Drew Hanlen 0:00 This is something that I think a lot of people disagree with. But it's so true, and all my clients, especially in the business world, that have kind of changed their mentality have loved this. Here's what it is. You should pursue things that bring you energy. That's it. Some people say you should never pursue money. But guess what? When I was broke, pursuing money brought me energy. It woke me up early. It kept me up late at night. Then I got to the point where money didn't do it for me. And then it became helping other people achieve success, and my definition of success is inner peace. True happiness is just inner peace. kevin edwards 0:39 You are listening to the real leaders podcast where leaders keep it real. I'm your host, Kevin Edwards. And those wise words come from Drew Hanlen, NBA consultant, executive coach, and the CEO of Pure Sweat Sports has forged his dream into a reality, becoming the number one coach for hoopers and executives who wants to take their game to the next level. On today's show coach shares the experiences that shaped his philosophy. How off court matters can impact your on court performance. And that true happiness is inner peace. So starting from Belmont University, he's number one your program number one in your heart. Please welcome the real Coach Drew Hanlen. Enjoy. And welcome everyone to this episode of the Real Leaders Podcast. I'm your host, Kevin Edwards. Joining us today is the CEO and executive coach at Pure Sweat Basketball, Mr. Drew Hanlen. Drew, thanks for being with us today. Drew Hanlen 1:42 No doubt. Thanks for having me on. I'm gonna enjoy it. kevin edwards 1:44 All right, coach. So first questions first. Did you get any shots up this morning? Drew Hanlen 1:49 Haha, not yet. Actually. I got a kind of a weird routine for me. I'm in Philadelphia right now. I'm helping Joel Embiid get ready for the restart of the NBA season. And we've been working out every single night at 5pm. So I really have all day to kind of do whatever I want. I'm actually writing a book right now that has nothing to do with basketball. It's called stop BSing yourself. It's kind of the science behind how to actually take action. And it's been great for me, you know, there's been nights--because I don't have to wake up--there's some nights where I'll roll until 4 or 5am. And, and sleep in a little bit later than I normally would. There's other days where I wake up super early and knock out a full day of work before workouts, but I'm so used to being, you know, client after client during this period of time, but because of the virus, no one's traveling, and so everybody's locked in. And so I'm really in cities with one client at a time, which means that the majority of the day I really have to kind of work on some of the passion projects that I've usually had to push, you know, to the backburner. So, it's actually been a kind of an exciting time for me just to finally work on some of the non-basketball related projects that I've wanted to work on for a while. kevin edwards 3:03 So explain this to me really quick because I want to touch on this as well. Obviously the league is on a standstill right now. And being a big guy who's always saying trust the process. When the process gets upset like this, what's your schedule? Like? How'd you pivot? What are you doing now? Drew Hanlen 3:22 Yeah, so I mean, a lot changed for me. I was actually doing a camp in Hawaii, and was actually flying to the East Coast to start working out some of my guys up here on March 11th, when the season shut down, and I remember I landed in Phoenix, I had a layover in Phoenix. And when I landed, I had missed call after missed call. I had text messages like crazy. My clients were blowing me up and they're like, yo, like, what are you doing? And I was like, sorry, I was on a flight like, you know what I mean? Like I, I wasn't able to answer that, you know, the facetimes. And I started calling them once I saw the news that the season had been canceled and the question that they all asked me was, "What do wedo now?" And for the first time ever, in my career, at least, I didn't have the right answer because there were so many kind of unknowns. We didn't know when the restart was going to be, we didn't know if there was if there was going to be a remainder of this season, or if we were just getting ready for next season. We didn't know what the travel restrictions would be from, just you know, from the whole United States, not just the NBA, just like in general travel restrictions. And we didn't know how serious the virus was. And so for the first time ever, I really had to say, I don't know. Then they started asking me about load management. Remember, most NBA players the second that they get knocked out of the season, we have a very strategic way of getting them ready for next season. We know how much time they're going to take off. We know when they're going to start to slowly ramp up cardio, we know when they're going to start to prepare their bodies. We know when they're going to get on the court and work on their skills. We know how to, you know, kind of go in waves so that they're getting the proper rest and recovery so that they can be at their best when they need to be at their best in the following season. None of that was able to happen because we didn't know when they were going to come back. And so the answer was kind of deferred into the future. And we just said, hey, let's just keep staying educated. I'm going to talk to as many, you know, well known, you know, kind of gurus in the medical field to kind of feel out what they're saying, and then we'll make our best educated guess. And so a lot of them took off a month, where they did nothing, just let their body rest and recover and kind of treated this time period as a mini offseason even though it became a bigger offseason than they've ever had. And then after that, they started to get back on you know, bikes and on treadmills and get kind of their cardio going. And then about three to four weeks ago, a lot of them started to get back on the court and really attack their skill development so that they could feel good as a basketball player again, but again, it's just so much uncertainty that you just had to really go with the flow for the first time. And a lot of these guys, and people don't realize this, but a lot of these guys have every second of every day planned out for the entire year. So it was the first time they ever could, you know, really just kind of kick back and you see a lot of my guys started streaming on video games and it gave them a little glimpse of what life is like once you retire. You know, when you have unlimited money and unlimited flexibility, where you kind of have to schedule your day to make the most out of it. kevin edwards 6:19 Yeah, Drew, especially for people that are so habitual day in, day out, especially those coaches having all the practice plans down to a tee when something interrupts them. It's got to be a little challenging, but I'm sure that, I mean, they're elite athletes, they're gonna figure it out regardless. But you're right, I think maybe just for audience really quick. They're like, yeah, who is this guy that's talking right now to me. This is someone that you usually don't have on your show. Explain, to our audience what you do, and then who are some of the clients that you develop? Drew Hanlen 6:46 Yeah, so the easiest way to put it is I'm a private skills coach and consultant for NBA players. And so what does that mean? That means during the season, I'm the guy breaking down film, I'm putting together scouting reports before and after games, I'm putting together kind of film clips so that they can make adjustments throughout the season. And I'm also the guy that, you know, is kind of like a surgeon where I'm on demand, if something's broke, I go in and fix it. During