.
we'll put it on YouTube shorts,especially with YouTube shorts.

(46:44):
YouTube's obviously where, wherewe, we put our long form
content, so we wanna leverageYouTube shorts because it's
running under the same algorithmof, Hey, if you're enjoying my
short content, you're morelikely gonna see the long form.
Right?
So, you know, 6, 7, 8 littleclips from each interview.
Is what we litter out, maybefour or five before the full

(47:06):
drop.
And then the week after welaunched the full episode, we'll
have clips to send people backto, you know, we'll have a
little out now, or with YouTube,you can literally, cut, do a
clip and they can clip the clipand go directly to the full lane
video.
Gotcha.

Yeah, that's, that's super helpful advice.
I think going back to what youjust said prior to that, and
this is something I've, I'vetried to tell people and found
out for myself, is that it'sreally easy to look at like the
ed mys of the world and thesepeople who have, like, they're
everywhere, right?
They're on every single channeland they're all this stuff.

(47:42):
Like the average person tries todo that, and you just can't,
like, you need to, like yousaid, whether it's like, okay,
the next three to six monthswe're focused on getting this
dialed in.
Once that's figured out, then wecan go on to the next platform.
Get that figured out.
And I think that's also avaluable kind of principle when

(48:04):
it comes to business andprioritizing.
Because I talk to all thesepeople and I, I talk to people
and I hear like myself in the pacause I'm one of those people
who I'm like, I have 20different ideas that I wanna
execute on at once.
Right?
We've all been there andabsolutely, it's not trying to
figure out how to do them all,which is, I think where we most

(48:25):
people start.
It's how can I do them all?
But like, you know, in whatorder do I want to do them all
right?
So it's like, okay, I have thisgreat idea, but let's sit down,
let's look at the big picture.
All these things we got goingon, what are we focusing on for
the next 1, 3, 6 months?
Whatever your, your block is.

(48:46):
This other thing, I still reallywanna do it, but now I know
that's, that's six months out,that's a year out, you know?
And then, Same thing, you canbe, because like you talked
about it earlier, you can'tfocus on 20 different things,
right?
You gotta pick, you know, acouple, maybe a few things if
they're related to each otherthat you focus on.
And so when you're, when you'redoing it with content, what does

(49:10):
that, you kind of touched on ita little bit, but so you spend
like time on the YouTube andthen you spend time on like
TikTok s next, you said, anddoes that totally depend on the
brand?

Completely depends on the brand.
It's almost like you developlike an i, if you're familiar
with like the Eisenhower quadblocks, where you've got,
urgency and importance.
Yeah.
It's almost doing the samething, but it's, you know, ideas
and platform and you know, wherethe, the, where they mesh and
you know, on that, that thatscale.
For example, Instagram a yearago or two years ago, you know,

(49:45):
TikTok, I may maybe wouldn'teven think about.
but Instagram, I would'vethought, you know, now it's
like, Hey, TikTok is number two,because the urgency is there.
There's, you know, people arefilling it up very quickly,
don't get me wrong.
But every platform you've gotthe opportunity, even YouTube
sorts right now is probably a, areally cool opportunity for a
lot of people who don't haveaudience, because Right.

(50:07):
Still it's hard for these shortform platforms, especially these
swipe up video, that it takes somany millions and millions and
millions of videos to fulfillthat news sphere or that that
feed, so to speak, for everyperson, that there's opportunity
there to get eyeballs, which iswhy TikTok became so successful
so quickly.
Right?
So it, it depends on, on the,the, the business, the brand,

(50:30):
the platform, and going back tothe, you know, where is your
audience at?
Go meet them where they're at.
So that would be number one.
And then number two.
Still, I recommend focusing onone.
If you don't have one right now,I would go to the, what you feel
is the lowest hanging fruit.
Mm-hmm.
Whether it's short form, whetherit's long form, it doesn't,
doesn't matter to me.

