Athlete CEO: Recent Episodes
The Averill Brothers - Erik & Brandon Averill, AWM Capital, Erik Averill
Each week on Athlete CEO features select excerpts from interviews with trailblazers, the elite, those at the top of their field and the best at their craft with the goal to curate the best practices that you can leverage to unlock your human capital
Our daily life can often look like trying to drink from the firehose with billions of pieces of information available at our fingertips, notifications from multiple devices, and the ability to join millions of conversations around the world via social media.
We live in a world that rewards speed – how quick we think, react, and position ourselves, but thinking about more things – trying to speed up – can often lead instead to slowing down
Despite today’s reality seeming like a dream just 20-30 years ago, we can often find ourselves bogged down by this information, and there’s a reason for that: Hick’s Law.
This concept solidifies the idea of “analysis paralysis” and is the focus of today’s conversation between Erik and Josiah. They define Hick’s Law, how it impacts your performance, and what you can do to counteract it.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:
- (1:09) What is Hick’s Law and why does it matter for performance?
- (4:03) “You don’t go to Target to buy something; you go to Target so they can tell you what to buy.” Josiah Igono
- (4:56) Why you can’t go through the mental checklist of your biomechanics when you need to perform in the moment as an athlete.
- (5:49) Implicit vs Explicit Memory
- (7:42) What is your priority?
- (8:48) Eugene Fama’s 3 factors that the highest outperforming companies share
When people hear the term “positive psychology” it can often bring to mind the idea of “always staying positive” or trying to force yourself to never feel anger or pain, but Smaranda Lawrie says that’s B.S.
Smaranda has a PhD in psychology and brain science from UCSB, is the founder of UCSB’s Resilience Summit, currently is an assistant professor at Providence College, and is a key researcher on positive psychology.
As a child, Smaranda’s family were political refugees from Romania who – in fleeing the country – ended up in Hungary hiding in apartments and even an underground tunnel to a refugee camp in Austria. She shares some of the hardships she experienced as a kid, how she learned resilience to get through them, and how research shows the importance of building resilience through parenting.
In this episode, Brandon and Erik talk with Smaranda about positive psychology actually is, leading research on how practicing it can improve your performance and overall outlook on life, what’s in the toolkit of positive psychology, and how to practice it with your kids.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- (2:15) How Smaranda’s experiences as a Romanian immigrant taught her resilience and influenced her decision to research positive psychology
- (4:15) I think sometimes people think that it’s all about happiness and having this Pollyanna smile on your face all the time. And it’s really not.” -Smaranda Lawrie
- (6:03) Positive psychology isn’t about ignoring pain and anger
- (7:49) Who is positive psychology for?
- (10:00) Smaranda’s experiences as a wife of a professional football player
- (15:29) How to parent through times of uncertainty and change
- (18:47) “We've become, in the past couple of decades, just increasingly more protective of our children. I know it's very well intentioned, but on one hand, we're telling them that they can do anything in the world and that they're their own person and they can reach for the stars and whatever. On the other hand, we're handholding them along the way.” – Smaranda Lawrie
- (23:39) How to use the tools and skillsets of positive psychology in parenting to help teach kids to regulate emotions and decisions
- (27:51) The simple gratitude exercise everyone from 2-year-olds to Fortune 500 CEOs should practice
- (31:02) How does identity fit into the conversation?
- (34:40) Why don’t we spend more time thinking about our values?
- (37:21) The importance of relationships
- (38:58) The PERMA theory
- (44:02) What advice do you have for parents with older kids – is it “too late”?
- (52:09) The research on aging well
As athletes, we’ve all heard some variation of “You’ve just got to have confidence,” as if it’s just a switch you haven’t flipped on yet.
But how? You can’t just create confidence out of thin air.
And what does it look like? Is it simply just going out on the field with the belief that you’ll win? Is it carrying yourself with certain body language? Is it surrounding yourself with people who will tell you you’re great?
To build confidence, you have to first understand exactly what it is. Only then can you focus on building on your own confidence in all areas of your life.
In this episode of Athlete CEO: Peak Performance, Josiah Igono and Erik Averill define confidence, why it’s important, and tangible ways to boost your own confidence level.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- (1:24) Defined: What exactly is confidence?
- (3:33) Feed the B.E.A.S.T. to build your confidence
- (5:08) “You don’t have to be the thermometer; be the thermostat.” – Josiah Igono
- (5:25) “Your environment matters, because we don’t live in a neutral world.” – Erik Averill
- (6:07) David Rock’s SCARF model of leadership
- (10:44) More Athlete CEO: Peak Performances on B.E.A.S.T.
B | Championship Body Language
E | The #1 Skill to Peak Performance
A | Find, Attach and Attack Your Way to Clarity, Countering Negativity with Thought-Stopping
S | The 3 Keys to Mental Performance, The Science of Self-Talk
T | Do You Spend More Time in Reflection or Strategy?, Capturing What’s Most Important
We believe the best investment you can make is in yourself - your human capital.
Our guest, Fabrice Gautier, has created outsized returns for some of the world’s best athletes like Rudy Gobert, Giancarlo Stanton, Kevin Love, Carmelo Anthony, Tony Parker, and more, and he has served as the French National Basketball team’s osteopath since 2009.
Described by Kevin Love as “the swiss army knife when it comes to optimizing your health and performance,” Fabrice is a licensed physical therapist and osteopath who has been particularly noteworthy for his approach of viewing an injury not just as an injury, but looking at the comprehensive solution to resolve the root issue causing that injury, which requires assessing the full person – body, mind, soul. Ultimately, the goal is to address the problem, not the consequence.
Fabrice joins Erik and Brandon and covers a range of helpful topics from his experience discussing everything from how he’s seen some of the best athletes build out the teams that surround them, to finding the root of chronic injuries, and why he thinks a strength and conditioning coach and a chef are the two most important people to have on your team.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- (1:47) Seeing the person; not a patient
- (6:07) The European vs American approaches to physical therapy
- (10:11) When should someone show up in Fabrice’s office?
- (14:28) How should an athlete handle building out the team that surrounds them?
- (20:29) The importance of having a plan
- (23:24) How should a new athlete just starting out approach building a core team that can help keep him or her healthy throughout their career?
- (28:54) The importance of investing in yourself
- (30:49) Why you need a chef – and maybe even a masseuse
- (33:31) Is lifestyle assessment becoming more normal in the performance space?
- (39:20) At the end of the day, it takes hard work
- (42:35) Learning from other sports
Perfectionism plagues so many high achievers. Perfectionism is not accepting anything short of perfection.
Is perfectionism good, or is it bad?
Research by Dr. Joachim Stoeber has shown that individuals who strive for perfection on the athletic field outperform and outclass their peers…until they don't.
The problem therein lies in what happens when you don't reach perfection. It leads to the fear of failure, fear of criticism, stress, depression, and anxiety.
How do you reap the benefits and avoid the pitfalls?
Peak Performance coach Josiah Igono teaches you to leverage an ancient military strategy to overcome perfectionism and reach your full potential.
- Celebrate
- All Out
- Make Minor Improvements
- Process
- Separate
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- (1:25) Paralyzing perfection
- (1:49) Defining perfectionism
- (3:01) Is chasing perfection good or bad for performance?
- (4:44) C.A.M.P.S.
- (7:54) Incorporating reflection with C.A.M.P.S.
Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) is the first step for collegiate athletes to begin getting fairly compensated for their abilities and dedication to their sport. The last two months, we’ve seen headlines of athletes signing deals with national brands, local businesses, and creating their own personal trademarks.
As a collegiate athlete, what are the most important questions and factors you should be considering before stepping into the world of NIL?
Doug Fillis, founder of Accelerate Sports Ventures, an NIL education and consulting firm, joins us to answer important questions the athletes need to know. With Doug’s extensive background in sports marketing and commitment to advising on NIL, we find out the answers to what matters most to you as a student athlete.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHT
- Staying eligible
- Will marketing money ruin your financial aid?
- How to find a good marketing agent
- How to evaluate an agent’s track record and skill
- Can a deal be for an entire sports team - i.e. the whole football team?
- Cash flow, taxes and what’s important
- Use of the school’s logos/brand
- Is the team that’s advising you competent?
You are your own brand.
Countless times we have all heard this. And now that amateur athletes are able to monetize their Name, Image, & Likeness (NIL) the message is being shouted from the roof top.
Yet, the majority of advice is incomplete and misses the main point. The "brand" is only as valuable as the "business" that is built. Companies and people partner with brands (individual or corporate) because they believe those brands will help them become more valuable.
What is your business and what value do you offer?
On today's show, we have the privilege to hear from Evan Parker, Vice President and General Manager of The Athletic. Evan has led the Athletic to become the most valuable brand in sports journalism.
Lessons From Evan In This Episode:
- What goes into building a brand
- What makes you value to a company
- How to choose who to partner with
- How athletes can create passive income
- Who are the experts you need to build a business.
Whether you are an athlete, entrepreneur or individual looking to increase your value (human capital) this episode is for you.
You’re in a performance competition, on the field or court in the middle of a game, or about to give a big presentation and your brain starts running wild with self-defeating thoughts.
What do you do?
For some, it can be hard to overcome these negative thoughts and their performance suffers. However, in today’s Athlete CEO: Peak Performance episode, Erik and Josiah discuss another way to combat these thoughts through the concept of thought-stopping.
They discuss what thought-stopping is, why this topic is considered controversial by some experts, and ways to practice it to see if it’s helpful for you.
EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS
- (1:01) This month’s topic: Thought Stopping
- (1:29) What is thought stopping and why is it controversial?
- (3:27) Telling yourself not to think about pink elephants?
- (5:16) There is no one size fits all
- (6:31) How does positive psychology fit into this?
- (7:41) Advice for athletes applying thought-stopping
- (10:35) What you say to yourself is the loudest voice
We have all been there. In high impact situations and high stress situations we forget to breathe.
At the exact moment we need to be at our best, we cut off our brain’s lifeline to function. Shutting down our frontal lobe, which is responsible for high level thought, decision-making, executive functioning, being able to think backwards, think strategically, and being able to innovate.
“Be in control of your breathing, be in control of your performance.” Dr. Ken Ravizza
The benefits are unmatched when you can really control your breathing:
- Decreases stress
- Decreases anxiety
- Decreases muscle tension
- Improves performance
Listen in as Peak Performance Coach, Josiah Igono, PHD provides practical tools and resources to unlock the full power of breathing.
Resources:
- Wim Hof
- Tactical Field Guide by Josiah Igono
- Ken Ravizza, Ph.D.
- Whoop
- Oura
- The Breathing Cure by Patrick McKeown
- The Body Keeps The Score
- Andy Clower
Recommended Podcasts:
- Unlocking Human Performance With Phil Wallin
- Avoiding Burnout and Finding Wholeness with Andy Maurer
Be present. Stay in the moment. One pitch/swing/snap at a time. The past is behind you.
Simple concepts. Extremely difficult to execute. Yet, the ones that do separate themselves from the crowd.
The tool the high performers use to execute: Release Techniques.
When things starts to bubble up a release technique helps you to reset.
Listen in as Peak Performance Coach, Josiah Igono, PHD breaks down everything you need to know about developing your own release techniques and unlocking your full potential.
We love being a part of a community that is driven to win. A community where each of us are in pursuit of being the best in the world. To be masters of our craft.
Many begin the journey, but few arrive. It can be lonely, exhausting and filled with dangerous pitfalls that threaten your success.
The biggest threat, your mental health.
Thankfully, this is not a path you have to travel alone. From Michael Phelps, to Kevin Love and Hayden Hurst we have professional athletes bringing the awareness and resources to the forefront to help us redefine what high performance truly means.
Listen in to this Athlete CEO Episode with special guest, Jason Law as we dive into bringing you the knowledge, tools and experts surrounding mental health.
It’s been estimated that the human mind is capturing anywhere between 10,000-60,000 thoughts per day, and that we scroll somewhere in the range of the Statue of Liberty’s to the Eiffel Tower’s height per day.
We are inundated with information every day – how do you capture what’s most important to unlock your full human capital?
By utilizing one of the most pivotal tools of performance: journaling.
Through the frontal lobe, the brain has a built-in functionality to sift through the proverbial firehose of information we’re consuming throughout our days and makes executive decisions on what to store and what to sift out, so a constant barrage of information can actually tax the performance of that function.
So as Josiah puts it, “you cannot use what you can’t access.”
With the habit of journaling, we unlock the ability to note the most important points from that recent book we’ve read, performance notes from our last training session, map out our big goals, and it even helps us address stress and anxiety.
Our resident performance coach and founder of All Things Performance, Josiah Igono, joins Erik once again to discuss this topic and how to implement it in our lives to improve our performance in all areas of life.
Episode Highlights
- Stats of the daily firehose of information (1:34)
- How journaling helps us use the information we gather daily to actually become actionable (4:07)
- “You cannot use what you cannot access” – Josiah Igono (5:47)
- How journaling helps us set goals and find clarity (8:27)
- How journaling can help with stress and anxiety (11:47)
- “A listening ear has a healing quality” – Josiah Igono (12:12)
- What is stream-of-consciousness journaling? (13:02)
On today’s episode, Phil Wallin, owner & CEO of Diesel Fitness & Health & Recovery shares how the revolution of wearable technology such as the Whoop is fueling performance like never before.
The world of sports and investing is driven by analytics because the numbers don’t lie. Analytics provide answers to the most important questions:
- What is valuable?
- What drives performance?
- Can it be improved?
Our community is constantly looking for the next edge. Yet, the one thing we have control over is still the most untapped: our human performance.
For the professional athlete, it is so important that your bank account is tied directly to your physical performance.
Yet, most athletes are still guessing when it comes to their health & performance.
“If you are not wearing, you are guessing. If you don’t understand the data, we can teach you. Is your career not important enough?” – Phil Wallin
Listen in as Phil breaks down the 3 Pillars of Health & Performance and the technology you need to gain the edge you are looking for.
The difference between a good performance and a great performance is the result of how you show up.
Are you at your absolute best? Have you set yourself up for peak performance?
Very few of the mental skills are designed to help us up-regulate. Most of the skills are focused on slowing down, being present, and calming yourself.
But, what if you could wake yourself up, become hyper-focused, and create an edge at the right moment?
Listen in as Josiah Igono, PHD Performance Psychology unlocks the powerful skill of Arousal Regulation.
Episode Highlights
- (01:24): What is Arousal Regulation
- (03:46): What is Catastrophe Theory
- (04:21): 4 Tactics to upregulate
- (08:28): The Danger of Stoicism
- (08:55): How to spike your HRV
- (09:45): When to use Arousal Regulation
- (11:34): What does it mean to be fully human?
- (12:27): The importance of individualization
- (14:40): Owning your development and performance
More resources at awmcap.co/aceo50
Your presence is everything – it dictates your performance, how you’re viewed, how other respond to you, and even how you feel about yourself.
Our brains are wired to protect and to predict, so the way we comport ourselves – whether it’s on the mound, in the boardroom, or in daily interactions – makes a difference in how others will respond, think, and feel.
As athletes, the truth is that we want to have a dominant presence on the field. We want to be confident and take up space. We want to be big. This comes from a confidence that you can actually do what you set out to do – beat your opponent and win.
Ultimately, as Josiah shares in this episode, confidence begins by adopting championship body language as there is a measurable reaction occurring at a neurochemical level. In today’s episode, Josiah and Erik discuss this concept and the science that ties confidence and body language together.
Episode Highlights
- (1:12) What is championship body language?
- (2:21) The science behind presence
- (3:33) The difference between having a strong presence and being domineering
- (5:28) Being a dominant athlete
- (6:37) Your reaction as an athlete to committing an error on the field
- (9:50) Where to find the best research on body language
- (10:49) Having confidence in your teammates and coaches
- (15:09) Is it in you?
As an elite performer you’ve worked hard to get where you’re at. The work to stay at the top comes with immense pressure and a grind to continually improve. Also, success can make it hard to get clear, direct feedback, and it can attract people who don’t have your best interests in mind.
How do you continue to reach for greatness without folding to the pressures of perfectionism? How can you work to build an inner circle of people with your best interests in mind – who can give you direct and candid feedback that will help you get better at what you do?
Today we’re joined by Darleen Santore – also known as Coach Dar. She is a board-certified occupational therapist, business owner, and performance coach for professional athletes and executives.
Coach Dar was recently named a senior fellow at PathNorth, an organization comprised of leaders and CEOs of fortune 100 companies, the WNBA named her the Most Inspiring Woman of 2017, she is the U.S. Ambassador for Pay It Forward Day, and she recently launched her own social platform called Kindli, which puts the focus squarely on kindness and positivity with a goal to generate over a billion acts of kindness around the world.
Coach Dar discusses with Erik and Brandon about how to define greatness, what it means to be a pro, dealing with the pressures of perfection, and surrounding yourself with people who will help you grow.
