INTERVIEW | Make Money by Mastering Mindset and Earning the Right to Say No, feat. Alan Stein, Jr.

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Yo, what's up everybody? Welcome back to The Travis Makes Money Podcast.

For our submission to help you make more money today on the show,

I have an old friend of mine, someone I'm known for.

Quite some time now, Alan Stein Jr. Alan is an experienced keynote speaker and author.

At his core, he's really a performance coach with the passion for helping business leaders change

behaviors. He's been over 15 years working with the highest performing basketball players on

the planet, including superstars like Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Kobe Bryant.

Through his customized programs, he transfers his unique expertise to maximize both individual

and organizational performance. Alan, what's up dude? Welcome back to show.

Hey, that's great to be with you man. I've been looking forward to this and it's always fun to

chop it up with you. Always, always. So tell me what's been going on man. It's been a little

while since we connected. Give me, you know, the last two, three years what you've been up to and

how's life been going? Life is going great. I mean, on the personal front, I've got three teenage

kids who are all getting older literally by the day. I've got twin sons that will be turning

16 in just a few days at the time of this recording and a daughter that's not far behind them.

And they're healthy and happy and life's good in their end with myself. Business has been booming.

The last few years have been solely focused and relentlessly focused on building my keynote

speaking business. And that singular focus has really, really paid off. Business has grown

exponentially each year. So very grateful for that and grateful for every opportunity I have to

take the stage. You, the work that you do is really unique man. And obviously there's no shortage

of people out there who would love to have a resume that's similar to one that you have.

And there are no shortage of people who might do what you do, but don't have the ability to work

themselves into the rooms to even have the opportunity to work with some of the folks you've been

able to work with throughout your career. What do you attribute that to?

Really, at a core, it's about adding value and it's about being of service. I think if that

is always your primary motivation and inspiration is to over-deliver value and to be of

service to anyone and everyone you can, that will open a lot of doors for you. And with that being

said, earlier times in my career, both in my basketball career and in my keynote career,

I lived by a very simple mantra which was never say no to an opportunity. Now, as your business

starts to grow, you have to have the discernment to say no. I mean, being able to say no is incredibly

important, but it's been my experience now building two different businesses when you're first

starting out, you know, and I'll use my keynote speaking business as an example. Those first

couple of years, I would speak to anyone at any time. It didn't matter how small the group was,

what the industry was. I just needed to get in reps. I needed to practice formulating my message

and I needed to practice adding value and then being able to tweak, iterate and refine. And that's

kind of how I've been able to step ladder to where I am at present. Yeah, the way I like to say it is

you have to earn the right to say no. Yes. I mean, like, too many people jump in and they

immediately just like they think of themselves at being at a certain level and they their lack

of self-awareness is actively destroying their dreams and goals because they put themselves in

this category of like, like, you could have easily been that guy. You know what I mean? Like, when

you started into your keynote speaking career, you could have easily been like, look, I've worked

with Steph Curry and Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durand, like, these people, like, the value that I'm

going to give to this audience is so great. Like, these people should, you know, they should be

begging me to come speak for them instead of like me having to like travel to some teeny tiny town

in the middle of nowhere and speak to a group of 24 people, you know, and not get paid for it.

It's like, you could easily have that type of mentality going into it. That's why I say like,

you have to earn the right to say no because even if you have a stacked resume, whenever you're

getting into a new realm or a new field, you just gotta say yes to every opportunity that's

presented to you until you learn enough to be able to start building a filtration system

that teaches you which opportunities are the ones that are most likely to be the things that

move the needle for you or that are most likely to be worth leaving the family and going and

speaking and spending time doing this thing instead of these other things. So I love that advice,

man. Let's talk a little bit about the basketball side. I've spent the majority of my

waking free time as a kid playing basketball. And so it's always been a part of my life to some

extent. Tell me about your journey in the basketball world. Where did this start? How did this

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superstars we mentioned before? Well, crazy enough. It started 45 years ago. It started when I was

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Trying to get buckets on my own over and over during those unseen hours to really work on my game

and work on my craft. I was fortunate enough to play at Elon University, a small school in North

Carolina. While I was at Elon, I started to develop an equal love for what we now call performance

training. At the time, it was just called strength and conditioning and it was about lifting weights

and getting stronger and running faster and jumping higher. But I started to really fall in love

with the training aspect. But one, I was doing all of that stuff for myself to try to improve my

athleticism. But then I also started to catch the coaching bug and realized that when I graduated

from Elon in the late 90s that nothing could be better than taking my original love of basketball

and marrying it with this newfound love of performance training and performance coaching.

