The Secret Daily Habits For Ultimate Performance & Productivity | Verizon CEO

0:00For me, it's all about how do I serve best. We are lazy by nature. You tend to do the easy things, what you have always done. This process forces me to do the things that really is where I can make a difference. Wow. Joining us right now is none other than Verizon's chairman and CEO, Mr. Hans Vesper. Hans Vesper. Hans, great to have you. This guy's a legend in business. If you're going to lead others, I learned over the journey, you need to know yourself really good. Wow. Now, I come in every day and feel like, wow, time to do something, Hans Vesper. You need to really step up. I cannot be stagnant.

0:34The day I'm stagnant, I'm the wrong guy. Wow. I remember I stopped the car and started crying. I can see you get emotional right now. Yeah. What was that like, that call? One of the biggest things you can do, you know, was my dream. So it was big. I knew that it's not going to be easy, but I really want to do it. You have a lot of success, a lot of accomplishments that you've created in your life, from sports to business. What is the thing that you are most proud of, Hans, that most people don't know about? First of all, I think. Welcome, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guests.

1:07We have the inspiring CEO of Verizon, Hans Vestberg, in the house. So good to see you. Thank you for being here. Thank you, Louis. It's just great to be here today together with you. We have a lot of commonalities in between. I'm looking forward to it. Gary Vaynerchuk made the introduction, so big shout out to Gary Vaynerchuk. I want to share a couple of stats before I ask you the first question. This is what I saw online in these statistics. In 2023, Verizon generated revenues of$134 billion and also had over 105 ,000 employees that worked at Verizon and also top 10 best workplace on LinkedIn to work at.

1:44But I'm curious, you've had such a unique background from growing up in Sweden, being an elite semi-professional handball player, to then growing and building from the ground up in a company for 25 plus years until you moved to Verizon as the CEO six years ago, roughly. And you were the leader at Verizon in bringing 5G to the marketplace and really bringing this new innovative idea. And I'm curious about this. the thing is I'm most curious about when big companies usually are risk averse, right? They want to minimize risk and not be too innovative. Some innovation, but not too much that we lose everything.

2:26Where did your vision come from? How did you develop the skill of having courageous vision to innovate, to see something that's in the future that no one else sees and bring it to the now? Was that from sports? Was that from your parents? Was that from skill sets you developed over the years at other companies? How did you see the future and bring it to a massive corporation that usually takes years to take on a new initiative and say, we're going to go for this? And it could be billions in losses or even more in success. How did you develop that skill of vision? I think over the years I had such a luxury of my life.

3:10I've had so many different jobs in my life. I've changed so many times, even though I was in one company, one was over 25 years. But I changed my job and I lived in six different countries. I moved around and got new challenges all the time. So I got the process where I always, when I get the new task, I sort of write the white paper without talking to people what I want to do. Really? And I started in 1993 in Chile when I got my first job. I wrote five manager job I wrote five bullets and I gave it to my boss what I'm going to do and he said I don't care you do accounting I do sales but afterwards I understood he talked to all my managers and our managers they sort of oh you're doing this I understood I was managing my boss and I call it the boss contract since then even though I probably have changed job 15-20 times I always do a boss contract there was no difference when I came into Verizon I wrote a white paper, what I thought should be done in the company, more insights, ideas I had.

4:14And then in order to penetrate it in the company, I did 256 meetings with 256 different people. And I had a set of questions that I knew were sort of coming into my white paper. And when I was done, I would know that, okay, 70 % is not going to be a problem to implement. They themselves would say, I told him to do it. 20 % was sort of, wow, they didn't even bring it up. They don't even think about it. I need a strong internal communication. I need to be very clear why I want to do it. And then 10 % was probably, I was wrong. I probably need to change it. So I've done that in all my life. All the jobs I've changed.

4:55Sometimes my boss contract has been 25 pages. Sometimes I've been one PowerPoint slide. But I've always decided ahead what I want to do. and then I take all the stakeholders around me to get their input and then I calibrate it when I implement. But I always want to have my own view before I start. And that's the process I have and that process I have applied when I moved to Brazil, when I moved to Chile, when I moved to China. Wherever I moved, Mexico, taking on new tasks when I became the CEO of Ericsson, which I think I was still 43 years old when I became the CEO of Ericsson. I did the same.

