From the Basketball Court to the Boardroom with Austin Chatman: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. are brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Billion Dollar Moves. Today, we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active. And today, we'll be breaking down from the basketball court to the boardroom. And to drop these value bombs, I brought Austin Chapman into EO Fire Studios. Austin is an esteemed leader and results-oriented individual with a vast international experience that helped nurture an extensive global network through professional athletics.

0:39And today, Fire Nation, we need to talk about the fact that you will have bad days, but they definitely shall pass. We'll talk about accepting, not expecting, and learning how to deal with rejection and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Austin and our sponsors. The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more.

1:12One of my favorite recent episodes is titled How I've Built an Unmatched Team Culture, an insanely important topic for all business owners to dive into. Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts. Wondering how to leverage a virtual assistant to save you time and money all while growing your business? Get Belay's ultimate guide to working with a virtual assistant today. Just text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E, to 55123 to get started. Austin, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know. Fire Nation, how's it going? Austin Chapman here.

1:51Most people don't know that I actually do know how to play the viola. For two years in middle school, I played it there and I was actually thinking about purchasing one here soon. Take it back up. All right. Well, if you pick it up in time for this interview to go live, maybe you can send me a little audio riff, which I'll add on to the end of this episode and we can have some fun with that. And I typically don't do this Austin, but I'm actually going to share something that you don't know about me because in doing some research for this interview, I was like, that's really fascinating. So Fire Nation, as I shared, in the intro is Austin spent four years as a Division I basketball player at Creighton.

2:30Austin, I hope this doesn't sabotage the interview, but I'm actually a Providence College alum. And I was at the 2014 Big East Basketball Championship game at Madison Square Garden, where by the way, you guys played a fantastic game. It was so back and forth. Jeff hit these threes at the end of the game. I was like, there's no way he's making those shots. And he was making them from basically half court. And fortunately for me, the Friars were able to pull it out at the end. But I'm sorry if I sabotaged the whole interview. That's all right. You guys got great fans. And that's great satire. But you guys got great fans, man.

3:09I have to be honest. I think Creighton does too. I mean, your home court is such a tough place to play. People just care about basketball out at Creighton. And Fire Nation, you know that I like to talk about college basketball a little bit on this because it's really my only passion of sport. and I just, you know, I mean, I know more like about the people that Providence College is recruiting to be on our basketball team next year than I know about my neighbors. I mean, I'm really that crazy when it comes to this stuff, but Austin, you know, he is this person we're going to be talking about here today who went from the basketball court to the boardroom.

3:44You heard the introduction that I gave him and Austin, I'm excited to chat because you were that division one basketball player that we talked about, um, at Creighton and you're also a business students. So I want to start by talking about how you found Creighton's Jesuit values and their just overall focus on ethics shaped you as an individual over the course of your four years there. I would say first, just like, just put this in like modern terms, honestly, starting from step one. I think honestly, from the beginning, I was always told, you know, you're too small, you couldn't do this, or you can't do that.

4:16And you know, you're not the size of, you know, a normal guard or maybe you aren't tall enough or maybe you aren't strong enough you know so it was always like that striving for greatness as lebron would put it or striving for excellence right so then it was from there it was like okay then it was recognizing there there's something different there um so then it was using what i had also to help my team right and be a leader in that regard and improve everybody else around me i will say that you really proved a lot of people wrong over the years. I mean, you actually went on to play professional basketball in the G League and also in Europe.

4:56And, you know, of course you had that collegiate career at Creighton as well. So talk to us about some of those lessons that you learned during your time at Creighton, in the G League, in Europe as a professional basketball player that you've kind of leaned on in the business world. It's really just sticking to simplicity, honestly. You know, you hear all these cliches of like hard work you know determination and all these things but it's like if you stay simple with your task and stay rigorous with that task it's going to be up and down it's like the market you know it's going to go up and down but you have to be find a flat line right you can't get too high you can't get too low you have to always somehow remain in the middle and it's just kind of like from a very young age I think I I kind of sports taught me that but it just kind of translates to a lot of different areas of life where if you can okay you know okay today might be the greatest day ever you can't assume that every day is going to be as great as today right like we're not going to have these great days 365 days of the year there's going to be bad days as well so you have to be able to stay in between that and like know that, okay, as great as this is, this also could be as bad, as great as it is, which is something that's taking things as realism and taking things as they are.