Episode Highlights
- (00:08) More about Coach Dar
- "The thing about greatness and being great, everyone has the ability to reach greatness within them with the God-given talent they have, but few are willing to truly do what it takes to be that truest and best version of themselves." – Coach Dar
- (4:22) How to define greatness
- (5:14) “Being a pro does not mean perfection. It means 1% progress. Every day you’re back – being consistent and disciplined to do what you need to do to be the best.” – Coach Dar
- (5:49) What holds people back from greatness?
- (7:36) What are the practical steps to committing to the process and implementing a plan
- (9:42) Finding the right help
- (11:49) The science of occupational therapy
- (18:27) Why aren’t people working with performance coaches?
- (20:25) How Tom Brady and LeBron James got where they are
- (21:09) Why working with a peak performance coach doesn’t mean something is wrong with you
- (24:00) Dealing with the pressure of perfection
- (26:11) “I'm going to help you find your whypower over willpower. Your willpower is going to give up when you're going through a tough season, right? You can't lean on willpower every day, but I'm going to remind you - why'd you get up?” – Coach Dar
- (27:27) The importance of reframing
- (30:06) Getting direct feedback
- (32:52) Building your trusted inner circle
- (38:32) Cutting down your circle
- (41:35) One of the key questions to ask in close relationships
Do You Spend More Time In Reflection or Strategy? | Josiah Igono, Erik Averill | Athlete CEO: Peak Performance
Living in an “always on” and “permanently connected” world, our everyday experience is littered with a proverbial fire hose of information. We can get any question answered in the blink of an eye on Google, learn how to build a house on YouTube, and keep up with the daily activities of our friends and family on apps like Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or TikTok.
It can be overwhelming to sort through this information overload to actually learn something, and even more daunting to carve out space to reflect and grow in this age of constant noise.
We return again this week with another Peak Performance edition of the Athlete CEO podcast with Josiah Igono, founder of All Things Performance. Our Peak Performance episodes with Josiah are all about helping you develop skills that will drive your human capital and performance, as well as help you achieve the life you envisioned.
In this episode, Erik and Josiah look at this problem of improving, growing, and learning in an era of information overload by discussing the importance of reflection, the questions to ask yourself while reflecting, and how practicing this skill set can improve our overall performance trajectory.
Episode Highlights
- (00:57) What is reflection?
- (1:49) Do you spend more time in reflection or in strategy?
- “One of the interview questions that I would always ask was, ‘do you spend more time in reflection or in strategy?’” - Josiah Igono
- “Reflection is the mental review” – Josiah Igono
- (3:07) Drowning in information overload
- (4:41) The differences between reflection and strategy
- (5:17) The questions for reflection
- (6:44) Reflection is not Mindfulness
- (8:13) How a cow chewing is similar to reflecting throughout your day
- (10:47) What are tangible ways to build the habit of reflecting?
- “Clumsiness is actually a sign of growth” – Josiah Igono
- (13:18) How toddlers are actually better than us at approaching new tasks
- (14:57) The scientific benefits of journaling
It’s often said, “it’s lonely at the top.”
As venture capitalists, business executives, and professional athletes at the highest level, there can often be a mentality that you should just focus on performing and avoid feelings of burn out, toxic stress, or loneliness.
However, we’ve all seen examples of - or felt ourselves - this mentality not being sustainable over the long term.
In this episode of the Athlete CEO, Erik is joined by Andy Maurer, licensed therapist and emotional wellness coach specializing in leadership, trauma and emotional health. Andy utilizes cutting edge clinical research paired with therapeutic best practices and strategies to help high performance leaders - including CEOs, founders, and entrepreneurs - operate at a higher caliber and in healthy and sustainable ways.
Erik and Andy discuss pursuing wholeness and avoiding fragmentation while leading and give practical steps to starting work on your inner game.
Episode Highlights
- 95% of cognition happens at the subconscious level (2:33)
- Can we overcome our subconscious? (3:40)
- Two kinds of processing (4:13)
- Logic vs Emotion (5:29)
- Demystifying “emotional wellness” (7:31)
- “With emotional wellness coaching, what I'm really trying to get across is I'm trying to help people live an integrated whole life as a leader. So, I focus a lot less on how to get rid of problems and I focus more on how to bring about something in the leader's life. Oftentimes, I see that they're fragmented, they're disjointed, they're lost internally, they don't know what they feel, they don't know who they are in a lot of ways, and my job is to help them reclaim that or rediscover that.” – Andy Maurer
- The difference between therapy and emotional wellness (9:37)
- The stats on entrepreneurs (12:17)
- The big issue that the top business editorials miss (12:45)
- The external vs internal (13:16)
- Fears about addressing your inner game (17:06)
- Defining “wholeness” (18:57)
- Battling imposter syndrome (23:43)
- Tools and tactics in pursuing wholeness (26:12)
- How burnout happens (28:44)
- When dialing in fitness and nutrition isn’t enough (29:53)
- Taking first steps toward emotional wellness (31:57)
- Practicing reflection (36:53)
- The impacts of toxic stress (42:45)
- How the body deals with stress (46:06)
Resources
- Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman
- The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
- Anatomy of the Soul by Curt Thompson
- Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett
How can some players overcome mental hurdles and self-doubt to hit that game winning home run, make that difficult catch, or sink the perfect putt? Why do we see so many first-round draft picks ending up a bust?
At AWM Capital, we believe one of the greatest drivers of your wealth is your human capital and one of the goals of the Athlete CEO podcast is to help you learn new ways of tapping into your full potential. That's why each month we’re joined by Josiah Igono, Ph.D. of Performance Psychology and founder of All Things Performance for our Peak Performance edition of the podcast to discuss concepts and tactics to help us improve our performance in all areas of our life.
In this episode, Josiah and Erik discuss how we can redirect our words and emotions to improve performance through a practice called reframing. Josiah shares the science behind reframing, the power of hearing your own voice, and achieving one of the major keys to success: self-awareness.
Episode Highlights
- What is reframing? (1:38)
- How is this different than just “think happy thoughts”? (2:52)
- Finding what you can do vs what you can’t do (4:32)
- The power of your voice (5:42)
- Don’t lie to yourself (7:30)
- Defining psychology (8:00)
- Evaluating your current frame (9:45)
- The importance of self-awareness (11:01)
- “Everything boils down to self-awareness. Once you become self-aware, that is when change can happen because you know now that the problem exists.” – Josiah Igono
- Insightfulness during COVID (13:14)
- “I think that reverts back to your previous conversations: clarity, who do I actually want to become? Who do I want to be? How do I want other people, not to perceive me so that I can have some facade or to attain approval, but to genuinely have healthy relationships? How do I do that?” – Erik Averill
- The limbic system response (15:08)
- “When you look at an individual and you see their performance, you see how they live. It's like seeing an apple or a fruit on a tree. When you see an apple or a piece of fruit hanging on a tree, that is not telling the full story. The full story is the root system, right? What is the root system? The root system can be things like beliefs. It can be things like memories, reactions, actions. It can be words. It can be memories. These things all feed into the trunk of that tree.” – Josiah Igono
- Modeling during childhood development and its impact today (16:46)
Resources Mentioned
- Permission to Feel by Marc Brackett, Ph.D.
- Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
- Tactical Field Manual by Josiah Igono
“2020 was a little crazy.”
That is the understatement of the year.
A global pandemic, volatile markets, athletic seasons paused then modified. Many companies who had set their “20/20 in 2020” vision campaigns ended up having to scrap much of their planning and pivot in what looks to be a new normal moving into 2021.
Yet despite the volatility, AWM Capital, as Managing Partner Brandon Averill puts it, has “grown from an organization to a company.”
In this episode of the Athlete CEO, we get the opportunity to turn the focus around to the two who typically ask the questions – Erik Averill, CFP®, CPWA®, CKA® and Brandon Averill, CFP®, CPWA®, CIPM.
As two of AWM’s three co-founders, Erik and Brandon look back on 2020 – the lessons learned, challenges navigated, and vision for the company as we move into 2021 and beyond – and share some of the best practices they’ve picked up along the way as business founders and operators.
Episode Highlights
- Year in review (00:15)
- Summing up the year for AWM Capital (1:23)
- Growing from an organization to a company (2:37)
- Making the decision to go all in (3:31)
- Building a company that outlasts its founders (5:14)
- “Hire on culture, fire on culture” (6:26)
- Defining and developing culture (7:08)
- Building the super-charged team bus (8:53)
- The passion to serve the client (10:48)
- Knowledge vs Expertise (13:24)
- “If you waste wealth, all you’re doing is wasting impact.” – Brandon Averill
- Refinement over the long term (16:13)
- “The truth is if you have multi-generational visions and timeframes, you can out perform. You can make an impact.” – Erik Averill
- Leading teams through challenging times (18:26)
- Always learning and developing (22:20)
- Thinking about agility and adaptability (24:11)
- Reimagining the family office (27:23)
- AWM’s 2021 vision (28:20)
Resources Mentioned:
- Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't
- No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
- Miracle (2004 movie)
- Tim Ferriss Podcast: Harley Finkelstein – Tactics and Strategies from Shopify, the Future of Retail, and More (#486)
We’ve all been there – taking the field at the big game, stepping into the boardroom for an important meeting, coming home after a long day to rambunctious kids who demand your attention, or heading in for the massive exam.
It can be easy to get overwhelmed and shut down, to lose focus, to have 10,000 thoughts suddenly racing through your head that draw your attention away.
How do you push past these mental hurdles? How can you be wholly present and focused on your intended results?
In our Peak Performance episodes, Erik Averill, co-founder of AWM Capital, is joined by Josiah Igono, our resident PhD of Performance Psychology and founder of All Things Performance, to focus on helping you develop the greatest impact on your net worth: your human capital.
In the last episode, Josiah shared the skills and habits that are foundational for reaching our performance goals. This week, we drill down on focal points. Erik and Josiah discuss what focal points are and how to set them to achieve high performance at work, on the field, and at home.
Episode Highlights
- Focusing on focal points (00:28)
- Defining focal points (1:08)
- “A focal point is somewhere in the performance field whereby I can just anchor my thoughts and I can just take those 10 to 50,000 thoughts that are racing through my mind and calm it down and zero in on what I'm about to do next.” – Josiah Igono
- Find, Attach, Attack (1:41)
- Applying focal points for professional athletes (2:52)
- High Performance Habits by Brendon Burchard
- Battling mental fogginess and finding clarity with focal points (3:55)
- How focal points lengthens the space for your responses (5:55)
- “Between stimulus and response, there is a space, and in that space is our ability to choose, and in our choice lies our growth and our freedom.” – Viktor Frankl
- Setting intention at home through focal points (7:06)
- “But when you have these focal points and some of these mental skills in place, what it does, it actually allows you to have control. Time is not leading me, I'm telling time where to go.” – Josiah Igono (9:25)
- Existing vs Flourishing (9:58)
- “We’re not created to just exist, we’re created to flourish” – Erik Averill (10:39)
Listen and Subscribe to the Athlete CEO podcast with Brandon and Erik Averill from AWM Capital on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
For more information visit: www.athleteceo.com
At AWM Capital, we believe that the greatest driver of your net worth is your human capital. So much hinges on your ability to perform – on the field or in the board room – over the course of your career, so it’s pivotal to continually work on improving your mental and physical game.
When it comes to performance coaching, Josiah Igono is one of the best. Having most recently left his position as Director of Peak Performance for the Texas Rangers to focus on building his own business, All Things Performance, Josiah will be joining us every other episode to share the most important Peak Performance resources available to improve your ability to grow and perform.
This week, Josiah and AWM co-founder Erik Averill discuss performance versus life hacking, defining your goals, and the 3 keys to mental performance.
Key Topics Discussed:
- Josiah’s background in performance at Arizona State and then the Texas Rangers (00:40)
- How to define “performance” (1:10)
- “Performance boils down to the execution of a specific task or function” -Josiah Igono
- Life Hacking vs Developing Mental Performance (2:14)
- “The work itself is my reward” -Josiah Igono
- “Hacks are not a long-term solution for success.” -Josiah Igono
- Do you have a plan? (4:39)
- The 3 keys to mental performance (6:31)
- Implementing the 3 keys (8:33)
- What are your goals? (9:39)
1:50
GoWild is not just a “Facebook” for Outdoorsman.
“If you post a hunting adventure [on social media], you can get trolled you can get death threats...it’s crazy. We wanted to build something that catered to this audience in ways that social media just didn’t.”
10:00
Moving from the marketing side of business to the founder side can be difficult, what led Brad Luttrell to where he is today?
17:06
Is there anything that Brad can remember from his past that was really helpful to get him to where he is today?
23:15
Brad Luttrell: “I’ve come to realize, and I really believe, that this is not about as much 'it’s worth more,' - it’s more about 'I have more work to do.'”
25:35
What advice would Brad Luttrell give to someone who is building a company or product trying to keep the client in mind?
Brad Luttrell: “Talk to them. Too many people build products for somebody that they have never really talked to.”
31:00
What is it like to have co-founders?
37:03
As a CEO of a fast growing company, how does Brad Luttrell prioritize objectives while also letting his people do what they need to do?
44:49
Brad talks about Raise 'Em Outdoors, a nonprofit camp that GoWild donates 1% of their profits to. Raising My Doors is a camp that teaches kids how to safely hunt, fish, and shoot.
54:44
Brad Luttrell: “Am I gonna be sad if I don’t do this anymore?...You can add a lot of value into your life at 15-20 minutes a day, or you can waste a whole lot of it.”
Listen and Subscribe to the Athlete CEO podcast with Brandon and Erik Averill from AWM Capital on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
For more information visit: www.athleteceo.com
Athlete CEO Podcast
Optimizing Your Human Potential
Joe Schmidt Ep. 4
Guest: Joe Schmidt, Former Notre Dame football captain, investor in Excel, a venture capital firm and he now runs strategy, sales and partnerships for Ethos Life.
Twitter @joeschmidtiv
On the fourth and final part of our interview with Joe Schmidt we discuss how Joe puts his high athletic performance into his real life, the four pillars that Joe has broken his life into, and the greatest advice he’s gotten from a mentor.
4:02
What cultivated Joe Schmidt’s intense desire for learning and has he always been a lifelong learner?
“This isn't the dress rehearsal, this is the show. We got one shot as humans in one lifetime.”
5:12
What are Joe Schmidt’s go to resources and does he have a specific approach to how he goes about learning?
Joe finds it’s better to be malleable in the things you seek to learn about. He doesn’t read the same newspapers or magazines or blogs every day, but he comes upon different topics he’s passionate about and gains a deeper understanding of those topics.
7:20
As former elite athletes, one of the things they believe in is high performance, and they believe that high performance should go far beyond the field. How does Joe Schmidt approach his life outside of work and how does he optimize all aspects of his life?
Joe has Four Core Pillars: Athletic or health, academic or professional goals, spiritual and social.
“If any of those core pillars goes to zero, the entire value of the equation goes to zero.”
11:19
Who are some mentors in Joe’s life? One of the most important takeaways from a mentor in Joe Schmidt’s life is the idea of Galileo’s Theory of Relativity.
14:20
What has Joe learned in this time of COVID and how has his life shifted?
Listen and Subscribe to the Athlete CEO podcast with Brandon and Erik Averill from AWM Capital on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
For more information visit: www.athleteceo.com
Athlete CEO Podcast
15 Minutes and a Cup of Coffee
Joe Schmidt Ep. 3
Guest: Joe Schmidt, Former Notre Dame football captain, investor in Excel, a venture capital firm and he now runs strategy, sales and partnerships for Ethos Life.
Twitter @joeschmidtiv
1:47
Brandon Averill on building up your network through Joe Schmidt’s advice by asking for 15 minutes and a cup of coffee. FInd people, meet them and build your network.
2:57
You don’t always know where your next opportunity is going to come from, but you got to play to win.
4:05
What advice would you give to founders looking for capital and how do you give a good pitch from the founders prospective?
Joe Schmidt: “You’ve got to recognize what you are doing in these meetings. You’re selling yourself, your co-founder, and the dream.
6:37
Joe Schmidt quotes an African Proverb, “If you wanna go quickly, go alone. If you wanna go far, go together.”
10:50
His approach to investment has more to do with the people than anything else.
Joe Schmidt: “I’m gonna go out there and meet as many people as possible. Not interviewing, just meet people and learn.”
14:10
Joe Schmidt: You’re not asking for anything other than 15 mins of coffee”
Do not go around begging for a shot or interviews, just ask someone for a small amount of their time to learn from them.
Listen and Subscribe to the Athlete CEO podcast with Brandon and Erik Averill from AWM Capital on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
For more information visit: www.athleteceo.com
Athlete CEO Podcast
Venture Capital and the 99.9%
Joe Schmidt Ep. 2
Guest: Joe Schmidt, Former Notre Dame football captain, investor in Excel, a venture capital firm and he now runs strategy, sales and partnerships for Ethos Life.
Twitter @joeschmidtiv
1:51
Brandon Averill on AWM Capital and how their approach to investment mirrors that of Accel Ventures, which is focused on long time outcomes. The deal flow that pro athletes might see has already been picked over by professional investors.
