For more than 15 years, Alan Stein Jr. worked with the highest performing basketball players on the planet, including iconic superstars such as Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, and Kobe Bryant. He is here today to share proven strategies on how you can utilize the same mindset, habits, and routines that elite athletes use to perform at a world-class level. Using proven principles from his book, Raise Your Game, Alan has worked with global brands such as American Express, Pepsi, and Starbucks, as well as championship caliber sports programs like Penn State Football and UConn Men's Basketball. He is excited to provide you with a series of practical, actionable lessons you can implement immediately to improve organizational performance and achieve higher levels of personal influence, impact, and significance. Alan is a passionate father of three and he never lets his kids beat him in anything ever. Please help me welcome Alan Stein Jr. Hey guys, it's Alan Stein Jr. to all of you franchisors and franchisees and suppliers that took part in the amazing Heat Franchise Summit. It's great to circle back with you. I sure hope that you took all of the amazing strategies and concepts and tips that you learned from the amazing array of speakers and have already started to put those into action. Because remember, knowing without doing is useless. So I hope you've taken your notes, you've reviewed them, and you've started the cherry pick, the one or two things that you can implement with you and the rest of your franchise organization immediately.  I had several of you reach out via email and ask some questions, and I'm going to do my best to answer those now. But of course, if there's ever anything else you need from me, you can find me very easily at alansteinjunior.com. So I'm ready to jump in with the first question. So in order to close the performance gap, there's a three step system or process that you need to follow. And as I said during my keynote, this system is going to be very basic, but it's not going to be easy. So don't let the simplicity fool you. Step number one is you need to figure out what is the one behavior or one habit that you want to change. This could be something that you want to start doing or it could be something that you need to stop doing because it's undermining your ability to be successful. But the most important part is I want you to have great clarity and only pick one. If you're watching this video right now, you are most likely a high achiever and a high performer and you probably hold yourself to a very high standard. You've probably spent decades honing some really important skill sets and you probably are very confident. But I don't want that to translate into you thinking that you can try to change three or four or five things at once because statistically that's simply not the case. If you can have razor sharp precision and have heightened focus on just changing one behavior, you'll see that you'll have a much higher rate of success. So once you've narrowed it down to the one thing that you're going to start or the one thing that you're going to stop, step two is that you're going to be relentlessly committed for 66 straight days to do this thing or to not do this thing every single day within that 66 day window. Now there's no, there's nothing magical about 66. Now there's been some research that research that has shown that if you can do something consecutively for 66 days, you'll start to lessen the friction and it'll start to become part of what you naturally do. So it takes just a little bit over two months to start to groove some of these new patterns and these new behaviors. I'm a very visual guy. So when I'm doing this exercise, what I do is I actually take a calendar, a paper calendar and a red Sharpie and I make an X every single day that I either do or don't do that behavior I'm trying to change. And when I can get to 66 red X's in a row, now I know that I'm going to start to see a change. And then the third step is to recruit your inner circle to keep the spotlight on. So what you're going to do is you're going to talk to the people that you know care about you, that want to support you, that want to challenge you, but most importantly that you know want to see you happy, fulfilled and successful and you are not only going to ask, you're going to beg these people to hold you accountable. You're going to tell them, this is the behavior that I'm trying to change. I'm going to do the best I can for the next 66 days with it, but I need you to check in with me every day. I need you to hold me accountable and ask me how it's going because if they can do that, that will kind of put the bow tie on all three of these steps and will help ensure that you're doing that thing. So I'll give you a quick example. Let's just say that you want to improve your health and your fitness because you know that will give you more energy to be able to pour into your colleagues and coworkers and your clients and customers that you haven't been as physically active as of late that you'd like to. And your one thing is going to be, you're going to go for a 30 minute walk every single morning. That's your one thing. Don't worry about changing your nutrition. Don't worry about taking a class or hiring a trainer. Those things will come and do time. Right now, the only thing that matters is every single day, you're going to get in a 30 minute walk. Then step number two, you use whatever type of accounting system you want. If you want to go analog with the paper calendar and the red sharpie, every morning when you get back from your 30 minute walk, you put a big X on that calendar and you be as focused and committed as possible to getting 66 red X's in a row. And then you tell the people closest to you for