5:31I need to do it. And so that's how I did it this time when I came into Verizon as well. And my job is constantly to be three to five years ahead of the people in my organization. And so I think about these type of things. How do you enroll people in the vision when maybe there's, ah, this is how we've always done things. And we're comfortable with the revenue we're getting and how we sell and how the retail is. That's why I do the white paper. Because I know if I would ask everybody internally, what should we do, where we're going, I will get the sort of a just an organic view where we're going so I want to start with my white paper that's where I want to go that this is what I want to do then I go back and calibrate and the most important is to understand that how far away are my organizations thinking and my stakeholders think I have a board I have a lot of other stuff as well what do I need to do to get them convinced more than instead of say hey I'm wrong I'm going to do what they know so how do do that though how do you convince them because there's so many 256 meetings i put the projects there people to some of the 20 where they were very distant i put on project i made a project spec for them this is what i want to do to review and then they they start doing it and they come to the insights themselves it's never good when a boss tells you this is what you're going to do go that way you want to have the insight you want to have the hunger and the motivation from a team from an organization that they are driving you where going rather than you tell them what to do and that's have sort of been my sort of idea all the life because if they feel successful yeah somehow i might be less unsuccessful as i usually wow so so you paint the picture of the vision this is what i want to create yeah and then you ask the stakeholders how can we get there yes interesting i don't tell them the answer i just give them the task how we're going to organize the company.

7:23How are we going to go to work with this product? So I think I have a view what I want to do, but I let them work it through because that gets the power of organization. And I'm probably only good at one thing that's leading large organization. I mean, it's probably more than 200 ,000 people or 250 ,000 people coming to work every day, and they only work for one company, Verizon. Some of them are contractors, some are, of course, employees, but all of them have only one task. They work for Verizon. Wow. 200 ,000 plus people? Yeah, probably 250 ,000 full-time equivalents. How did you learn to mentally navigate that pressure?

8:00A quarter of a million lives at stake every day who have families, who have hopes, who have dreams, who have bills, problems, stresses, loss, grief. how do you navigate the emotional and mental weight of being a CEO of a quarter of a million lives and the millions of lives that those people impact daily? I think, first of all, I feel a huge responsibility for the platform that I've been given to manage for a while. That's running Verizon. And all the stakeholders in there. I mean, I have customers I need to take care of. I have shareholders that really want me to perform well. I have all my employees that are super important.

8:39And then I need to show up in the communities and be a good guy in society. So all that for me is how I think every day. And of course, it's a lot of pressure, you know, with all these people getting food on the table, having a workplace. But ultimately, if I do this in the right way, I'm creating a long term company. It's going to be around for decades and decades and decades. And that's what I'm doing. And some of the decisions I've taken, you know, I wouldn't take them if I'm optimizing my tenure. I wouldn't take some of the decisions I've taken because they are probably not playing in my favor.

9:15I mean, I bought Spectrum for$52 billion. Wow. 2020, I think. That's going to be lasting for decades and decades and decades. If I would optimize it for my own legacy and my own career, I would have bought way less. But I'm here actually to manage in this platform for a time. and I have to see that the stakeholders whatever I leave off to me should be better than what I took over that's the most important one so how do you learn how to navigate the emotions yourself I have a lot of emotions I feel pressure I how do you how do you manage it all how do you like I don't know I mean I've been trained all my life I mean I started leading three people how I'm leading this I led the Ericsson with 120 ,000 people so I've been trained on every level to larger and larger organization that's one of the toughest things you have if you work in large organization is that you go from three to three hundred people you're managing to three thousand to thirty thousand uh to two hundred thousand is that how do you move yourself to work with the right things when you move up not bringing how you worked when you were leader of three people or thirty or three hundred to thirty thousand you need certain way of moving up and actually changing your head every time so every time i got a new job i actually sat down start sitting down it started way earlier but let's say when i became the ceo of ericsson 2009 i mean i had the ceo i saw him 10 of the time i don't nobody knows what the ceo is doing i mean there's no job description you can put on what should i do they have no idea so i decided what is things that only i can do in this position that nobody else in the company can do there are six things very easy the three internal and three external the internal thing is is is talent nursing the best new talents for top that so top that that's only me strategy of the company that's me and then governance meaning board meetings leading the team those are the three things that only i am the one externally is meeting the top shareholders the largest partners and customers and then being on big stages because I'm only one being invited to those big stages.

