700: Keith Hawk & AJ Hawk - Conscious Competence, Delusional Confidence, Stacking Days, After-Action Reviews, Taking Big Risks, The Power of Compounding, and Modeling High-Standards

25:21Ryan Hawk:One of the things I think is common with, I feel like maybe we were born with this, Pistol U2, the book I just published is all about the power of compounding. And it's really like if you're not going to be brilliant, then you got to be able to endure, right? So I may not win by being brilliant, but I can win by being able to endure over time. I can stack days, right? I can get up and do the thing day after day. And I think we've done this for a long time, whether it was in sports and now beyond that. And so this power of consistency, I think it's in our DNA, this power of understanding the magnitude and the importance of compounding habits and routines and rituals.

26:02Ryan Hawk:Pistol, maybe you start, what do you think about this idea and how it feels? Maybe it even comes more naturally to us. I don't know. It's still really, really hard. You still got to make the choice. You still got to do it, right? Age and I had this kind of unwritten rule that no matter what we do the night before, we're going to get up and go to the first lift when we were in college. We're going to get up and go be with our teammates. You don't have to go to bed early all the time, right? But you're going to get up and go to work no matter what, regardless of how you feel. And now we've just kind of taken that to everything beyond those days.

26:35Ryan Hawk:What do you think of this? Beyond being a great speaker, I would say it's right there as a number two being the show up first, right? You must show up. You must show up on time. Show up with full power, not some, you know, drag yourself into situations, whether it's a meeting or a customer event, whatever it might be. But every single day showing up is the beginning of it. And then once you're there, whether you're lifting weights or you're writing a sales proposal or whatever it might be, put the effort in day after day. Anybody that's been great at something, they probably didn't get great on the first day, but they did the right types of things along the way that eventually it shows itself.

27:18I mean, I think Steve Jobs scruffed around for a while before he found his passion for sure and started building what became Apple and every other innovator, probably, I mean, I've read the Elon Musk stuff a lot about his bankruptcy or near bankruptcy, and he was at the edge of failing. And yet he kept coming in, doing what needed to be done to build a great company. And so, you know, I'd see you guys lifting weights in the basement when you're in like the fourth grade and just pounding them away. And clearly as a fourth grader or second grader, it doesn't show up in the form of muscles right away.

27:50But over time, you're stacking that work. That's not just the physical element that you're building. You're building a strong brain. You're building a, I am tougher than perhaps others that I will encounter in the world. And so So whether I'm getting mentally tougher or physically tougher, I think it's incredibly vital to being a really successful person.

28:10Ryan Hawk:Yeah, I mean, AJ, I was lucky enough to build relationships with a lot of your teammates, especially in Green Bay over those nine years. And I remember when we'd have conversations about you, they would use kind of the unsexy words like the most consistent guy on the team. I know he is going to be where he's supposed to be on every single play. first guy in the weight room will be lifting every day, going to work. And you did that your entire nine years there. And I'm sure in Cincinnati and Atlanta as well, when you were there afterwards, and certainly at Ohio state, the ghost guys say the same thing.

28:44Ryan Hawk:And now taking it to what we do beyond sports, what do you think about this idea of consistency of stacking days, the power of compounding habits and what you do with your work today? I mean, yeah, it's, it's easy to like say and to think about, but it's like anything else where, yeah, it's not cool to talk about. It's not like fun. Like you said, the sexy word, it's not showing up every day, being there, doing what's right. Yeah. That's the only way I know how to do anything because that's just how I guess I was wired from a young age. It's saying like, it helps to me that for me eating, like I could eat the same thing every day, my whole life.

29:19I have no problem doing that. I love scrambled eggs. I don't need to go on a tangent about it, but I can eat scrambled eggs. Give me 10 scrambled eggs every morning. I'm the happiest guy alive. I love going, taking my kids to tournaments and staying at like, uh, you know, like the Spring Hill sweets type places where they have the continental breakfast, the free breakfast down there. And then I go down, there's my kids and I'm like, Oh man, I'll go down early, get a lift in while they're sleeping and bring up a big plate of eggs. You guys won't believe this is another, another awesome place with free eggs down here.

29:49I'm consistently with everything. And I think that it makes it easier for me. Like, I don't need anything exotic. I don't, I don't need anything crazy, but yeah, I mean, that's, that's what sports are for me. That's what everything is like. All right. I can't come in there and all of a sudden one week decide to turn it on and then all of a sudden become good. No, it's like years and years of all that. And I didn't think about that at a young age. I do remember, I think I've said on here before, like coaches telling you, Hey dude, when you come out to practice, like let's focus on one thing to get better today.

30:18And like, when I first started here and I'm like, all right, that's like cliche coach speak, like whatever. I started thinking about like well yeah no today I'm gonna work on my hand I'm gonna get I'm gonna get better my thumbs up elbows in when I'm taking I'm a blocker I want to have perfect hands and I won't be violent and then throw these guys off me like every day you think about something to get better at my god this actually works like it's actually cool you when you when you have some intention going into it it's everything and it just like uh it's reps from the first time you do something until the you know you think of the difference like the first time you did anything compared to the hundredth time you've done it, you should be much, much better.

30:53And that's how I kind of view everything.

30:55Ryan Hawk:Yeah, I think taking that approach to everything has served us well, especially doing it when nobody's watching or they're not around. And not performative. There's a lot of performative stuff now that I noticed that that starts to bug me. There'll be kids, coach, can I run an extra one? Oh, let me run an extra. Like, shut up. No, we're done. Like, no, you don't need it. You run an extra one when we're gone, when nobody's here. You don't need to ask me to run an extra sprint or an extra lap because you think your dad on the side is going to be awesome or your dad's not going to yell at you when you get in the car like we don't need to do things perform we do it because you want to be great and sometimes i think honestly if i wanted to do extra stuff at times i would wait till everybody left and then do it or i would you know i would wait till the weight room cleared out before i went in because i don't want people i don't want it to look like or think like i'm doing this because you think i should be doing this well remember age so after practice when we're playing together for a few years in high school, we wouldn't lift weights after practice in the Centerville gym because other people would see us.

31:57Ryan Hawk:And so we would drive to Premier Fitness, which is by the Dayton Mall, and you would sleep in the car. I remember I would drive and you would be asleep and it would be like a 12-minute ride and you would sleep for like eight minutes. And then we'd go and this would be after practice and do extra lifting beyond the stuff that our coaches had us do. But it wasn't like a big deal. I don't think we even really ever talked about it. We just were like, all right, let's go to premiere. And then you take a little nap in the ride and we go. But I think that's, it's the same way when people say, how do you write a book in the midst of doing this?

32:26Ryan Hawk:And I say, well, just get up an extra hour early for 200 days in a row and never miss a day. That's easy. But you can do it. Yeah, you can. You can do anything. I mean, that's a lot. To say 200 days is wild. Well, then just start with 30 or 10 or five. Start, hey, for two days. I'm going to do it two days and hopefully continue. Just start stringing together. But, I mean, it is absolutely possible anybody can do it. It's just you're not willing to do it. That's just it. You're just not willing to do it. Like, you are capable, but you do have to make the decision, and then you have to follow through and then follow through and then follow through.