step three, you know, this could be your spouse or if your children are older, could be someone from your church or in your community, could be another friend or another family member, a sibling. It doesn't matter if they're they're close to you or if this is something where they check in digitally from the other side of the country, but you're going to ask them to check in with you once a day via text, via FaceTime, via email and say, did you go for your walk today? What did you listen to on your walk? Did you take a new path? I heard it was raining. Did you do your walk on your treadmill or did you go outside? Something that shows that they are keeping an eye on you. And statistically, research is proven that if you can focus on just doing your walk, you are committed to doing it for 66 straight days. And the people that mean the most of you check in with you every single day, that that will become a new habit. And then at the end of that 66 days, now that that's part of what you do, now you can simply stack another habit on top of that. It could be something in alignment. So maybe the next 66 days, you're going to focus on not eating sweets or it could be something completely different for the next 66 days, every day, you're going to write a handwritten note to someone that's important to you. So whatever it is, you'll then begin to stack these different habits. And if you can follow that three step prescription, which again is very basic, but not easy to do, you'll see that you'll be able to close performance gaps with great success. On any team in any organization, you're going to find people that you don't feel are as bought in or don't have the same level of buy-in that maybe you have, or maybe that others have. And you're going to find teammates that don't appear at face value to want to be or are willing to be held accountable and aren't doing everything that you believe they should do to be that type of teammate. Well, there's a few things we want to address first. One is, let's not make an assumption on that. It's very easy to only see a small snapshot or to take something out of context and think that we know what what this person is thinking or what they believe or how they're feeling. And oftentimes our assumption can be incorrect. So one of the very first steps I believe would be is to approach that person and have a very open empathetic and compassionate chat with them and just say, Hey, you know, I believe in you. I know that you're good enough. But for some reason, I don't feel like you're buying in to the level that I think you're capable of. What is it that I'm missing? You know, how do you feel? Is there any accuracy to what I'm asking you or my way off base and and really try to to get a feel for for their approach in the way that they're seeing things. Another important step once you've shown them that that you care about them and that you want to help and support them is to make sure that you speak their language. We all speak different languages and I'm not talking about the exact vocabulary and vernacular that we're using, but we all have a different language of appreciation. We have a different communication style. We all learn differently. You know, we all have different personalities and all of these things make us unique. And it's so important that we acknowledge that the way I learned best might not be the way that you learn best, that the way I like to be shown appreciation might not be the way that you like to be shown appreciation. And what's important as a leader or as being a great teammate is making sure that we're speaking the language of the other person. We're not making them speak our language. So it's important when you have this sit down and this heart to heart that you find out what's important to them, find out what's most meaningful, what motivates them, what inspires them, what are some of the issues and pain points that they're having and then learn as much about their personality, their communication style, their appreciation style, so that you can customize your message for them. So if you don't make any assumptions and you really ask them with great transparency and compassion how they're seeing the world or how they're seeing the team and then you customize a message that is speaking their language so it'll be most well received, then the only other thing you can do is to model the behavior that you want to see from them. Certainly if you're going to ask them to improve their enthusiasm, then you better be bringing your enthusiasm. If you're going to tell them that they need to be on time for every staff function, then you better make sure that you're on time or early for every staff function as well. So model the behavior that you want to see. And then the last step when it comes to accountability, I'm a big believer in asking for permission is basically saying, you know, here are our standards. These are our core beliefs. These are the standards that we need to uphold in order for our franchise to be as successful as possible. As your teammate, do you give me permission to hold you accountable to these? And it's a binary question. It's a yes or it's a no. Most of the time I believe you'll get compliance and they'll say yes, you can hold me accountable, which then eliminates most of the sting of any future encounter where you hold them accountable. If for any reason they say no and acknowledge that no, I won't let you hold me accountable, then you have to think long and hard whether this person should be a part of the team or not. Because in order for you all to build the types of franchises that can excel at the level that you're capable of, every single person on the team has to be coachable and has to be willing to be held accountable. And if you don't have those two things, then