11:31So if those are the only thing I'm the unique person to you because of the position, not of Hans Wessberg, but the position, I need to spend time. So since 2009, I measure every hour I work in these six buckets. Really? I do a forecast in advance in order to see that I spend the time on the right thing. So, for example, when I took over Verizon in 2018, I spent a lot of time on internal talent, governance and strategy, way more than the external part. When I was done with that, I spent way more time with shareholders, being on big stages, launching 5G and all of that. So for me, it's all about how do I serve best.

12:12I am super good at certain things and people are, we are lazy by nature. You tend to do the easy things and what you have always done. this process forces me to do the things that really is what where I can make a difference Wow what was this what was the thing you had to let go of and the thing you had to do new leaving leaving a company of a hundred thousand to 200 plus thousand I think what you need to trust people you need to trust but that's hard you need to trust people you need to spend hours and hours to to recruit people to learn to know them and you know one of the most important for being a leader on this level is to be curious you need to know the people you are managing because you and i are very different in background everyone in my team was so different than me in background they're born in other countries they are studied other things they have been trained on other things so they react differently how i coach them the better i know them the better i can coach them and And all the time, I usually tell that, so how do I do that?

13:19So now I don't have my badge, my Verizon badge. On the flip side on that, I think I have 39 names. Those 39 names are the ones that make you different for the success for Verizon every day on my level. The leaders of that. Yeah, there's some internal and some external. Every week, I need to call or talk to these 39 people, one-on-one. And sometimes I just call, how are you doing? I have no task I have nothing I just want to learn what I work and how I can be helpful so one day I can be even better to get 110 % out of them wow so usually on Thursday I used to tell my team oh I have a lot of people to call on Friday but it's just that interaction because I learned when I was a young employee my boss only called me when I had a problem you have to fix this you're late with this this isn't good quality only called it was he as well he only called when it was bad and I remember it doesn't feel good no no my motivation went down then I got the boss that called me all the time checked up on me and every time I was wow he calls me there was nothing special he used to want to be friendly with me and I realized that's how you want to be treated with respect regardless if it's something good bad and of course it makes it easier when you have a tough conversation with someone hey maybe I need to tell somebody it's time for you to do something else but if you know them you know also how they're going to react and how you're going to you're going to do it you started at Ericsson is that right yeah and you were you know at the bottom of the I checked travel expenses right yeah you were at the start I wasn't even good at it right exactly and how many employees did it have at that time roughly Ericsson in total that time probably had over a hundred thousand or 150 when you when you started when I started beginning of your career yeah and you're what 20 something years i think i'm 25 25 and i'm moving back to my hometown because my hometown team in team hamburg is trying to go up to the first division so i started two years at the university in sweden in sweden and i and as i take a a a year off and go for hamburg but when they asked me can you come back to our old them and try to take us up to the first division I say I need to work work no no not I want to work so where do you want to work the only company in my home city was Ericsson so they said okay we're gonna talk to them you see if they want to have you so I never applied for a job my humble team called them up and say and they said hey you can work for us it can work four hours in the mornings you can check travel expenses and that's how we started Wow what would you say is the greatest three lessons you learned in 20 plus years at that career starting from the bottom of a big company to becoming the CEO not many people do that they start at the bottom and then become the CEO three big lessons you learned on how to get there but also what you learned about yourself what was possible in you first of all I think most always do more than expected for you I learned that I always did more if i check travel expenses i also took over the coffee machine to serve coffee and i i saw that people were feeling good i probably did internal communication so always do more and expect it if you want to do what i did and i was competitive i wanted really to be better and try all the time the other is curious i talked to everyone yeah yeah i asked everyone can i get 10 minutes tell me what you're doing and people love to talk about what they're doing and i learned a lot from that and then finally if you're going to lead others i learned over the journey you need to know yourself really good start by knowing yourself before you start leading others how you're going to recruit what type of people do i need around me that is very different than me those three are the learnings that i learned five years ago i still applied in today wow what would What would you say is the skill that you need to learn in the next few years to take Verizon from where it is to 10x in the next five plus years?