33:04Ryan Hawk:And so I think that's really big. Age, I want to get one of the funny stories about – you've told this before with Pat and with me, mainly because I copied this afterwards. words. You met with Mike Nolan when you were, I believe in college, getting ready to go be drafted into the NFL. Is that correct? Yep. Tell me the Mike Nolan story. Oh, so Mike Nolan was the head coach of the 49ers when I was sitting here in college at Ohio State. Yeah. And I was still in school. It was like a month or two before the draft. The Niners brought me out for a visit. So I went out there and got to meet with Mike Singletary, who was actually a linebacker coach at the time, met with all the different coaches, ended up going to dinner with the coaches.

33:43Mike Nolan got to ride in his car. We went to this cool place in San Fran, you know, there's a ballet car guy and we're getting out of the ballet and Mike Nolan didn't have any money to tip the guy. So he was like, Hey, you got any extra, you got any cash on it? And I had a$10 bill and I gave him a$10 bill. I'm like, yeah, here you go. He's like, Oh, thank you. Appreciate that. And he tipped the guy just because he didn't have any cash on him at the moment. We had dinner, all this stuff. and then the visit was great and then my college house that I lived in we didn't get much mail like who's sending mail in college and it doesn't happen very often I get something from San Fran I open it up and it's a nice handwritten note with a$10 bill from Mike Nolan telling me thank you so I like the fact that he remembered that and then I've over the years I've gotten like he does he was doing some Sirius XM radio I've gotten to run into him a few times and I remind him of that story and he's like oh yeah I felt still feel terrible didn't have any money on me at the time I'm like, he was a really good dude.

34:36I knew right there, like, this guy's paying attention. Like, he knows what's going on. So I thought it was pretty cool.

34:41Ryan Hawk:I love it. I love that story. I was at Doubledays, I don't know, a few months ago, out with one of the leaders that we work with. He's a great dude. And I didn't bring cash because I was going to pay the tab with a credit card. And they brought the bill. And then our friend, Johnny Thomas, happened to be there that day who owns the restaurant. And he took the bill away. And he's like, I got you. you know and i said this is a problem because i don't have any money to tip the waitress and the guy i was with tipped her in this case 20 bucks inflation i guess and uh tipped her 20 bucks and so i remembered you telling me the mike nolan story so i wrote him a thank you note and he lives in centerville it's like i could have handed to him but he lives in centerville and i wrote him a nice thank you note and gave him 20 bucks in cash after hearing that story one other thing too i wanted to get to is because i have a fun tahoe story that i remember that i think applies well beyond Tahoe and I'd love for you maybe to tell one if you want to or at least respond to what I'm going to share and maybe we even share the same one but I think it was a few years ago we get to hole number nine hole number nine is this beautiful par four it's a short par four for you you can actually see Lake Tahoe down the left side of the hole and there are a bunch of trees down the right side it's got a little baby dog leg right it works well if you're going to hit a nice little cut, you can actually normally drive the ball up to a distance to where you have like a little 54 degree flip wedge and, you know, putting for bird.

36:05Ryan Hawk:But on this particular day, you hit it right and it cranks off of a tree. I think you remember this one. It cranks off of a tree and actually comes backwards and it lands in the first cut. So not the deep rough, but the first cut roughly, I think we shot it at like 254 yards away from the pin. We get a distance and the group in front of us is a few guys and one of them is Jack Wagner singer actor guy who actually has won that tournament a few times and before we even get to the ball you say to the people we were playing with and to me all this will be fine I'm just gonna get a four iron and I'll hit it on the green and I'll have a birdie look and you know that's normally you're just trying to like advance the ball or do whatever we get to the ball the lie wasn't bad we shot it right we got our distance but Jack is still kind of reading the green and trying to figure out for his putt as he's getting ready to go and you just stand over the ball and you say I'm just gonna go and I said well no because if you hit it good he's still on the green you can't hit into him you said now well I'm gonna hit on the green I'm just gonna go and then before I could even say anything you take the claw back and you swing you hit the ball And as the ball is in the air and it's coming down and it's about to land, Jack Wagner pulls his putter back and starts to hit his putt as your ball is landing on the green.

37:27Ryan Hawk:The fans start clapping in the middle of Jack's backswing and he's putting and it literally landed right next to him to like 25 feet. and to me there's two parts of story one it's just funny that you almost hit him as he was in the middle of putting on the green in front of us which you shouldn't do it's not great etiquette but it was kind of funny two was your mindset and this is the part I want you to to respond to or you can respond to whatever you want and that is this kind of belief of I'm pretty far away I just hit a bad shot. I'm going to hit a good shot and I'm almost going to speak it into existence and then I'm going to do it.

38:10Ryan Hawk:And I think this is something that could be helpful for people. And I wonder how you truly think about it. Like, did you actually believe in that moment? I am going to hit this four iron, 254 yards out of a decent lie onto the green and then have a birdie look and i've heard you talk about this a lot before this is just one tiny example of you speaking something into existence and then doing it the jack wagner part's just kind of the funnier element of the story how do you honestly think about those moments where something bad happens and then you respond and make it better i mean i don't know especially with golfing with that moment like i 100 remember everything about it because i first off i was i was mad i hit a drive I mean, yeah, I hit a lot of drives out of bounds.

38:56But it hit the tree and how far back it came. I was like, all right. But my instant thought was like, you know, I tell you all the time out there, I tell everybody, if I can find my ball, I'm getting a birdie. And I think I made one or two birdies the whole tournament. But I still feel like if I can find my ball, I'm getting up and down. And I definitely 100 % believed I was going to put on the green, though. Yeah, like that was no question in my mind. And I remember getting like, I remember me and you like going, as I'm trying to sprint up to my ball to hit it, I remember you trying to almost slow me down, like trying to get me to wait a second.

39:26But you can't, like they're still on the green. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I know. And so I planned on getting it on the green. I thought maybe, I say, if I miss hit this, I'm going to roll it up and we can call, we'll yell four, right? We'll yell four. And I struck it. It came out clean. It came out pretty good. And I remember - Flushed it.

39:44Ryan Hawk:Like you just flushed it. It was in the air. And I remember being like, oh, okay. Like, here we go. I don't think we yelled four. and I remember hearing like even from way back he kind of almost like the ball hitting the green and Jack looking back and then him saying I apologize to Jack right now. I did kind of lie to him when he's like, well, yeah, we're wondering like why were you even hitting? Like at the time while we were on there, why were you even hitting? I was like, oh, I was so far away. I didn't think there was any chance I was getting to the green, Jack. You know, my bad. I had a shot of my life and I did hit the shot of my life, but I did believe I was going to get there.

40:16Like I knew if I hit this good, it's going to be there. But I mean, especially with golf, I think for me, like I've always been very delusionally confident in my golf game. I feel like if I, like, yeah, why not? Someone like, someone's got to win this thing. Why can't I win?

40:31Ryan Hawk:But beyond that, if you look at people who put a positive dent in the world, they're delusionally confident. They believe they can do things that they shouldn't believe that they can do or that anybody can do, but then they have the guts to go and do it and have an actual belief that they're going to do it. And I think that's a trait that can it be developed? I hope so. Maybe the reps and the compounding is part of that too, like doing the work. But this belief that I can do something, again, this is a funny example, but I think it's a very real thing of, I think I can do something that's, I'm a little bit delusional.