And that's what I decided to do. I just anointed myself a basketball performance coach at a time

doing it. Was that a category at the time or did you make it up?

It was a very limited category. In fact, the guy that I give a major hat tip and a salute to

is Tim Grover, who most people have heard of because he was MJ's trainer and worked with just

an incredible resume of people. But he was the only guy that I was aware of that was working in

the private sector training athletes as his full-time vocation. And there's lots of times where we almost

need to see an avatar or a north star or someone else kind of breaking down that wall for us to

even believe that the opportunity is valid and real. So I give him major credit for doing that.

And then I said, hey, I want to follow in those same footsteps. But for me, the only caveat was

at the time I didn't have a huge interest in working with NBA players. I wanted to work with

middle school and high school age players. And I thought that I could have a much bigger impact

on their lives, not just on their basketball game and their bodies, but on their lives at that

younger age. So that's really where I started and cut my teeth. And I was able to work it

to very renowned high schools here in the DC area that have produced dozens of eventual NBA players

like Kevin Durant. And that work is what led to opportunities at Nike and Jordan Brand and USA

basketball where I got to work events and camps for guys like Kobe and Stefan Curry and LeBron James

and those types of guys. So it all started for a love of youth basketball and trying to leave

my thumbprint on that. And that just magically opened up doors to eventually be able to work with

the best of the best. When you're working with these guys at that time at that young of an age,

what is it that you're really trying to focus like are you are you drilling basketball skills or

you focused on like sort of mental performance mindset? What are you what are you actually doing

when you act when you go through these camps? So at that time, it was all strength conditioning,

agility and what we would call fitness. It was all trying to get their bodies into the best shape

and make them durable and bulletproof. But it was at that time that I realized that the real unlock

would be the mental side would be the mindset that yes, it's certainly important to run fast and

jump high, but it's even more important to have the right mindset. So I really started to combine

mindset with physical training. I never did skill training. So I never taught players how to shoot or

handle the ball or pass. I left that to skill coaches into their their ex and O coaches.

I focus solely on getting them as strong as an explosive as possible in both their mind and their

body. Yeah, because isn't it interesting when you start getting up to that level of play when

we're talking about professional sports across all of them, whether it's golf or basketball or

football or whatever, everybody is good. You know, I mean, everybody's explosive, everybody's fast,

everybody can jump, everybody can shoot, dribble pass, everybody's really good at the game.

Yeah, obviously there's some outliers. Of course, there's some people who are just like their

generational talents, like the people we've been mentioning here before. Not to take away from

the fact that they've worked really hard at the game, but you know what I'm saying? They're just

they're blessed and they work insanely hard. And then that's how we have superstars, right?

Yes. But the other people that are in that in that world, like the only thing that's going to give

them an edge on the other people that they're playing with is going to be mindset. Absolutely.

That's especially you look at somebody like a Steph Curry who, you know, is not the physically

physically blessed talented guy that some of these other people are. Right. But you take somebody

like that who was who was underappreciated, who was underrated for the majority of his early

career and even his notes from, you know, the draft of when he was like coming out of college,

were just like little too small to play, you know, not that, you know, he will be an underwhelming

player essentially, you know, and then but mindset says that, okay, I may not be able to play

LeBron's game against LeBron, but what can I play as Steph Curry and quite literally he ended up

being a generational talent who completely changed the face of basketball and made everybody start

shooting threes again, you know, or for the first time ever really, and completely changed

landscape of the league. So the mindset piece, man, how do you even start working like especially

with like 13, 14, 15 year olds, obviously they're their kids, they don't like in their mind,

it is about shooting and dribbling and passing and of course they have to drill those things.