the offseason, I'm their trainer, I'm the one that's putting together strategic programs to make sure that they get the best results possible, so that they're an improved player the following season. That's the main gist of my business on the basketball world. And the last three years or so, I've started to use that same strategic process with a lot of executives that are in the business world. So whether it's, you know, high performing CEOs, whether it's, you know, companies that just need kind of a strategic order, it's kind of the motivation kind of factor. I'm kind of a no nonsense, you know, get down to business, let's get stuff done kind of guy and so those are the two realms that I'm in. I'm mainly known for the basketball side just because you know some of the clients I work with Joel Embiid, Bradley Beal, Jason Tatum, Zach LaVine, Jordan Clarkson, Kelly Oubre. I mean, there's a ton of guys that I've worked with throughout my career. And on the business side, I've done it more kind of behind closed doors, besides the public speaking appearances, which obviously everyone knows about. But the executive coaching for me has actually been very fun because I take a lot of these guys that do like sports. And they've been very successful. Most of them are making, you know, from a million to, you know, way more than a million, from a million literally to a billion clients range. And, and, and really help them kind of break down their business and their life in a strategic process. The funny thing is most of the executives that hire me, they hire me because they've hit a plateau and they want to take their game to the next level. If you use the word game like I do. And a lot of times we find out that something off of the court, their business, you know, outside of their business, is the thing that's really holding them back. You know, whether it's an executive that is dealing with, you know, something in their marriage, or whether it's an executive that, you know, has always prided themselves on making a certain salary and they finally achieved that salary. And now they're not experiencing the happiness that they thought they were going to experience, or whether it's someone that, you know, feels like, Hey, listen, I'm winning in all the elements that I should be winning, judged by the outside. I have all the resources, I have all the kind of financial means to do whatever I want, but for some reason, I'm not fulfilled. And so normally we address the life issue first. And we really kind of reverse engineer, what do they want their life to look like? What do they want their daily kind of, you know, practices to be, and then we go back in and kind of make it happen by readjusting their daily disciplines and making sure that they're, you know, following kind of their true pursuit of of life. Instead of the pursuit of what most people do, which is pursue the things, you know, that don't really leave you satisfied at the end of the day. kevin edwards 10:07 So, now, where does this come from, Drew? I mean, I read up on you, I listened to a few interviews with you. Yeah, you started this very, very early in your career. I think you said you've always been a sort of entrepreneur. Maybe unpack to our audience, where this comes from and your journey to how you got to where you are today. Drew Hanlen 10:29 Yeah, I think it comes from two things. So the business entrepreneurial side just comes from kind of, lack of. You know, when I was younger, my dad worked hard, and my mom was a stay at home mom. They made sure that they provided everything they could for us, but we weren't very well off. And so when I wanted something, I had to work for it. So I was the, you know, the little kid that was running lemonade stands. You know, when I was younger, I was shoveling snow. I was, you know, doing the grass and stuff like that, but I also took a more strategic approach. Because I realized the more strategic you are, the more likely you are to achieve kind of success when it comes to kind of financial means and so give me an example. When I was younger, we would go--I was from St. Louis, Missouri, we had shovel, you know, driveways. Well I realized that I could buy an old snow blower machine, and it would cost me about what I'd charge for about five driveways. And so I was like, You know what, my first five driveways, I'm gonna invest in the snowblower machine that was a little bit broken, but I knew my dad would want to help me out. He was one of those handymen and loved, you know, the father/son time, so we bought like kind of a used snowblower machine. And that allowed me to go do faster driveways so then I could have a higher rate of return. When I was doing the grass cutting business. My dad always laughed at me because I would always have my neighborhood friends kind of work for me if you will, when I was like, you know, 10, 12 years old. And I would say, "Hey, listen, I'm a good salesman. I'm going to go door to door and get us clients that want us to cut their grass. You're in charge of cutting you're in charge of shaping all the grass to make sure all the edges are nice and then we can get, you know, jobs done quicker." Lemonade stands I was like alright, let's not go on my corner let's go into business busiest corners in town. And instead of charging a quarter per cup, let's get some bigger cups and charge a dollar because we know the reason that most people stop is just because they want to donate to kids that are, you know, doing, you know, the lemonade stand. Very few times you have people that pull over and say, "Man, I'm glad you're here. I was I was looking for a quick trip, but now I've got my solution." And so I said let's instead of having people throw you a quarter, let's have people throw you a dollar. And so that's where my entrepreneurship journey started. When I was in high school, funny story was, I didn't actually ever want to be a basketball trainer. I had a car that my parents got me they got me from point A to point B. 190,000 miles, didn't start if it was too cold out or if it was raining. You know, I had to get a jumpstart to get it going. And I wanted a new car. And so I researched jobs that had the best kind of rate of return, the highest kind of pay per hour. And I found out that refereeing gave you $18 an hour. So I was like, 18 bucks an hour as you know, a 16-year-old, like, that would be perfect. So, I called this facility in town. And I didn't get a response. You know, I called him and left a message, didn't get a response. Emailed, didn't get a response. And so finally I showed up to the facility and I said, hey, listen, I've reached out to--he's actually my friend now Matt Broback--and I said, "I've reached out to Matt multiple times, and he hasn't got back to me." And they said, "Well, you can go check his office, but I don't think he's here." And so I went down and knocked on the door. He didn't answer and for whatever reason, his office was unlocked and me not knowing kind of business etiquette, that you're not supposed to go into places, you're not invited, I opened the door, I saw sticky notes. I took one of his own sticky notes, put on his desk. "I know you got my messages, call me." And so later that day, I get a call from him. And he said, "Man, you're persistent. Like, how come you want this job so bad?" And I said, "Eighteen bucks an hour." And he said, "Well, you know, hey, let's set up a time to meet." And I said, "Are you in your office now? I'll come up now." And he was like, "Alright, here we go, persistent through." So I showed up there and met with Matt. He asked me, he said, "Dio you have any like credentials? Like, have you taken all the referee courses and classes?" And I said, "No, I mean, but I can tell you this. I'm better than the referees that blow calls during my game." And he started laughing. He's like, "Every basketball player thinks