41:09Ryan Hawk:And I kind of like that. Like I want to be around people that are a little bit delusional with what they think they can do. I think, yeah, why not? I mean, a lot of it, partly, especially when I verbally, when I talk about or say stuff like that, I do it around my kids to try to pump them up and pump their confidence up because kids like that's all I care about is them being confident in everything they do, especially sports. But I am so like my kids are at the age now where they love to tell me, oh, you're old. You can't move. Your knees hurt. You're, you know, you have no chance, dad. You're not fast anymore.

41:40And then every once in a while, you got to remind them who you are, you know? and so i do that every once in a while like once a year or something i'll take off on them catch

41:48Ryan Hawk:them in a sprint or whatever it is or if we play the boys in two-on-two basketball like you know they're gonna get crushed it's over yeah anytime we're over i'm gonna no mercy like they're getting destroyed yeah but i i'm delusional like i i'll tell them oh yeah i definitely got i'm like i'm making that shot give me and like i i rebound all the time for my daughter she gets upset sometimes because i like to get shots up too i'm like hey i'm not just rebound i need some shots like i need I got to get my points. But no matter what, I try to tell them. It doesn't matter. I don't care if I miss 15 in a row.

42:16Every single shot, next one in my brain, the next one's going in. Like the next one's going in no matter what. And it almost started out as a joke, I think, when I was a kid. And it just became what I do and how I think about things. Like I don't care. The next one, no matter how bad it is, next one's going to be great.

42:32Ryan Hawk:I think as a quarterback, you got to have that belief. I've tried to take that same thing. Because in college, that wavered at times, right? You lose a job and you lose some confidence and lose some of that belief. And so it's like you've got to regain that. You're just not as good if you don't have some of that. Like, I can make that throw. I can do that. I can squeeze that sucker in there. I think that's a good thing. Pistol, when you hear this, what do you think about this? I'm reminded of, I think you know who Bill Simmons is, the announcer. He uses the term irrational self-confidence. He goes, there are some people I see, they are irrationally self-confident, but I kind of like it.

43:05It's not really irrational. in which just as long as you believe it's possible, it's possible regardless of what it is. So yeah, yeah, I think it's a positive, not a negative.

43:15Ryan Hawk:Let me get to some of these questions. Let's start with Pistol. What's a risk, or I can go first. What's a risk each of you has taken that has paid off? Alex Feldmayer, she's awesome. I mean, I left corporate America at the end of 2017, going into 2018. Great job, VP of sales, L-Sphere Clinical Solutions. We were beating our number. Good pay, good bonus, great people. Loved them. Not everybody, but certainly everybody on my team I loved. So to leave that and kind of go from all of that to nothing. But the market had told me a little bit that this podcast thing and the business built off the back end of that, like speaking and leadership stuff, that there was a chance.

43:52Ryan Hawk:But that's definitely the biggest risk I've taken because I had a family at that point too. It's not like I was single and only taking care of myself. But I had an immense belief, and Miranda had immense belief, maybe even more than I did. and I think that combo has really paid off now years later it certainly was a little tough the first couple of years because you just take a big pay cut and that's not fun but certainly doable but I would say to me that was like uh it's probably the most obvious answer but it's also true and and now you know we're on the other side of that and it's really good how about you pistol biggest risk or a risk that you've taken that's paid off yeah I think you guys might remember but you probably haven't thought of it for a long time in 1999 in fact August 1st 1999 I left Alexis Nexus where I had spent 14 years, pretty good 14 years.

44:39And I went out and joined this one person company and I made it a two person company called Performance Technologies to see if I could make it just as a public speaker out there in the business world. And I did that for nearly two years. But then one time I'm having dinner at a place called Carver's and in that restaurant was the then CEO of LexisNexis. And my business partner, Michael, said to me, why don't you go talk to him and see if he'd be interested in you speaking at their national sales meeting that's coming up. I went and met with him. His name was Lou. Lou goes, maybe, but come see me tomorrow.

45:14I got another idea that might be a little bit more interesting to you. And the next thing I know, six weeks later, I left my two-year venture out into the private world of public speaking and came back and joined for a much bigger job than I had left LexisNexis with, leading the biggest sales force in the company. I gave myself the gift of taking a risk August 1st, 1999. I gave myself the gift of coming back to LexisNexis August 1st, 2001. Was it really?

45:44Ryan Hawk:On your birthday, both times? I left on my birthday, it was a gift. I came back on my birthday, it was a gift. Yeah, and my career even went up another five notches on returning. So those two years out there in the wilderness, so to speak, really helped me be ready for the next thing. And it also says, what if I hadn't gone up and talked to him at that dinner? Who knows what our futures would have looked like, but we'll never know because I did go up and talk to him. So I think, you know, taking the risk of like, hey, go talk to this guy, maybe get a speaking job out of it. Instead, I got a jolt to my career.

46:18Ryan Hawk:Wow. Yeah, it's a good reminder just to go up and make the ask. What about you, H? Well, first off, so Mike, when Mike told you to go speak to Lou, is he pissed off that you left him then all of a sudden? Yeah. He just lost his guy. He lost half his company. It was kind of interesting because I felt bad, and once I knew I was going to make that move, I had to go meet with Michael to tell him. And it happened to be trash day that day in Centerville, and your mom said, hey, take this last bag of trash out to the cans. I'm like, okay. Anyway, I go out, I have breakfast with Michael. I tell him the news that I'm leaving.

46:50He's crying. He's a very sensitive dude. He's actually crying? Well, you know. Like at first watch, like at a public breakfast spot? He wasn't sobbing. It was a gold nugget. Anyway, we walk out, and we walk out to my car, and he's, you know, I said, hey, good luck to you, man. We'll be friends for life. He goes, hey, why is there a bag of trash in your passenger seat? I was so preoccupied, but I had to tell this good friend of mine that I had this bag of trash that I drove it all the way up to Vandalia, Ohio. I didn't even think about it.

47:21Ryan Hawk:great so that's awesome go ahead age i don't know if i have like any i got mine's like football i don't know like risk i don't know if you call it a risk but my fifth year early in the season i think early maybe september even just into october i did something in a game i i knew my wrist was messed up pretty bad like it was pop it would like it would almost feel like a cuckoo it would like clunk in and out and it was super painful every time it happened happened in a game I happened to actually be mic'd up in this game I remember seeing the clip from it I went up to my train there's a trainer Nate Nate we're an unbelievable guy I officiated his wedding actually later and I went up I said hey something's off my wrist I said I'm not getting an x-ray I'm not getting an MRI don't even ask me to but I need a cast like I need you to tape this up and put a cast on here for me I can't I can't bend it if it bent it was just deadly and so then I only did this because I had a teammate that like three weeks earlier hurt his wrist and he came out of the game, I remember talking to him about how it felt.

48:19And I was like, oh no, that's like what mine, that's, I did a very similar thing. It feels like, and he was put on IR. So meaning his whole season was over surgery right away, season done. And I was like, they are not putting me on IR. I'll figure this out. I had like our trainers make me a little cast that I practiced in every single day. Then we were casting the games. It was obviously painful and everything, but luckily that year we went on, we ended up making a run in the playoffs and we won the Superbowl. And then I had surgery like two days later after the Super Bowl. I had the worst MRI of my life.

48:49Super Bowl was on Sunday. We flew back Monday like afternoon in Green Bay. I had to get an MRI. I finally told him like, hey, I think I probably got to get an MRI on this wrist. And they're like, oh, finally. Okay, because the doctors knew something was up, but they had no idea how bad it was, I guess. And I wasn't going to tell him, wasn't letting him look at it. And I had to do a lay down on my stomach, face down with my arm up in the air so they get a look at my right hand, right wrist. So I was like an hour straight and we had just won the Super Bowl too. I lost 50 pounds sweating laying on that table.