But how do you how do you work in with those kids and even with kids that you work with now,

how do you get them to start really internalizing the idea that a lot of this is going to be in

your mind, your edge, your edge that you will have in the future starts in your mind. Yeah, well,

it's the same way I would get anyone in any walk of life to improve in a certain area.

First and foremost, I believe as a leader, as a coach, as a business owner, you have to model

the behavior that you want to see in others, you have to model the behavior and the traits that

you want to see in the people that you're leading or the people you're coaching or the people

on your business. So first and foremost, I had to consistently work on my own mindset and make

sure that I was practicing everything that I was preaching to make sure that I could maintain

that credibility. Then second, you need to be able to outline and show the benefits, you know,

be able to show these youngsters, you know, here's some examples of some players and some teams

that have an elite level mindset. And here's some that don't, you know, which, which camp do you

want to be in and make sure that they understand that there's a massive value in working on this

skill set and really paint that picture for them. Then you have to be able to give them, you know,

practical ways they can apply this in their workouts and their strength and conditioning sessions,

in film sessions and in games. And then you have to hold them accountable, you know, if you're

going to work on something like the next play mentality, which is one thing I work on with

everyone that I speak to, you know, that's something you can't just talk about every once in a

while or talk about it when you feel like it or talk about it when it's something that you have

to talk about every single day. And, you know, the players understand this from a skill standpoint,

but the same is true when it comes to a mindset standpoint. And that is repetition is not punishment.

Repetition is the oldest and most effective form of learning and skill acquisition on the planet.

So if you want to improve your mindset, it has to be something that you are working on every

single day. And once you could get players to buy in and they can see that unlock and say,

man, when I have this mindset, it takes my athleticism and skills to an entirely new level.

Once they get just a little bit of a taste of that type of success, then they're hooked.

And then they're in. And then it's just a matter of continuing to push them and coach them and

hold them accountable. Yeah, once you experience the reality of progress, it's hard to,

it's hard to turn a blind eye to it anymore. You know, you go like, oh, well,

that actually worked. You know, like I put in the work on that and then I saw this result.

It's like a light bulb moment that happens, which is one of the reasons I love

organized sports for for kids is because it's like the first time that you get that feeling,

especially for young men, that feeling of like competence, that feeling of confidence,

the feeling that like I put in work, therefore I got this result. And that that experience can

take you through that, regardless of its basketball or weightlifting or golf or whatever it is,

just like the ability to go out, do something difficult that you didn't want to do over and over

and over again, and then see a tangible result that improves the quality of your life is just

irreplaceable experience. I tell you what, man, I could have used that next play mentality

coaching for me when I was a kid because that was like one of my biggest problems was just as soon

as I would make a mistake or I took a couple bad shots or something, man, it's just like getting

in my head, start telling myself this story that I'm having a bad game and then you start

manifesting more actions of what somebody would do when they're having a bad game and then

you end up being in your head because last game was a bad game and you know what, that was that

play. This is a new play. You know what I mean? And now I have another opportunity.

And then the full spirit of vulnerability right there with you, you know, the next play mentality

was the furthest thing from my mind, understanding or comprehension when I was a player.

I didn't have the emotional maturity to get that type of mindset. I easily allowed myself to

get emotionally hijacked for the same things that you just said, you know, turnovers or miss shots

or when the referee would miss a call, you know, I'd be mad as a hornet for three or four straight

possessions and it would take away from my ability to be in the present and to maximize what I was

capable of. And you know, really every single thing that I preach and teach on stage and on page,

I did the exact opposite of in my team, in my 20s and in my 30s. So one of the good things

about that, it gives me a much higher level of empathy and compassion. When I meet people

that are on a different area of the spectrum or I meet someone that's struggling,

whether it's a business owner and a CEO or it's a young basketball player, when I meet someone

that has trouble moving to the next play, I don't judge them or condemn them or shame them or guilt

them. I remind myself that hey, at one point in my life, I was stuck there too. Now let me see if I

can do whatever I can to get them to be unstuck and be able to adopt that type of framework moving

forward. So I'm actually glad that I've seen both sides of the coin in most of these areas and it

gives me, you know, unbridled enthusiasm of a recent convert to be able to say, hey, I've done it

both ways. I spent most of my life allowing myself to be emotionally hijacked and the last several

years quickly moving to the next play and I can tell you unequivocally the next place the way to go.