that the referees are terrible, but like, just know, you have to actually be like, qualified and you have to go through classes and courses." And I was like, "Alright, tell me what I have to do. Like I'm willing to do it because 18 bucks an hour." And he said, "You know what, if really what you're after is 18 bucks an hour, my son does not like me coaching him. Why don't you coach my son's team?" And I was kind of like, that doesn't help me. And he was like, I'll give you 18 bucks an hour. So I was like, bang. So then I moved on from my refereeing career before I ever was a referee. And I started coaching. But when I was at the facility, I was working hard on one court. And there were two games going on. It was a three court facility. And one of the parents in court two came over to me and they saw me dripping in sweat, hands on my knees with no one else rebounding or there I was by myself. And the parent kind of rattled me. He put his hand on my back and, and he basically was like, "Hey, listen, I've never seen anybody work as hard as you. Can I pay you 20 bucks to put my son through that exact same workout? And so I was like, two dollar pay raise. No longer am I a coach, now I'm a trainer. And really that's how it started. I started training, Matt Baker was the first ever guy. George Baker was the parent that came over to me. And it was funny because a couple years later, Matt Broback who was the the gentleman that was running the facility, he actually started working for me and was like my business manager. So when it went from him not you know, from him ignoring me to kind of like pushing me to the curb just cuz I was a young kid looking for a job, to him working with me to build up Pure Sweat. And I started training kids. I had 96 kids in my first ever Academy. When I was seventeen years old, each one of those kids was paying me 200 bucks a month. If you do the math, like you're making $20,000 as a, you know, a 16/17-year-old, you're starting to think, "Wow, like, this is a real business like I can really do this." And so then I wrote a book when I was a junior in high school that just had all my drills in it. And the big breakthrough was, I started training Brad Beal. And Brad Beal was a freshman in high school that averaged eight points a game and we started working out that summer. He grew a few inches, he was lifting weights with his brothers. It was like the perfect storm, you know, got him right at the right time. And his sophomore year, he jumped up to 24 points a game and he won a state championship. So the fun thing is, I won a state championship his freshman year. Then after that, I started working with him. He won a state championship his sophomore year. But people were like, "What did you do to get so much better?" And he gave me a lot of credit because I was the only new addition to kind of his team of his family that had worked out with them forever. But the truth is, you know, his growth, you know, took my growth to another level and, and our careers kind of took off together and word of mouth took over and the rest kind of history. kevin edwards 15:46 Well it's it seems like people really noticed. People really notice the work ethic, they noticed Brad Beal's improvement, they noticed that, you know, a junior in high school is authoring a book now on basketball and skills. Now, there must have came a point in time in your career, when you said, you know, is this something I really want to do? Or was it more of you know, this is something I can balance. I mean, you play college basketball. It's really hard to balance just school in general. I mean, did there ever reach a tipping point where you said, okay, I'm gonna go full into this and start this academy. Drew Hanlen 17:43 Yeah, so I'm going to take you back, even. So like the way that I was, I was just really disciplined as a player. So when I was twelve years old, I gave up sweets. No candy, no sugar, no birthday cakes, no ice cream, no Snickers. I didn't have a sweet until I was done playing college basketball when I was 22 years old, so as a teenager, I never tasted any sweets. Think about that, like birthday cakes were like, literally my mom would cut up fruit and put, you know, the birthday candles in the fruit. So my mind was a little bit different. I woke up at 4:59am for two reasons. One, because I wanted to get to school to shoot a thousand shots before school every day. But two, 4:59 was one minute before everybody that thought they were waking up early at 5am. So I just had that kind of weird mindset where I always wanted to gain an edge on whether it was, you know, my opponents or just the people that I knew I was going to be competing with. And so that took me into the training world where once I started doing it, I was like, I'm all in. Like once I said, hey, listen, basketball training is something I fell in love with because it allowed me to do two things. One, it was basketball. I loved basketball. Two, I got to help people. So now I got to sandwich the best of both worlds. I got to not only help people, but I got to help people using the platform of basketball, which is my kind of favorite subject at the time. And so that was really when I decided to go all in. And once I saw Brad's success, I felt like I owed it to him, I saw that he had a chance to, you know, make it to the to the NBA. And I felt like I owed it to him to do all the research and all the studying, all the film edits all the analytical research, because I didn't want to let him down. And that was my biggest thing was I always feared letting him down and letting the other players that I was working out down, and I wasn't willing to do that. And so that's what kept me late at night. I remember when David Lee was my first ever NBA client, he actually went to the same school as Brad, that's how we got connected. And I was a freshman or sophomore in college when I started working out David Lee. So here I am, freshman in college, NBA All Star calls me and says, "Hey, I'm going to give you a chance." And what I know now is David planned on giving me a one day trial, and he never planned on working with me again. It was just, I had been very persistent. Our AAU coach, we played the same AAU program. For those of you guys that don't know what AAU program is, that just means your summer travel basketball program. And so we played in the same club. And I was, I was like, yo, let him, you know, just work out with me. Let him work out with me. Let him work out with me. I'm telling you, I can help his game. And so he gave me a one day trial. I was in Nashville at the time I went to Belmont University and played at Belmont. And he was in St. Louis. And he said, "When can we start working?" And I was like, "Anytime you want." He goes, "Perfect. 