49:19I was so hot and just sweating out. It was a brutal MRI. And then, of course, after the MRI, they're like, what's this? You didn't tell us about this. Your whole wrist is completely gone. This torn ligament, all this stuff, yeah. They had to do this whole three, four-hour surgery with a screw and a pin in my wrist and a cast for like three or four months. And I got the cast off and became fully healthy right as training camp opened that next year. But yeah, just by luckily I decided to, I was like, I'm not, there's no way I can tell these guys. Not really luckily.

49:49Ryan Hawk:I mean, I don't remember it affecting your play. Yeah, I mean, I grew to... Because you made the Pro Bowl that year. It was the Pro Bowl year. You made the Pro Bowl that year. I grew to learn how to play with a little cast on it. Luckily, as the year went, I even cut down my cast a little bit. It started out pretty high at my arm. I would take a little bit off of it as I was feeling okay or able to handle it. But yeah, like if I were to let them give me an MRI or an x-ray, they would have most likely shut me down and sat me out for the rest of the year and tried to get me to have surgery. Wow.

50:18And if I can interject on that, the last time I walked through the Packers Hall of Fame, they had a little display with AJ's wrist cast sitting there in the Packers Hall of Fame. Are you serious? A little bit of a description. Yeah, it was right there. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, yeah. I mean, I don't know if it's there today, but it was there years ago.

50:36Ryan Hawk:That's cool. That's awesome. Awesome. Okay. How do you teach standards of greatness to your kids? Pistol, why don't you go first? How do you teach standards of greatness to your kids? How do you teach your kids to have high standards, I guess, is a good way to put it. Yeah. I don't know if you're always overtly teaching high standards. I think it starts with exhibiting high standards as best you can through your work efforts, your respectfulness, and so forth. But I do think it's very conceivable able to say, can we find a way to build joy into work, right? Things that others might perceive as work.

51:09So when you're young, that's kind of practicing things. So whether it's standing under the basket and rebounding, as AJ just mentioned a little bit ago, whether it's throwing passes on the sidewalk to see how high you can jump and catch them, whether it's going to the batting cages, 11 o 'clock at night and hitting and hitting and hitting, and having the joy in the work, the joy in the process of becoming great, to me leads to the reality of becoming great. And so to me, I think it's just about to your point of those little layers you stack on each day of learning to enjoy the process and get excitement, not just out of the outcome, but the excitement out of what I'm doing to get to the outcome.

51:48Yeah. Aze, what do you think? It's tough. I think like Pistol said, you got to like, you show them. Kids, I remember I asked some of my kids' friends about like their parents or what, like their parents coaching them and they say, well, my dad tries to turn everything into a life lesson, they said. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. Cause my kids kind of think the same thing. If you're like, you can't just explain to them what it is or something. Well, you know what you should be doing here, what you need to do. And like, yeah, I'm just shooting hoops or I'm just throwing the ball. Like, I don't, I want to just do this.

52:17I don't need you to explain to me what happened to you 25 years ago and why you're tough and why, you know, whatever's going on. So I think you show them, I think you just got to show them what it is, show them consistency, without trying to push them and tell them what to do. And they'll just naturally hopefully want to follow in your footsteps and want to figure that out. And I mean, it's tough though at times. Like if you feel like our kids, we don't have good or bad games. Like did you play hard or did you not? Like that's all I care about. Did you play hard? And sometimes I've learned you kind of have to show them what it is to play hard.

52:49And Jack Johnson, my brother-in-law, he kind of reminded me of that a couple years ago. He goes, yeah, he said, you kind of got to show them and tell them. You can't just say play hard. like sometimes they do think they are playing as hard as they possibly can where they're definitely not and if you showed it to them then maybe they would so i'm like you kind of kind of describe it or at least show what it looks like when they actually play like to a certain standard like i said it's all attitude and effort is all i care about it's all we talk about yeah i think it's

53:15Ryan Hawk:just something you have to live every single day yeah again consistency i i agree i think too don't know who said it leadership is caught more than it's taught right and so that's us being the model. So knowing like one of my primary role as a dad, husband is to be the model, right? Meaning no leader can expect their people. In this case, we're talking about kids, but no leader can expect their people to do something if they're not doing it. If I have low standards, then obviously they're going to have low standards. So that's why it's like, if we're going to choose to do something, like let's do it to the best of our possible ability, or even sometimes make it fun.

53:53Ryan Hawk:we're in line at Chipotle and making sure we look them in the eye and say thank you to each person who makes your bowl or whatever, like fun games like that. So then it creates the habit of being, let's say, grateful, for example, of saying thank you, of being kind or holding the door or being curious about another person. We have to model that first and foremost. And they see it. They see all this stuff, even if they want to make fun of us or act like they don't we know they do so i think how you teach it i don't think you teach it i think you model it that's how i would answer that question of the three who's the most regimented we probably all are all are i don't know what do you think pistol well i don't know pistol it's one of you two when the regiment and i take that you don't think you're regimented oh i think i'm regimented in a in a much less organized way than you guys what does that mean what does that mean i want to hear regimented i feel like i don't know i'm in regimented i'm you guys like i don't know i think you guys you plan it out better you document it better you like write it down better you're more organized in that i'm regimented out of like instincts you know i gave a speech you know a month and a half ago i used eli to put my powerpoint deck together all thinking of all that stuff is tough i could tell him what i wanted but i'm just not like i don't know i'm not as good at like following up and staying i don't know like how to describe it but i think you guys probably know how i am yeah I think part of it that helped me is like 12 years at a corporate job where you're using like all these tools to calendar your days and having to make cold calls and cold emails.

55:28Ryan Hawk:Like that has helped me more than I ever realized it would with all of the stuff I do now of this cold calling sales type. And some people still think of that as a bad word. And I will hate that forever because as Pistol, you've said forever, like the whole entire world would come to a screeching halt if sales professionals didn't exist. But I take that same regimented mentality to everything. Like even being in the caddy age, you know, like if I'm going to be a caddy, like I might as well try to be as good as I can be. Like the towel's got to be a specific amount of moisture on it, not only to clean the clubs, but for your hands because you don't wear a glove.

56:05Ryan Hawk:Right. If we're going to do it, then do it well. whether it's giving a talk, working with leaders, doing a podcast, writing a book, PA announcer, right? Pistol, you know, you got to see a lot of those games. I took that job way more serious than probably anybody in the history of the high school, I think so. Alter high school, because I wanted to get all the pronunciation right. I wanted to make the girls really, really excited when they had a big play. All these things, the music playlist, I was in charge of that, all of that. I think if you're going to do anything, then you might as well do it really, really well.

56:38Ryan Hawk:And for me, I guess to do it well, again, like there's a regimented part of it. I think what's probably throwing AJ off on the regimented is this. Sometimes we've used as synonyms regimented and disciplined. Yeah. And I think if you'd said disciplined, AJ probably would have had a different response. So to me, regimented really talks about some of the things that you described. How do I write a book? Yeah. Get up an hour earlier every day for 200 days. That's regimented. That's also a high degree of self-discipline. So AJ regimented, here's one for you. I think every year, as I recall, when you would go to training camp, whether it's with the Packers or later on with the Bengals, you would have a bit of a notebook, and you would start your notebook fresh, and you would write down everything as if it's the first time.