3:07
Erik Averill on one of the most important mistakes pro athletes and others make when it comes to venture capital investments, which is understanding the terms and the implication of those terms. Getting access to certain funds or opportunities is great, but the terms of those deals is extremely important in the investment outcome.
4:05
Venture capital investments do not make sense for 99.9% of people.
4:46
Joe Schmidt on getting a deal across the finish line: Accel will look at 10,000 or so companies and only invest in around 10 over the course of the year.
Joe Schmidt: “It’s like the old Ted Williams quote, the master of waiting for his pitch, that’s kind of how you’ve got to be as an investor, you’ve just got to wait for the right pitch to cross the plate.”
6:20
Why Venture Capital Investment is not for 99.9% of pro athletes and/or other investors.
Joe Schmidt: “I listened to a very, very well known player in the NFL stand in front of an entire group once and give the advice that you need to know your financial advisor’s name. The amount of insanity that’s happening around athletes…”
8:41
It’s very difficult to do investment the right way. It’s important for everyone to realize that even if you’ve made money playing pro sports or as a founder or CEO, you might know your industry well, but find people you trust to help navigate important decisions that take a lot of careful consideration.
Listen and Subscribe to the Athlete CEO podcast with Brandon and Erik Averill from AWM Capital on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
For more information visit: www.athleteceo.com
Athlete CEO Podcast
Skin in the Game
Guest: Joe Schmidt, Former Notre Dame football captain, investor in Accel, a venture capital firm and he now runs strategy, sales and partnerships for Ethos Life.
Twitter @joeschmidtiv
2:01
Brandon Averill on Ethos Life disrupting the life insurance model and the need for disruption in the insurance industry.
2:58
Erik Averill on the transition for Joe on moving from being an investor to an operator within a company and how much skin in the game changes the approach.
4:20
Similar to working with consultants, you can only learn so much as an investor in a company.
5:20
What exactly is Ethos, and what exactly are you doing there?
Ethos LIfe is a next generation life insurance company that flips the archaic way of buying and selling life insurance on its head. There is a massive coverage gap with people who should have life insurance, but don’t because the process is so archaic. The goal of Ethos is to help and protect the next million families looking for life insurance.
7:00
The reason Ethos Life is attacking the life insurance market is to flip the current archaic model.
Joe Schmidt: “When it comes to life insurance, you have these companies and distribution models that really have not changed in 150 to sometimes close to 200 years.
11:10
What are the differences between the investing side of business and the operating side of business, and what are some of the challenges that Joe faces?
13:45
How did Joe Schmidt end up at Accel and how did being an athlete work in his favor?
Listen and Subscribe to the Athlete CEO podcast with Brandon and Erik Averill from AWM Capital on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
For more information visit: https://awmcap.com/
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Athlete CEO with Erik Averill and Brandon Averill
Separators of Success
Guest: Craig Domann
Website: https://360sportsrep.com/about-360/
Podcast: https://www.promindsetpodcast.com/
3:00
There are seven key ingredients that someone needs to be successful:
- Believe in yourself
- You need passion for what your sport
- There needs to be a motivational factor
- Outstanding habits
- Hard working
- Lifestyle must be consistent with your dream
- Competitive performance
6:15
What are good habits, and how does someone modify them if they do not have good ones?
11:51
How do you change your identity, and how do you go about changing the way you think about your life?
19:09
The most important thing for a player to decide when retiring is to determine what their passion is after they are done playing professional sports.
36:57
If you did not have 30/40 minutes to have a conversation with someone, say you only had a few minutes to leave an impact, what advice would you give to a young NFL player?
37:29
Craig Dowman: “Be all in. Have no regrets. This is it. Nothing is promised after this season.”
Listen and Subscribe to the Athlete CEO podcast with Brandon and Erik Averill from AWM Capital on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
For more information visit: https://awmcap.com/
Investing in Tik Tok US?
AWM Insights
Presented by AWM Capital
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Justin Dyer: LinkedIn
Investment in Tik Tok US is starting to make headlines; Erik, Brandon and Justin give you The Average Joes vs. Pros on Tik Tok impact in public + private markets.
:40 - 1:16
Apple’s app store charges are back in the news. Spotify, Fortnight’s Epic Games and Tinder have all partnered with the non-profit coalition called the Coalition of App Fairness to bring legal action against Apple to see if they can bring down their charges.
1:34 - 2:50
The latest legal standing for Tik Tok in the United States. President Trump being asked to defend his status on Tik Tok to a US District Court.
3:02 - 5:30
Average Joe’s vs. Pros:
What does the Tik Tok news mean for investors? Should you go buy Oracle and Walmart stock with their investment to Tik Tok US?
5:31 - 8:28
What does the Tik Tok news mean for the private markets?
8:42
Recapping the news on Tik Tok and the impact it will have on the public and private markets.
Judge says U.S. must defend or delay TikTok app store ban by Friday
Subscribe to AWM Insights presented by AWM Capital on Apple, Spotify, Tune-In, Stitcher or at clnsmedia.com
Last week, we discussed the Federal Reserve’s recent meetings where they signaled a willingness to allow a rise in inflation over the next 10-20 years. We received a lot of good feedback and follow up questions, and as a result are following up in a part two this week where we can address a few of the implications for investors.
Our managing partner, Brandon Averill, is joined again by our Chief Investment Officer, Justin Dyer to discuss:
• With the Fed signaling that they would likely allow inflation to rise over the next 10-20 years, are we as investors happy about that?
• Would a higher than normal rise in inflation impact our investment strategies for our clients? Would it dictate a change in our portfolios?
• Could inflation change investment performance over time? Are there ways to protect or adjust for that?
• Are there any adjustments that are needed to allow for inflation?
• What are Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities (TIPS)?
Athlete CEO Podcast
Advice All Pro Athletes Need
Former NFL TE and Super Bowl Champion Zach Miller knows firsthand how unprepared athletes are for money management and even more unprepared to enter the workforce after their playing careers. That’s why he’s decided to pursue wealth management as a career after the NFL. His goal is to help equip athletes with the same knowledge he wished he had when he played. Many in the financial business have given up on pro athletes, that’s why Zach Miller has not.
Guest: Zach Miller
Twitter: twitter.com/ZachMiller86
1:52
What you can’t google about Zach Miller when it comes to his deciding on Arizona State for college, and his path to the NFL and becoming a Super Bowl champion
4:59
The depression he experienced after retiring from the NFL and how he figured out what he was going to do next.
Zach Miller: “You need to change your identity. Every NFL player will experience this because you can’t play forever, the sooner you can transition into your next career, the better.”
7:35
Every athlete goes through it, but when did Zach first realize football was a business?
Zach Miller: “After I had outplayed my rookie contract with the Raiders, they kept telling me to be patient: ‘you’ll be rewarded, you’ll be rewarded,’ and then free agency hits and the Raiders weren’t there with the offer.”
10:45
One thing many players don’t realize is all of the resources and benefits they have at their disposal through the NFL Player’s Association.
14:20
The system is really set up to fail professional athletes, especially when they’re young and first coming into the league, whether it be the NFL, NBA or MLB.
Zach Miller: “When you come into the NFL you are 21-22 years old, it’s unrealistic to think that these guys, and I’m including myself, I was financially illiterate. You haven’t experienced or worked long enough to know the differences between the right people to hire and evaluating an advisor or agent.”
20:30
The main issue when it comes to pro athletes and good investment and financial advice is that once you reach a certain amount of wealth there are certain professionals you need to speak with because the point of entry for financial advisors is so low.
Zach Miller: “You need an expert that specializes in you and in what you do.”
22:30
Zach interviewed with many other financial advising firms or RIAs and he asked them point blank why they didn’t represent or help professional athletes.
Zach Miller: NFL guys will just spend all their money. You’ll do all this work and they won’t have any money left. I just reject that opinion. I don’t think that’s true. If you are doing good work and giving the best advice you can actually help a ton of NFL guys. I want to give the kind of advice I wish I had as a young player.”
25:26
Professional athletes in NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA need their financial advisors to do so much more than investment. There are so many components to the financial side for professional athletes beyond investment.
Listen and Subscribe to the Athlete CEO podcast with Brandon and Erik Averill from AWM Capital on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
For more information visit: https://awmcap.com/
You might be familiar with the terms “inflation” and “deflation,” but do you know how they positively and negatively impact us as investors? About 2 weeks ago, the Federal Reserve held a virtual conference where they said they would be willing to let inflation run higher over a certain period of time to make up for lower inflation we’ve experienced in the recent past. So, over the next 10 years they could target a higher inflation rate than has previously been seen.
To understand how this might impact us as investors, Brandon Averill, managing partner of AWM Capital, is joined again by Justin Dyer, AWM’s Chief Investment Officer, to discuss inflation and the implications it has on investments.
Key Topics:
- What exactly is inflation?
- What does a quart of milk have to do with how inflation is measured?
- Why is inflation important to investors?
- What happens with slow inflation?
- What is typically considered the ideal inflation rate for the U.S. economy?
- What is the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and what does it impact?
- What is the Personal Consumption Expenditure (PCE) and what does it impact?
- Why has inflation been in the news recently?
Resources:
- Investopedia has some great resources on Price Level, Basket of Goods, and Purchasing Power
- Also, be sure to read Dimensional Fund Advisors great article on Inflation’s Impact on Investors
Recent headlines are reporting massive drops in tech industry giants like Apple, which dropped last week by a little over 9% - roughly $150 billion of market value, and Tesla is down again this week after a similar fall last week. Have they reached the bottom? As we have said before – there is no crystal ball to determine that.
However, there are investing concepts that are critical to understand to better weather volatile seasons like 2020 has turned out to be that will help you shore up unnecessary risk and capture the gains you deserve. AWM’s Chief Investment Officer Justin Dyer returns this week to discuss this concept with Managing Partner Brandon Averill.
Key Topics:
- What is concentration risk?
- Putting your eggs in one basket
- Thoughts on the recent tech stock volatility
- One of the most important tools in an investor’s toolbox
- Should I hold these companies that experience big run ups? (For more info, see our recent episode: Tech Stocks Are The Highest Performers – Should You Get In?)
- Relying on the data to inform investment decisions
- The top 10 largest stocks since 1994
Download the resource Brandon referenced from Dimensional Fund Advisors, “Large and In Charge? Giant Firms atop Market Is Nothing New.”
Athlete CEO Podcast
How to Coach and How to Be Coached
What makes Derek Jeter who he is? What made him great? Coach Dana Cavalea is the former Director of Strength & Conditioning and Performance for the New York Yankees. He joins Brandon and Erik Averill on Athlete CEO to discuss what goes into a “Championship Mindset” and why mental balance is a key for success regardless of business or profession.
Guest: Dana Cavalea
“Habits of a Champion”
https://danacavalea.com/
2:12
Define what is performance and how Dana would define being a champion.
Dana Cavalea “You need to be better tomorrow than you are today.”
3:01
There is no one size fits all. You have to know what works for you. You don’t enhance performance by taking a pill or vitamin once, you get better over time by doing the right things.
4:40
“Performance Coach” or “Life Coach” seem to be modern buzzwords. Dana describes his journey and what led him to becoming a life coach, which starts with interning for free with the New York Yankees while in college at the University of Southern Florida.
6:26
After Dana figured out he wasn’t going to be a professional ballplayer, he followed his passion of training and getting ready for the season, and investigated ways he could make that into a profession.
9:25
When Dana learned how you can literally go from one side of the fence to the other side of the fence in 24 hours. He had to make some significant sacrifices at the age of 19 that many others that age wouldn’t be willing to make, in order to fulfill his dream of being involved with the New York Yankees.
11:17
How did Dana end up becoming the Yankees head performance coach at just 23 years old.
12:45
Dana says he didn’t really know anything about the job he had, that he was just getting started, but he did recognize the importance of truly knowing people and caring about people.
Dana Cavalea “Life is bar it’s your job to tend it.”
14:18
Dana saw an opportunity after starting off as a trainer to become an asset manager of human capital and he came up with a “Player Profile” that became a screening process to identify risk
16:19
The idea of the growth mindset or a “Champions’ Mindset” and how Cavalea incorporates that into his training and evaluation.
Dana Cavalea: “It requires you to do things that the average person doesn't do. It encourages you and forces you to be somebody that's different than everybody else, because champions are different than everybody else. You have to act different, be different, present yourself different, and when you do those things, you get different results than everybody else, which is what champions do, which is what high performers do.”
19:20
The championship mentality is not just effective for athletes either, it plays big in the business and investment world as well. So many of the people Dana works with in the business world have a life changing event, like a heart attack, or something, that forces them to work on the mental and physical side of their health.
26:40
The idea of work/life balance from the lens of Dana’s work. Dana believes it’s important to compartmentalize your day and own their schedules.
Dana Cavalea: “Own your schedule, own your day, own your life.”
29:40
What made Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera and the Yankees legends that Cavalea was working with different? Amazingly, it’s that they weren’t “overworking.”
38:00
The identity crisis all professional athletes go through when they’re no longer professional athletes. What are Dana’s tips on trying to figure out the next stage of your life?
39:10
Don’t identify with a title, identify with a process. If you subscribe to that belief you are going to be defied by the processes you undergo everyday.
41:28
Dana Cavalea on the importance of values and processes.
Dana: “When you get too attached or the title of what you do, it becomes really dangerous, because you lose the rest of you and without the rest of you, you lose your edge.”
44:02
As a coach you have to meet people where they are, because every person is different.
48:09
Dana has also written children’s books about raising championship families and how we have to understand that we are constantly growing as people.
50:02
One of the most important lessons Dana learned about parenting and how to be a champion parent.
Dana Cavalea: “You can override their difficulty through your own surrender. Don’t try to control and dominate. Release and surrender.”
52:31
A great story from Dana about his relationship with Mariano Rivera and what made him special in terms of elite performance in the biggest moments.
Listen and Subscribe to the Athlete CEO podcast with Brandon and Erik Averill from Athlete Wealth Management on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever else you listen to podcasts.
With an estimated $44 billion worth of startups like Snowflake, Unity Software, JFrog, Sumo Logic and Amwell going from private to public right now, is it time to try and strike it rich by investing in the next unicorn company during its initial public investment (IPO) phase? If you only got your investment advice from the mainstream media, you might assume that this is the best way to create massive wealth, but as you might have guessed, it’s not quite that simple.
The private to public or - IPO - step in the lifecycle of a business is incredibly important. And when companies go public, they often garner massive media coverage. However, is this the best time to invest in a company across the board? The data might surprise you.
In this week’s episode of AWM Insights, Brandon Averill, Managing Partner at AWM Capital, is joined by Justin Dyer, our Chief Investment Officer, to discuss how and when companies typically create the most value. Topics and questions covered include:
- Do IPOs favor the investor? Are they a good investment on their own?
- Why do companies decide to go public?
- What exactly is a unicorn company, and what stage in a company’s lifecycle is generally considered to be the ideal time to invest?
- When does most of the value creation for a company occur?
- What is a direct listing and how is it different from a traditional IPO?
- Are direct listings similar to SPACs? (For more on SPACs see our previous episode HERE)
Resources
Brandon mentioned a Bill Gurley article on going public in 2020, which you can find HERE
Last Tuesday, the S&P 500 hit a record high after a sudden and unprecedented decline in the earlier months of the year. Much of the growth has been attributed to 5 big tech stocks, which we covered on a recent episode. As we’ve seen these 5 big tech stocks diverge, it’s made many investors ask if valuations even matter anymore?
While these companies are enjoying their highest valuations ever, we see examples like Apple where their stock price has roughly tripled since early 2019, but so too has its Price to Earnings (PE) ratio. In this week’s episode, Erik and Brandon discuss this recent rise and more, including:
- What’s behind the recent all-time high of the S&P 500?
- What is a Price to Earnings (PE) ratio and why does it matter?
- What are the implications of Apple’s stock price and PE ratio rise?
- Do valuations even matter anymore?
- Can valuations be used as a tool for market timing?
- What is recency bias?
- The importance of understanding what kind of investor you are and your goals for wealth creation
For more information on this topic, here’s a great podcast episode that Brandon referenced from The Prof G Show with Scott Galloway.
On this episode of the Athlete CEO, Erik dives into the debt side of Venture Capital with Founder, Operator, & current Chief Investment Officer of Trinity Capital, Kyle Brown.
Trinity Capital provides smart debt for high growth venture-backed startups. Trinity’s portfolio is packed with successful companies including the likes of Impossible Foods, Fingerprint Digital, Birchbox and Untuckit.
In a candid conversation Kyle shares his experiences ranging from nearly losing everything in 2008 to to leading Trinity through a global pandemic. While sharing how his family, faith and athletic background keep him focused on what matters most.
Key Topics covered include:
- How should founders be thinking about venture debt?
- Trinity’s due diligence uniquely built by Operators and how they choose who to partner with?
- How venture debt can be the most effective and cheap way to accelerate growth
- How founders can sidestep the risk of dilution in a world of reduced valuations
- How to take advantage of the opportunities the global pandemic has created
- What was it like going through the recession of 2008 as an operator and what lessons did you learn that could be applied to our current situation?