17:25I think that the main things I need to do is create a vision for my team so they get excited and motivated and then have the right type of diversity around me to deliver on that. So they can give that back to their teams and it goes on. That's what I need to do. And that's why I'm constantly thinking how I can innovate on products. How I delight customers. how I move the technology forward, work with the partners, and then paint that for my team. And my team is extraordinarily good at execution. Really? But, you know, you don't want to be told something. You want to be part of something. And that's what I'm trying to create.

18:04And that's how I work all the time. Wow. What's it going to take from you in order to create that ability to, you know, become that new person? Because you've become new. What it takes for me is that I need to improve every day. I mean, I come into the office every day and I feel that, wow, today is finally time to do something great. The day I lose that drive that I have every day. I come in every day and feel that, wow, time to do something, Hans Vesper. There's much more you need to do. You need to really step up. And that's what is needed for me. And I need to continuously improve myself as leader.

18:40I need to be a better leader every day. I need to lead better, give even more empowerment, support, understanding for the people around me and for the stakeholders I have. I cannot be stagnant. The day I'm stagnant, I'm the wrong guy. Where did that come from, that drive, that motivation? Because you're 35-ish years in your career. You've been at the top of the world in multiple industries and companies. You've got board seats in some of the most powerful companies and industries in the world as well. you're connected to the most influential people why be so driven at this season of your life to want to serve and give more why not just chill relax you know play a little old time handball run travel you know and and just take it easy why why so motivated to create greatness at this season of life first of all i think it comes with any job you have if you love the job everything around it with bank accounts is totally irrelevant.

19:39I do this because this is best I can do. And I love to do it and I love to be with people. I probably would be a disaster at the venture company. You know, I would go bananas of them. So this is sort of what I really try for and that giving me energy. And it comes from my father. My father was just a unique guy. I mean, he was my coach from when I was five, six years old. I was 21, 22, followed my whole career. He was there every day. Every time I start to be too egoistic, he showed me out and he showed the respect for the team. He also showed me that, hey, everybody has their profile in a team in order to succeed and all of that and respect.

20:26And then I come from a country with equalities sort of super high on the agenda. Everybody's equal. You can be called CEO, but actually everybody is equal and we should treat one equally. I come from that environment and you do right. Then my elevator has been going up almost all the time. And I met a lot of people. You treat them with respect and support. The elevator will go down and people will treat me well. They want to remember that was a good guy. And in my case, I meet so many people. I meet them maybe once in 10 years or something, they're going to have a meeting with me. I'm the biggest brand Verizon had.

21:06And the encounter with me is so important for people, my employees, big customers, partners, even shareholders, that I need to be my A-game every day. And that's why your question comes, why is it drive? The drive is if I'm not on the A-game every day, I'm not doing right for the company. What are the habits that support you to stay on your A-game consistently? Because I know I've seen in the interview you rate yourself from 1 to 10 for the last, I don't know, 15, 20 years. Yeah. On your mood, your energy. Kind of a nightly reflection. How did I show up today? All that stuff. But what are the three habits that support you in being on your A-game as consistently as possible that you do every day?

21:49I think what I do every day, I, of course, try to do some well-being every day. You run a lot. I run a lot. Hashtag Roman Hans. Yeah, hashtag Roman Hans. For me, that is, and I don't impose it on others. It's just find your way to get your peace. And that's a habit I have all the time. The other habit I have is also that I usually say I have two piles of paper on my desk. One which is, yes, no, should I go to that meeting? Should I not go to that meeting? super simple thing that usually people go to and then I have a pilot here you know solve an enormously complex things in technology the product something the habit I have I always go to the left on the on the on the desk to the complicated things I I I give about the ones to the right because somebody else can do that for me so force my that's a habit I learned in order to make progress I always go to the things that I it's hard you cannot solve them in one meeting you You cannot solve them right now.