57:18Am I right at that? Or did you just kind of keep the old notes? No, you're right. That's how I learned, writing old school papers. So, yeah, we would reinstall the defense every spring, every summer, and I would always, every year, yeah. Reinstall, like, the same thing?

57:31Ryan Hawk:Yeah. so you're treating it though as if this is the first time so you're rewriting so like you knew it with so i would imagine you do that so that you don't have to think right you just play yes yeah so i trust your instincts i think that's what football is that's anything hey do i think that's do all the work i think that's yes you're right do everything do all the work and all the prep so then when it's time you just trust your instincts and you don't have to think like i think yeah you're right i think that's anything well pistol like if you're good in a sales call sales presentation, if you're good giving a speech, the people who are the best, they don't really have to get ready because they're always getting ready every day.

58:08Ryan Hawk:Age already knows the defense. So you could walk in and be like, I've been here. This is my ninth year or whatever. And say, I know this defense, but treating it as if I'm going to take the same notes. And when we install the same thing, I've done it nine times, but I'm going to do it again. So that once you're on the field, you just go, you let it rip. Yeah. And if you're not taking it for granted, you're not taking it For granted, you're saying, I have to treat this just as importantly in year nine as I did in year one. Yeah. Well, the older you get, the more you understand that too. What do you mean?

58:38The more you understand how cool it is, I think. I remember driving. Also, my notebooks with all the football installs, it started as I got older playing. It was like a little diary too. I would write in things I didn't like from coaches. Hey, definitely don't do this if you're ever a coach or do this. It was usually positive stuff.

58:57Ryan Hawk:I always put that in the parentheses, like when I go see a speaker. So I'm writing notes on what I'm learning from the speaker. And then in parentheses, they'll do something that you think is not good. Hey, that's like by coaching myself. It's weird how everyone has their own way of taking notes. Yeah, you have to. And I think that's, I mean, everyone learns. You got to understand how you learn too. And you can't get a pigeonhole and let someone tell you. That happens in football when people tell you how to watch film, how to study film. Or, well, this is what you need to do. I'm like, well, no, I, how I see things, how I interpret it is much different.

59:25So I need to, I'm going to watch this way. like you just got to find what works for you however that goes what about beating your shellfish

59:32Ryan Hawk:allergy yeah i've never heard of this before until you've told this story how did you beat your should hear about it i've seen what happens to you or at least used to happen to you when you had some type of shellfish yes how did you beat it but first off i've had doctors have been doing this with young kids now i think that so you've you have changed the medical field forever i don't want to take it take any credit for that i came up with it on my own like it all there's no big thing about it but yeah i tried i believe lobster when i was in high school my senior year or somewhere and my eyes exploded all that i couldn't really see i thought i could will smith and hitch yes just like that and i was like man what happened i guess it's a shellfish thing that tried like a shrimp six months later a year later and same thing happened my eyes are shut throat your tongue gets like tingly and weird all that stuff so it took years i didn't have any shellfish because I didn't really care.

1:00:24I didn't like shellfish anyway at the time. But then for some reason, I thought shrimp cocktail looked good. I wanted shrimp cocktail. So I started what ended up being like a six or seven year plan. And I took, I had no idea how long it was going to take, but I was like, I'm going to try it. I'm going to be a guinea pig. I think I can figure it out. And so I would take like one tiny bite of shrimp and then my eyes would explode and I would wait a couple months. Then maybe I'm in another situation. I'd have a little bit bigger bite of shrimp. My eyes would explode. And so I just, over the years, all of a sudden, one day, I don't even remember the day when I was like, boom, I had like four or five shrimps.

1:00:59And I'm like, here we go. And my eyes just got like red and they didn't explode. They didn't like swell shut. And then now, here we go. I can eat any shellfish I want, even though I don't really like it. Shrimp is fine. It's okay if it's there. I might try a couple. But yeah, I don't love it. I'm not obsessed with it by any means, but it was great to see my body respond the way that I was hoping it would.

1:01:21Ryan Hawk:I love this. Again, it kind of flows with the whole theme of this entire conversation of this determination to overcome. And irrational self-confidence. Correct. Is there a little revisionist history, or was this an active plan from the beginning? Always a plan. Always a plan. Yeah, I was a public about it. I told Nate, we were the trainer back there. I remember it might have been one of the first times I was able to have shrimp in my eyes and not explode. We went to Nate's parents' house. They lived when we played the Kansas City Chiefs in preseason. and we would go to his parents' house, a bunch of players for dinner.

1:01:55And I believe one of the first times I had shrimp, my eyes didn't completely swell shut, was at Nate's house. And I remember thinking like, I had to humble myself. I'm like, geez, what? This is, I can do anything. Like, there's no bounds to what you can do. Here we go. I beat this shellfish thing. But yeah, there's not revisionist history. But there wasn't like some big grand plan. I'm like, today's the day I'm going to start microdosing myself with shellfish. That didn't happen. But over the years, I started gaining confidence thinking this is, I tell you what, we're really responding well to this.

1:02:26I think it's soon enough, at some point, I will be able to eat shellfish. And it was like, I think it was like six years worth of like trying little tiny bites.

1:02:33Ryan Hawk:Here we are. One of the other things you struggle with, though, is when you jump into a pool. Come on now. You like to hold your nose. I mean, we shouldn't even get that started on this. Talk to me about your coaching on how to jump into a pool. First of all, dive. You dive into a pool. even if it's 30 foot i'm a good enough athlete where you can i'm going i'm not diving straight down i'm not an idiot yeah i'm not an idiot you gotta do a shallow dive no i mean that's just one of the things i sure hope pistol isn't plugging his nose down in florida when he's jumping into a pool i just don't understand it i don't get i never understood the pinching your nose situation and jumping into a pool like water doesn't just magically fly up your nose and make you freak out the one time i've seen when it actually happens when i it's still not okay but if you watch people get baptized like adults get baptized and they hold them and they're like all right pinch your nose i'm like no i've been baptized i don't need to but i promise you if they're taking me and dunking me i'm not holding my nose when they dunk me so you're brave managed no it's not there's nothing about it i agree i just think that's how it should be we were at uh having dinner family vacation and we went around the table saying like what's one of your biggest ex you know the girls talking about dudes or whatever and that was one of them i had to say it was it well that was mine like you can't do it well like especially a grown adult like a kid you give him leeway like okay he doesn't know any better he saw someone i would actually blame the parents and say he saw his dad do it but that's something that they can fix very quickly but i think it's just like no just like you microdose this shrimp just dive in the pool don't hold your nose either dive in or do a sweet can opener or a sleeper yeah what are those driving with two feet what about that i thought i thought everyone did it i assume everyone did it yeah i mean it became a thing because i told pat about i guess and it's become a thing and people do yell at me a different you've been in tahoe people yell that they drive with two feet and stuff it is one of the things that people it does make me laugh when and i i always go and give them a little fist bump i knew you were an athlete i'll tell them like yeah or like yeah i could tell you you're a smart person And I think it all started, I mean, my first car I learned on, thankfully, was a stick.

1:04:45I had the little two-door Honda Civic, pistol nose, Berksholt car. A stick shift, and then I had a Wrangler. So I've always had a clutch. So I'm using the left of the clutch. But then when I got an automatic, I think it honestly started from...