8am tomorrow work?" Well, obviously for this opportunity I had to say yes. So I said yes. I packed up my car. I drive four and a half hours back to St. Louis. I get in at about midnight. And at midnight, I went through and I spent the next seven hours watching film with David Lee. Just watching everything that I could find on him. Interviews of him, I wanted to know what he was like, I wanted to know about his family, like did he have you know, brothers and sisters, like what did mom and dad do. I wanted to know everything so that I could relate to them on a personal level. And then I got to the gym at like 7am, I mopped the floor because I want to make sure the floor was all nice for, you know, my first NBA client. And then, you know, we worked out. And when we worked out, I'll never forget it, he showed up in his Ferrari, And you're talking about a guy that you know has never even seen a Ferrari. Shows up in his Ferrari, but I held him accountable. He was late by like a couple minutes, like literally a couple minutes, and I was like, "All right, we're on the line." He's like, "Come on, bro. NBA players don't run when they're late. Like we're good. You know, let's start up." And as like, "Listened, like we're on the line, like this is what I do, this is who I am." And so we, you know, we jogged. I mean, it was a, when I say run, he he took "run" as a very light up and back but did it. And there was a breaking point moment during the workout where I was doing, I was showing him this thing called a pound pivot. And when I was showing him the pound pivot, he was missing. And he finally lit me up. He was like, "Bro, I'm never gonna do this. Move on. I'm never gonna do this. Let's go. Like I'm not, you know, these guards that you train. Like, I'm a big man, big men don't move like this." And I looked at him and again, he's 6'10", I'm 5'11". And I went up to him, and I was like, "Listen, if you just get this foot a little bit more at this angle, you're gonna be able to get your hips opened up, and when your hips open up, it's gonna allow you to make the shot. Trust me." And I walked away, and he did it. And fortunately for me, I don't know if it could be a more perfect storm, but he made a new row. And he was like, "Good shit." And I remember at that moment, I was like, thank God, I didn't back down. And afterwards, he was like, "Yo, after that first workout, I knew I was going to be with you for the rest of my career." And he's like, "Going into the workout, I thought it was gonna be a one time thing." But it made me realize that the best are the best because they want to be held accountable. They need somebody to kind of make sure that they're staying disciplined. And they want somebody that can take them to where they can't take themselves. And so that's what, to me, that's what my strengths have always been. I'm able to break things down to what I call micro skills, the smallest of the small, you know the skills within the skills, and then build them back up in a strategic manner so that you get, you know, better results by being more efficient and effective, whether it's in the business world or in the basketball world. And that's how I got my start. And that's how I kind of, you know, decided to go all in. It was more so of just not letting people down. kevin edwards 23:30 And I think there's something to say about that, about the things that you do, you know, off the court, the things that you have put in time after time, from not eating candy, to staying disciplined, to you know, being focused on your side gigs during college, no matter what it would be. All those things add up and then you know here, now I'm just here with David Lee, you know, waking up, you know, getting there at 8am, you know. What do you have to say about the things that people can do, like the mindset that you're trying to build off the court and how that translates to on-court performance? Unknown Speaker 24:05 Oh my god, so much. I always tell people that if you see slumps on the basketball court, it's most likely because something's happening off the court. Same thing in the business world. If you see somebody with a lack of energy in kind of the office, it's because something's drained their energy outside of the office. And so I think that that's really what my job is as a coach, whether it's basketball or business. My job is to kind of eliminate the things that suck away energy and help them pursue things that kind of add energy, so that they can really be at their best both off and on the court, or on and off, you know, the office. And I think that's really what my job is. And I think that so many people pursue things that don't bring them energy. And here's the thing. This is something that I think a lot of people disagree with, but it's so true, and all my clients, especially in the business world that have kind of changed their mentality have love this. Here's what it is. You should pursue things that bring you energy. That's it. Some people say you should never pursue money. But guess what? When I was broke, pursuing money brought me energy. It woke me up early, it kept me up late at night. then I got to a point where money didn't do it for me. And then it became helping other people achieve success. And my definition of success is inner peace. True happiness is just inner peace, when you can, you know, kind of all out, you trust yourself, you know what kind of value you bring to the world, you know, what you want to accomplish in the world. That's what it is. It's it's true peace. Unknown Speaker 25:43 And I think that that's where a lot of people get it wrong, is they continue to pursue the thing that they started to pursue, but it doesn't bring them energy anymore. And so you can pursue things that, you know, bring you energy, and even if they're just short term, you could say, you know, like, right now I'm gonna do a 30 day challenge and I'm after a good body, if you pursue that, and it's bringing you energy, great. The second that it becomes kind of something that doesn't energize you, you should refocus your time to something that energizes you again. Because that's what we really want to do. We want to live a fulfilled life, not just kind of try to achieve things that other people are going to praise us for. And so going internal, instead of focusing external, is is so important. And that's a lesson I learned from my grandma to be honest with you. So my grandma, she worked with Mother Teresa. And so anybody that knows anything about Mother Teresa, you know, of of like, a living saint on Earth. And my grandma was the exact same way, brought a smile to every person that she interacted with. And the biggest lesson that she ever told me was, "Drew, you're never going to have everything that you want, but you're always going to have more than you need." And so that lesson of gratitude allowed me to really kind of live my life with a perspective to everything, and to realize how blessed and fortunate we all are, if we're looking at the blessings instead of, kind of looking at things that aren't going so well. And so being able to train your mind to kind of gravitate towards gratitude instead of, you know, complaining and you know, nitpicking, all the things that could have went better, will really bring kind of a inner peace to you, where you're not constantly in your mind going in circles, asking yourself, what should I have done? What could I do? What should I do next? Instead, you'll just be living in a kind of a peaceful present moment that allows you to kind of enjoy all the good things that are going on in your world that you should be really thankful for. kevin edwards 27:42 Some wise words, Drew. Very wise. Now I'm curious, like, when did you get to that understanding? Because that's something like you hear from, you know, your grandfather or grandmother. You know, that's, that's some straight facts right there. And then the other thing I had was, you know, how much do you focus on mental health? I mean, mental health is a big issue. I mean, Kevin Love is very proactive in that messaging in the NBA. Many athletes are. I think it's also having worked in, you know, D-1 athletics, having a best friend whose father, you know, dealt with depression for many of his years after he left the NBA. It's something that really doesn't get talked about. How often do you talk about mental health? And how much does it affect, like you said, a person's on-court performance? Drew Hanlen 28:30 Yeah, so I mean, the reason I had it so much was honestly a couple of reasons. One, we adopted my little sister, who's from Haiti, and when I was maybe in high school. And she had hydrocephalus, which is over flooding of water in her head, which put a lot of pressure on her brain. We didn't know how long her her life expectancy was. It was one of those things where I remember there were times where my mom was like, almost crying every morning when Lulu would wake her up, just because she was happy that she was there