22:49It takes time. Yeah. It takes time. I need meetings. I need to talk to different stakeholders. And then I said, I learned also that one of the strengths I have is to give energy to people, the mood I have. I'm the ambassador for the company. I cannot be a grumpy, screaming guy. That's not me. So that's why I started in 2009 to measure every day between zero to 10. if I'm 0 to 2 I'm really grumpy bad I shouldn't meet people if I'm 9 to 10 I have too much energy so people get tired of me so usually I said my sweet spot is 3 to 7 in order to see that I get the best out of myself and that's the self awareness when you go to lead other people if you want to have I usually double down on my strength in order I have so many weaknesses we all have and I can try to be better on them but I will never fix them and be great on it.

23:45But I can be greater on what I'm really great at. And that's what I'm trying to do with my mood indicator. And I have it since. I have done it every day since, I think, 20th of June, 2009. Wow. And when's your birthday? 23rd of June. Why a couple of days before? Because that's on the day when I got the call on the highway in Stockholm to be the CEO of Ericsson. Wow. 20th of June, 2009. yeah I think it was yeah Wow on the highway yeah I was going home from the job from work and the chairman of Ericsson called me and said that do you want the job and I remember I stopped the car and start crying I could see you get emotional right now yeah what was that like that call one of the biggest thing you can do you know it was my dream so it was big I remember I called my wife and and I told her you know I need to talk to my family and she told me why do you even ask me this is what you dream of your life so so it's a big moment but I realized also that running this company with a pressure things go good they go bad the pressure going to be under I knew that it's not gonna be easy but I really want to do it yeah I decided to do it and I was CEO of from 2009 to 16.

25:09speaking about your wife I mean you've been married for 25 30 years since 98 yeah so whatever that is yeah exactly whatever something exactly she sounds like an incredible woman and you've moved your you have two two kids and you've moved your family I don't know seven ten times your wife has been um you know a lot of people see you as the leader and the figure and the one driving the businesses you've been a part of. But your wife has moved, I don't know, five or ten times to multiple countries, taking your kids with you. You're probably on the road, I'm assuming, half the days of the year. What is the thing you love about your wife the most since being with her on this incredible journey that you've had with all the moving, the travel, the commitments, the big highs, I'm sure massive losses, challenges that you guys have faced as well economically or people attacking you personally whatever it might be what is the thing you love about her the most and the things she's taught you i think what first of all the good thing was that i met her at work she worked at ericsson she left when i became the ceo so she always understood uh what i was going through and how it works and what meetings send you that so the understanding for it has been just amazing and coping with me is probably the biggest thing you can do for so long so I couldn't like I would never be here if I didn't have a stable family that have supported me through this it's just impossible because with everything I'm doing all the time to have a stability and a support from home and feeling that I can come home I can be bad mood I can have so much bad things going on in my life but always good support and they don't really care you know and well okay that's a joke but we are here with your family and we have moved so many times as said and every time we come to a new country if it was Chile, Brazil, Mexico, US or back to the US right now we have to restart every time with friends, family, school, everything.

27:19So that has, of course, made our team extremely tight. So I'm grateful every day. And probably I don't say it enough, but it's been a unique journey. And I'm very grateful for it. How do you, I mean, how do you guys create a relationship that is effective long term, that is happy still knowing that you may not be around much some days in some weeks you may get she she and the kids may get 5 10 minutes and best you know for a lot of those years some of those days how did you create the harmony in the relationship in the family where you still were able to show up as a present husband and father but also be able to lead a company there with that much pressure i think uh i usually say this and i also at least do my air sometime i actually did the boss contract with my wife because the problem was that i could work seven days a week 24 hours per day it was very easy yeah so the agreement we had was i had to be on friday evenings and i cannot travel out until sunday evenings again because remember if i go to asia and singapore and i fly home i miss saturday and then i need to go to to somewhere else on sunday i can go sunday morning so i'm home 24 hours so the deal was so during my time as ceo when i traveled a lot of the eric's on that wow i i i i i'm going to be home friday sunday and my children know so it's at least doing some rules then the rules was very strange for anyone that wouldn't be in that family wow it's not how many weeks am i i was actually my coach for my son's humble team i was the coach for daughter's handball team uh i i had friends doing it during the weeks i took care of everything during the weekends of course i worked as well but i knew that i had to be present there during the week i couldn't have yet like when i came home from asia on the friday afternoon no no way i had to be 100 so it's also a commitment to the family equally much a commitment to work uh and that's the only way to do it but of course i've sacrificed a lot i mean i mean i have friends but you know I moved around.