1:04:57Ryan Hawk:You got hurt, right? Yeah, I was always kind of, I would do it a little bit, I think, when I was younger. I never understood how using one foot. I remember when they were trying to take, when the first time I was learning to drive, they're like, well, no, you shouldn't use your left foot for the brake. I was like, why? They said, well, you're going to ride the brake. I'm thinking, why would I ride the brake? I'll use the brake when I need to use the brake. I'm not going to ride it with my foot on the gas, too. It's just one of those things that I can't, I didn't comprehend. And so then, yeah, like I remember hurting my groin and knee and stuff.

1:05:24I didn't want to lift my right foot from the gas to the brake so I could just keep that right foot there and then use my left. And then, like, you know, that's just how I drive. Why not? No. Genius. No genius. I just think that's just how everyone's brain works differently, and that's how my brain figures out, hey, this is the most efficient way to drive. And guess what? People say, oh, your brake pads have got to be worn down. You go through brakes so quick. I'm like, no, not at all.

1:05:49Ryan Hawk:I just think it's fascinating to learn and for just humans in general to learn about the weird parts of people or things they believe that maybe others would look at them and think they're crazy. Do you guys want to do the draft? Sure. Okay. Can't wait to see pistols. I can't wait to hear pistols. So we drafted the last however many hundredth episode, all different types of random stuff. And I think the one that is really interesting is because this is a question that gets asked at like icebreakers or something is if you were going to have dinner, who are some people that you'd want to have as dinner guests?

1:06:23Ryan Hawk:And so I tweaked the rule a little bit. I want this to be a dinner that could actually happen. Like you could somehow organize it, meaning every person on your list has to be alive, right? So this is a dinner that if you worked really hard enough, you could maybe make it happen. Pistol, is your board correct with that? Yeah. People are alive. And so we'll do a snake draft where we'll let age go first, I'll go second. Pistol, you go third, which means you get two. And then it snakes back to me. And then it goes to age, he gets two. And round and round we go until we each get five people to be at our dinner.

1:06:55Ryan Hawk:And then we will see who wins the draft. And I think how you decide who wins the draft is like what looks like the most interesting, fun, cool dinner table of people. Is that fair? Sounds good to me. And I think the lowering leader listeners who contribute could say something about that too. Yeah, we get, it's funny how Pistol somehow, maybe like the listenership's too old. Gets last place every time. No, he gets first. Like it's too, your demographic. What's your demo doing over there? What's the demo here? I know. Like, oh, I don't know. I think pistols are pretty good. Play a little bit younger, too.

1:07:32Ryan Hawk:He plays young. He plays young. Last time, Age, remember we did Stranded Island. You had an iPad with whatever TV show, and he picked golf, right? And they had to, like, broaden it to the Masters, I guess, which actually ended up being a good pick, and I think helped him maybe win that draft. But, Age, all right, so this is you're at dinner. You're going to have five people with you. who is the first person you want at that dinner table i would assume you guys might have this guy on your list as well but i'm taking michael jordan all day jordan michael jordan i mean you know like he why jordan i mean why not like what the guy just everything about him so interesting it would just be cool i don't even need to talk i just want to hear him speak and actually you know what you'll get to see some other my other draft picks i think that might help spur some good stories out of Jordan too so I mean Jordan is he's the dude like he's my era I'm 42 years old Jordan yes like he everything about what he did his compendium this his crazy drive then did you hear that story he told recently about when he rented that house in the guy that had a basketball hoop what the free throw when he had to make the free throw he said it was like the most nervous he had been in forever just because he was so I just thought that really humanized him and it was like a cool moment where he talked about he was so nervous to make the free throw because there was like random people that he rented the house from wanted to see him.

1:08:54Ryan Hawk:Oh, I thought it was awesome. It was like Jordan never shows like vulnerability or anything like that. I feel like he was saying like he was like the most nervous he's been. And there's video to show it. Like there's video to prove it. They had it from the backyard. So I thought that was awesome and made me even want to have dinner with that guy even more. I agree. That's actually a really good one. All right, I'm picking Dave Chappelle. I think he's got a combination of it's going to be really funny and I'm really optimizing for a good time lots of laughs He's interesting. He's not afraid to share points of views I think we would agree on some and disagree on some and I love people like that where You're not even fully sure where he's gonna come down on something.

1:09:32Ryan Hawk:He'll probably be really really funny Local guy too, right? We could eat do this in yellow Springs, right? Yeah close to where I'm at right now, but I'm picking my first pick is Dave Chappelle All right, Pistol, you get two picks. I get two. Two picks, and then it comes back to me. Yeah, I have different themes across my guests. My first one, we all like a good Army story, military story, and I am— He's about to pick a dead guy. For my first draft pick, I'm picking Admiral William McRaven. Oh, a podcast guest. The Admiral on charge of the Van Lahren raid, the Captain Phillips. He's on my list.

1:10:08Many, many more. Well, I'm glad to hear that, but he's on my list first, so he's my first-round pick because I think he'd be fascinating, and everybody would love to hear him.

1:10:17Ryan Hawk:He's awesome. What a story. Talk about storyteller. Oh, my God. Well, you know him. You know him, literally. He's awesome. So I'm at the snake end, or I ought to get another one, right? You could go again. Yeah, and then I'm up. My second pick has been the soundtrack of my sports life, and that is Dan Patrick. I would like to have Dan Patrick, who is an amazing storyteller. He was one of the early guys at ESPN SportsCenter. He's broadcast NBA. He's broadcast football. He's presented the trophy at the Super Bowls. He's good pals with Adam Sandler. He's good pals with Darius Rucker. And he's got an amazing amount of stories.

1:10:55And we are almost the same age. And so I would have Dan Patrick as my second pick there on my dinner. Is your board only my podcast?

1:11:04Ryan Hawk:guest probably not yet all right all right well i mean you're two for two um i know my next pick is also good friends with dan patrick i'm picking the second dave and that's dave matthews we're going to play music i want comedy with chappelle and i want music with dave matthews so that he's gonna be singing and playing guitar in between the comedy of dave chappelle so my second pick is Dave Matthews. All right. Age, you get two picks, Age. Oh, boy. That's a solid. I still don't understand the snake draft thing like five years later since we've been doing this. It goes like this. Yep. You see? And when you get to the end of the snake, they let you go twice because you were at the end.

1:11:48Ryan Hawk:Does it make sense? So I'm at the end here. No, it never will. It's just how brains work. It never will. I never will understand why. Just trust the process. You get two picks now. I do because I trust you guys aren't going to have anyone on my list probably. Actually, this next guy, I think someone could. Okay. The great Charles Barkley. How could you not have Charles Barkley? Wow, you're just going to go all basketball? Snorteller. No, not all basketball. Just Barkley. I'm thinking of like you talking about a positive dude that lightens every room he's ever been in and everyone thinks is the man is Charles Barkley.

1:12:16Ryan Hawk:This year, we got backed up when we made the turn on the last day. And we get up to the tee box and Charles is about to tee off for his first hole of the day. and you've probably seen the, I've sent you videos of like when they do the bio of each player. And so the guy is, as he is reading Charles Barkley's bio, Barkley hit his ball. He did not wait until the bio was done. He hit it literally in the middle of the guy doing it. He's the only player I've ever seen do that. He was just like, he's taking too long. He's talking too much. And he just swung, hit his drive right down the middle, I think, and just kept playing.