the next day. So that allowed me to realize how selfish I was or how off my perspective was when I was worried about a bad game or, you know, a flat tire or a car not starting up. It just, it made me really realized, like, what am I doing? Like, why am I worried about these little things that aren't going to be worries in three months, six months. Whereas, you know, my sister has such strength to battle through something that, you know, we don't know if there's going to be another three months or six months. And so fortunately, she beat the odds. She's now a teenager, she's 13. But the surgery procedure she had to go through, and my family has a ton of, my aunt runs something that's called Healing the Children, where basically, it partners or pairs together third world, babies that have maybe some kind of birth defects with American households that are able to kind of take them in while they're able to do surgeries. And then once their surgeries kind of correct whatever kind of birth defect there is, they send them back to their family. And so just being around that, being around my grandma, who every day was, she went to church like multiple times a day and was just so at peace. I mean, waking up in the morning singing 'Zippity Doo Dah,' like, while she's like skipping to church and just trusting herself so much. Like, I remember there were times like, when I was in a car with her and she'd be, you know, maybe need to grab something in the backseat and would turn around and start grabbing. I'm like, "Grandma, Grandma!" And she's like, "If it's our time, it's our time." And I'm like, "I love that you believe in God so much Grandma, but let's help God, you know, drive that steering wheel real quick, so we don't have to, like see if it's our time." But I just saw that she didn't care about the thing that everyone else cared about, and she was more at peace than anyone that I had ever been around. And then to see all these third world, you know, babies coming in and still having a bright smile. And then I was fortunate to go on some mission trips. And you know, I remember one of the first mission trips I went on was in South Africa. And we went to this place called Red Hill, which was literally the most, you know, kind of poor community in South Africa. And there was a big dumpster like think of a big dumpster that you would see at, like any kind of business that you know, normally all the trash bins get emptied into that. And that's where they put all of their, like when they had to go to the bathroom, they would all dump it into that. And once a week, there would be a trash truck that came and took all of their waste. I'm talking about where they go to the bathroom, they would, you know, go to the bathroom and put it in there. And we played basketball with them. And basketball was different, they had a like a tree and it was like a stick and they had a tin foil or like a tin kind of like cutout thing that they put as the rim. And they had one hoop for like thousands and thousands of people, but they didn't care. And and they would been in a line, and everybody would take their turn, and they would shoot. And if they missed then everyone, "Oooohhh!" If they made it, then the whole area went crazy. It was insane, there was music playing, and then it would go back in line. And you're thinking, most people in America, literally if they have to wait for 10 minutes at Chick-fil-A, they are complaining. Like, "What is going on? Do these people work? What are they doing in there?" Where there are people willing to wait for hours just for a chance to shoot one shot and didn't care because they were just enjoying being around each other and they were enjoying that they were living they enjoyed that, you know, they weren't, you know, dealing with a health issue. And so I think all of that bottled in, you know, being around my grandma enough. You know, my mom and dad were very positive people that were always, you know, kind of make the best out of every situation, kind of seek the the good in your day instead of kind of complain about the bad in your day. And then just, you know, back to my grandma. My grandma literally had a bumper sticker on the back of her car that said "God blessed the whole world. No exceptions." kevin edwards 33:03 Now drew and I'm trying to get your feedback up here really quick. I think he just bowed out there but hopefully you can hear this. I want to talk about tactics. So we've talked about the big perspective approach. Now these things, a lot of entrepreneurs that we've interviewed will go to a third world country, will recognize something and then apply their business mindset, their passion, dedicate their careers to solving that inequity, no matter what it is. Very similar to basketball. Now, I want to get into what are the similarities between business and basketball to you? You've been doing this for a while. I've been trying to relate a few things to our audience, but I want to hear it from someone with experience, someone that is in the, you know, the trenches day in day out. What are some of the similarities to basketball? And what are some tactics that maybe employees listening to this can take away? Drew Hanlen 33:57 Yeah, I mean, the first thing is that, you know, I actually use the same practices with my business clients as I do my basketball clients. The first thing that you want to do is you want to have a clear objective. And so you know, basketball players that might be improved your jump shot. Business, it might be, you know, get more sales calls or improve your ROI, or whatever it is. Okay, so you have to have a clear objective. And the important thing is, you notice I didn't say 'objectives,' you have to have a clear objective. And that's the thing that I think a lot of people struggle with, is they have so many things that they want to do that they're scattered all around, and really, you have to be able to prioritize. So number one is have a clear objective, which means, what I do is, the first thing I do with all my clients is to say, "What are all the things that you want to improve and want to get better at?" Both business and basketball. The next thing I do is say, "Okay, what is the most important thing on this list? If you only could get better at one of these things, if you only can improve one of these things, which one is going to give you your biggest bang for your buck?" When they say it, I go, "Okay, that's number one on our list. Then number two, what is the second most important thing? Then I say, what's number three?" And then after three, I draw a line. And people freak out. They go, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, what about everything else?" And I say, "There's no possible way that we can focus on more than three things. And to be honest with you, we shouldn't work on number two until number one is accomplished. Because you said that once you thought it through, number one was the most important thing. And if nothing else happened, if number one happened, then we'd be good. So let's focus on that until we get that and then once we get that, then we move on to number two, then we move on to three, then we can start kind of focusing and reprioritizing our energy on other things." But I think number one is they have to make sure that they lock in an objective. Number two, once they have that objective, I like to use the GPS analogy. Now you know where you want to go. Now you have to put together a strategic roadmap to get there. So that means not just like when you get in a car--I think this is where a lot of people fail too, especially in the business world. They think, "I know where I want to go. And so I'm gonna get there." Imagine if you, you know, got in your car and you didn't have your phone there and said, "You know what, I need to go from St. Louis to Philadelphia. Go." You'd have no idea. And then