they may not be a good fit for your organization. So very similar to my previous response, when you make an assumption that someone is not motivated, sometimes that assumption may be correct, but many times you don't have all of the information or what you're seeing is taken out of context. So I think it's important to create a safe environment and have a culture where you can actually approach them and tell them what it is that you're seeing, but ask them if you're seeing that with great accuracy. Just saying you don't appear as motivated as I believe that you are, is there any truth to that? And then sit back and listen and let them share. It's important that we all perceive motivation differently. I often bring up the fact that many people consider me a very highly motivated person. And for the most part, I actually believe that is true, but it's not my motivation that allows me to do many of the things that I do. It's actually my discipline and motivation and discipline are not the same thing. I think we often confuse them in fact. So the person you're talking to as a teammate, it may not be that they're lacking motivation, they might be lacking some discipline, or they might be lacking some structure from your franchise, or they might be lacking some of the resources or support that you could be giving them. And because they're not getting those things, they appear slightly unmotivated or even a little bit apathetic. I'm going to include a bonus video where I actually talked about more in depth the difference between motivation and discipline, but I'm only bringing that up because when you see a teammate that you don't think is highly motivated, my guess is that might not be the problem. There's probably several layers underneath that that I think you need to get to in order for them to truly perform and achieve at the level they're capable of. In order to be a truly influential and impactful leader, there's no question there's a lot of characteristics that one needs to excel at, that leadership is not one-dimensional, that you need to be good at a lot of different things in order to lead effectively. But if I had to pick one that I think one characteristic or one fundamental, if you will, that I think is underappreciated, undervalued, and most often overlooked, is one that I've personally had to really work hard on over these last several years, and that's the ability to listen. I think the ability to listen as a leader is a major strength. You know, as a leader in a franchise organization, your ability to listen to your teammates, your colleagues, and your co-workers, to be open to their thoughts and their beliefs, and so forth, to be open to any business, to be open to listening to your customers and to your clients is imperative. I've had a chance to work with a few different sales professionals that have really mentored me when it comes to sales, and one of the things that they always say is that telling is not selling, and that's the same thing is true with leaders, that when it comes to sales, if your approach is to tell the customer or client every reason that you guys are amazing and every reason that your product or service is awesome, you're missing the boat. Instead, you should be asking your clients and customers insightful questions, that the answer to their questions will lead them to the conclusion that what you have is what they need, and it's the same thing as a leader. You know, I believe that as a leader, you should constantly be asking your team for input, where their input is heard. So just the act of listening in and of itself will also give you different perspectives and vantage points. You have to realize that if you are at the top of the org chart, you see the world and you see your franchise differently from a different vantage point than someone that's on one of the lower tiers of the org chart. So you should welcome as many different vantage points as possible. This is another reason why diversity is so important.  But you know, the difference between males and females, the difference between older and younger, you know, if I was building a team right now, I would want to include as wide of an age range as possible, make sure that we have both males and females and as many different backgrounds as we can. And background could be, you know, any area of life where someone may differ, you know, where they grew up, how they grew up, certainly race or ethnicity will change the way that you see certain things. And the more broad the diversity, if you're willing to ask questions and get insight, the more valuable that exercise becomes. So listening to as many people as you can, I think is the best thing for leaders to do. And I told you that this was something that I had to really work hard on over the last several years. And for me, if you want something tangible to help you improve listening, I recommend that you do what's called a listback. And a listback is simply when you're speaking with someone, when there's an appropriate break in the conversation, you don't want to interrupt them. That's obviously the opposite of listening. You want to list back in their exact words, what they just said. For example, I'm talking with someone and an appropriate break say, I just want to make sure that I heard you correctly. You said A, B and C is that right? And this will do a couple of things. One, it'll give them a chance to affirm that you did hear them correctly and that the information they shared is accurate. Or it will give them an easy out to be able to correct you, where they could say, no, Alan, I actually said A, B and D. But either way, now you know that you have the correct information. But probably more important than that is the unconscious message you send someone when you're really actively listening to them. And that unconscious message is, I care about you. I value what you have to say that you are important to me. Because we all know that time and our attention in the present moment is the most valuable currency we have to give another human being.  