The Daily Helping

Today our expert guest is Flip Flippen. He is a New York Times best-seller and is recognized as one of the top leadership thought leaders in America, a prominent global keynote speaker, and founder of the Flippen Group, one of the fastest growing educator training, corporate talent, and team development companies in the United States.

From his early career working with kids in gangs to his later work in boardrooms and classrooms, Flippen has dedicated himself to helping people write a new story.

His newest book, Your Third Story: Author the Life You’re Meant to Live, shows us there’s more to life than what’s written and empowers us with tools and inspirations to write our third story on our own terms.

Flip had a very different career track than most people. When he got out of graduate school, he started working with kids in gangs in a free non-profit clinic. He saw all these kids with so much potential, and he just knew he had to find a way to tap into that in some way.

These young kids were solving problems most of us don’t have to even think of. How to get home safe, how do I get to the store without getting robbed, how do I keep my siblings from being hurt?

But when it came to school or business, they had no idea how to approach it. They told themselves reasons they couldn’t do these things, and they believed those stories, and the people around them believed those stories.

Once you begin to penetrate those stories, and get to challenge their own thinking, a whole new world opens up for them.

With the way Flip was impacting kids’ lives, the school administration began to notice, and in Texas the Governor called and asked if he would start putting this program and work into the public school system. Flip took the tools he knew to get into kids’ heads, and started teaching those in the schools.

Flip knew from his work with kids that he could improve their levels of engagement, and these same principles apply the same from kids in gangs to employees on Wall Street. And if you have higher levels of engagement, you also get higher levels of performance.

From his work in the non-profit, education, and the corporate world, Flip knew the power that story, specifically the stories we tell ourselves, play in our lives.

There’s a story behind everything in our life, and we often don’t take the time to gauge whether or not they are true.

Our first story is the story we were born into: “I was born here, I grew up here, I went to school.” You didn’t write that story, you were born into that story.

Our second story begins usually in adolescence. We start to tell ourselves things to make ourselves feel okay. Why you did or didn’t do certain things, and the story behind that. It’s not always going to be true, but it’s the stories we tell to make everything make sense.

Eventually, something is going to happen in your life that makes you realize “I think what I believe is not really true.” You have to have to urge to look at your life and examine what is and isn’t true.

So what is the third story? We need to find the courage to look at our stories and say, “What could be true?” If you have an emotionally compelling reason to look at your life, you will find the truth and lies in your story.

Once you’ve challenged your stories and your beliefs, you have to dream about what there could be.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“There’s so much more than what you ever dreamed of. You’ve got more potential than you could ever imagine.

It doesn’t matter where you are today, there is more. Challenge where you are. Challenge what you think. Challenge what you love. Stop and say, what else could I do with my life? What are the stories I’m telling myself?

Once you find those, and break through those, there’s a world out there so large you couldn’t imagine.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at https://flippengroup.com
• Read: https://www.amazon.com/Your-Third-Story-Author-Meant/dp/1532078013
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FlipFlippen
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/flipflippen

The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media

Today our expert guest is Andy Storch, a talent development consultant, coach, connector, speaker, and host of two world-renowned podcasts: The Talent Development Hot Seat and The Andy Storch Show.

Andy has been committed to getting people inspired to live their best life, but he didn’t always know that growing up. He grew up not really knowing where he was going through high school, he just knew that he wanted to get into college and get a good job, and he’s been figuring it out as he went.

He first got into personal development around 3 years ago, when he heard Hal Elrod on a podcast, and that launched him into a journey of personal development and investing into his own development and learning.

Personal development is investing in yourself and learning how to get better, but most big companies have departments responsible for talent development, helping employees to get better at their job through technical or soft skills.

We’re starting to see some major shifts in the way people think about work. People want to connect more with a purpose in their job and they want to know where they are going with their careers.

We are seeing a big push in the “gig economy,” where people are contracted to do work for other companies. This doesn’t necessarily mean everyone is going to end up being an Uber driver, but there will be a focus on more project-based work instead of hiring for one specific role.

As the future of work changes, everyone is going to have to start paying more attention to their personal brand. That phrase can turn people off sometimes, but it’s really just another way of saying you need to control your reputation.