(50:50):
As long as we can startdeveloping audience.
For example urban Bower, westarted with YouTube, but we
started doing our clips, tossingthem on TikTok and in what felt
like a blink of an eye in a fewmonths, we had 200,000
followers.
Mm-hmm.
So from there, once you buildany, any audience on any
platform, you need to really dotwo things.

(51:10):
One, get'em on a list, you know,me list.
Yep.
That's so, so it's somesomething that you can continue
to talk to and control, ofcourse.
But number two, you've gottabounce, you've gotta bounce
traffic.
Ed Mullet, for example, if EdMullet or I love basketball,
wants to be on, you know,xyz.com, the newest and coolest
social media.
I can send one email and have10,000 subscribers, 20,000

(51:33):
followers, whatever it may be.
Yeah.
And now we're f our foundationis in place.
Mm-hmm.
So if you start with one, youknow, the, you're competing.
If you use every platform andyou're on every platform, you're
con you're competing with peoplewho only use that platform.
And maybe they don't even have abusiness or brand.
They are 100% a content creatorwho's 40, 40 plus hour a week.

(51:56):
Core job is to put out the bestcontent as your competitor.
Yeah.
So that's what we have tocompete with.
So that's why I really recommendstarting with one silo.
You know, again, urban Valorstarted with one silo, not, it
took months with us having thesystem before we were willing to
move on to the next one mm-hmm.
because we felt like, Hey, we'vegot this, we've got our
foundation.

Yeah.
Yeah.
I, I feel like there's a lot ofA lot of gold in there.
I'm sure people are taking noteswho are listening, who wanna
start or build a brand orchannel, which is I think, the
majority of people these days inin some regard.
So is there one, one last kindof thought or piece of advice
related to building a brandcontent, all that kind of stuff

(52:38):
that we've been talking about?
Yeah, no,

I'll take it back to, to high jumping.
One of the high jump willprobably be my most you know,
not because I just did it, butto me it connects better to
business and life more so thananything.
The reason I say that is I won aton of competitions, had a lot
of fun, but I walked away aloser.
Every competition.
But as you know, after you,after you win, you raise the bar

(53:02):
two and a half inches or an inchhigher, whatever you want.
Yeah.
You try again and you keeptrying until you fail.
Hmm.
And I learned in doing that,that the only way I was gonna
continue to, to excel is throughfailure, not through success,
cuz I could win.
and stop jumping.
And I would, I could have everycompetition, I could have just
stopped, but I chose to continueto go until failure cuz that's

(53:25):
the only way we're gonna, youknow, find out what that next
level is.
Yeah.
So a big, you know, big thingthat I've been thinking a lot
about over the last year or sois we need to kind of change
the, we need to change howpeople view failure.
Mm-hmm.
failure is looked at as this endall be all of, you know, not
succeeding.

(53:45):
Where really all it is, it is a,it's an absolute tool.
It is an opportunity.
It is the only way you're gonnafind out.
It's like a video game.
You find out how you get killedby the monster, you realize what
they're doing to kill you andyou adjust.
Yeah.
And that's all we have to dowith content creation.
You put out videos, this videodidn't do well.
Why?

(54:06):
Okay, this video did do well.
Why?
And you start to figure out, asyou get better, you, you learn
to adapt, you get experience,you see what others are doing
and you fail.
and all of that combines to concontinuing to drive yourself
vertically and be, you know,finding success and finding
skill.

Yeah.
I think, yeah, when you thinkabout it, you really have
nothing to lose, unless you'reputting out something super
harmful or offensive, obviouslySure.
You know, don't be an idiot.
But otherwise, like, putting outcontent people like think like,
and, and I'm guilty of this forsure, is like, oh man, well what
if people don't like it?
What if, you know, it's not upto my standard, blah, blah,

(54:45):
blah, but at the end of the day,you know, that is how you get
better.
And it's, I never thought of itthat way.
Like you said it with the highjump, like, but it's, it's such
a true analogy because you knowevery competition that you win
and like, you know, you were,you were winning probably on a
little bit of a higher levelthan me, but, you know, I, I won