- What have been some of the hardest lessons you’ve learned in your career and how have you grown from them?
- How to avoid the biggest trap that could destroy a partnership
- What advice would you give about partnering in business and leading teams based on what you’ve learned throughout your career?
- How have you juggled working to be excellent and accomplishing great things in business while also being present at home and working to be a great husband and father?
- How Trinity thought through a recent big shift in their business model
- Can you talk about how you think about making an impact and what that means to you?
- How does Kyle approach leading a team? What characteristics does a good leader display?
- Go to resources, habits, and advice for high performance leaders
- How Kyle defines success
Are certain presidential candidates better for the stock market? If so, is there a “correct” party to vote for to improve the chances of stronger returns? We often hear political pundits offering advice or predictions around presidential election season, and suggest that the answer to both of these questions is unequivocally “yes.” There are certainly many ways political candidates impact our country, and because of that, it is extremely important we exercise our right to vote. However, as we wade through to the real issues – should a candidate’s impact on the stock market be one of them?
In this week’s episode of AWM Insights, Brandon & Erik, armed with more than 80 years of data, break down this question – and the answer might surprise you. Discussed questions and topics include:
- How do presidential elections impact investment returns?
- Which 2 presidents have seen the best S&P returns while in office?
- Which presidents experienced negative S&P returns during their terms?
- Is it true my political party is better for the stock market?
- What drives the stock market?
- How is the stock market different than the economy?
- How might the two candidates’ tax proposals impact my finances?
- Are there any ways to curb those impacts?
- Do tax rates matter to stock markets?
RESOURCES
To see the data discussed during this episode, CLICK HERE
Recently in the headlines, we’ve seen a lot of attention around SPACs (special purpose acquisition company) due to some big names in the investing world doubling down on them this year. So far in 2020, 60 of the 95 IPOs in the US have come from these SPACs and they’ve raised $24 billion further cementing them as the preferred method for going public this year.
So what exactly are SPACs and should you be investing in them? Brandon and Erik discuss this and more including: :
- What is a SPAC?
- How do they work? What are some of their unique characteristics?
- What are their advantages and disadvantages? Are they considered a good investment?
- What is behind their recent surge in popularity?
- What should you consider before investing in a SPAC?
- Should you expect similar returns with SPACs that you’d see in the private markets?
Ultimately, we would say ignorance is not bliss in investing, but a danger. Like any other single entity investing, we recommend our clients do their research and discuss with their financial professional about how it might fit in their investment portfolio.
Resources
- As Erik mentions in the episode, HERE is a link to a fantastic research article on SPACs from Harvard Law.
- If you’d like to discuss your specific financial situation, you can reach out to us HERE.
Kobie Fuller is the perfect venn diagram of the Athlete CEO – he was a track star at Harvard, used his background in tech to invest early in some of the top winners of emerging technologies including Oculus and Exact Target, and now works as a partner for Upfront Ventures where he continues to help discover and fund innovative tech companies.
He has seen startups rise and fall and knows what it takes to be successful in founding a company, and shares with us what he’s seen over the years. He also is uniquely familiar with how the worlds of sports and business intersect in their values and daily practices, which he has used to help advise new business owners as well as find his own success as a co-founder through Valence Community, a social network for Black professionals started in November 2019.
Prior to Upfront, Kobie was the CMO at REVOLVE in Los Angeles, one of the world’s largest fashion e-commerce sites. Earlier in his career he was an investor at Insight Venture Partners and a founding member of Openview Venture Partners. He was the captain of the Harvard track team when he attended and ran the 200m, and the 400m events.
Topics discussed include:
- Why Kobie got kicked off the basketball team growing up
- Accomplishing big things by taking on the mentality of “It takes what it takes”
- Putting in the work needed to achieve your goals
- The similarities between athletes and venture capitalists
- How to surround yourself with elite performers instead of bozos
- The founding of Valence Community in 2019
- How start up founders can be successful by leaning in to what they’re uniquely equipped to do
- How to find a mentor
- Tips on balancing your life and being a good example to your kids
- Investing in yourself by being selfless and selfish at the same time
- The importance of investing in your health and wellness
Most economic news continues to point to things not looking great – including a 2nd quarter contraction of US GDP by an annual rate of 32.9%. However, the stock market still seems to have some positive moves. What’s behind the majority of the returns in the public stock market? Tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google. In fact, the disparity in the S&P 500 is from the 5 largest companies, which have accounted for all the growth, but the remaining 495 have been producing negative returns.
Does that mean now is the time to invest in these companies? In this episode, Brandon & Erik discuss this and more including:
- What is contributing to the majority of returns in the US stock market?
- If the 5 biggest companies are driving all growth in the S&P 500, why even consider investing in the other 495 companies – let alone international options?
- What are the risks of investing in individual equities if I’m trying to grow wealth in a long-term, risk-adjusted way?
- Is there ever a situation where you might recommend taking concentrated risk?
- Where would an investor have the best change of growing wealth through concentrated investments?
Gold is a topic that tends to pop up anytime there’s uncertainty in the market or conversations of where the economy is headed. We’ve seen gold hit all-time highs over the past week joined with increased nervousness of the pending stimulus package in congress and upcoming elections. This has resulted in more voices who recommend investing in gold as a safe alternative to a volatile market.
In this episode Brandon and Erik discuss some of the arguments made for investing in gold and potential alternatives for long term investors. Topics discussed include:
- How should we think about gold?
- Where/how does gold fit in an investment plan?
- How to think about investments
- Why we don’t include gold in our investment portfolios
- How has gold performed historically as an asset class?
- Should I purchase physical gold in case things go bad?
- Is gold a safe hedge against a volatile market?
- What’s a better way to provide some protection if you’re worried about the economy over the short term?
Growing a business, serving your community, taking a leap in your career, spending time with friends and family, developing a hobby - often our interests and desires overshadow the simple fact that there are only so many hours in a day. It can be hard to find time to tackle all our goals let alone find balance and mastery in our current commitments.
Becca Van Dyck has proven it can be done.
Becca jumped into her career head first with a 12-year stint at Wieden+Kennedy as Nike’s global account director. She then moved to Apple as marketing communications executive, working on ad campaigns for the iPod, iPhone, iPad, and Macs. Following that, she was named the chief marketing officer at Levi’s where she oversaw the “Go Forth” campaign. Then in 2012, she moved to Facebook where she now works as VP, Product Operations of AR/VR including overseeing Portal from Facebook and Oculus VR. In the midst of all this, she’s also served on the boards of Strava, the New York Times, and more, is a Mom of two girls, and a wife.
In this episode, she describes how she drew courage for each step in her career and seeks to find excellence in all aspects of her life – touching on topics like:
- Her team’s work on Portal from Facebook and Oculus VR and how it’s helping people stay connected amidst a pandemic
- How she considers outside opportunities for maximum impact and growth
- The principles and paradigms she uses to build and hone diverse teams
- How to take bold leaps in your career
- Finding balance amidst career, volunteering, and family
- How her experience playing soccer translates to her business career
- The silver linings found in strange times
With a looming election this fall, an ongoing global pandemic, and companies declaring bankruptcy left and right; there is currently no shortage of speculation framed as certain advice everywhere you look. Mainstream media pundits and social media influencers alike are quick to share the latest stock tip, advice on market timing, speculations on bankrupting companies, or even urge you to exit the markets entirely and wait until they calm back down.
While it is entirely likely there will be market impacts from the upcoming presidential debates and election, COVID-19 vaccine trials, and whether or not the government adopts an additional stimulus plan – the full effect of those impacts and even how they play together are entirely speculative. The truth remains that no one has a crystal ball.
So what should you do in the midst of all the noise?
Don’t abandon your plan.
In this week’s episode, Brandon and Erik address some of these speculations and cover other topics and questions like:
- Was Peter Schiff correct when he recently said that a market crash is inevitable?
- How to avoid FOMO (fear of missing out) in the current market climate
- The greatest dangers investors face
- The difference between being an investor and a speculator
- Understanding how to participate well in public markets
- Why the mainstream media is not the best source of financial advice
- What advice can you give on having confidence in my investment plan?
- How can I wade through all of the speculation that I’m receiving the economy, stock market, and investing?
One of the most important distinctions we like to make with our clients is that our primary job is not only investing. We re-center our clients’ definition of success by asking them if simply investing is the goal or if it’s actually to increase their net-worth after taxes and expenses?
The answer is always: net worth.
Investing is really just a means to an end. Our primary job, and the ultimate value we deliver, is in increasing our clients’ entire net worth.
Unfortunately, the act of investing is typically the sole focus of retail financial advice. The average broker and financial advisor will spin their wheels trying to sell their investment strategies in the public markets, yet this is rarely the main driver of wealth. Most investors miss out on other financial moves to grow and keep wealth including tax planning strategies that can produce double digit returns on their net worth.
This week, Erik and Brandon discuss some of these strategies and why they should be important to you covering topics like:
- Why should I consider taxes in my investment conversations?
- Why aren’t more financial advisors talking about this integration of investing and tax planning?
- What are conversations I should have with my financial advisor to keep the returns from taxes that I deserve?
- What are some other ways to manage, defer, and reduce taxes when it comes to your investment plan?
- Are there ways a 1099 employee can reduce taxes?
- Why those in the highest tax bracket might want to consider asset location and tax-loss harvesting in their tax strategy plan
As a professional athlete, all of your passion, focus, and attention is on your sport. However, whether it’s 5 years, or 20, it’s only a season of your life – what comes next?
This week, Erik & Brandon are joined by Olympic legend Michael Johnson to discuss finding your passions beyond your sports career.
Over his 12-year career as a professional athlete at the top of his sport, Michael became a household name as he earned 13 Olympic and World championship gold medals and broke world records in multiple events.
And he was only getting started.
Michael knew from a young age that he had a passion beyond the sports world, and since his retirement as a professional athlete, has gone on to become a prolific businessman and entrepreneur.
Michael shares his wisdom and experience about his time at the top of his sport, and then what it was like to pivot his career to successful ventures including the Michael Johnson Performance Center, which has partnered with some of the biggest organizations in sports performance and medicine. Other topics discussed include:
- When in his career that Michael began to think about life after sport
- Hard advice for the athlete who says there isn’t time to focus on the next stage of his or her career
- How to find your passion
- His path and lessons learned to founding the Michael Johnson Performance Center
- Other ventures Michael is working on
- A framework to consider for athletes trying to decide between lending their name to a brand they believe in vs rolling up their sleeves and helping to lead it
- Wisdom when considering private investment opportunities as a professional athlete
- Taking ownership over your comprehensive health and wellness
- Learning from and growing out of adversity in your life or career
As you see in the major media and financial publications, earnings season is coming soon, but what does that mean for the typical investor? Articles and TV segments abound with the results and guidance of some of the best analysts in the business on their predictions of how some of the top companies are doing, but does that mean that you should be acting on those claims?
Put simply, “earnings season” is the time in which most of the major publicly traded companies release their quarterly earnings reports. As a result of these reports, more updated information is then available to the public followed by market adjustments. What makes this upcoming earnings season of particular interest for many is the fact that it’s following the best quarter since 1987.
In this week’s episode, Brandon and Erik discuss earnings season and cover topics and questions like:
- What exactly is earnings season and why do people get excited about it?
- How earnings season can highlight the difference between the stock market and the economy (for more on this, see episode 11: Stock Market vs Economy)
- How and why earnings season causes market adjustments
- Why some of the best analysts in the world still can’t predict future outcomes based on earnings season information
- What should I know about earnings season? Should I take any steps to prepare or react to it?
- What’s the best way to secure long-term, positive financial results?
Over the last couple weeks, we've seen the return with a vengeance of volatility in the markets with some of the biggest highs and lows in history all within a short time span. With these swings, we're starting to see non-investor voices give investing advice that really boils down to gambling. The message from these media personalities is loud and clear: now is the time for people to become active investors.
Is there room for this type of investing? The answer revolves around your current situation and your long-term goals. In this episode, Erik & Brandon give some helpful thoughts on how to view this concept and address topics and questions including:
- Why Shaq’s free throw record relates to investing
- The myth of entertainment-based trading
- Should we pay attention to what the media is telling us? How much credence should we give to news sites advice on the investment decisions we should be making?
- Day trading vs long-term investing
- How the active investing we're seeing in mainstream conversations is similar to sports gambling
- How do we most effectively grow our wealth over the long-term?
- How do you stay disciplined over the long term and not fall for the get rich quick gimmicks?
In this episode of the Athlete CEO Podcast, Erik sits down with Alex Mather, the co-founder of The Athletic.
Valued at roughly $500 million The Athletic has disrupted the sports media world.
They dive into the vision, strategy and tactics that led to the quick rise of dominance for the Athletic in a saturated market that seemed impenetrable.
Alex offers advice and lessons learned from the founding of The Athletic covering topics like:
- The characteristics he learned growing up that helped give him tenacity, resolve, and a positive outlook
- How Alex and his co-founder Adam built The Athletic to be different
- How to understand and work to refine your brand
- Putting people first and using analytics to optimize
- The burdens of leadership and the importance of caring for and supporting your team
- What leadership looks like
- Why helping your team to win is more important than being right
- The 4 daily actions he encourages his team to take to stay focused and support others during tumultuous times
With a spike in Coronavirus cases around the country, we continue to see multiple industries getting shaken including airlines, cruise ships, and travel destinations. Alternatively, we see the top tech companies (Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon) combined currently represent more than 20% of the S&P 500, which makes sense with more people than ever relying on technology to work and stay connected. As we continue to allocate investments, many are wondering if we should try to make concentrated bets on how the Coronavirus might continue to impact different parts of the economy.
However, the main thing to keep in mind is that no one has a crystal ball - no one can see the future. So, typically the best way to prepare for times like these is diversification of your allocations. We've seen throughout history similar trends with different industries rising and falling, and investors who aren't diversified can unknowingly expose themselves to more risk than they intend.
In this episode, Erik & Brandon discuss this idea and address topics like:
- What is the home bias?
- How diversification can protect against unintended risk and help to capture opportunity
- What can we learn from history and data in terms of portfolio diversification?
- What is success?
- How do we most effectively grow our wealth over the long-term?
The market has continued to bring surprises. In the last couple months we've seen one of the quickest recessions to one of the quickest recoveries then suddenly last week we saw a -6% down day in the market.
In tandem with this market volatility, we've also seen many big name companies declare bankruptcy followed by their stock prices skyrocketing. In their wake have been more voices who have adopted a day trading approach claiming now is the time to buy these companies pretty much across the board.
This can cause us as investors to question what is going on in the short term, and ask if we should lean into this day trading approach. However, we also know that the disciplined approach is going to continue to be to cut out the noise, control what we can control, and stick to the plan for the long term.
This week, Brandon & Erik discuss these news items and address the following questions and topics:
- Is now the time to buy a specific company's stock that I've heard about in the news?
- How concerned should I be about short-term market fluctuations?
- Is there ever a time to consider more of a day trader approach?
- If I have a pool of money that I'm okay to take more risk with, what are some of my options to consider?
- What options are available besides stock picking on public markets?
- What do you guys see is the best approach for long-term wealth creation and success?
We have all experienced moments of being in the zone. A state of deep focus and peak performance.
Unfortunately, those seem to be difficult to string together. Instead, we find ourselves more distracted and exhausted than ever before.
It’s time to take back your attention and focus on what matters most.
In this episode of the Athlete CEO podcast, Erik has a conversation with Curt Steinhorst, bestselling author, Forbes columnist and leading expert in cultivating focus and minimizing distraction.
Curt offers the latest neuroscience backed research covering topics like:
- How are we wired to pay attention?
- How to develop mastery
- Why life hacks are good tools but don’t lead to change
- The difference between humans and machines and why it will never work for us to try and emulate them
- Communicating stories in a way that creates lasting change
- The dangers of constantly being told you're awesome - and how to surround yourself with people who will give you helpful and honest feedback
- How to determine what matters most
- How teams can work to end a culture of distraction
To access the free chapter on the vault in Curt's book Can I Have Your Attention, visit focuswise.com/cihya
On last week's episode, we started our conversation on the idea of ownership by defining risk and discussing some of the rewards that come along with the different types of risk you can take. Ultimately, this can be described as the upside of ownership.
This week, we'll continue with part two where we'll explore the fundamentals of ownership and cover topics and questions like:
- What exactly are the fundamentals of ownership?
- How do we define ownership when it comes to investing?
- What does it mean and what are the implications to owning stock?
- Why could equity be preferred over being a bond holder?
- Is all equity created equal?
- Is now the time to invest in a specific company?
What should we be doing with our money right now? Over the last few weeks, we've covered topics that we've been asked about from our clients on real estate, private markets, and more. We've also been asked if now is a good time to consider cryptocurrency.
However, these might be the wrong questions, at least in starting the conversation. Instead, we should start with our overall money goals - what do you want your money to do for you?
The answer to this question helps us to determine an appropriate level of risk to work toward achieving the returns that would help us accomplish our money goals.