Yeah, absolutely. So you were in basketball portion of your career for how long?

I did that for almost 20 years as a basketball performance coach and then in 2017 is when I left

that world to pursue the corporate keynote speaking, which is what I do and have singular focus on

now. So I'm going into year nine at present as a corporate keynote speaker. So let's talk about that

from the business perspective. There's a lot of people who listen to the show who may be curious

about pursuing this type of a, this type of a career at some point, whether it's now or in the future.

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Now streaming on, you guessed it. Disney Plus. What were like first steps for you?

For to say they're like, look, I am going to take this pivot purposefully in my life. What do I do

first? What's what's step one? The very first thing I did was I reached out to about a dozen

friends. Some of them were from high school. Some of them were from college. Some of them were people

I met my basketball journey but about a dozen people that were working in corporate America

and they were working at a variety of different companies and different positions and I reached out

to them and asked them in your business and in your industry, what are the biggest pain points

and challenges that you face as well as your business faces? I took a ton of notes. These folks

were kind enough to really share and open the kimono if you will and share a lot of these things

and I started to notice a lot of trends and then I started to categorize those trends and then

I circled the ones that I thought fell under my area of perceived expertise. If they said,

one of our issues is advertising and marketing. Well, that's not something where I can add value

but if they said one of our issues is communication among employees or leaders,

leadership with middle management or building a cohesive and a collaborative team,

they fell under things that I thought I could add value to and that's really what I highlighted.

And then the next step was when I had three or four things that I identified as challenges

or pain points, then I did a massive brain dump and started writing down all of the lessons

and habits and disciplines and stories and mindsets and things that I had learned in my basketball

journey from elite players and coaches that I thought would apply. So I kind of did this brain dump

to start curating material and then at that point, I just tried to organize it in a cohesive way

where I'd say, all right, well, if your team is trying to improve communication, let me come in

and share these three pillars and these three stories and slowly just started to formulate

you know different talks and then at that point, as I mentioned earlier, you know, I beg Bard and

steeled any stage time I could get. I said, hey man, I will speak anywhere at any fee at any time

because I just wanted to get in the reps. And those first three years, I probably did over a

hundred free talks in some of which when I say a talk, I'm talking about three people in a lunchtime

cafeteria on their lunch break, but I'm talking to them about how they can improve their communication

and sales and really started to organize and formulate these different talks and just get in the

reps. And then at that point, I felt I had the foundation and just slowly started to build the

business from there, but it really took a very analog and grassroots approach to how I started.

There's no other way. You know what I mean? There is no magic pill. There is no secret formula.

It's just put in the work, do high volume, get in reps and be willing. My thing is especially when

you're quote unquote starting over, when you're taking a massive pivot, it feels like a wildly

uncertain, uncomfortable path that you've never done before. I just personally believe that most

people don't have the courage to do what you did because you've already built such an established

name. You've already built authority in this other field. You've already built a career.

You've already put in the work for 20 years climbing this mountain, so to speak. And then when you

are starting at another mountain, you don't just get air dropped, you know, and like right by the

peak, you know what I mean? You got to do the work of starting and climbing that same mountain over

again, just like you did the last one. And I'm convinced man, there's a lot of people who I think

that there's a lot of people that are missing out on additional value because somebody out there

is too scared to start over and too scared to put in the work again at the very beginning to do

exactly what you're talking about. I was literally, I'm glad you gave me those metrics because I was

literally about to ask you like how long did it take and how many times did you speak for free?

Because that volume, I want people to really internalize what that is. A hundred free talks

in three years, like even just a hundred talks in general. That's a lot in that period of time,

meaning like you're traveling constantly. You're all over the country. You're going here. You're

going there. Sometimes you're paying for your own travel. Sometimes they might comp travel,

but all of them are free. And sometimes it's to three people. Sometimes it's to 18 people. Sometimes

it's to 32 people, you know what I mean? But then that is how you earn the ability to then speak in

front of the 2000 people and actually get paid what you feel like you have earned the right to get paid.