(55:06):
probably 80, 90% of the meetsthat I went to, and it was the
same thing that, you know, okay.
I, I matched my best.
I.
you know, no one's even close tome, but you know, I'm gonna, I'm
still gonna go for that nextheight that I've never hit or I
haven't hit in a while.
I'm not gonna just walk awaybecause I'm gonna see, you know,

(55:27):
what if, what if, right?
And, and so what if that's the

beauty of all of it is that's the way I think
we have to look at everything aswhat if mm-hmm.
Yeah.
You know, the moment we startjust going through the motions
or you know, we, we, we don'tlook for that next, what if,
that's when things start to gothe other way.
And that's when I think men,mentally we, we stop growth, we
stop development.
I think the key is I love thatwhat if, and that's what we need

(55:54):
to look at is what,

what if.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's, you know, I never eventhought of it that way because
even every meet like in high.
You.
I, I never really saw peoplewalk away, ever.
Like, you always end like inhigh jump for those of you
listening, if you're not sure,if you don't know, like when

(56:15):
you, you get three tries at eachheight and they go up about two
inches at a time usually.
And so on your final one, youhit it three times.
You're out, like whatever thatheight is.
And so like you go and you failthat thing three times, but
still you, like, you like, Ialways still felt like I walked
away a winner in that sense.

Hundred percent, right?
Yeah, a hundred percent.
And that's that feeling rightthere is the way we need to
approach everything.
If you walk mm-hmm.
you walk into the failure, awinner and you walk out a
winner.
Right.
You know, all the only thing wefilled out is literally just
that one bar and that onemoment, everything before that
was a win.
Everything after That's a.
And in doing that, and you know,it comes back to content

(56:58):
creation or business or puttingout a product that bombs or a
service that doesn't do well isyou just, what's the worst part
of that?
What's the worst thing thathappens if you walk away with
information?
You walk away with experience,you walk away with knowledge,
you figure out why it didn'twork, you figure out what you
did wrong and you improve it.
And that's high jump 1 0 1.

(57:19):
Hey, what happened?
All right, let's go back to thedrawing board.
Let's get in the way room, let'sget better.

That's it.
A hundred percent.
Yeah.
That's a great kind of finalthought, but I also need to ask
you before we wrap up, there'sone question that I ask everyone
who comes on the show, and thatis, what is your definition of
not most people or what do youthink of when you hear that?

I think not most people, when I, the first
thing that comes to mind is whenwe're.
that kid that doesn't care whatyou know, and you're a toddler
and you're in your youth and youdon't care what anyone thinks
about you.
You know what you like, you knowwhat you enjoy.
Mm-hmm.
you know what you wanna be whenyou grow up.
Staying true to that kid to meis what that definition is

(58:04):
because I, I, you know, really,really quickly I found this a
few years ago, would've beenprobably about 20 17, 20 18.
My mom actually found it.
It was a first grade, secondgrade little note that said the
five things I wanna be when Igrow up.
And it was write a book.
I, I didn't, I didn't write abook, but I created programs I

(58:24):
wanted to play in the N B A.
I didn't play in the N B A, butI work with N B A players and
have gotten people to the N B A.
One of them was be a musician.
I, I air balled that one, I'mnot gonna lie, The other one was
being an Olympian.
Wasn't Olympian, but I, again, Igot really close.
Yeah.
And it just, it dawned on methat that five year old knew
more about my future than I did.

(58:46):
Mm-hmm.
And because I stayed true tothat, even subconsciously, I
never allowed myself to just sayI can't do something.
And even now at 38, you know,probably it probably would get
me in more physical trouble thananything.
I still have it in my head.
I can do things.
Yeah.
And I can do incredible thingswith my mind and body and that's
something that I wanna make sureI really cherish that.