1:12:51Ryan Hawk:Barkley's the best. Yes. Barkley's the man. So I think obviously him, And I've heard recently he and Jordan are like making up. They're getting back together. They're going to be cool. So that's a great another dinner guest. And then third one, my second one here, I saw this guy post something yesterday. I think he turned 79 years old. Arnold, the man. Oh, yeah. Oh, wow. Looking good. He was out there lifting on Venice Beach. And I just think he is. So just his whole, he talked about his whole life story arc of from where he started to where he is. Everything he's done. And yeah, Arnold would absolutely be at the table.

1:13:25Ryan Hawk:Talk about having this delusional belief. This dude comes over here and is like, I'm just going to make it happen. Lift weights, Mr. Olympia, biggest movie star ever, governor. I mean, what a life. That's actually, he'd be amazing. What a good one. Okay, my third one is I'm going to pick someone who I think is one of the greatest living storytellers in the world. This is just going to be story after story. and also maybe the greatest voice alive, I'm picking Mike Rowe. Mike Rowe, Dirty Jobs. He's got a podcast. He's written books. He's awesome. I mean, I don't know if I've heard it. The way I heard it is his podcast and the way he writes and tells his stories.

1:14:12Ryan Hawk:Dream podcast guest, all of these are for me, but dream podcast guest would be Mike Rowe, like rich, incredible voice, even better stories. Mike Rowe, that's going to be a – my table is going to be – Perfect so far. All right, Pistol. Pretty good. You good too? Yeah, yeah. My next one, I like a little humor injected, and you already got Chappelle there. I've got somebody I think that is the queen of roasts. I want Nikki Glaser at this dinner. Are you really only picking podcast guests here? So far, she will tear it up, make fun of everybody, have fun with everybody, make fun of herself. I think she's awesome.

1:14:49I love her.

1:14:50Ryan Hawk:Did you hear her process to get ready for that Tom Brady roast? yes that's inspiring to hear how many times how hard she knew what a potential moment that was for her and thought i am going to make the most of this moment i think that's even a better i mean she was incredible but that was an even better part of the story was i got this moment and one she had to call the people at netflix and like beg to get on stage she earns the spot and then just goes nuts in her preparation had a team of writers she went out and worked the sets and local comedy clubs like i love that part of the story yeah super preparation but she's she's amazing love it okay who's next you get two who's next snake draft you understand pistol i get you i'm sorry oh geez i'm at the tail end of the snake this is uh this is i got you i'm the only one in the family that understands how this works i wasn't thinking about it coming back to me again right stephen covey who wrote the seven habits as a son young covey who is alive and he wrote a great book called The Speed of Trust, and it happens to crystallize my biggest belief about business that says, if we have trust person to person, we can make anything happen.

1:15:59If there's a lack of trust, we can make almost nothing happen. And so whether it's AJ trusting that great defensive back behind him, that he's going to be where he needs to be, and that's an example of trust, or whether it's I'm going into a business situation, I've got to trust somebody's numbers that they're putting in front of us to justify something. Trust is the most important element to me in terms of interpersonal. Once we build trust, we can make anything happen. So young Stephen Covey and the speed of trust was important to me, and I think he could really teach us all something at that table.

1:16:33All right. So it looks like you are sticking to the podcast theme.

1:16:37Ryan Hawk:He's an awesome dude. Also, a lot of athletes in that family, too. One of them plays Britain. I think his nephew plays in the NFL. Is that right? He's a return man for the Eagles. Yeah. yeah really good player okay again we're focused on humor music storytelling and now i'm focusing on history who also is one of the greatest living writers that we have and has been in some of the craziest coolest rooms ever and that's doris kearns goodwin probably the current greatest living historian that we have and has written many books team of rivals all the books about the history of our country, about presidents, about all of that stuff.

1:17:18Ryan Hawk:Doris Kearns Goodwin, and she's still, again, a dream guest. I've sent her letters and called her and tried a million different ways and have not got it yet, but I'm still determined. I think she's 89 to get her to have a conversation because I've seen her and is just out of this world historian storyteller. So Doris Kearns Goodwin is my fourth pick. I doubted she was on your boards, but you never knew. I didn't want to - I had, that was my next pick. I didn't want to risk it. So I just, I grabbed her in the fourth round. All right, Age. You're right there behind Barkley. You get your final two picks here, Age.

1:17:48All right, I get two here. Okay.

1:17:50Ryan Hawk:Then it comes back to me, and then Pizzle gets one more. I don't know if you guys know this guy or not. It just seemed very interesting to me. A guy named Palmer Luckey. Yeah, Andrew. He invented Oculus. Yeah, Andrew. They're a big Ohio State sponsor now, too, but he has gigantic things they're building in Ohio. Now he builds, obviously, weapons and all kind of technology for the government, for the military. He invented Oculus, sold it to Facebook. if you just see him he's he's like a movie character of what you think a super a billionaire tech whiz kid would be he's still young and he owns awesome like military boats and helicopters and like listen to him talk about the future of technology as far as what they're going to do for the military and different things like just an absolute different human than i've been around and i think it'd be cool to just to just to see how he goes about his day and the stories he has I don't know.

1:18:42When I hear him speak, he's super, super passionate about what he's doing, and he seems to be having fun. He's just doing it the right way, I feel like.

1:18:50Ryan Hawk:Man. Pistol, have you seen Palmer Lucky's 60-minute special? No. Oh, you got it. Just search it on YouTube. I remember I sent him a cold email that night after I read it, and all the people in his network, I've been trying like crazy to get Palmer Lucky because he is so smart but also seems like a reasonable good dude on top of being insanely smart, already a billionaire from selling Oculus to Facebook or Meta or whatever, and now Anderle's going to be even bigger. Maybe already is with the drones and all that stuff. Wild, wild, wild dude. Not to mention the drones. But seems like, yeah, fun and smart and like a really good storyteller too and a fun guy.

1:19:32Ryan Hawk:That's a good one. All right, Age, last one for you. Last one for me, this is a classic. I may have used him in the past for things, but. Denzel Washington. He's the guy I say when people tell you, hey, who would you want to play you in the movie? Since I've been 10 years old, I said Denzel. He is who I would want to play me. Even though our ages don't match up, I know, I think he could do a good job. The dude seems very interesting. He seems to like sports. He goes to basketball games. Son played football, I think. Son played football. Son's a good actor as well. But yeah, how could you not want Denzel in that?

1:20:02Can you imagine Denzel just sitting back like his hands like, oh yeah, Charles, tell me about this, Charles oh come on Mike what do you think like it would be I think it really with Arnold

1:20:10Ryan Hawk:Schwarzenegger and Palmer Leckie that table would be insane yeah I'm not saying a word I'm just hanging out yeah I don't think I would either all right Denzel I think he'd be perfect you guys look like I think you'd be perfect to play you in a movie I like that pick okay my last one I'm staying on the theme we got our comedy we got our music and we got our storytellers so my last one is also one of the greatest living storytellers, one of my favorite writers, authors, and that is Michael Lewis. Michael Lewis is sitting there because I'm also not going to talk at this dinner. I'm going to listen to comedy.