You don't just get to skip it to that step. Absolutely. I'm so glad you pointed that out. Yeah,

you have to hit every rung of the ladder when you're when you're climbing up in a few other things.

I think will help shape and give additional context. First and foremost, I did that exact same

model when I was building my performance training business. Exactly. Any client at any time,

it doesn't matter if you were going to be that the kid that was going to get cut from the JV

basketball team, I would still work on my craft of of training you. So I knew that that model would

work if I was willing to have the patience and discipline to implement it. Now, when I say I gave

a hundred free talks in those first three years, I also gave some talks where I was getting paid.

Sure. Yeah, phenomenal amounts. But the point was I had no problem volunteering my time,

but there were two other aspects that I want to add to this to add some color. Of those talks in

those first three years, I filmed or had filmed almost every single one of them because I wanted to go

back and watch it later for a couple of reasons. Number one, like the same way a basketball player or

coach or team would watch film, I wanted to be able to watch myself and get better at my craft,

to be able to see what things I was doing well in what areas I needed some improvement. And then

even if I was giving a 45 minute talk, and at that time, maybe only three or four minutes of it

was really, really good, but I was able to clip the three or four minutes that was really good

and put that on YouTube and put that out on social media. So I was able to use it as kind of a

marketing engine, which in the speaking industry is super important. And then the other thing that I

neglected to mention before, fairly early in the process, I hired a speaking coach. I hired

someone that had an expertise in an area that I didn't. And they said to me on the first day,

they said, Hey, Alan, you've got the raw materials to be very good at this, but we can really help

you refine and polish and get better at the actual craft. And I'm a huge believer in the coaching

paradigm. In fact, in every area of my life that I aim for excellence, if it's something that

doesn't come very naturally to me, which is most things. I hire a coach. I mean, I've hired

speaking coaches, writing coaches, financial coaches. I've hired dating coaches before. I've

hired nutrition coaches. And certainly I've hired trainers, basketball trainers, and other people

to help me build my body. So for me, hiring someone that has a level of expertise and can hold you

accountable in the area where you're aiming for excellence is one of the best investments you can

make. And my own desire to improve and watch film on myself coupled with being open-minded and

coachable to what those folks taught me, again, helped accelerate the process. And by year four and

five, I just started to hit my groove. And that was also kind of around the same time as the pandemic.

So it made me challenging, but I was okay with that. And then coming out on the other end of

the pandemic, these last several years, I've really hit my stride as a speaker and as growing a

speaking business. And I'm so grateful. And it was worth every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears

that I put in those first few years. So if anyone listening or watching is doubting that it's going

to be worth it, I'm telling you, if you can lay those bricks in the beginning, that's the foundation

to which everything else is built. One of the highest and best uses of your finances is to exchange

it for more time. Yes. And that is coaching in a nutshell. If you can find the right coach,

especially, you know, it's it's worth every dime because imagine the volume of time that I would

have taken you to learn the lessons that that person helped you learn in three months. Like it's

like, could you do it on your own? Yeah. I'm not going to pretend like you wouldn't be able to

figure it out eventually. But it's like, how much time is it going to take you? And and then the

way that money and time and momentum work together in that, you know, that that outcome, that

alchemy of that mixture of things, you the speed with which you're able to learn those initial

early lessons is like highly contributes to your ability to stick in the game long enough to be

able to reap the rewards long term. Absolutely. Like it's like, could you figure it on your own? Sure.

But if you haven't figured it out by year two, by year three, by year four, eventually you're

just going to go, well, this just doesn't work. You know what I mean? Eventually you're not going

to get the result and you're putting in all this work and energy and effort and you're not going

to you're not going to continue doing the thing because you don't have any evidence that what you're

working on is actually providing you the result that you want. Whereas if you can just get in,

be willing to exchange some of the money in your bank account to skip a bunch of time and to skip

a bunch of reps and and learn from somebody else has already been there, done that, bought the T-shirt

three times over. You know, you can you can see those immediate those immediate results much faster,

which will get you some momentum to continue doing it, which will give you more confidence to put