(59:09):
And I never let that get awayfrom me.
And I think going back to beingwilling to fail and push myself
is the way to do that.
So that five year old, six yearold being true to them,

I love that because I think that's truly an,
I've asked that question, Idon't know, 80 something times
so far.
And that's truly a unique answergoing back to your childhood,
because I think.
everyone kind of starts out asnot most people as their own
person, as this like reallyunique individual.
And then we kind of tend to getpushed by society or friends,

(59:42):
family, whatever, into thatstatus quo.
Most people exactly that statusquo, quo that most, most people.
And so just keep that kind oflike magic, that optimism,
imagination that you had as akid.

Love it.
And the last thing I'll say is,you know, being normal is a
learned skill.
It is a learned and developedway of fitting in.
Like we learn how to fit in andnot be that, you know, that
outsider for typically, youknow, some form of subconscious
reasoning for it.
Whether it's embarrassment ornot wanting to, you know, you

(01:00:16):
wanna be friends, you wanna makefriends, you don't wanna be
different or weird, whatever itmay be, but Right.
That, I love that when you'rethat kid, you truly, truly can
connect with the person you are,in some cases better than you
can when you're an adult.
You know, promise this will bethe last thing that I'll say is
a lot of times when people say,Hey, I wanna do a YouTube

(01:00:37):
channel.
I'm passionate about a lot ofthings, I just don't know what
to do a channel about.
I will ask them, well, what,what were you most passionate
about as a kid?
Hmm.
Do you still enjoy it?
Do you still care about it?
Nine times out of 10, there willbe some that say no, but nine
times out of 10, it's a yes.
And typically that's thedirection I push them.

Bradley Roth (01:00:56):
Yeah, man, I love that.
Normal is a learned skill.
Like that might be one of myfavorite quotes all time on this
show.
I love that.
I love that.
That's awesome.
Yeah, so thank you for that.
And yeah, it's, it's true.
I mean, like, I don't do it alot anymore, but my first love
as a kid was playing basketballand games and stuff, and it
still is, you know, even thoughit's same here.

(01:01:18):
Yeah.
So, but yeah.
I, I also wanna give you, beforewe hop off a chance to, you
know, you kind of shared alittle bit about Urban Valor and
some of these other projects yougot going on, but, you know, if
people want to learn more aboutwhat you do or some of these
projects, what's the best placeto find that?
You know,

Adam Linkenauger (01:01:38):
the place that I am probably most active is, is
actually Facebook.
If you look up Adam Lincoln a onFacebook, find me friend me,
happy to connect.
And then from there, sport ofbusiness.com is, is kind of the,
you know, the, the hub so tospeak.
It's mm-hmm.
still in, and we're getting itbuilt out here now kind of

(01:01:58):
stepped away from it for a year,concentrate on golf, but that's
what we're building out over thenext two weeks.
So it should be up and live andyeah, that's just a place I put
my thoughts and, you know, whatI'm working on and, you know,
opportunities still to worktogether and stuff like that.

Awesome.
Yeah, I'll definitely have allof those links in the show notes
for you guys.
And man, Adam, thank you so muchfor coming on today.
This was, really fun.
I haven't got a chance to talkabout some of these, you know, I
quote unquote glory days and,and I jump at basketball a lot
on this podcast.
So, so thank you for that.

Adam Linkenauger (01:02:33):
Absolutely.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me.
Brad, it's been absolute joyand, you know, having done a
podcast in a while and I'm so,so thrilled.
It was with you.
This is awesome.

Awesome.
Yeah, me too.
I appreciate that, man.
Well, that does it for today,guys.
Thank you for tuning in.
I hope you enjoyed this one asmuch as I did and learned a lot.
And hopefully you'll go out and,you know, either do something
athletic again or start aYouTube channel and grow it.
Who knows?
But again, think of that oneperson who would relate to this

(01:03:05):
episode, who would get somethingout of it, and I just ask that
you, share it with them, howeverthat might be.
And really that's all I can ask.
But thanks again for tuning in.
We'll see you in the next one.
And always remember, don't bemost people.

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