In this episode, Erik and Brandon discuss this idea and cover topics and questions like:
- How do you actually define investment risk?
- What is the framework for determining how much risk you can handle?
- Why saying you want all the return but none of the risk does not work.
- Understanding the relationship between risk and return.
- Cutting out unnecessary risk.
- The impact of diversification on risk.
We've said that trying to predict markets is a dangerous game to play, so now that the country begins to open up - how do we answer the frequently asked question of what the market will do over the coming months? We typically start our response by revisiting why our clients are invested in the public markets in the first place. The answer should not be to try to make a significant return within the short-term - 12 or 18 months - but is most often the goal of generating wealth over the long-term.
As humans, we tend to shy away from uncertainty and instead have a tendency to lean toward people who confidently declare certainty about what will happen in the future. That's why it can be easy to find "experts" who claim they've figured it out or try to predict what will happen in the immediate future. However, the data repeatedly shows that this is a fool's game. The reality is that no one has a crystal ball on what the market will do through the rest of the year.
In this episode, Brandon and Erik discuss this idea and cover:
- The characteristics of a long-term investor vs a day-to-day market timer
- Some of the core principles to help make sure to capture the long-term market potential returns
- The importance of a globally diversified portfolio
- What the backbone of most plans should typically be based around
Welcome to season 2 of the Athlete CEO podcast!
In this episode, we hear from Randy Newsom of X10 Capital who discusses the idea of betting on yourself in your sports career. Prior to X10, Randy was an associate in the Sports Litigation practice of Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. Before pursuing law, Randy had a 7-year career in the Red Sox, Indians, and Pirates organizations.
We're thrilled to have Randy join us to kick off season 2 of the Athlete CEO podcast, and share some advice on navigating the business of professional baseball.
In recent weeks, we've seen a lot about how the stock market seems to be rallying, but the economy is doing poorly. As a result, we've received a lot of questions about how there can be a disconnect between those two entities. When the stock market is mentioned, many refer to the S&P 500, which only makes up only 44% of the U.S. economy. Whereas, when we discuss the actual economy, it encompasses all goods and services being produced.
In this week's episode, Brandon and Erik discuss:
- A definition of both the stock market and the economy
- The information available about each one
- What - if any - information can be utilized between one to inform decisions about the other
- The distinctions between the two including how one can be doing well while the other suffers
Much of the initial emotion toward fluctuating markets has softened and our clients have begun asking great questions like "Should I invest in oil? Or real estate?" which we have been addressing the past few weeks in our Insights podcasts. This week, we wanted to focus our attention on some of the ways we do like to think about taking concentrated risks - specifically in the private markets.
We've continually said that we believe in the public markets. However, for some of our clients who have solved for safety through a diverse investment in the public market, we begin recommending looking into private markets, which often may provide over sized returns, but carry much more risk.
In this episode, Brandon and Erik dive into this idea and cover topics like:
-Are there ways to take advantage of the fluctuating markets we've seen in recent months? -When would be a good time to start a conversation with my financial professional about investing in the private markets? -Why do some get over sized returns in private markets? -How important is it to invest with someone who has had experience in these up and down markets? -What resources are there where I can learn more on venture capital investing?
While many states in the U.S. are beginning to relax social distancing practices, the future is still uncertain with some still wondering if there will continue to be drastic market fluctuations. This has sparked many to wonder whether they should stay in the markets at all in the face of potentially more downturns? Why not just return to the markets once they begin to normalize again?
While market fluctuations can certainly be unsettling, trying to jump out of the markets before a potential downturn and then get back in when the markets have normalized has many issues - namely that there is no guarantee that the speculations will end up as predicted.
Taking the most recent example, in March we experienced the fastest bear market in history with stocks falling more than 30%. Later that same month, we experienced the largest three-day surge in the Dow Jones Industrial Average since 1931 followed by the best monthly performance in April for the Dow Jones and S&P 500 since 1987. Had you jumped out of the market at the outset of the downturn, you may have missed out on the potential market recovery that occurred directly after.
In this week's episode, Brandon & Erik discuss these questions and give some insight on a better approach that focuses more on long-term wealth creation rather than short-term gains.
Real estate is a topic that a lot of people have interest in - often from being home owners themselves. There is wide exposure to the idea of investing through real estate in tv shows, books, webinars and more. One question we've been frequently asked by our clients is if this current time is providing a unique opportunity to invest in real estate in the midst of market uncertainty.
The ultimate answer is it mostly depends on your situation - we are massive supporters of real estate, but only within the right context and the right plan. More often than not, the devil is in the details. Our clients receive numerous real estate pitches, but you have to understand all the details of the deal to accurately determine if it makes sense for you without an emotional attachment to the vision of the project.
In this episode, Brandon and Erik look at what it takes to approach investing in real estate like a pro, and address some of the most frequent topics and questions we receive including:
What are the best ways to approach real estate without an emotional attachment to investment decisions? What are the most beneficial sectors of real estate when considering investments? Should I think of my home as an investment? Is flipping homes a viable option? What cautions people should take when entering this area of investing Public vs private sector real estate investing How to have a conversation with your advisor to explore if this is a viable and wise investment within the context of your risk tolerance and portfolio diversity Listen at the link below, and if you'd like to hear more about the template we've created on how we analyze real estate investments - please feel free to reach out to us.
After another week of wild financial markets, we saw another historic first yesterday where the price of oil actually went negative. Does this mean you should run out to your local gas station and have them pay you to store gas? Well, no - but it does drive home an important point:
You can't predict the future.
At the end of the day, trying to outguess the public markets is a great sales pitch but in reality is just not in the best interest of clients.
So should this new development in oil markets make you change up your overall investment strategy? Listen to this week's episode for Erik and Brandon's commentary on this event and their thoughts on the following questions that we've received over the last few days:
- What impact does this oil price dip have on me as an investor?
- Is now the time to invest in oil?
- Is there a way to time public markets like oil to capitalize on dips like the one we're seeing now?
- What are some approaches to consider when making a concentrated risk?
- Why making informed decisions in the private markets might be your best bet
In a time where it can feel like a lot of things are out of our control, there are still some things you can do that add tremendous value to your portfolio. Last week, we discussed one of the methods - tax-loss harvesting - and we'll continue this week by looking at asset location.
At its core, asset location is essentially a method of managing multiple accounts as one single portfolio. Research has shown with this practice that you can add .5% to .85% to your after-tax return, which over a 30 year period can be up to an additional 15% after-tax return.
Some investments in your portfolio - like bonds - pay you interest. If this is held in a taxable account, it will be taxed annually at a fairly high rate depending on your tax bracket. This ultimately hurts your take home return, so we utilize asset location to ensure those assets are not taxed annually and instead other assets likes stocks are the ones held in your taxable accounts.
This is a highly-specialized tactic that gets the most mileage from being utilized with our clients that are in the highest tax bracket with high levels of complexity. Listen for more details and answers to questions including:
- What is asset location?
- How does asset location work?
- How can this practice save money over the long-term?
- Who most benefits from this practice?
- How can I tell if my portfolio is utilizing asset location?
On this week’s episode, we’re honored to be joined by Todd Seigler, father of Anthony Seigler – first round draft pick with the New York Yankees. We get to hear from Todd on what the draft process was like from the perspective of family members and in working through these areas together as a family.
As a parent going through the draft process, it can feel like everybody is painting a rosy picture about how perfect your son’s game is – it can be hard to sift through all the feedback using data to separate out sales pitch from reality. There are also challenges in setting good boundaries to maintain family bonds, and help to make intentional decisions about the long-term future that don’t rely solely on emotions or chasing shiny things.
Todd offers a lot of helpful insight into this process and throughout the episode, he covers topics such as:
- Going through the draft process from scouting during senior year season to draft day
- The potential of getting distracted by the wrong things that can seem like really good things
- How to have good family conversations to set healthy boundaries
- The importance of staying faithful and committed to your routines
- Avoiding “Draft intoxication”
- How they handled choosing the right people in their inner circle
- What draft day was like for family
- What the transition to pro has been like
- Looking back, what things he wishes he would have known going through the process as a parent
Available wherever you podcast or above.
The last month has been a wild ride in the financial markets. At one point, we were down 34% and then all the sudden we have seen a quick rebound where - as of today (April 7) - the S&P is up 24.7% from its 52 week low that had been set on March 23rd.
As we mentioned last week, what can happen during these times of flux is that people can tend to rely on asking important questions to the wrong people about what to do with their money. We have seen issues where people have put their trust in experience ("I have lived through this before") rather than expertise ("I'm educated, certified, and experienced in this issue").
In today's episode, we highlight another tactic that can prove beneficial for some called Tax-Loss Harvesting. Topics covered include:
- The importance of expertise over experience
- What is tax-loss harvesting, and what should I know about it?
- The two main benefits of tax-loss harvesting
- When does tax-loss harvesting matter?
- Who should be benefiting from this practice?
- Are there times you should not employ this tactic?
- Is it helpful to have multiple investment advisors?
- Other strategies that can be utilized during this time
On this week’s episode, Erik and Travis talk with Adley Rutschman, catcher for the Baltimore Orioles. Adley was selected by the Orioles as the first overall selection in the 2019 Major League Baseball draft with the highest signing bonus in baseball history. He joins us this week to discuss his time playing in college for Oregon State University, going into the MLB draft last year and making the transition from amateur to pro. Adley covers a wealth of topics in this episode including:
- How to handle public pressures of being a highly ranked athlete
- The important things to look at when choosing an agent
- Utilizing time in college to hone in and build up skills
- The mental development and other key contrasts that accompanies going from college to pro
- Walking through what draft meetings with scouts were like including some of the most unique questions he got
- Sharing how he maintained good family dynamics despite the high stress level the comes with the draft
- What it was like on draft day
- Mentally preparing for the back and forth of salary negotiations
- Advice for players and their families as they’re about to enter the draft
Available wherever you podcast or above.
The financial market upheaval that has accompanied the COVID-19 epidemic has been a teachable moment for investors. The S&P had been down 34% and investors wondered if it would ever stop falling. People were asking if they should take their money out of the markets - another form of trying to time it. Then, in 3 days, the market bounced back 17%, which was the biggest 3-day gain since 1931. As of March 31st, markets have reclaimed nearly 50% of the decline that happened.
So then, can we confidently claim that this is the bottom? Does it even matter if we can know or not?
There are plenty of voices online and in the media who are ready to tell you who to buy and who to sell, but the questions you should be asking are: Who should we trust with our financial advice? Who is actually qualified to give that advice?
Listen to this week's episode to hear Erik and Brandon discuss these topics and more.
This week, Travis and Erik interview Bobby Stroupe, founder and president of Athlete Performance Enhancement Center (APEC). Bobby and his team started APEC in 2005 and it has grown over the years to become one of the most trusted sources for athletic performance improvement including accolades from and work with Nike. Bobby and APEC have trained some of the best athletes in the world including NFL MVP and Super Bowl champion Patrick Mahomes.
There is a lot of uncertainty for athletes in all sports currently as seasons are indefinitely suspended and training facilities can be inaccessible for many. Are there ways you should be utilizing this downtime to stay on top of your game – despite some potential difficulty in accessing facilities? In this episode, Bobby, Erik and Travis talk through this question and address other topics like:
• The importance of structure and consistency • Ways to focus on joint mobility and structural flexibility • Being creative even with limited access to workout facilities • The difference between success and results • How to find a good performance coach including questions to ask and specializations to look for • Resources to learn more on this topic
Available to listen wherever you podcast and above.
Are you familiar with the changes to how an MLB Draft signing bonus is paid out? Historically, teams have split the gross amount into two equal payments over two years, but due to COVID-19 have recently made some important changes that you need to know.
As a player, your ultimate goal is not the gross (before tax) MLB Draft signing bonus amount; rather, it is the net (after-tax) amount. In the past, how you structured your payments - whether they were uneven payments or not - was a huge opportunity for tax planning, but that option has now been eliminated. However, one thing that hasn't changed is how the signing bonus is taxed.
In this episode, Travis and Erik discuss what a signing bonus is, and how the recent changes might impact families and cover commonly asked questions like:
- What changes have been made to the signing bonus structure in 2020?
- How are signing bonuses are paid out?
- Are these true signing bonuses? Or are they wages?
- How does my residency impact the way my signing bonus is taxed?
- What is an abandonment clause and how might it impact my signing bonus?
- What happens when an abandonment clause is removed?
- Now that signing bonuses are paid out over 3 years instead of 2, what are the important implications and opportunities that families should consider?
- When should I start doing the tax planning?
- When is it important in the draft process to bring on certified financial experts?
- Why are players hearing the argument that they shouldn't bring on financial experts if they're only going to earn $100,000 in their first year - regardless of the size of their signing bonus?
More from the MLB Draft Podcast:
- Episode 1: The Draft Opportunity
- Episode 2: What’s My Number?
- Episode 3: Selecting the Right Sports Agent
- Episode 4: Selecting the Right Financial Team
- Episode 5: Tyler Beede on Navigating the Draft and Your Baseball Career
- Episode 6: Eric Chenowith on Do I Need Disability Insurance?
You probably didn’t think we would be talking about disability insurance, right? So, do you need coverage? The answer varies for every individual. We are joined this week by former NBA player and current owner of Leverage, a disability and life insurance firm. In this episode, we discuss questions like:
- As a high school draft prospect, is disability insurance really necessary?
- Is disability insurance even worth it for me?
- If I am currently enrolled at a university, what should I do?
- Will my university pay for my disability insurance?
- What are my chances of getting injured and filing a claim?
- How much disability insurance should I take out?
- Does it just cover me on the field?
Who should I trust with my risk management? In episode six, we are going to breakdown disability insurance. We want you to be well informed of all your options. You have worked hard to get here-we want you to protect what you have earned and what you are going to earn in the future.
In times of uncertainty, it's human nature to try and control things - specifically within investing. Some of the most frequently asked questions we've received from our clients are: "Should I be reacting right now to try and stop the bleeding?" or "What are ways to utilize this market downturn to turn a seemingly bad financial situation into a good one?" We've also consistently been asked "Is this downturn different then all previous ones?"
Ben Carlson compiles some important stats in his recent blog post noting that while the U.S. stock market is currently down roughly 32% from all-time highs, that the market falling even up to 40-50% from previous all-time highs has been a fairly common pattern all the way back to the 1920s.
So what should you be doing during this downturn? And what should you be expecting your wealth advisor to be doing during this time? Are there any mitigating steps your advisor should be taking right now that will help to keep your portfolio diverse and set you up for the best possible outcome in the future?
Brandon and Erik discuss these questions and more in this week's episode.
Welcome back to another edition of AWM Insights. With all the recent public market volatility, we've been highlighting the importance of our long-term investment strategy. Since 1928, there have been 24 bear markets. A unique trait they have all shared is that every one in U.S. history has then led to new all-time highs. However, while it's important to stay patient and stick to the plan - we also don't want to just "do nothing" during this time. In this week's episode, Erik and Brandon begin their discussions on smart financial strategies that we utilize during these market downturns to add tremendous value to portfolios. First, we breakdown the value of Rebalancing and cover items such as:
- What is rebalancing
- Why is it so valuable?
- When should you rebalance?
- What are the potential pitfalls?
Welcome to our new bonus series: AWM Insights! In these mini episodes, we will hear from the AWM team on different topics and resources relevant to our community in 5-7 minute episodes.
For our first episode, there is an easy segue with the news of the Covid-19 virus and its impact on global markets. This has been a concern from a human level and a health level - however, our strategy remains the same as it relates to navigating the fluctuating markets. Listen in for more from two of our founders, Erik and Brandon.
On this week’s episode of the MLB Draft Podcast by AWM Capital, we’re joined by Tyler Beede – pitcher for the San Francisco Giants. Tyler had the unique opportunity of being a 1st round draft pick two separate times. He turned down the first opportunity to pursue college at Vanderbilt and further hone his skills. He discusses playing at the collegiate level, on TEAM USA, and continuing on again to the MLB draft as a first round pick.
Throughout the episode, Tyler walks us through his career from high school to the major leagues and covers topics like:
- What it was like on draft night
- Advice from a major league perspective on what he relies on his agent for, how to be a good client to your agent, and some pitfalls to be aware of
- How to build a team who can help handle the business of professional baseball so you can focus on improving your game
- Navigating the draft process with his parents
- Discussing what he would have done differently during his college baseball career and the importance of enjoying where you’re at
- Reflecting on what it takes to be successful in the major leagues.
More from the MLB Draft Podcast:
- Episode 1: The Draft Opportunity
- Episode 2: What's My Number?
- Episode 3: Selecting the Right Sports Agent
- Episode 4: Selecting the Right Financial Team
- Episode 6: Eric Chenowith on Do I Need Disability Insurance?
- Episode 7: How is Your Signing Bonus Taxed?
Last time, we discussed how to find a sports agent who has the expertise and experience for your situation that can advocate for you in contract negotiations and representation.
This week, we continue the conversation to help you finish building out a trusted team that can help you navigate the biggest financial decision of your life by finding the right financial team for you.