some people think, alright, "I know it because I know Philadelphia is northeast." Well, great. Northeast could get you to Pittsburgh, it could get you to New York, it could get you to D.C., Boston. You don't know where you're going. You just know you're going northeast. The only way to do it is by saying, "Alright, listen, when you pull out of the driveway, you go right. At the stop sign, you make a left." And it has to be that strategic where you know exactly how to get there so that you can get there. So number number two is create a roadmap that allows you to not only know what direction you're going, but know exactly the steps. And I believe that most people fail at accomplishing things because they focus so much on direction, the northeast, instead of steps to get there. I'll give you an example. If I said like right now today, what is somebody's goal in the business world, a lot of people would say, get more sales. And I'd say, "Okay, great, get more sales. What do you need to do to get more sales?" And they would take one step backwards. And the one step backwards would be, "You know what, I need to create a funnel. Or I need to do this, or I need more calls." But go back another step. Go back five steps. Because the first thing that you need to do, is you need to research your target market. And so the first thing you need to do is do the market research. So you find out who you're trying to attract, who your target customers are, how do you speak to them, how can you show empathy to whatever they're dealing with in their world so that you can relate to them? Now, we're actually talking. But most people go one step back, so it'd be like if somebody was in the basketball world, "I want to get better at shooting." and they think all right, "All I got to do is shoot a bunch of shots." Well, if you're shooting the wrong way, you're gonna keep getting the wrong way. results. So what do you have to do? The first thing you have to do is film your shot. They think "What? Know my shot? How does that help me get a better shot?" Because if we don't know what's going on, then we can't tweak it. So the first thing you have to do is you have to take kind of analysis of everything that's going on. And then what I do in the basketball world and the business world is kind of like a SWOT analysis, where, what's going well, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, but then go further into that, and really ask them to kind of look at what's causing those things. Because I think most people look at just the result of what's happening instead of what's causing those things happen. So instead of saying, What's going on, most people say well, weakness, let's say the basketball world, a weakness is I'm missing shots. What's causing it? And if you don't know what's causing it, you can't fix it. And so that's what I would say in the business world and basketball world. That's how it really works together is, you know, the number two thing is building a strategic kind of roadmap to get you there. Number three, Have some kind of accountability partner, which is why I think executive coaches and why I think skills coaches are so important. Because that's when you get off track, their job is to get you back on track. Like I joke around and I'm like, Yo, I'm the guy. Just think about, you know, when you're on your phone in Siri's going, "Rerouting, rerouting." As annoying as it is, you need her to reroute you to get you back on course. That's what an executive coach, that's what a skills coach does. And then once you're there, you know, those are the three main steps you know, analyze what's going on, look at the causes, not the what's happening. Make sure you put together that roadmap, once you find it everything out and then get you a executive coach or skills coach or somebody, an accountability partner that can help, you know, make sure that you're being real with yourself. Because people don't realize it's hard to be real with yourself. I mean, take away basketball and business. Imagine how many friendships that should have been left a long time ago or relationships that should have been left a long time ago that you just hang around because you feel like you're committed. You know, and if you look bad card players, bad poker players, what do they do? They make an initial bet. And they're so attached to that bet that they say, "I know, this is a bad idea, but I'm gonna keep going." And what we have to do is we really have to remove all the roadblocks. And so that's another GPS analogy, kind of reference of, imagine you know, the path, but you say, "Okay, well, there's a roadblock," and you just say, "Ah, dang, I can't get to Philadelphia because a streets closed." No, what do you do? You redirect, you pivot. So being flexible, and pivoting is is also important. kevin edwards 40:31 What are some of the things that say your top performing athletes or executives possess that separates them from the rest of the crowd? Drew Hanlen 40:41 They all kind of have a couple things. One, they don't have an ego. They have a hunger and crave to get better. Two, they seek improvement, and three, they work their butts off. Because I think you have to do those. You have to be a willing learner. You have to crave improvement if you actually are gonna get results. And then the last thing is you need to put in the work. And so, when it comes to the business world, I think it's the exact same thing. I always say that you want to master the role that you're in, while working towards the role that you want. And if you don't master the role you're in, you'll never get to that role that you want. Because you have to succeed in your current role to recieve the chance to prove that you can provide value in that future role that you want. And so that's what I would recommend to anybody that's in the business world, is instead of complaining about your job, you know. If you hate it, you have a choice: leave it. And people think that I'm crazy when I say that, but like, if you truly hate it, if it's sucking energy out of you, then you should leave your job and go find a job that energizes you. Two, let's say you're in a job that you like, and it's a stepping stone job to get the job that you want. You know, you have to go through those kind of tough times to get to the job you want. Then what you have to do is be so great at your current role, that they're encouraged to give you a chance to prove that you're able to do that future role that you want. A lot of times, you know, I talk about this all the time, you know, say enterprise, you know, enterprise is known for kind of being very hard at the beginning. You know, you're working 60 to 80 hours at times and you're doing jobs that are not very fulfilling, if you will, at the beginning. But once you get past that first step, then it gets a little bit easier and a little bit more rewarding. And then once you get past the second step, it gets a lot more easy and a lot more rewarding and you go on. But the only way to get to those steps two and three is by doing really well in your current role. So that's what I would ask yourself is, one, every job has things that they don't like, like I travel nonstop. And while most people are like, "I'm jealous, I envy that." You wouldn't envy that when you spend 20 nights a year in your own bed. So there's things in my, you know, I don't want to stay up until 5am breaking down game film when somebody has an off night. I don't want to wake up, you know, at 3am, to make sure that I have enough time to, you know, get all these projects done if I have a meeting at 8am. But I do those things, because I love what comes out of it. So you don't have to love the work, you just have to crave the result enough to do the work. Now, saying that, you also have to master your current role before you ever have a chance to get your future role. I