29:31It was like I can prioritize my friends on a Saturday or do something like that. But I don't regret the second, and my family doesn't regret the second either, but it's been... No, I've been since 2009 basically a CEO of a large cap company. I had six months or nine months where I didn't have... I was chairman of the Swiss Olympic Committee instead. But no, I have been working hard all my life, but I really like it. but you need to find with your constituency you have to set rules as well. Agreements. Yeah, agreements and that's where then if I violate the agreement and I work a weekend, they would know why and it has to be something important.

30:11Communicate it in advance. Yeah, that's... They don't like that I had a boss contract. I felt I had one but it was a way during that time. Nowadays it's a little bit easier. My children are adults and they're actually working. They actually... They understand what it's like. They understand better. Of course, when they were smaller, they couldn't understand. Yeah, of course. What was the... It sounds like your father had a massive impact in your life, being your handball coach, but also just a great mentor and leader for you. What was the greatest lesson that he taught you? I think that he... He...

30:48The greatest lesson, he took care of all the children in the team. I mean, that was great. He took care of everyone. It was not only me. He cared about everyone in the team, how they had it. And I think that was the greatest lesson. Of course, he cared about me, but I felt that he cared way less about me. Really? Yeah, of course, because I was his son. He felt that he should shop for all others and see that he was a good leader. So I think that was a lesson I learned, the humbleness and the respect for each and every individual in the team. and even if they didn't play or they were on the bench, just take care of them.

31:27And that was his role. And he did it. He was tough. Wow. He was a police officer. He was super tough, especially on me. But that created what I am today with how competitive I became. But also, I think, fairly fair, respectful guy. And he taught me all of that. So it was a great, great journey with him. And I had the luxury, you know, in his last season when he was 40, I think, and I was 13, 14. We played together once. No way. Come on. Yeah. In Sweden. In Sweden. And I remember one of the games at the end, he made 13 goals and I made one. And he always reminded me who was the best team handball player in the family.

32:13So, yeah. And then he continued as my coach after that. So, yeah, no, we spend enormous lot of time together, basically every day during all my childhood. Wow, that's beautiful. Now, you also have a foundation for them, right, or an academy? Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I try to give back to my hometown that created me and my father. So I try to invest. I invested in the gym for them. I also invested so they can have a handball academy on every Friday afternoon, open house two hours with coaches coming and taking care of all the children. And it's just great to see the name that we take care of them and a place to go after school.

32:53And that's giving back to the people that gave you a bit. The first time I saw team handball was on TV in the Beijing Olympics. I'm sleeping on my sister's couch. I'm broke. I have no money. have no direction because i just got injured playing football and was trying to figure out what i would do with the rest of my life and i see handball at 3 a.m because they're showing it and i go what is this sport and i go this is a sport i was made to play this i was born to play this sport yeah but i have no money and i start emailing and trying to find access to usa handball yeah there's no information in 2008 specifically there's like i'm emailing the olympic committee i'm like is there a usa handball team is there a handball team in ohio which is where i was living in columbus nothing i see uh one website that is like the new york handball club yeah i don't know if you know those guys beanie right yeah yeah the creation guy whatever it is crazy so crazy guy great guy and so i try to email and text people there no one's replying to me so i say i'm gonna figure out how to be an entrepreneur i'm broke i have no money i'm gonna figure out how to be an entrepreneur to make enough money to move to new york city to go play handball in new york city because they're the national champions yeah in the club teams yeah at the time it said national champs so i in two years i make enough money i get off my sister's couch i move to new york city and I still can't get a hold of them.