As an athlete, you would take the time to research and find the best medical professional to help you deal with an injury. You should do the same when it comes to managing your wealth. To do that well, it’s important to understand some basic concepts of the financial advisor world to be able to take responsibility in this decision and own your wealth.
During this episode, we discuss topics and questions such as:
- What are the unique issues a draft family will face from a financial perspective?
- When should you begin searching for your financial team?
- What are the biggest financial mistakes draft families make?
- What is the difference between a financial advisor and a certified financial planner? What is the difference between a broker/dealer and a registered investment advisor?
- How can you ensure that the team you’re hiring has the experience and expertise to handle your wealth?
- What beyond investing should your financial team help to manage?
- What are the key questions you should ask while searching for a team to handle your wealth?
Listen to episode 4 for answers to these questions and more.
More from the MLB Draft Podcast:
- Episode 1: The Draft Opportunity
- Episode 2: What's My Number?
- Episode 3: Selecting the Right Sports Agent
- Episode 5: Tyler Beede on Navigating the Draft and Your Baseball Career
- Episode 6: Eric Chenowith on Do I Need Disability Insurance?
- Episode 7: How is Your Signing Bonus Taxed?
In this episode, we breakdown the incredible opportunity an amateur player has to become a professional baseball player. We detail what's the probability, the career trajectory, and pathway to navigate the MLB Draft process successfully.
It's hard to encapsulate the excitement surrounding the upcoming MLB Draft. Years of hard work, sacrifice, and dedication all point to this one day. Becoming a pro.
It's a rare opportunity to realize a childhood dream, but equally as important, it's an opportunity to change your financial future. With one announcement from the podium, players will move from asking their parents for lunch money to becoming one of America’s wealthiest.
In last year's draft:
- $316 million paid to draftees
- $128 million of that was on the first 34 picks
- 71 players signed for $1 million or more
- Only two players drafted in the top 10 rounds did not sign
- 73% of the first-round draft picks play in the major leagues according to Baseball America
Baseball is a game. Professional baseball is a business.
You are now responsible for thinking about your career from a business standpoint and you're going to be forced to make decisions, whether you make them well or not, they will have a significant impact on your current and your future life.
Episode one is the starting point for making the right decision.
More from the MLB Draft Podcast:
- Episode 2: What's My Number?
- Episode 3: Selecting the Right Sports Agent
- Episode 4: Selecting the Right Financial Team
- Episode 5: Tyler Beede on Navigating the Draft and Your Baseball Career
- Episode 6: Eric Chenowith on Do I Need Disability Insurance?
- Episode 7: How is Your Signing Bonus Taxed?
How confident are you that you chose the right agent?
In a $10 billion industry, it brings a host of characters that want a piece of your business. It can be difficult to know who are the people that have the expertise and the experience to help you.
Too often, the only advice you receive is to do your due diligence. But that assumes you know what questions to ask, which is largely untrue. So what ends up happening is families are trying to do the best they can, but end up asking the wrong questions, and when you ask the wrong questions, you're going to get an answer, it's just the wrong answer.
In this podcast, we provide a framework and the right questions to ask when choosing your sports agent.
- What are the needs a player has?
- Who is qualified to meet those needs?
- What are the three types of employees of an agency that the MLBPA regulates?
- Is an agent worth paying 4-5% commission on your signing bonus?
- Can your agent get your drafted higher?
Download this show's free resource ("Questions to ask a potential sports agent") HERE
More from the MLB Draft Podcast:
- Episode 1: The Draft Opportunity
- Episode 2: What's My Number?
- Episode 4: Selecting the Right Financial Team
- Episode 5: Tyler Beede on Navigating the Draft and Your Baseball Career
- Episode 6: Eric Chenowith on Do I Need Disability Insurance?
- Episode 7: How is Your Signing Bonus Taxed?
Should you sign a professional contract or head to campus?
This is the decision every high school or college player with eligibility will make this upcoming June. This looming decision will have a dramatic impact on the trajectory of your baseball career and life. How prepared and confident are you that you would make the right decision?
Many factors should be considered when deciding to sign a professional contract; however, for the majority of players, it’s a question of money.
The question the industry is asking is, “What’s Your Number?”
The reality is: everyone has a different “number,” and there is a lot of work that should go into it.
This will be the most significant financial decision of your life. How much you sign for, the taxes you pay, and what you do with that money will have enormous consequences.
So how much is enough?
In episode two, we breakdown the process of what it takes to determine your number. We believe if you follow the process we layout, you can have a lot of confidence going into draft day. Regardless of where you end up being selected, you will have a definitive path to make the decision that is right for you.
More from the MLB Draft Podcast:
- Episode 1: The Draft Opportunity
- Episode 3: Selecting the Right Sports Agent
- Episode 4: Selecting the Right Financial Team
- Episode 5: Tyler Beede on Navigating the Draft and Your Baseball Career
- Episode 6: Eric Chenowith on Do I Need Disability Insurance?
- Episode 7: How is Your Signing Bonus Taxed?
Welcome Back to the Athlete CEO Podcast. I want to begin today's show by thanking each and everyone of you. The investment of your attention, feedback and willingness to spread the word means the world to us.
Today's show will mark the end of our official First Season of the Athlete CEO Podcast.
Over the past 25 episodes we had the privilege to hear from incredible people whom I personally have learned so much from and hope you have as well.
We will be taking a break for the holiday season and are busying planning an incredible season 2 of the Athlete CEO Podcast. We have some exciting interviews ahead and will be rolling out new ways to engage with our guests and their content.
To end this season let me return to the beginning of why we are here.
We believe you are your greatest asset.
My question is what are you doing today to increase the value of your greatest asset?
Whether you are a professional athlete wanting to carry your success into the business world or the entrepreneur trying to break through the next ceiling, we are here to help you reach the level of success you want to achieve.
We would love to know what that means for you in 2019 and how you think we could help you move closer to achieve it.
Shoot me an email at erik@athleteceo.com or connect with us on social.
We will see you in 2019 with Season 2 of the Athlete CEO Podcast!
For more, visit http://athleteceo.com/
Listen on iTunes: http://athleteceo.com/itunes
This week’s guest is a former D1 collegiate athlete, former MLB player of the Detroit Lions, and the owner of Dead Red Conditioning.
After turning down the Cubs and Dodgers years prior, Jeff Larish signed in the 5th round to the Detroit Tigers in 2007.
In 2011, his career came to a grinding halt after suffering an ankle injury on the field. Like most athletes can relate, Jeff saw his future in exclusively in baseball – so the shock of “what to do next” was a life-changing experience.
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- How Jeff went from not being recruited, to playing for a D1 school
- The biggest mistakes Jeff sees athletes making today (and how they can fix it)
- How to know when you’re working with the right physical trainers, coaches, and agents
- The type of people you MUST surround yourself with (if you want to be successful in business, sports, and life)
- The career-changing experience that Jeff experienced as a MLB player
Quotes * “Figure out what you want to accomplish, and come up with a plan.” – Jeff Larish * “If you don’t have a plan, you’ll get taken off course.” – Jeff Larish
Resources:
-
- Dead Red Conditioning
- Follow on Instagram
- Subscribe on YouTube
- KST Shoulder Program
Books Mentioned (Amazon links):
- Never Eat Alone
- Whos Got Your Back?
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
How confident are you that every decision you are making is the best decision you could make?
What is your confidence based on?
Our human nature, unsurprisingly, has not always served us well in making decisions.
We tend to be emotional, see the world with a specific lens, and are often challenged to make big stakes decisions in limited time regardless of what is happening in life at the the moment.
While we may not be talking about pushing the “Red” Nuclear launch button we are talking about the quality of your life.
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- The barriers we must overcome to effective decision making
- The principles behind effective decision making
- An effective, straightforward process for making high quality decisions
Quotes * “The best decision is always the one that meets prioritized objectives.” – Erik Averill * “A decision can never be better than the best-known alternatives.” – Erik Averill * “Decision making is a process and if followed it can eliminate much of the potential conflict.” * “Every piece of financial advice requires a decision.” – Erik Averill
Resources:
- High Performance Academy – Brendon Burchard
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
Today is a unique show in both structure and message.
Instead of our typical interview format, I want to address a topic that I’m convinced more than ever will have the greatest impact on your life. Yet, it is rarely addressed with the urgency and intentionality that it deserves.
As a private wealth advisor for professional athletes and founders I’m exposed to some of the most financially successful people in society.
For many of our clients, they have achieved what most people spend a lifetime chasing, financial independence.
And what I have quickly learned is that having “enough” money doesn’t guarantee happiness. This is probably not earth-shattering news.
Yet, it has been my experience that very few people, regardless of financial circumstance can confidently tell me that chasing “more” money is not what consumes their time and effort.
That’s what I want to address today.
At the beginning of every meeting, I make the statement that “money is not the end goal, it’s a means to an end.” and then follow with the question, “Why Is Money Important?”
Typical answers I here are:
- not having to worry about money
- providing for family.
But those are outcomes not purpose.
So we press deeper, why are those important to you?
And that is where most people get stuck. They can’t articulate why they are doing what they are doing. They lack clarity.
We find ourselves spending our lives pursing more and we don’t truly know “why.” Yet, we are shocked that when we finally “arrive” we are still wanting for more.
I’m on a mission to break this chain of events.
When you meet with a financial advisor, the advisor usually starts by asking, ‘what are your financial goals?”
I’m going to argue that while goals can provide us with a general direction to aim at it’s the wrong place to start.
In his recently released book, “Atomic Habits” James Clear shares five problems of starting with goals
- Winners and losers have the sane goals
- Achieving a goal is only a momentary change
- Goals restrict your happiness
-
- the problem with a goals-first mentality is that you’re continually putting happiness off until the next milestone
-
- Goals are at odds with long-term progress
We have to learn how to let go of outcomes we can’t control.
Goals are good for setting direction, but systems are best for making progress and behind every system of actions are a system of beliefs.
The first step is not what or how, but who.
Who we are precedes what we do.
By knowing what I value, I truly know what I want.
Tim Mauer in “Simple Money” shares that, “our values are simply the stuff in life that we want to be about. That which we want to define us. The guideposts we chose to live by. Values are critical in financial planning as anchors for our goals and boundaries for the actions we take to achieve them. But most of all they make the hardest decisions in life much easier by helping us prioritize what truly is the most important. Understanding what you value most will help simplify even the most complex financial decisions.”
The starting point is clarity.
In his book, “High Performance Habits,” Brendon Buchard shares that the most successful people know the answers to certain fundamental questions:
- Who am I?
- What do I value?
- What are my strengths & weaknesses?
- What’s the stuff that really matters?
- Why is money really important to?
Money is a “means to an end.” What is your end?
I will leave you with an exercise that I found helpful in bringing clarity to who I’m focused on becoming. In Episode 20 I ask athletes to imagine that ESPN was doing a “30 for 30” special on their life. For entrepreneurs, imagine it was a Forbes documentary, what story would they tell?
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What type of spouse were you? Parent, Friend, Teammate, Boss.
-
Who were you in social settings with strangers?
-
What defines the way you played the game or did business?
How will you be remembered?
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
If you’re trying to expand and preserve your wealth, then you probably wondering:
- Who can I trust with my money?
- How can I make sure that fees don’t wipe my profits?
- What type of professional should I work with?
- How can I as close to guarantee a return on my investment?
…and a lot more.
What’s worse is the varying degrees of advice you’ll receive when you go out seeking those answers.
As a Certified Fraud Examiner, David Bryne knows how to navigate the often “dark” space of finance.
David’s company, Bright Lights LLC, was founded in response to the statistics, articles, documentaries, and profiles of athletes cheated out of their money.
On this episode of Athlete CEO David gets into the dirty side of finance with the hops of preparing and protecting you.
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- What David is seeing in the pro-sports financial arena
- When calculating returns on your investments: what to look for so that you don’t get ripped off
- Fees on top of fees
- The difference between a “broker” and an “investment advisor” (and a helpful resource)
- Business Managers: what David thinks and how you should handle them
- The #1 thing to look for when it comes to hiring a business manager or agent
Quotes * “Finance is complicated for a reason: so people can make money telling you “this isn’t that complicated””. – David Bryne
Resources:
-
- David’s Business: Bright Lights LLC
- David on Twitter
- Email David: david [at] brightlightsllc [dot] com
- Chase Carlson From Episode 007
- Broker Check
- Finra
Books Mentioned (Amazon links):
- The Big Short
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
You have heard it said before, “you are your greatest asset.”
My question is what are you doing today to increase the value of your greatest asset?
It’s time to start thinking like a business owner. The CEO of Athlete, Inc.
I know, you have heard it before. Most likely from your agent or a marketing company trying to convince you to “monetize” yourself.
Yes, making money can be an element of it but it’s far more important than just making money.
The truth is, how successful you are going to be during your career and after depends on it.
On this episode of the Athlete CEO Podcast I layout:
- Overcoming the Fears of Thinking About Yourself As a Business
- I don’t want to be distracted and my performance suffer
- Social Media is not for me
- I’ve already made enough money so I don’t need a platform
- I’m not famous enough
- Shifting Your Mentality from Amateur to Pro
- How Shaq, LeBron, A Rod….and Lewis Howes and Devan Kline (who?!) leveraged their careers into success personal brands and companies
- The Opportunities You Create By Becoming a Business
- Where To Start
I challenge you to start today. Right now. Listen here to get the Roadmap for creating your Athlete, Inc company.
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Examples of Athletes Who Has Successful Built Brands & Companies
- Shaquille O”Neil
- LeBron James
- Shaun White
- Arod Corp
- Lewis Howes
- Devan Kline
-
Why Building a Platform Matters
- Control Messaging
- Build An Audience to Nurture Relationships
- Financial Freedom – Create Passive Income
- Investment Opportunities
- Philanthropic Impact
- Post Career Opportunities
Resources:
- Episode 15 – Jeff Piersall
- John Wood Pyramid of Success
- Episode 19 – Taylor Holiday
- Common Thread Collective
- “Who Is More Famous, Clayton Kershaw or Amanda Stanton”
- Episode 16 – Ryan Nece
- Next Play Capital
- Episode 11 – Kyle Mauch
- AthletesBrand.com
- Episode 17 – Justin Blaine
- Athletes Touch
- Gary Vanerchuck
- Stop Asking Me About Your Personal Brand, and Start Doing Some Work
- How Athletes Should Use Social Media To Build Their Brands
Books Mentioned (Amazon links):
- High Performance Habits by Brendon Buchard
- Never Eat Alone by Keith Ferrazzi
- Platform by Michael Hyatt
- Crushing It by Gary Vaynerchuk
Taylor Holiday knows business.
After avoiding law school (which he calls a stroke of luck) he lived the glorified garage to glory story. Power Balance grew to over 100 employees and a $60 million valuation.
Today, as the managing partner of Common Thread Collective, Taylor’s team empowers eCommerce companies to reach new levels.
On the show, Taylor talks about three of the hottest topics on professional athletes and business persons minds:
- Startups & venture capital
- Balancing life & work
- Influencer marketing & networking
Some highlights from today’s episode:
- The strike of luck that kept Taylor from attending law school and ended up with him founding a company
- How Taylor took Power Balance from 3 people in a garage, to a $60 million dollar company (and Kobe Bryant wearing their gear)
- The secret sauce behind the success of Common Thread Collective
- Balance: Is it a real thing? Taylor shares how he manages business, family, and health.
- What marketing strategy is more powerful? Influencers? Or actual users of the product?
- Should athletes reach out to brands they want to work with directly?
- The most powerful platforms for influencers
- How to get the attention of any brand or business you’d like to work with
- The investments that have been most impactful for Taylor
Quotes * “The best influencers are actually power users of the product more than they are famous people.” – Taylor Holiday * “If you’re an influencer, follow the advertising dollars and spend your time there.” – Taylor Holiday * If you really like the product you’re promoting, it’s going to be more meaningful.” * “Audit the things you’re deeply passionate about and figure out a way to tell people about it.” – Taylor Holiday * “The relationships with influencers and brands that work best are the ones that are connected to your true passion.” – Taylor Holiday
Resources:
- Power Balance
- Common Thread Collective
- Lean Luck
- 2plm
- Crunchbase
- Ryan Nece from Episode 16
- How I Built This
Books Mentioned (Amazon links): * The Hard Thing About Hard Things
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
Ever feel like this?..
You’re trying to find your purpose, but you keep jumping from shiney idea to shiney idea.
So did today’s guest – until he found helicopters.
Neil Jones had a tough upbringing that required a lot of work and challenges that shaped him into a modern day entrepreneur.
In the chase of his passion and purpose, he went on to found Quantum Helicopters where he offers helicopter flight training.
Regardless of the perceived obstacles and lack of resources, Neil created his own path and learned what it took to be successful.
Professional sports isn’t much different…
Some people will doubt you, some will support. But, it’s the ones that work hard day in and day out that see the long-term results.