And that is the best glue that you can have when it comes to creating human connection and building better relationships. So I would say, without question, the number one fundamental that leaders and sales professionals need to improve on is listening. I had an opportunity to interview Tom Izzo, the heralded coach of Michigan State men's basketball several years ago. And he said something really profound. He said that a player led team will always outperform a coach led team in the long run. And I found that, I found that really fascinating because one, he's on the Mount Rushmore of college coaches. He has kind of the face and the CEO, if you will, of Michigan State basketball. So for him to readily acknowledge that his most successful teams are not the ones where he is basically the coach that determines everything, but rather when the players lead themselves, I thought was really fascinating. And as I started to dig a little deeper into that concept, I found the same to be true in business and especially in franchising. The key is being able to create a culture and a safe environment where everybody on the team feels compelled to lead. And we do that in a few different ways. One, as a leader, we certainly need to provide vision. We need to provide support and resources, but we have to give a certain level of autonomy. And I even do many of these things, you know, as a father of three young children, I work to make sure my children have input in everything that they do. And I give them the autonomy to make as many decisions as possible. And with those decisions, they understand comes the responsibility of whatever the consequences may be. And I think that's the first step to creating player led teams as the leader, as either the franchise or or the franchisee with your specific team at any one of your stores or locations is you give your people the autonomy to make decisions. Let them figure out, you can kind of tell them the North Star that you're headed to, but don't tell them exactly how to get there. Let them figure out how to get there. And then with that will come constant feedback and coaching where you can help them. But I think one of the biggest mistakes leaders make is that they, they always tell their people what to do instead of simply asking or letting their people figure things out on their own. I'm going to give you a basketball example, and then I'll let you guys decide how you could actually translate this with great utility to your situation. A very average basketball coach will stop practice. Let's just assume there's a five on five scrimmage going on and the point guard comes down and makes a bad pass and turns the ball over.  We'll tell them the pass that they should have made and then we'll resume the scrimmage. That's mediocre at best. An exceptional coach in this instance will stop practice and will ask the player what they saw. Why did you make that pass? See in a game like basketball, you have to go into it knowing that no player in the world will come down and try to turn the ball over. There's not a player in the world that says I'm going to come down and turn it over because I want to see how mad I can make my coach. No, at that moment in time, based on their vantage point and their basketball IQ and their experience, they actually thought that was the right play to make. Clearly it wasn't because the ball got turned over, but it's important to give them some autonomy is to ask them, what is it that you saw? Why did you try to make that pass and then listen to their explanation?  And then most importantly, instead of telling them what they should have done, ask them. Say, well, I understand your rationale. Clearly it was not the right play to make. What's something different that you could have done that would have maybe given you a better result? Since that pass to the right wing clearly wasn't the right play, what's something different you could have done? And then once again, now that you've given them some autonomy, step back and listen and see what their answer is. And then depending on what their answer is, that will determine how much feedback or additional coaching you need to give them. But I can tell you right now that if you handle it that way, the lesson in and of itself will be so much stickier. That player will remember that more than if you just stop practice, say a few curse words and tell them what they should have done. And I want you guys to be able to take that mindset of giving some autonomy and letting folks make some decisions on their own so they can get some reps making decisions and get some reps with their own leadership. I'll let you figure out how to apply that to your situation. But the most important part about a player led team is about the environment and the culture that you create, where you actually praise and reward your team members for stepping up and leading. And then you hold them accountable when they don't make those types of decisions.  But I always believe in catching people doing things right.  And if you can focus as a leader on creating this player led team, it doesn't mean that you're not valuable or expendable. It means that you have created a true system, which is the heart of the franchising model. It's being able to say that, hey, I'm the head coach or the CEO. And even if I don't show up today, I've created an environment where everyone feels safe and compelled to lead on their own, that this machine will keep running even when I'm not here. And that is when you know you've created a player led team. As I figured I would, I actually got a very specific question as it pertains to basketball, but the lesson from it has great utility for all of us. For any of you that don't follow basketball closely, Kyrie Irving is one of the best point guards in the NBA. He has ridiculous handles.  