6:20A lot of takeaways here at Fire Nation. Number one, I just love that simplicity that you talked about. And for me, like when I was in corporate finance, you were talking about those ups and downs. It was always going back to the simplicity of be better at those basics that I was talking about, Fire Nation. I mean, that's what it means at the core of simplicity. And like Austin mentioned, you're going to have your ups and your downs. But there's another phrase that I'm in love with, and that's, this too shall pass. This too shall pass. Because guess what? When you're having those ups and you're having your best day ever, you know, if you're being honest with yourself, this too shall pass.

6:54So appreciate it, enjoy it, but don't expect it's going to be repeated every day. And the same thing with your lows. This too shall pass. Now, one thing I want to move into before we move on, Austin, is you talked a lot about you having your ups and your downs. What would you say was your best day as a professional athlete? What comes to mind when I ask that question? Is there a day that you're just like, man, if I could just relive one of my professional basketball days over and over again, it would be that day? I mean, there was a game, maybe in Switzerland, it was like 42 points, maybe in the rim just felt enormous, but there's nights like that when you're in a flow, you know and it's this thing of also such what people talk about is getting to that flow state but and that's kind of my next point is that's kind of where it started to take a different shift for me where i started really integrating meditation into my practices but i was really stuck into this flow state of you know all right i'm in the game nothing outside of it will bother me nothing else inside of these auto thoughts is controlling what else is going on um i'm just in the task at hand, you know, and once you start to be able to decipher that and have like actual awareness to that, that's when you'll start to see strides, um, just in a lot of different areas of life.

8:11I realize that you are a professional basketball athlete and you know, you had that experience, but I just want to say, you know, for me, like I played basketball for eight years. I never felt like the basketball hoop was any bigger than essentially like eight inches around. Like I I just never was able to kind of have that moment that day. So I think you should treasure that because, I mean, 42 points, one game in a pro game, that's quite a special day. But on the flip side, like you also have mentioned previously, you've had some bad days, which was one of your worst. What's one of the worst days you had as an athlete?

8:45I would say getting cut, you know, and having to deal with that rejection and understand. And so I can take it back to luckily I was able to shout out to my guy Russ at Vision Pursuit, I'm going to say. But he used the acronym. It's called C. So you separate, you embrace, and then you just evaluate. Right. So the separate, you kind of, that's an awareness factor. Embrace is like understanding. And then the evaluate, you know, oh, that's basically the third step after if the other two steps didn't work. Right. So I've kind of added this into the repertoire of just like the day 11, the Debbie schedule.

9:25And it's helped to accept things but not expect things. And that's the biggest thing that I think anybody can learn is you can't expect anything, but you can accept everything. C, separate, embrace, evaluate. And I love how you close that down. Accept, don't expect. So Fire Nation, we have some unbelievable value coming up when we get back from thanking our sponsors. I'm all about lifestyle freedom. I want to be able to do what I want, when I want, and there's no better time to kick your feet up poolside than the summertime. But to achieve this lifestyle freedom I speak of, you and your team need to work smarter, not harder.

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11:24It's time to get out of the administrative weeds of your business and start investing your time back into things that grow your business. To help you get started, Belay is offering Fire Nation the ultimate guide to working with a virtual assistant. It's packed with helpful content about how to leverage a virtual assistant to save you time and money all while growing your business. Just text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E, to 55123 to get started. So Austin, when you left ProBall, you were faced with a different kind of challenge, a new challenge, and that was transitioning to graduate school at Creighton and then onto the business world.