1:20:44Ryan Hawk:I'm going to listen to music. And then I'm going to listen to this banter between Michael Lewis and Mike Rowe and Doris Kearns Goodwin and see what Chappelle thinks while Dave just kind of waits to play the next song. I think that feels like the greatest dinner of all time. if I add in another storyteller, and that's Michael Lewis. Good pick. Yeah. All of these, by the way, are on my dream podcast guest list. Palmer Lucky, by the way, is also on that list that I chose for mine. I'm trying to get all of these people, and I've had multiple attempts and got a little bit close, but none yet. So anyway, Pistol, who is your fifth and final pick?

1:21:21You broke my code early on that I'm only choosing this year on this podcast people that have been on the Learning Leader Show over these past 700 episodes episode, so I'll finish it that way, too. We want to be entertained. We want to be amazed at this dinner. We don't want to just hear good stories. Are you picking O's? I'm stunned. I'm picking O's the mentalist. Absolutely. He is my fit pick. We round it out. O's got a little exposed this year by busting with the

1:21:50Ryan Hawk:boys, guys. A little bit. He's still doing it. That's my guy. He kind of has come back. He seems to be doing it. O's is a character. I went to New York City for that one. That was fun it was fun to be there with him but he was performing from the second he walked into the room to the second he left the room he was oh it was funny to hear him do his thing well i mean he wasn't we saw him in tahoe and he was uh it was fun there the stuff he did he did out there he kind of he's a master he's a master how he interacts with people everything he knows how to do it all right pistol uh-oh is gone admiral william mcraven dan patrick nicky glazer stephen Covey and O's.

1:22:28Ryan Hawk:You there, Pistol? Alright, age, Michael. What happened? I don't know. I didn't see it. Did he fall? No, he got up and just walked out. Oh, he got up? Yeah, he got up and walked out. I didn't see him get up. I'm glad he didn't fall over. What happened? I'm back. What happened? Small emergency. Small emergency. No problem. Okay. Is everything alright? Oh, good. Your mom just got home. I had to close a couple of doors. Oh, jeez. I thought you had a heart attack or something. God. Well, I wouldn't have got up and run away. I got my two my lights on right here. I just saw your phone turned down. I'm like, jeez, you have a stroke or I thought you might have dumped your pants or something.

1:23:06Ryan Hawk:I didn't want to mess up the podcast. I just said, don't go dying on us here. I was saying, we're going to watch it. I was starting to think like, man, is Ryan going to keep this in a pistol? There's a heart attack right here on the show. That'd be entertainment gold. Jeez. I was just recapping the draft pistol. I said yours. A's got MJ, Barkley, Arnold, Palmer Luckey, Denzel Mine, Dave Chappelle, Dave Matthews, Mike Rowe, Doris Curran's a good one, Michael Lewis. I mean, that's a hard one. I think I would like all these dinners. I still like mine the best, but I would like all of them based on this list.

1:23:36Ryan Hawk:It would be interesting to see how Jordan and Barkley and Arnold, Denzel, just getting them going. That'd be pretty good. Yeah, it would. One last question before we go. I always ask the champagne question now. Age and I had a dinner the end of last year where I asked this to all the guys. It was kind of cool to see what they said. I'll start with pistol. Champagne question, pistol, as it's a year from now, You're popping bottles. You're celebrating like crazy with all the ones that you love. What are you celebrating? I'm going to do it tomorrow night. My 70th birthday with all of you guys and your spouses.

1:24:08Well, we're doing it tonight, actually.

1:24:10Ryan Hawk:We're doing it tonight. Yeah, my bad. At any rate, my birthday's tomorrow. The dinner's tonight. No, that's what I get to do on the first day of this podcast year is tonight. So all you guys together in one place, cool restaurant. We'll do some of these little questions probably to the group. And then we'll adjourn later to your house with all the grandkids. So that would be good. That is good timing for you. What about you, H? Well, I think I said to when we had that dinner, like I said, I want to continue to do what I'm doing. I want to find a way to always be in the moment and be present because I think your kids show me more than anything.

1:24:49You look back at your kids' pictures when you're young, like, geez, this is crazy. You got to slow down and enjoy it. So I'm, like I said, I'm coaching all my kids stuff. I try to tell them as we're walking out to practice, I'll say, man, like, Hey, this is like, I love being able to do this. This is really cool that I get to come and be here and help with this and be around. So I'm just being present in the moment, not ever, you know, with kids, you worry about everything with them. So I just want to celebrate enjoying them while they're kids.

1:25:15Ryan Hawk:Pistol, we had a dinner in Columbus. Was that November? Maybe it was cool. Some podcast guests, age, James clear. It was awesome, yeah. Mike Deegan, Rob Kimball, just a great group of humans, all dudes just kind of around the table in Columbus. And, yeah, we asked this. I remember H saying that, and it was great of just this idea of being in the moment. I would say, for me, just a good year of college for the older girls that are going to college and our family. You've got three of them going at once. So I think that's a crazy year. And so define good. I don't know. Hopefully everyone's happy, healthy, and wanting to go back.

1:25:50Ryan Hawk:I guess that definition of that would be a good year. So that's forefront of our minds. I don't think that ever goes away. Remember, Uncle Dave told us at like a family gathering recently, he goes, you think you're going to stop worrying about him? You won't. He's right. He's right. You think he will when they get a little older? Nope. You know, and his kids are powerful now. They're older than me. You know, so I was just like, uh, yeah. Okay, great. Yeah. All right. Awesome. Thank you. I know we went long only because pistol couldn't get zoom working. So it's your fault. Thank you for messing it up.

1:26:21Ryan Hawk:But, AJ, I know you got to get ready to join the show. Thank you. This was awesome. Thank you. See you guys in a few hours. Thank you, guys. We'll see you. Awesome. See you guys. Thanks.

1:26:33Ryan Hawk:It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note. Ryan at learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with my dad, Keith Hawk, and my brother, AJ Hawk. a few takeaways from my notes as we celebrate 700 episodes. So cool. How about that Mike Nolan$10 bill story? What's your version of paying attention and following through? AJ didn't even remember that he lent him the 10 bucks for the valet, but Mike made it memorable by writing him a thank you note, mailing it to his college house and reimbursing him for the money.

1:27:11Ryan Hawk:We can all do our version of this following through, being grateful, saying thank you. People will remember these actions forever. What is your version of the Mike Nolan$10 bill story? And then I love it. Delusional confidence and or self-belief. It's one of my favorite attributes about AJ. He puts in the work every day. So consistent, so reliable. He is probably the hardest worker I've ever seen. And from that, he believes he can accomplish anything, whether it's flushing a four iron out of the first cut, 254 yards, or being a coach for his kids, or having that tough conversation. He has a belief that he can and will do it.

1:27:58Ryan Hawk:Positive self-talk. It's real. I love being around people that are slightly delusional about what they can accomplish. I'm trying to be more like that. our world progresses and grows because of people who are slightly delusional about what they can do. They have this belief. I love it. Then be a consciously competent leader. If you want to be vividly clear with your team, you have to know your stuff. And one way to do this, do an after action review after wins and losses. You got to understand why you win. You got to know why you lose, be able to describe both of them in detail. A consciously competent leader knows why they win and lose.

1:28:41Ryan Hawk:And because of that, they can teach others and be vividly clear with their messaging. So good. Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to episode number 700 of the Learning Leader Show with my dad, Keith Hawk, my brother, AJ Hawk. And by doing that and going to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and subscribe me to the show and write a thought for you. Hopefully rate it five stars. You are regularly giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis and for that I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much.

1:29:17Ryan Hawk:Talk to you soon. Can't wait.