34:24I show up because they have an address of where they practice. On a Tuesday night in Brooklyn somewhere at a middle school gym. I show up and I say, hi, my name is Lewis Howes. My dream is to make the USA team and go to the Olympics. They all laugh at me. There's like 20 guys. I'm the only American. They all speak every different language. And I say, and they say, we just won the national championship last weekend. and this is our last practice of the season. Come back in three months if you're serious. If you're really interested. I come back three months later. I show up. I say, I want to make the USA team.

35:01I want to learn handball, and I want to go to the Olympics. They laugh at me again, but they let me practice with them. Nine months later, I get an email that I got selected on the USA national team. So I played the whole year with them, all of the tournaments, make the USA team, go to the Pan Am championships in Buenos Aires, and it was like, whoa, this is a whole nother level. Played for eight years until COVID, until 2020. And then I'm just running my business. I'm playing while I'm building my business. But I never played full time. I only played two, three weeks a year, maybe. But I was athletic enough to just be a good defender and just be a good enough athlete, right?

35:43I still didn't have the technical. No, no. But I was a good enough athlete that every time I would make the USA camp, for the team i was always the last guy selected because i wasn't playing in europe but i would go because they knew i was good enough yeah and i was like the last man on the team but i'd always start on defense and then we'd play for a week and then go back for six months yeah and i would just train but i wasn't on the court because there's no teams here there's no teams here the olympics happen and the dream reawakens in me it reawakens i message a coach friend of mine from the top Spanish league who's a coach of the team there and I say hey I'm thinking of getting back into the game and playing professionally full-time to go to Los Angeles Olympics 28 because it's an automatic quality yeah you're automatically qualified so for years I'm hanging in there exactly so for years I was always like hopefully Chicago yeah hopefully you You know, it was like New York, maybe, maybe L.A., 2016, 2020.

36:46And then, no, 2028. So I'm like, man, when they got the announcement, I was like, it's 10 years away. That's a long time. That's a long time. But it was not enough for me to go play professional full time because the business was too big and too important. It wasn't enough to, like, make$1 ,000 a month or whatever in Spain, you know? And we were making a big impact here, you know. Huge impact. So I was like, ah, it's not worth it. but it's reactivated. I feel stronger than ever. And the Spanish, I emailed the contact, got on the phone with him. He said, listen, I said, can you connect me to Barcelona?

37:23Because I want to be in a big city. I want to play with Barcelona FC. I have a friend. Yeah. So I met with the coach, the head coach. Yeah. Carlos. Yeah. Ortega, I think it is. Or Carlos. Yeah. So I met him at the Olympics because he was training, coaching the Japanese team. Japanese team. So I was with him in the Olympics Village right outside in the hotel. I said, this is my dream. Can I come play with FC for the next four years? But I want a flexible contract. Maybe two months on, one month off. And he said, I don't know about the first team unless you're all in, but the second team, for sure, I can get you to practice with them, which is still a big club.

37:59It's a great team. Best in the world. Yeah, second team is still good. But they're young guys. They run constantly. I wouldn't be able to train like that. He said, listen, it's going to be tough unless you're full-time. like with the second team like you can't come and go but my other friend who's a coach in leon spain who's at a march about a loan yeah he's i went out to fly out to madrid a couple days later i left the olympics and i went to madrid and took a train to leon and i did a workout with the team and they're gonna offer me a flexible contract for four years to be the home club to train and see if i'm good enough to be on the usa team so i talked to your buddy robert i don't know if you I know Robert is there.

38:41This is my people I work with 24 by 7. So I talked to Robert. I said, Robert, who I played with in 2018, 2019. Yeah. I said, Robert, this is my dream still. It'll be 20 years since the dream first started in 2008 to 2028. This is my home city now. I've been living here for 12 years. And you guys made history two years ago by winning two games. Two games in World Championship. And no one knew about it in the USA. Exactly. No one. No. I knew about it. But no one else. No coverage, no media, no attention. Because most of the guys on the team are European. They don't care about promoting in USA. The two guys that I know on the USA team who are US Americans, they have no following.