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- The story of how Neil fell in love with helicopters
- What series of events happened to Neil that shaped his views and work ethics
- The best piece of advice Neil ever received (that applies to athletes and entrepreneurs alike)
- Advice for anyone looking to start a business
- The reality of the word “mentor”
- Neil’s favorite business resources
- What success means to Neil
Quotes:
- “If you want to be successful, you have to show up to work everyday.” - Neil Jones
- “Work to learn, not so much to earn.” - Neil Jones
Resources Mentioned:
-
Neil’s Company: Quantum Helicopters
-
Fred Claire Interview on Athlete CEO
Books Mentioned (Amazon links):
- Robert Kiyosaki - Rich Dad, Poor Dad
- Lean Start Up
He used to pitch baseballs, now he’s pitching companies.
Justin Blaine embodies what it means to be an Athlete CEO.
Justin is the Managing Director of The Mentor Group, Inc. a full service, national investment banking, financial advisory, valuation, and appraisal firm.
He’s the Founder of AthletesTouch, an organization of former college and professional athletes working together to grow and succeed in the business world. Members range from being fresh out of a sports career to others with decades of business experience. Members ages may vary between 25-65, but the mindset is the same. Their members include Fortune 500 advisors, CEOs, entrepreneurs, start-ups, and professionals in real estate, finance, accounting, marketing, and tech.
A couple of things to look for in this episode:
- Justin’s transition from minor leagues into the majors
- A powerful (yet easy) mindset you can adapt to network with powerful people
- What to do if you’re interested in real estate as an investment
- Should you fake it until you make it?
- Tips for powerful elevator pitches
- Advice for entrepreneurs and athletes starting to experiment with investments
- Benefits of avoiding negativity
- How to look at investing in real estate
Quotes * “If we help enough people it’s going to boomerang.” * “It’s not about chasing the dollar and becoming a millionaire overnight.” * “Do things that others aren’t.” * “You don’t need to be the smartest to be successful, to help clients, and to be an advocate.” * “Nobody does it without luck. Nobody does it without work.” * “If you want to learn and get better there’s nothing stopping you.” * “In order to ensure that your next 30-50 years, you need to take an active approach to it.” * “Invest in people who are positive and lift you up.”
Resources:
- AthletesTouch
- The Mentor Group
- How I Built This Podcast
Books Justin Mentioned (Amazon links): * Never Eat Alone * Give And Take * The Art Of Storytelling
Today’s guest, Ryan Nece, played 7 years in the NFL and went on to win a Super Bowl in 2002 with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Following his NFL career, he went on to co-found Straight Cast – a mobile app that allowed athletes to create their own HD content. He then sold that company in 2014 to Fox Sports.
These days Ryan is the Managing Director of Next Play Capital, a venture capital fund that sits at the intersection of tech and sports.
He’s the epitome of what we think about here on the Athlete CEO Podcast, and we can’t wait for you to hear his wisdom.
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- What Ryan’s transition from NCAA Football to the NFL was like (considering he broke his leg during the last game of his college career)
- How to make sense of the business side of professional sports
- Ryan’s advice for today’s professional athletes
- Why information and technology is powerful (and the role it plays today in sports)
- What you should NEVER do in business
- How many deals you need to look at before you write a single check
- What Ryan looks for in partnerships and ventures
- Ryan’s take on Bitcoin, eSports, and artificial intelligence: Which are the future? Which are flops?
Quotes * “Information is power. Information gives you leverage.” – Ryan Nece * “To much is given, much is required.” – Ryan Nece * “The great part about numbers and data is that it provides the truth.” – Ryan Nece * “Winning is acknowledged by performance.” – Ryan Nece * “It’s one thing to learn, it’s another thing to learn the best thing from the right people.” – Ryan Nece * “It’s hard to wait, but it’s even harder to wish you would have.” – Ryan Nece * “The best investor is failing 70% of the time.” – Ryan Nece
Resources:
- Straight Cast
- Next Play Capital
- Ryan Nece Foundation
Books Ryan Mentioned (Amazon links): * Never Eat Alone * Zero To One * Give And Take * Wild At Heart
Doing what’s right and making money are not mutually exclusive.
Is this even possible in today’s world? Or is it a pipe dream?
Jeff Piersall, is convinced it’s not only possible it’s inevitable.
Jeff, a former award-winning collegiate basketball coach, is the CEO and founder of SpaceCoast Living & SCB Marketing. He's the co-founder of the TREP Summit, and Author of “Dogs Don’t Bark at Parked Cars” which has quickly become on the books I gift the most.
His entrepreneurial pursuits have been recognized as Business of the Year by Brevard County, INC. 500 Fastest Growth Companies and Grow FL “Top 50 Companies to Watch.”
Jeff believes successful entrepreneurialism is based on personal responsibility, a “sky’s the limit” optimism and, above all, value-based ethical decisions.
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- What “stage addiction” is, what it means to athletes, and how to overcome it
- How to build a culture of performance and trust in sports and business
- Why you should allow your kids to FAIL
- What advice Jeff would give you if you’re facing tough situations in life
- Raising a wealthy child vs. a poor child (and which is harder)
- Ethical Capitalism: your key to serving your customers, employees, family, self, and community.
- What “real wealth” is, and how Jeff has created it in his life
Quotes * “In business, the clock always keeps running.” – Jeff Piersall * “It’s the 1 or 2 percent that separates the greatness.” – Jeff Piersall * “You either learn or win in every situation.” – Jeff Piersall * “Faith is the ability to act in spite of fear.” – Jeff Piersall * “All the fortune is in the follow through.” – Jeff Piersall
Resources:
- Jeff’s Website
- TREP Summit
- DISC Personality Profile
- Kolbe Score
- Gallup Strengthsfinder
Books David Mentioned (Amazon links): * Jeff’s Book: Dogs Don’t Bark * Extreme Ownership * The Brower Quadrant * Compassionate Capitalism * Wooden On Leadership
Today we’re giving you a peak behind the curtain as we sit down with AWM CAP’s Associate Planner, Chase Dominguez.
Pro athletes, you’re going to relate with Chase’s opportunity to play in the NFL (as a long snapper for the Saints) and how he’s translated his work ethic and discipline into his professional career.
Professionals and entrepreneurs will love hearing about Chase’s outlook on his career path and journey.
We’re proud to have him on board and we’re excited that he shared his wisdom on today’s show!
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- How, as a long snapper, Chase got to play for the New Orleans Saints
- The classroom moment Chase experienced that inspired him to help athletes make wise financial decisions
- Chase’s words of wisdom for professional athletes
- The “grim reaper” moment Chase had with the Saints
- The one time Chase was a high-school football coach
- Chase’s take on the “millennial mentality”
- Who impacted Chase the most in life
- The best investment Chase has ever made
Quotes * “Take advantage of every opportunity that you can.” – Chase Dominguez * “The more people you know, the better.” – Chase Dominguez * “Don’t take everything for granted.” – Chase Dominguez
Resources:
- New Orleans Saints
- The Med Faber Show
- TED Talks
- Peloton Bikes (amazon link)
Books David Mentioned (Amazon links): * Extreme Ownership
Being “healthy” has taken on a definition these days that’s typically associated with “physical attractiveness” – which can deter people from ever getting started.
Enter David Freeman.
He has a completely different view on words like “health”, “wellness”, and “alpha”.
After attending the University of Richmond on a football scholarship David played for teams in Denmark and France before being drafted to the All-American Football League (AAFL). Before kickoff, the AAFL postponed its launch which triggered a switch in careers.
That’s when David turned to personal training.
These days David inspires his clients and community to transform their outlook on fitness and make lifelong changes to improve their health.
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- The leadership lessons David learned being a captain of a winning team (and what happened during their first losing season)
- The crazy story of David getting turned down his first interview to be a personal trainer
- The call David got on his honeymoon that changed his career
- A powerful exercise that holds you accountable (and practically guarantees your success)
- How “healthy” has taken on a completely different (and wrong) definition
- David’s advice for entrepreneurs to stay healthy
- What it means to be “alpha” in the modern day
- How David approaches leadership
- A new way to look at “ROI”
- Applying the “Love Languages” framework to working with people
Quotes * “Mind right. Body right.” – David Freeman * “You have to have a winning mentality regardless of the outcome.” – David Freeman * “You need to have clear objectives of what you’re trying to accomplish.” – David Freeman
Resources:
- Alpha Training
- Lifetime Fitness
- Lifestyle Family Fitness
- University of Richmond
- Chasing Excellence Podcast
Books David Mentioned (Amazon links): * The 5 Love Languages * Strengths Finder
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
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Andre Wadsworth is a former 3rd Overall NFL pick, making his professional debut in 1998 with the Arizona Cardinals.
After 3 years in the league, Andre began shifting his attention towards being of influence to his family and community.
Starting one of the fastest growing churches in America, 6 car dealerships, and many business and franchise-plays later, he’s steadily developing the culture and people he can reach with his earned influence.
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- The impact Andre’s first year as a professional player made on his personal life
- Andre’s (surprising) advice to young athletes
- Who to trust (and how to avoid getting ripped-off as a pro athlete)
- How Andre lost money as a pro athlete (and what he should’ve done instead)
- The problem with many celebrities and athletes that develop platforms face
- How Andre leveraged a pro-sports career into an entrepreneurial success story
- Andre’s advice for raising a family as a busy athlete or business person
Quotes * “Your name is important.” – Andre Wadsworth * “Don’t be scared to fail.” – Andre Wadsworth * “You can make good decisions and still lose money.” – Andre Wadsworth * “It’s a necessity of life to give back.” – Andre Wadsworth
Resources:
- Like Andre on Facebook
- Creamistry
- Impact Church
- Uninterrupted
Watch now:
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Listen on iTunes
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Today I sit down with Kyle Mauch, founder of Athletes Brand.
As a former professional athlete, Kyle has transitioned to starting not one, but four different companies – with a life vision to help 1,000 athletes create a legacy beyond the game.
Kyle has become a close personal friend of mine that’s not only shaped the way I think about business but life in general.
I can’t wait for you to hear this laid-back conversation packed with the knowledge and wisdom that Kyle brought.
Some highlights from today’s show:
- How to find out what you care about
- What “relevant value” is and how it can help you avoid a post-career identity crisis
- A powerful question you can ask yourself to define your legacy
- How to create significant brand-value
- The eye-opening moment that changed Kyle’s trajectory as an athlete
- The storytelling process that Kyle leverages in his businesses to develop brands
- What it’s like to work with Kyle
- The downside of saying “yes” to every opportunity that comes your way
- Kyle’s morning routine
- Why you don’t need to be a non-profit (and when you should be)
- The biggest investment Kyle’s made to date
Quotes * “Most people don’t understand their own story. You don’t realize it until somebody starts telling you about yourself.” – Kyle Mauch * “What can you do to use your platform before it’s gone to create your brand or legacy?” – Kyle Mauch * “You can make a much bigger impact by focusing on one thing you’re really good at rather than trying to distribute money all over the place.” – Kyle Mauch * “Every athlete has the opportunity to make World-change with just their career.”- Kyle Mauch * “If you can spend ten years and impact one life, that’s a success.”- Kyle Mauch * “Don’t try to implement everybody’s opinion.”- Kyle Mauch * “Don’t try to fix the wheel, go out there and study the wheel.”- Kyle Mauch * “You have to have a purpose that’s bigger than your product.”- Kyle Mauch * “Don’t think failing is OK, but learn from every failure.”- Kyle Mauch * “One of the best ways to get creative juices going is to flip something over.”- Kyle Mauch
Resources Mentioned:
- Reach out to Kyle here.
- Kyle on Instagram
- AJ from Lumberland.Co – Episode 9
- Athlete’s Brand
- Refined Craft
- Campfire Mastermind
Books Kyle Mentioned (amazon links): * Shoe Dog – Phil Knight * Warren Buffet
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
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Turning pro in any sport is an extremely rare, and risky situation.
Few players that face the opportunity get to see the fruits of their labor, and most are left to figure out a longer-term career that doesn’t involve professional sports.
For instance, only 44% of first-round draft picks will make it to the big leagues, and most will play less than one year.
Enter Charlie Olson and Pando Pooling – A company that helps professional athletes lower their career risk while giving them unique opportunities to invest in other athletes.
Charlie’s diverse background ranges across private equity, investment banking and search fund investing.
You don’t want to miss this episode.
During this interview, we talk about:
- The one time Charlie was voted the best hockey player in Hong Kong
- How he raised $500 mil
- What the “search fund” model is (and how it works)
- How pooling gives you leverage when negotiating
- The biggest obstacles and misconceptions Charlie faces when dealing with sports agents and players
Quotes * “If we can increase the likelihood that you make that life changing money, than that’s the best gift we can give players in the World.” – Charlie Olson * “The most important thing a player can do is to play baseball at a high-level. However, you gotta also plan.” – Charlie Olson * “If there are options for you to capture value to set yourself up, to improve your odds, you should take advantage of that.” – Charlie Olson * “You should own your odds.” – Charlie Olson * “You should be able to take chips off the table and control your financial future. Even as a young baseball player.” – Charlie Olson * “It’s like Tinder, everyone has to swipe right.” – Charlie Olson * “It’s players helping players.” – Charlie Olson
Resources Mentioned: * Pando Pooling
Entrepreneurs and high-performers are always looking for opportunities worth their time and money.
For some, you’ll experiment with investing in businesses, and for others, you may start your own.
On today’s episode we chat with Ryan Mandley, co-founder of Gallon Gear, who’s company mission is to help the World drink more water.
… And that’s just his side-hustle.
Ryan is also a leading real estate expert with more than a decade of experience.
He’s seen the highs and lows in the housing market during his career, and has insights to offer you whether you’re an agent or an investor.
During this interview, we talk about:
- How Ryan created Gallon Gear (and how it’s changed from prototype to shipped product)
- The ups and downs of physical products
- Amazon problems
- Where Ryan has seen the most success selling online
- What it’s like running ads for physical products on Facebook and Instagram
- Are we headed towards a 2008-like real estate crash?
- What to look for in a bank when you’re purchasing a home (especially your first one)
Quotes * “As soon as you think you have something figured out, something could change, and then you have to reinvent yourself.” – Ryan Mandley
Resources Mentioned: * Gallon Gear On Instagram * Ryan Mandley On Instagram * Ryan Mandley On YouTube * Eric Cressey – Episode 5 * Thin Blue Line
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
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For a lot of former athletes, entrepreneurship is a natural – but extremely risky alternative.
The likelihood of success in business is similar to the odds of making it to the professional level of a sport. While that would deter most, today’s guest has turned a quirky idea into a thriving online business.
A.J. Wnukowski the founder and CEO of Lumberlend Co., “The Home of the Original Bat Mug.” You may have seen his bat-derived product in the hands of professional baseball players or social media influencers.
What started with just 16 orders and little demand has become a favorite gift for baseball fans – often creating a 3-4 week delay on this U.S.-based, handcrafted product.
Athletes and entrepreneurs alike will appreciate today’s episode and A.J.’s hustle.
Listen in on A.J.’s journey from injured athlete to business owner of one of the fast growing companies in the sports industry.
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- How a mug prototype sparked the fire that became Lumberlend.co (and how AJ got the company off the ground)
- The most difficult part of making a physical product
- How Lumberlend went from 16 mugs sold in the first month, to selling 3,000 units a month
- Hiring friends and family. Should you do it? Or should you avoid it?
- How Lumberlend grew as an online-only product
- How a locker room conversation turned into a seven figure business (and what were the keys to success along the way)
- How AJ stepped into his role as a CEO and business owner
- Advice for those considering entrepreneurship as a life path
- The podcasts AJ listens to
- The biggest mistakes AJ has made (and how it has led to success)
- Who AJ accredits to shaping his life
- What advice AJ would give to athletes transitioning into business
- The NUMBER 1 thing AJ accredits for his success
- What investment has given AJ the highest ROI
Quotes * “I don’t like playing defense, that’s not a good place to be.” – A.J. Wnukowski * “For somebody who wants to be an entrepreneur, There comes a point where you’ve done enough reading and you have to go out and test it.” – A.J. Wnukowski * “You learn a lot about yourself when the business is growing and not growing.” – A.J. Wnukowski * “Projections are great, goals are great, but for me, I’m more of a day-to-day, make-it-better type of guy.” – A.J. Wnukowski
Resources Mentioned: * Lumberlend Mugs * ThomasNet * Eric Cressey (from Episode 5) * Tim Ferriss * Gary Vaynerchuck
Books AJ Mentioned (Amazon links): * 4-Hour Workweek * The ONE Thing
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
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On today’s show, I sit down with the infamous “Athlete Investment Fraud” attorney, Chase Carlson.
Chase’s practice is focused on investment fraud litigation and has represented investors across the country in disputes with their financial advisors, investment advisors, brokerage and wealth management firms.
Chase has brought claims against almost every major Wall Street firm, including Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Wells Fargo, Raymond James, Ameriprise, Credit Suisse, and BNY Mellon.
A significant portion of his practice is dedicated to representing professional athletes and entertainers who are victims of investment fraud or mismanagement. His clients have included athletes in the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL, one of the most successful pop & hip-hop music producers of all time, and one of the largest lottery winners in the history of the United States.