And he wasn't a great fit when he was with the Boston Celtics.  You know, he wasn't able to flourish the way that everyone knew he was capable of and just didn't work great in that system. So they traded Kyrie and he left and they brought in Kimba Walker, also a remarkable point guard. And he appears to be a better fit, like at least from a leadership standpoint, you know, things appear to be going well. And I will say with full disclaimer, I know both of them well, I know Kyrie and I know Kimba and both of them are remarkable young men on and off the court. So and by no means am I diminishing, you know, Kyrie for what happened in Boston. But the lesson that I want you all to take away from this is it's not enough just to have talented people and good people. You also have to put them in the right situations and put them in, you know, in the right seat on the bus. I mean, you guys ultimately want to get the best people on your bus. But once they're there, you have to put them in the right seat. And for whatever reason with that organization and that team dynamic and coaching staff, Kyrie just simply wasn't the best fit. Doesn't mean that he's a bad guy. It doesn't mean he's not a good leader. And certainly doesn't mean he's not a good basketball player. It just means that that wasn't the right fit for him. And they found someone else that was. So to kind of bring all of this, this entire Q&A video together is think how important it is to make sure that your people are best utilized. If you find someone on your team and you think they're they're not bought in, or that they don't want to be held accountable, or that they're not very motivated before you come to that conclusion, acknowledge the fact that they just might not be in the right position. They might not be in the right role or working at the right store or their dynamic between a general manager and one of the supervisors isn't as good as it would be if you move those two apart. So, you know, as the master conductor to the orchestra, in order for every single person to play their instrument to the best of their ability to make sweet music, they've got to be in the right place. So the answer to that is when you find someone that's not exceeding or performing at the level that you think they're capable of, before you come to any judgment, give some thought to the fact that they just might not be the best fit for that specific role. And if you can kind of move them to a different seat, you might see them, you know, flourish and reach a level that you hadn't seen before. So with that, there's going to be a few more bonuses that we're going to add to this video to better serve you, but just want to tell you all one more time what an honor and a privilege and a pleasure it was to speak at the Heat Franchise Summit, how much I appreciate each and every one of you for tuning in. And certainly if there's ever anything I can do for your team, whether you're a franchisor or a franchisee or a supplier, if there's anything I can do for your clients and customers, it'd be my honor to do it. Thank you. The goal of Raise Your Game was to offer some practical strategies on how someone can elevate their performance to a peak level. Now the goal once you've done that is to keep it at a peak level for long periods of time, I mean years and in many cases decades and how do you combat stress? How do you alleviate stagnation? But most importantly, how do you beat burnout? I'm not that old, I'm 44 years old and I can think of two very specific times where I was incredibly burnt out with what I was doing. And I've learned from both of those because looking back and of course hindsight's always 2020, I didn't handle the burnout as well as I could have. I wasn't as proactive with it as I could have been. So I very much want this book to also have this how-to mentality, but it's how to keep that fire alive and how to beat burnout once you've found something that you're really good at and that you really enjoy doing and that will be a challenge. One of the initial impetus for writing this book was, I remember way back when I worked the NBA Players Association camp and one of the players was talking to a bunch of the NBA rookies and just said, guys, I've got some good news and I've got some bad news. The good news is you've just made it to the NBA. That's been your lifelong dream and I'm happy for you. The bad news is that was actually the easy part. Getting to the NBA, which as hard as it is, is actually easier than staying in the NBA. I don't know if the statistics have changed, but at that time, the average NBA career was 3.5 years. That's not that long of a career, especially when you've worked your entire life to get to this mountain and now on average, you're only going to be at the top of this mountain for 3.5 years. That's tough. So on one hand, that makes guys like LeBron James and the late Kobe Bryant and Tim Duncan and Vince Carter, you know, even more remarkable that those guys are able to play at a high level for two decades. You know, a Tom Brady in another sport. I mean, it shows you how remarkable they are and those will be kind of the case studies that I'll be looking at. You know, why were they able to stay at the top of the mountain for 20 years when other people drop off after one or two and we could point to any industry. You know, our parents are a great example. You know, they have stayed atop the elementary education mountain for 30 years. I mean, that is remarkable. In a day and age where most people change jobs every couple years, what was it that allowed them to stay roughly in the same domain for that long? So it'll be a new challenge writing this book, but it'll be a lot of fun. The goal is to write it in a way that it is a standalone book. So this is not a part one and a part two.  