see more people that want to be executive coaches, business coaches, and life coaches that, one, have never built a business, two, that I've never been in an executive position, or three, that have, you know, a bunch of shit going on in their life that they're not happy with. So it's like, how can you help somebody improve their business if you never ran a business? How can you help someone be a great executive if you've never had a position of power? And how can you be a great life coach if you can't even figure out the things that are going on in your life? And so that's where the master in your current role makes so much sense. You know, you gotta be willing to buy into what you need to do now to eventually get you to where you want to get to. kevin edwards 44:07 Now, what about the clients you're looking to work with? Are there any specific traits you seek from somebody? Whether it's discipline, whether it's openness, you know, humility. What are some of the things that you look for in onboarding a client? Drew Hanlen 44:24 Yeah, I mean, it's those three things, whether it's business or basketball, it's, you know, it's one, do they crave improvement? Two, are they humble enough to take criticism and accept coaching? And, three, are they willing to put in the work? Because it doesn't matter if you put together the perfect plan, if you don't go out and do the work, the plan is not gonna work. It doesn't matter if you put together the perfect plan. If you're not willing to be coached and willing to be guided, you're gonna keep doing the same things you've always done and get the same results that you've always done. And it doesn't matter if you want the results really, you know, a ton and you have the perfect plan. If you're not willing to put in the work, you're not going to get the results. So those three things have to be there for me to accept a client. And I think that a lot of people, you know, they actually look down on me sometimes or kind of give me those kind of confused eyebrows, because I'll have executive people that want coaching. I'll have executives that come in, they'll want coaching, we'll do an initial call. And after that, I will say, you know, I don't know if we're a perfect fit, and then they'll try to just throw a bigger bag of money on the table. And that's not what motivates me. That's not what energize me. And what I tell them is, "Listen, while there is a number that, you know, I will willing to be stressed out and, you know, somebody offers me a million dollars, I'm not gonna say no, I'm not gonna coach it for a million dollars. But it's, it's not worth my time and it's wasting your time and money if we're both in this thing, and it's a transaction." I don't want transactional clients. I want relational relationships with my clients where I want them to succeed, they want me to succeed. We're In this thing together, I'm trying to push and pull them and nudge them in the right direction. But they're trying to, you know, not need that push and pull and nudge. And if we do that, then I feel like it's a great thing. But I always say that, like, my clients are like family to me. And you know, the best thing that that ever happened in a relationship standpoint, for me just to look back and say, okay, I've done a done a good job, is when I have clients retire, and we're still friends, we're still communicating. When they don't need me anymore, I'm not, you know, helping them anymore, I don't add value in kind of that world. But it's beyond that. It's not a, you know, a transaction. And so, that's what I would say I look for is those three qualities. I think they're so important. I think the only way to grow and develop and improve is you know, making sure that you're a willing learner that is accepting coaching, you don't have an ego. Make sure you crave the results. You have to really, really want it, because there's going to be days that you don't want to wake up that you have to push through, and three, you got to be a willing worker. You got to put in the work, otherwise you're not going to get the results. kevin edwards 47:04 Now, this begs the question, are there some things you can't teach? Drew Hanlen 47:10 I think that there's things that you can't teach. I think there's things that are just innate that you know, are developed, whether it's during our childhood, or whatever. I'll use me for example. I can't teach height. You know, 5'11". I wish I could grow six inches, I can't teach height. But just like height, I think there's things that it's hard to do certain things with certain people based on their experiences. You know, it's, it's one of those things where I think that you can, I think that situationally, you know, situations can change for people. Maybe they don't care about their health, and it's hard to convince them about their health because they never had to worry about that. But then if somebody close to them passes away due to health related issues, then it might change and it might snap them into it. But it might be hard without that situation changing. But the truth is, that's one of my biggest things that I have to do, is I have to be able to, not motivate people because motivation, I think, is a spark of energy. And motivation is similar to like a, you know, a five hour energy drink, where it does spike you up, but eventually you're going to come back down to kind of whatever your level of motivation truly is. And so I think mine is more about connecting to the outcome by focusing on the process. So most people say don't focus on the outcome. But I think you need to be able to see how it adds value so that you put in the work, but also you're not focused on the outcome so much that you're not kind of enjoying the process or buying into the process. So what that means is, I'll give you a real world example. My dad, we went to the Super Bowl. Gatorade is one of my sponsors, and Gatorade, flew us out to the Super Bowl. And they gave us these nice jackets, these like, you know, like leather jackets that are real nice. And the biggest size they had was XXL. And my dad was, I mean he was over 300 pounds at the time. He was probably 325. And he couldn't zip up his jacket. He felt embarrassed. And I said, "Hey, Pops, listen, there's two things we can do. One, you can just never fit that jacket, or two, we can make it a goal to fit the jacket." And so he said, "All right, let's do it." And so we didn't do anything crazy. He started walking for an hour a day, just moving more. And then we basically eliminated a couple things from from his normal diet. It was breads and pastas we tried to eliminate. Again, when I say try, it wasn't like 100% thing. He was like, "Drew I'm not giving a beer." He was going half the weigh in on the nutrition but all the way in on working out. But he gave up, you know, bread and pasta. He tried to eliminate as much dairy as he could. And he tried to drink as much water as he could. Those were his three things. And walk an hour a day. And as he started going, it was motivated for him to keep going because he started seeing results. A year to date, from Super Bowl to Super Bowl, he lost almost 100 pounds. And like, oh my gosh. But here's what happens. When you start something, you get motivated. And when you get motivated, things get easier. And when things get easier, then you start wanting to do them more often. The second thing is, and this is important, the compelling reason was huge. He didn't want to let me down. He didn't want to let me down. If he was just doing it for himself, then he might not have. There were days where, every single day we got him one of those things that track kind of how much you're working out and stuff and he had to send me his results. And so around 9pm, if I didn't get a text message from him that said he had walked, I would just text him and say, "Yo, did you work out today? Or did