12:01talk about how you handled these adversities um they were tough at first i mean it's like for anybody that just enter in the workforce and stuff um and just going from a whole different or not or an orthodox setting is just different right like um but i think sports has just prepared me to like be comfortable in those scenarios where things might not feel comfortable you know and being uncomfortable, uncomfortable situations. So a lot of the battles and testaments that can teach you has taught me a lot just from dealing with adversity, dealing with rejection. But then it comes back to yourself and understanding, okay, is this truly what you need?

12:49Or is that the time for this? Or having accepting? One thing that I've always been curious about is transition. And you were able to transition from a pro athlete to working at a startup. And a startup has some similarities, I feel, you know, with a team and being a pro athlete on some levels. I would assume, you know, only as an outsider looking in. But I'm just kind of curious from your perspective, like, are there any similarities of being a pro athlete and working at a startup? And what was that transition like? I think there's similarities, not even just like with a startup. That's probably with like a lot of businesses that are thriving and doing things the right way.

13:30That is a team oriented thing. But I think anything, you know, you can relate to even just your relationships. Like it has to be a team effort to reach a goal. Right. So I think the startup has taught me, you know, you have to learn how to pivot. And I guess pivot can be that thing of understanding adversity. and kind of throw that in all those type of terms. But being able to pivot and actually just stop on a dime and be like, oh, we're going this way with what we're doing. Or no, we're doing something completely different here and you have to be able to drop your hat and figure it out is just kind of what sports has prepared me for, to be able to think on your toes, act on your toes, and think ahead of the steps.

14:19So you've given us a lot of value bombs. I love that acronym, C-separate. embrace, evaluate. I love that phrase, accept, don't expect. There's a lot of cool things you share with us so far, but I would really just like for you to kind of take a step back, think about our conversation and just say, hey, what's one thing that I really want our audience today to walk away with? What would that one thing that you'd want to share to our listeners that kind of goes in touch with the theme that we talked about today? accept and not expect right because i think my generation in general um is the first generation basically come up in this whole spin era of just technology right so everybody wants instant gratification and we want things now we want things you know on our time frame but like that's not really how reality works um in a sense and i think a lot of like peers and things have a lot I think times adjusting to that.

15:16But, you know, once you could start to battle through that and deal with rejection and you can look at anybody's story, everybody has times where they didn't get what they thought they should have or they were rejected in a certain area and they still, you know, reached a certain level or where they are today. And everybody has those stories. But you have to be able to deal with that rejection and accept and not expect. Fire Nation, instant gratification. It's a fool's game. I love how you broke that down for us, Austin. And you know this, Fire Nation. You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

15:53You've been hanging out with AC and JLD today, so make sure to keep up that heat. And Austin, if any of our listeners want to kind of connect with you or what you're doing in this world, where would you point them? Instagram is A1 Chapman, C-H-A-T. A lot of people usually put a P. Twitter is Austin underscore Chapman Fire Nation make sure to head over to EOfire.com type Austin in the search bar the show notes page will pop up with everything we've talked about today his Instagram handle you name it all of the value bombs and Austin I just want to say thank you brother for sharing your truth your history your knowledge your value with Fire Nation for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side I appreciate you Hey Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by Austin.

16:40And if you had your big idea, well, then you'd be ready to ignite. Well, my free training will get you to your big idea in less than an hour, Fire Nation. Visit yourbigidea.io and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. The Gold Digger Podcast, hosted by Jenna Kuchar, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. The Gold Digger Podcast helps you discover your dream career with productivity tips, social strategies, business hacks, inspirational stories, and so much more. One of my favorite recent episodes is titled, How I've Built an Unmatched Team Culture, an insanely important topic for all business owners to dive into.

17:17Listen to Gold Digger wherever you get your podcasts. Wondering how to leverage a virtual assistant to save you time and money all while growing your business? Get Belay's ultimate guide to working with a virtual assistant today. Just text FIRE, that's F-I-R-E, to 55123 to get started.