He has previously worked for Global Capital Advisors, a broker-dealer, and for ASG Capital and Kovack Advisors, both of which are registered investment advisors. He also founded Blueprint Family Office, Inc., a registered investment advisor that formerly provided financial advice to several professional athletes. Chase has previously held Series 7 and Series 65 securities licenses.
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- Getting interviewed on 60 Minutes
- Why trust doesn’t always equal success when it comes to financial investments (and what Chase looks for as red flags)
- Designations: What to look for (and if you should even look for them at all)
- What the relationship should look like between agents, financial advisors, and athletes
- Are business managers necessary?
- What has the best track record for investments: Private or Public
- How professional athletes and investors should vet their investments
- Bitcoin and Marijuana – are these (and other new, “hot” investments) worth it?
- Should players have an ongoing relationship with a lawyer?
- Chase’s advice for the athlete transitioning into the business World
Quotes * “Research somebody, even if they look good on paper.” – Chase Carlson * “Investing in private deals makes it hard to hit a homerun” – Chase Carlson * “Build enough safe investments to cover you for the rest of your life.” – Chase Carlson * “If you’re a player, don’t sell your future income. Live within your means.” – Chase Carlson
Resources Mentioned: * Chase On Twitter * Chase’s Website
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher
On today’s episode, we get to listen in on a conversation between my business partner Brandon Averill and serial entrepreneur, Mark Goodstein.
Mark has been starting companies and other ventures for 15 years and is the founder of intrantets.com, goto.com, X1 Technologies, and the progressive automotive XPrize.
Mark also has long-standing ties to Caltech and Ideal Lab – the longest running technology incubator which has created over 150 companies with more than 45 IPO’s and acquisitions.
Mark has been personally involved with launching 4 of those companies, most notably goto.com, which became Overture Services and is now Yahoo’s search-marketing company.
He helped launch this disruptive search engine company in 1996, creating 250 billion dollars in market capitalization today.
Mark has since moved on to X1 Technologies in 2002 to help spark the desktop search revolution.
He also started the Progressive Automotive X Prize which was a set of competitions and events from the X Prize Foundation to inspire a new generation of super-efficient vehicles that help break America’s addiction to oil and curve the effects of climate change.
Mark has helped start two non-profit educational organizations in Pasadena, CA – the Pasadena Educational Network and Fair Oaks Preschool.
Today Mark is a partner at Mount Wilson Ventures which specializes in building early-stage startups, especially those based in the hard sciences, advising industrial partners, and developing innovation communities.
You’ll hear about his current and most exciting project Mark is working on, which he says is “the biggest idea I’ve ever been involved in.”
Here are a few more things to listen for in today’s interview with Mark:
- How Mark came across Fred Claire (from Episode 4) and how their relationship turned into launching businesses together
- What Mark looks for when he’s going to start or invest in a business
- What it was like to buy the world’s first search engine and next-generation internet technologies (plus the resistance and reticule hey faced by the industry initially)
- The serendipitous Disney lawsuit that forever changed Mark’s life (and altered the history of the internet)
- How Mark and his wife created a school from scratch
- Meeting Peter Diamandis
- Why the “offer-a-big-bag-of-cash” method for inspiring action in people works
- Mark’s morning routine
- Are entrepreneurs born, or made? Mark’s take
- Advice for the athlete looking to become an angel investor
Quotes * “The more mobile you are, the more prosperous you are.” – Mark Goodstein “White space is defined as an area that has both customers and needs money.” – Mark Goodstein “Different types of people are required in each phase of a company” – Mark Goodstein “When you upgrade your financing sometimes you upgrade your management, too.” – Mark Goodstein “The goal at each stage of a startup is to build credibility.” – Mark Goodstein “It’s a process. It’s all a process.” – Mark Goodstein
Resources Mentioned: * Fred Claire * Scoutables * Xprize Automotive * Peter Diamandis * Blastoff! Corporation * Anousheh Ansari * Myers Briggs
Books Mark Mentioned (Amazon links): * Lean Startup * Innovator’s Toolkit * Crossing the Chasm * Good To Great
Eric Cressey is a long-timer personal friend and the President and Co-Founder of Cressey Sports Performance, with facilities located in Hudson, MA, and Jupiter, FL.
Eric is considered the leading expert in the strength and conditioning industry for professional athletes – specifically baseball players.
Every off season the top baseball players and pitchers travel to Jupiter, FL to have the opportunity to train with Eric.
As a testament to the type of Eric work does specifically with baseball players – he trained both Cy Young Winners in 2017,
As an accomplished author, Cressey has authored over 500 articles, published five books, and co-created four DVD sets that have been sold in over 60 countries around the world.
Eric has been an invited guest speaker in six countries and over 20 U.S. states
He serves on the advisory boards for both the IYCA and Precision Nutrition, and is a baseball consultant to New Balance.
In the business world, Eric has worked with several start-up companies as both an angel investor and advisor.
A couple of things to listen for in this episode:
- How Eric caught the “strength and conditioning bug”
- Why being an outlier in baseball forced Eric to become obsessed with the sport
- How Eric became the go-to guy for high-performance training for athletes and professional pitchers
- The leverage that family-life has given Eric in his career
- Eric’s “saying no” thought process (and examples of him saying “no” to business deals that distract him from his goals)
- The difficulties of running a training facility (and how it’s similar to other businesses)
- The crazy story behind a failed angel investment Eric made (and how the money was blown!)
- How Eric’s best investment happened in the financial crisis (and helped create his legacy)
- Advice for soon-to-be-drafted athletes
- Where players are costing themselves in the on and off-season with how they handle (or don’t handle) training
- The advice Eric HATES when it comes to staying in shape when the season is over (and what he recommends you do)
- Why Eric has to coach his baseball players to properly hold their babies
- Advice for 35-55 year old entrepreneurs who are limited on time and facing obstacles as they age
- The mentors that helped shape Eric’s career and life trajectory
Quotes * “If you want to build a business, solve a problem.” – Randy Hetrick * “You’re always going to get a lot more done if you meet people in the middle.” Eric Cressey * “You always have to be better at saying no than saying yes.” – Eric Cressey * “The only things I’m going to invest in is myself and things I know well.” – Eric Cressey * “If you have a surgery in minor league baseball it cuts your chances of making it to the big leagues in half.” – Eric Cressey * “They don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” – Eric Cressey * “Family. Work. Sleep. Fitness. Friends. Pick three.” Cheryl Samberg * “You can’t be everything to everybody.” – Eric Cressey * “It’s always good to have someone that you feel is rowing in the same direction as you.” – Eric Cressey * “The idea of following your passion is garbage” – Eric Cressey * “You don’t want to follow your passion you want to build substantial career capital.” – Eric Cressey * “Sometimes the players that fail become the best coaches.” – Eric Cressey * “You make your money on the field. That’s the absolute truth.” – Eric Cressey
Resources Mentioned: * Eric’s YouTube Channel + Must Try Mobility Drills * Eric’s Site * Eric On Facebook * Eric On Twitter * Eric On Instagram * TRX Training * Tim Ferriss – + The Tim Ferriss Show * New Balance * Hibbett Sports * Cheryl Samberg * 35 lb. Kettle Bell * Rowing Machine
Books Eric Mentioned (Amazon links): * The Captain’s Class
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
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It’s with great pleasure that we bring on Fred Claire, former General Manager and Executive Vice-President of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Most notably, Fred orchestrated the 1988 World Series Championship team. He continued his historic run through June of 1998.
While Fred (or Mr. Claire as some call him) admits to not having the skill to play baseball, his love for the sport grew into a position – and a 30-year career with the Dodgers.
Since then, he’s maintained an active schedule as a columnist and analyst for MLB.com.
He also has served as an instructor at the University of Southern California and as a consultant to companies involved in sports. Fred serves on the advisory board for the Sports Management graduate program at California State University, Long Beach and is a lecturer in Social Sciences, Humanities, and Social Services at California Institute of Technology.
Fred is a member of the board of directors of the Rose Bowl Operating Company and is also holds board of director positions for the Special Olympics of Southern California; the Los Angeles Sports Council; and Life Skills FORE Pasadena Youth, Inc.
Fred is the co-founder of Scoutables, which is revolutionizing the way professional sports organizations manage financial risk around the most valuable financial assets.
But what may be more impressive than the numerous business and leadership success Fred has achieved over the years is his recent battle with cancer.
At City Of Hope Fred has 28 lymph nodes and nerve endings in his jaw bone removed through surgery followed by 33 radiation treatments and seven rounds of chemotherapy.
Fred came out the other side with a new appreciation for the teamwork that it takes to treat cancer, and in Fred-fashion has turned his focus to raising awareness and funds for City Of Hope through the Fred Claire Celebrity Golf Classic.
A couple things to listen for in this episode:
- A controversial decision Fred had to make in the 80’s
- How the strike of 1994 and a World Series loss changed the MLB
- What clubhouses, players, and free-agents should think about when it comes to joining a team
- How his love for the sport (but lack of skill) helped Fred shape a career in the Major League
- The secret to the Dodgers success
- If you’re at the end of your athletic career: what you should be thinking about and be doing
- The one thing you should be thinking about in your sports career
- A new technology that’s quickly revolutionizing the way sports organizations manage their financial risk
Quotes * “One game could make a difference.” – Fred Claire * “The only thing I wanted to do was do the job I was assigned to do to the best of my ability.” – Fred Claire * “The fundamentals of teamwork are the same ingredient in any successful business.” – Fred Claire * “The most important aspect you have in business is your integrity.” – Fred Claire * “Enjoy every moment, because it will be gone in the blink of an eye.” – Fred Claire * “There’s an advantage when the spotlight is on you.” – Fred Claire * “When the phone rings. We answer the phone.” – Fred Claire * “As our world changes, some of the fundamentals get lost.” – Fred Claire
Resources Mentioned: * The Los Angeles Dodgers * City of Hope * USC * The Fred Claire Golf Classic * Fred’s Company – Scoutables
Books Fred Mentioned (Amazon links): * Good To Great
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
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In this episode, my good friend and former teammate, Aaron Klusman, talks career, investing, and upcoming market trends.
After becoming an All-American as a Freshmen at ASU, Aaron Klusman went on to play for the Los Angeles Dodgers organization.
Following a successful career as an athlete, Aaron has turned his attention to investing in sectors like food and beverage, retail, private education, real estate, and most recently – film.
Aaron has a sharp eye for current and upcoming trends that will shape the way our society functions and performs over the coming years.
Aaron is a Dad, investor, and pursuer of things he loves.
A couple things to listen for in this episode:
- Aaron’s love for business and branding (and experiences that have shaped his career)
- How one of Aaron’s first businesses sparked while in college
- The hurdles in the retail business that Aaron overcame (and his advice from experience in his clothing line)
- What Aaron’s transition from minor league baseball player to entrepreneur taught him about life
- A simple mindset that you can apply to business that help you live your dream lifestyle
- What to do if you’re invested in the real estate market and it crashes
- Aaron’s no-nonsense advice to athletes who haven’t invested (and how to get started)
- Why being second-to-market can be a wise strategy if you’re investing in new companies
- The strategy Aaron learned from Warren Buffet for finding companies to confidently invest in
- What Starbucks, Instagram, and other big-name companies are trying to figure out (that you should too)
- How Aaron would treat his career while he’s playing a sport, so that he’s seen as an attractive investor
- How to stay true to yourself while growing your career and creating your legacy
- What “big loss” Aaron experienced in his investment career (that you can learn from so that you don’t bleed cash)
- What you can learn from the Starbucks business model when it comes to investing
- What Aaron see’s happening in the education space in the coming years (and how it affects the workforce for coming generations)
- The questions you should ask yourself daily if you want to be a successful athlete, business person, or family man/woman
- How Aaron continues his self-development
- Why validation can lead you astray in your business, family, and career
Quotes * “The environment is worth more than the paycheck” – Aaron Klusman * “The things that are the sexiest tend to be things you want to invest in that you shouldn’t” – Aaron Klusman * “The creation of content is the new frontier.” – Aaron Klusman * “Starting to look at yourself as a brand is a key step.” – Aaron Klusman * “Each thing that you put your name into further defines your brand.” – Aaron Klusman * “Fail cheap. Fail fast. Fail often.” – Aaron Klusman * “Don’t go all in and burn through a career’s worth of cash.” – Aaron Klusman * “Sometimes you just can’t learn it enough until you invest in it.” – Aaron Klusman * “Everyone is in a real-time narrative. No one is a one-time failure.” – Aaron Klusman * “Failure is not final.” – Aaron Klusman * “You have to put yourself in positions to make small bets and miss a little bit…” – Aaron Klusman * “If you don’t invest in yourself, you’re a depreciating asset” – Aaron Klusman * “You can be the best in your space and the World forgets about you.” – Aaron Klusman * “The best investment is in yourself.” – Warren Buffett “Think of failures as investments of learning.” – Aaron Klusman
Resources Mentioned: * Warren Buffett * Uninterrupted * The Players Tribune * Hershey Chocolate Company * Tim Ferriss * Pocket App * NPR Podcasts * How I Built This
Books Aaron Mentioned (Amazon links): * The Bible * Today Matters * The Compound Effect * Mastery * Apprenticeship
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
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When Scott Donnell blew his ACL playing tennis, he thought it was all over.
As an All-American at Willamette University, tennis was Scott’s ticket to a potential career with a sustainable cash flow.
After finding the Acton School of Business and many 100-hour weeks, Scott launched a business in the middle of the 2008 financial crisis aimed at helping schools fundraise more than ever before while teaching students leadership skills.
Fast-forward to today, Scott’s company – Apex Leadership Co. – has helped raise more than $50 million for 2300 schools in 26 states, ultimately, serving over 2 million students. In 2017, Apex was awarded the #1 Ranked Franchise in their category by Entrepreneur.
A couple things to listen for in this episode:
- Why common fundraising methods for non-profits are faulty (and a better approach with more upside)
- Why event-based fundraising has exploded and helped Scott create a multi-million dollar business
- How a $1 million lawsuit (that happened a week after launching) almost put Apex under (and the 73 year old lawyer who saved the day)
- Scott’s advice for navigating business deals when you’re just getting started
- What bad traits in business relationships to look for so that you don’t lose your investment capital
- How Scott creates a win-win with his franchise business model that results in long-term royalties and lucrative investment opportunities
- Why even the most popular names might not carry the weight of a franchise investment
- Where to start with business and investments (whether you’re an athlete or just curious about building your wealth)
- The tried and true piece of wisdom that makes or breaks your long-term wealth
- The controversial (but best) piece of advice Scott ever received about building wealth
- Why you have to eat, sleep, and breath your business when you’re first getting started
- The million dollar question: what’s the most important piece to growing a successful business?
- The mindset you must have if you’re looking to bring on people in your business
- The core steps to creating a self-managing company
- The boring and unsexy book that’s been a huge part of Scott’s business success
- Scott’s ambitious goals in business
- The advice Scott would give to a smart, driven athlete, who’s transition from closing out their career to jumping into the business world
Quotes * “Our society takes money away from those who need it the most and puts it in the pockets of those who might not be not adding much good to society.” * “In business you have to have grit and perseverance to never give up.” * “The best people are always one step ahead and going the extra mile. Finding the things they can do to serve.” * “The key to wealth is just spending less than you make.” * “Don’t ever be afraid to have money burning a hole in your pocket for awhile.” * “Bringing on people is an investment, not an expense.” * “My goal by bringing someone on is that they’re going to set me free by doing something better than me.” * “There’s a lot of things I can do that somebody else can easily do just as good, if not better than me.”
Resources Mentioned: * Apex Leadership Co. * DISC Personality Assessment * Tim Ferriss * Acton School Of Business * How I Built This
Books Scott Mentioned (amazon links): * Tools Of Titans * No-Nonsense Management * Work Rules * Traction
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Welcome to the first episode of the Athlete CEO Podcast!
I’m your host Erik Averill from AWM Capital. On this episode, I’m joined by my brother and business partner, Brandon Averill.
The Athlete CEO podcast brings you real success stories and insights from startup founders to world class investors, digital media experts to athletes, about how to build a successful business, become an attractive investor, and leverage your success to make an impact.
Whether you are a professional athlete wanting to carry your success into the business world or the entrepreneur trying to break through the next ceiling, we dig deep to find the tools, tactics, and tricks that you can use to reach the level of success you want to achieve.
Our goal with this show is simple:
Bring you world class interviews with some of the brightest and most successful entrepreneurs, athletes, and business minds today, sharing actionable insight on how to get more out of your business, finances, and life.
In this episode, you will discover:
- What fuels the burning passion behind Athlete CEO
- What to expect when you listen or watch the show
- Exactly why listening will be a profitable INVESTMENT of your time
Whether you’re an athlete, entrepreneur, or just looking to hear from some crazy successful guests, this podcast is for you.
Watch now:
Watch on YouTube
Listen on iTunes
Listen on Spotify
Listen on Google Play
Listen on Stitcher