you let me down." And he not want to let his son down. And so what you have to do is you have to be able to connect it beyond. So there's some of my clients that have--literally my clients have signed over $1 billion of contracts. That's a fact over $1 billion of contracts. Now, is money a motivator? To a lot of them, not so much. Do they care the difference about, you know, a $50 million contract and a $40 million contract, they care, but not enough to like motivate them because they know they can take an off day and still get that $50 million contract. Here's where you connect it though. If you connect them to a passion of regret, if I say "Hey, listen, in 15 years from now, you're no longer gonna be able to play the game of basketball. Imagine the conversation that you're gonna have to have your with your son when he asked you why you've never won a championship. Imagine the conversation that you're going to have to have with your son." Because that puts them in a state of, "Oh, I care about that." So what you have to do is you have to find something that's way beyond just the transaction of this for that. Oh, I'm going to walk so that I lose a pound. That's not good enough. I'm gonna walk so I get five extra healthy years of my life so that I can see my grandson play in high school. That connects. So that's what I what I try to do. I try to go beyond why the the transaction of this for that and say, "Hey, listen, there's a bigger picture here, because if you do this consistently for a long period of time, this is what you're really going to get at the end of the rainbow." kevin edwards 52:21 Helping people see the bigger picture, peeling those layers back. What's really at the core. Now this is a really nice leadership style you have your, Drew. Now, when we were in college and our coaches would always tell the girls, "Play your game." You know, play your game, like you said, focus on that one thing. You got three things, focus on your one thing, improve on that one simple technique that you need to improve. Whether it's Giannis, I need to improve my jump shot, whether it's Draymond, maybe less vocal, or maybe more vocal on the court. I don't know. You know, whoever it may be. Now leadership is something that is very difficult to teach. I've had some CEOs come on the show and say it's something that you can not teach. You can read however many books you want. But really, it's just going to come down to understanding who you are. Now to you, Drew Hanlen, what is your definition of a real leader? Drew Hanlen 53:13 I think for me, it's pretty simple. A real leader is someone that takes people where they need to go, regardless if they want to or not. I'll say that, again, a real leader is someone that takes people where they need to go, and get them to do the things they need to do, so that they eventually get to where they want to get to, even if they don't want to do those things. And so, I look at my high school coach, being a great leader. And, you know, when I was a freshman in high school, I was a bucket-getter. I was a great scorer. I hated defense, and he made me play all time defense in practice. And there were a lot of times where, you know, I literally hated him, and I'm putting quotation marks up on the on the video screen, but I hated him and tell my mom, I'm transferring to a school that'll let me just score 30 points a night, because I felt like I could do that. The thing is, he saw the bigger picture. And he always would say, "Do you want to play college basketball?" I said, "Yes." He said, "You realize you're 5'11" right?" And at the time, I was like, 5'7". So he's like, "You realize you're gonna be under six foot." I said, "Yeah." He said, "You're gonna have to play defense." So while you might, you know, and my saying now is, "Hate me now, thank me later." That's what I always tell my business clients and my basketball clients. Hate me now, thank me later." That's what a real leader does. They don't let you do the things that you want to do. They make you do the things that you need to do. And hopefully they encourage you and get you inspired to do the things that you need to do, instead of having to force you, so that you eventually get to where you want to go. And that's all that matters is results. I say it all the time and people are like, "How do you judge if you've done well with a client?" And I'm like, "Results." Now results don't mean that--you can do a good job and not get results. Know that. There's been some guys that I've really helped out that haven't got results. And I look back and I say, "You know what, I did everything in my power to help them get results. But for whatever reason, it just didn't click." That's okay. I can live with that because I did my best job. There's also been guys that have got crazy results, where I could have done a better job, and I could have probably got them even better results. So I don't think that results tell you how well the process went. But at the end of the day, all you're trying to do as real leaders is trying to help people, nudge them in the right direction to do the right things so that eventually you take them to where they want to go. And if you can do that, I feel like you're a great leader. kevin edwards 55:36 Drew, we appreciate you coming on the Real Leaders Podcast today, fitting us in to the busy schedule today. So we appreciate that. Where can our audience find more about you and get in contact with you? Drew Hanlen 55:47 Yeah, I'm pretty simple. All my all my handles are @DrewHanlen on all social media. And the other thing is, if they're if they're basketball fans, right now I've got a text community that I text with players and coaches. And basically, I just send them a daily text message that gives them skills and drills they can work on. Sometime later this year, I'll have a strictly business line that I'll be doing the same thing. Right now I'm just locked in the bunker and focusing on getting this book written so that I can get it out to the world. And hopefully help people stop BSing themselves, stop doing the things that they know they shouldn't be doing and start doing the things they know they should be doing so they can get the results that they always want. kevin edwards 56:30 Alright, folks, well get in that text circle. I know I will, as I'm always trying to improve my game. For Drew Hanlen, I'm Kevin, asking you to go out there. Make sure you're taking people to where they don't want to go. And always folks, keep it real.Thanks, Drew. Drew Hanlen 56:46 Awesome.Thanks for having me on, my man. kevin edwards 56:47 And thank you lucky listeners for tuning in to this episode of the Real Leaders Podcast with Drew Hanlen. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did, and if you haven't yet left a review, please, by all means, scroll down to the bottom rate and review the show. Let us know what you like, what you don't like and how we can improve. Okay, I just want to finish on this note. Drew's definition of a real leader was great, pushing people where they don't want to go. And he did something to this podcast that I was not expecting. As we are going to push ourselves where we don't want to go, we're going to dive into uncharted territory because I thought this podcast was all time. I think Drew's perspective gave me a new perspective. And that's what we all need. So make sure to subscribe to this channel and we are going to get on the leaders from all walks of life. In medicine, and science, and education, and politics. In arts, music, whatever you like we're gonna get on the show. So let us know who you think we should have on this show. We'll reach out to them, make the introduction, and make sure your time is worth while. That's it for me. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Real Leaders Podcast. And always, keep it real. Transcribed by https://otter.ai