in more reps. And you know what I mean? Like everything gets a little bit easier and a little

bit better because you're able to conquer some of those early mistakes much faster than somebody

who's just trying to get out there and do it all on their own. Absolutely. I heard a Jim Rohn quote

a long time ago that really resonated and it was something to the effect of the only thing better

than learning from your own mistakes is learning from other people's mistakes. And we should all

keep our eyes and ears open enough to be able to do that. And you know, in addition to that,

that the massive time saving, you know, I believe in the coaching paradigm because coaches can help

you see things that you can't see from your vantage point. You know, there's an old saying,

you know, you can't see the picture when you're in the frame and having someone else be able to

expose the blind spots that you can't see is super helpful. I also am a big believer in accountability

and a coach will hold you accountable to incredibly high standards. So for all of those reasons,

I'm a massive believer in coaching and as a way to expedite the process. And when I say expedite,

it's not about skipping steps or looking for hacks or trying to find shortcuts. It's about being

incredibly intentional with your time and with your money to pursue the most efficient way possible

to get where you're trying to go. And I always appreciate your time, bro. I love spending time

with you and I appreciate the work that you're doing in the world. I got one selfish question for

you and then I'll tell the listeners where to go find your stuff. Sounds great. Give me your

all-time starting five. All-time starting five. Who's in your all-time starting five? Boy,

this one is so tough. You know, for a little clarity, the reason why it's tough is at 50 years old,

I straddle several of the major generations. You know, when I grew up, you know, I fell in love with

obviously Michael Jordan and Larry Bird and, you know, Magic Johnson and John Stockton. So,

I have a very strong affinity for that group, but then I have an equally strong affinity for

the next generation, the Kobe Bryant's and Kevin Durant's and, you know, and then there's some

current players now. I mean, guys like Wimby and Anthony Edwards who are just unbelievable.

But if you're going to hold me to the fire, maybe a little controversial, but I'm going to put

Stefan Curry at the one. I will put Michael Jordan at the two. I will put Kevin Durant at the three.

I will put Tim Duncan at the four. And I'm going to go ahead and go with Shaq at the five.

And I could have an alternate for each of them that I think would be pretty solid,

but I'm going to stick with that five. I was going to say, I mean, it's a pretty hard to argue,

man. Mine's pretty close to that. Mine's pretty close to that. Yeah, I got staff at the one.

I got Kobe at the two. Okay. I got LeBron at the three. Okay. I got Yokech at the four.

I got Shaq at the five. I mean, once again, you can't go wrong. I mean, that's pretty solid.

I mean, it's incredible. Yeah, Yokech is doing some things, man, that's just like, I don't even know,

I don't even know what to say about it. You know, I was just like, how have you been? Who are you?

Yeah. And I think if you have me on your show 10 years from now, we're going to be saying the

same thing about Wimby. Oh, yeah. Same as Tony. Man energy, but second year, third year this year,

like, yeah, I think this is third year. And at seven four with like an eight foot wingspan,

who shoots threes and handles the balls. Is three ball this year is significantly improved? Like,

yeah, he's never seen anything like it. Man, it's like my biggest hope is that he stays healthy.

Like he gets three on his bones and can just like stay healthy. He's going to have one of those

all-time careers, I think. So I appreciate you coming on, man. Working people go to get more from

you, Alan. Awesome. Always a pleasure, my friend. I love the work you do. You can just go to

alansteinjunior.com. That's the major hub. I'm at alansteinjunior on all of the major social

platforms. And I'm very responsive and accessible. So just shoot me a DM on Instagram or LinkedIn if I

can ever be of service. And all three of my books can be found on Amazon or Audible or wherever you

get books and audio books. alansteinjunior.com. That's a-l-a-n-s-t-e-i-n-junior.com. And then at alansteinjunior

over on Instagram, other socials could check out some of stuff that alan's putting out. But I

appreciate the time. I know you are a busy guy. I don't take that for granted. Everybody else listening.

Remember, money only solves your money problems. But it's easier to solve the rest of your problems

when you got money in the bank. So let's solve that one first here on the Travis Makes Money Podcast.

Thanks for tuning in. Catch you next time. Peace.

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