But I also want to make sure that there is some connection so that if you did read, raise your game and you enjoyed it and found it beneficial, this will be done in a very similar style. Giving yourself permission to feel burnt out is a huge step and saying, I don't have to suppress this. I don't have to resist this. I can't actually talk about it, you know, with my inner circle. And I can work towards finding a way to remedy this. And the remedy will either be step away and self-care and come back with more vigor, or the remedy may be, well, let's change what we've been doing. So let's make sure we do a little internal pivot. The remedy may be, hey, I've just gotten everything out of this that I can, and now I'm going to do something new, but take some time to explore all of your different options and do them with no guilt and with no shame. But there's nothing wrong with feeling burnt out.  You know, hey, everything's not going to be roses. You know, and that, as we've already mentioned, generationally has changed.  They had one job and they stuck with that and you rode both out for 30 years until you retired and that was it. And we're seeing here that things are much different in that capacity. So giving yourself permission to feel that.  So there's nothing wrong with feeling angry, frustrated, upset, disappointed, pissed off, burnt out. There's nothing wrong with feeling those things. What you have to be careful of is letting those things dictate your behavior, letting them dictate the way you talk to other people, letting them dictate the way you show up every day, either as a spouse or as a parent or at your job. So if there's nothing wrong with feeling burnt out, unless you're allowing that burnout to make you irritable with those that you love, unless that burnout is making you so you're not showing up as a great teammate at your job. So now you're, you're giving your team less of a chance to be successful because you're feeling burnout. Now that's where we have an issue, but feeling it, there's nothing wrong with it. You just have to find a workaround so that it doesn't impact the way that you behave and the way that you act towards others. You know, this is one that I've been really reflecting on for the most part. And this folks, this, yeah, I don't want anyone to take this the wrong way, but everyone listening to this right now, you don't need motivation. You might think that you need motivation, but you don't need motivation. What you need is discipline. There's a difference between motivation and discipline. And, and, you know, I'm not saying that there's no place for motivation. And I certainly know that when you feel motivated to do something, there's less friction and it becomes easier to do that thing. There's no question about that. But motivation is what everyone's chasing and it's fulls gold. What everybody needs, myself included is more discipline. Self-discipline is the key to everything you want in your life. If you want to be happier, become more disciplined. If you want to be more financially free, become more disciplined. You want to get in better shape physically, become more disciplined. You want to have a better relationship with your kids, be more disciplined. And if you're wondering how does that, you know, if you want to have a better relationship with your kids, put your phone down when you're with them. That takes discipline to put your phone down because we're all tethered to those things. You know, I happened to be an early riser. You know, I happened to make my bed and meditate as soon as I get up and then I happened to get in some physical exercise. I don't always feel motivated to do any of those things, but I do them because I'm disciplined. I've built the muscle that allows me to do them, which means I make my bed, whether I'm motivated or not, I meditate, whether I feel like it or not. I work out whether it's convenient or not. It has nothing to do with motivation. In all honesty, I bet you I'm not any more motivated than anyone listening to this call on a prorated everyday basis. But in some areas I'm probably more disciplined. Now there's somebody on this call that's absolutely more disciplined than me in other areas. And that's the other thing is we have to remember that we want to look at this from kind of a holistic, you know, approach. But put more of your, if you're going to make some bets, put more of your money on discipline and less on motivation.  Are you a motivational speaker? Do you do what Tony Robbins does? I get that, but what's a disciplined speaker? Yeah. And that's really what it comes down to. Because when you're disciplined, you will do the things that are not easy to do. You'll find a way to get them done. And that's ultimately what we're all doing. But with all of that said, even with the discipline, always give yourself some grace and some compassion that you're not going to be, you know, disciplined every moment of every day. You know, you're going to have some lapses in discipline. You're going to make some mistakes and have some poor judgment. And that's okay. That's all part of the process. But that's the nice part about always focusing on the next play. So if you happen to do something very undisciplined, well, there's another moment coming right around the corner, just try to be more disciplined that time.  And you'll start to get back on the right track. For more from me, check out raiseyourgamebook.com or follow at Alan Stein Jr. on all of the major social platforms.