Here are some ways you can shape your personal brand:

• People have thoughts about you, whether you are trying to control it or not. Be intentional about the things you are known for and showcasing your strengths.
• Connect with the people who are doing the things that you want to be doing.
• Leveraging social media to share and build your brand, even just sharing articles that are relevant and add value to others.

Andy’s two podcasts are both motivated by helping people in talent and personal development. Fear holds so many people back, and The Andy Storch Show is all about helping people get over that fear and follow their dreams. And The Talent Development Hot Seat podcast is for anyone interested in corporate talent development, developing people, and becoming a better manager.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Take full responsibility for everything going on in your life. If there are some things you want to get better at, things where you could or should be spending more time, think about what your priorities are, try to align those with the way you are living your schedule, and take full responsibility for everything going on in your life.

Don’t worry about what other people are doing. Don’t be a victim to what society is doing or telling you. Take full responsibility. Live life intentionally. Set big goals, connect with your purpose, and go out and have a great life.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at https://www.andystorch.com/
• The Talent Development Hot Seat: https://www.advantageperformance.com/talent-development-hotseat/
• Talent Development Think Tank: https://talentdevelopmentthinktank.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andystorch/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andy_storch/

The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media

Today our expert guest is Larry Hagner. He is the founder of the Good Dad Project and host of the Dad Edge podcast, the number one podcast for dads on iTunes.

Larry is the father of 4 boys, and he’s been married for 14 years to his incredible wife Jessica. He breaks down strategies for men to be the best version of themselves and help men navigate through life through creating a band of brothers. He also helps men with mental toughness, emotional resilience, financial stress, relationships and work-life integration.

His book, The Dad’s Edge is a #1 Amazon best seller, and he is also the host of the Dad Edge Alliance mastermind with hundreds of members.

Larry grew up for the first four years of his life not having a father. It never really bothered him at the time, he didn’t know what it was like having one. His mom eventually remarried, but unfortunately his step-father had a drinking problem that led to his parents getting divorced at the age of 10.

At 12, he ran into his biological father and started to develop a relationship with him. They spent time together for a few months, until his dad decided that this wasn’t the right time to have him in his life.

This was incredibly hard for Larry, and he was struggling to deal with it. He began over-eating, he gave up on school and failed the 8th grade, and in high school he didn’t really have any directions.

Larry turned his life around his junior year of high school. He lost a bunch of weight, graduated high school, and put himself through college where he graduated with a degree in health management, and got married to his wife who he is still with today.

From the time Larry had his first son, he knew he didn’t want to screw it up, but for the first 6 years he admits he was doing it wrong. He was living isolated, emotionally and mentally, and he didn’t know how to be a good husband. He just didn’t have good men in his life to help him along the way.

Dad Edge came about when Larry hit a low, dark place. He was struggling with his marriage, with his kids. Larry was putting all of his time into his work. After an incident where he lost his temper and spanked his son hard, he felt so ashamed, he ran to his office to escape. On social media, tears in his eyes, he saw the “create a page” button and the words “Good Dad Project” just rolled off his mind.

Larry decided to devote himself every day to learning something new about being a better husband and father. In 2013 he started the blog, Good Dad Project, and in 2015 the podcast launched and he wrote his first book. In his book, he covers the five dimensions that we aren’t taught how to handle in school: finances, marriage, kids, health, and career.

Here are 5 actionable things you can start doing immediately to see results against these 5 dimensions:

• Finances: Use the YNAB budgeting software to give every dollar a job.
• Marriage: 4 elements to a legendary marriage -- self-care, partnership, friendship, and lovers.
• Kids & Health: Take care of your mental health so you have the patience and energy to serve your kids better.
• Career: Ask yourself, “What is the work that makes you come alive, and how can you do more of it?” Don’t run away from your 9-5, find what you love and chase that.

Larry wanted to write something to solidify what we could actually do as fathers. He wondered, “what is the simplest thing that I can do?” So he wrote in a way as if he was sharing with his friend all the things he did wrong, so they don’t repeat those mistakes. Having other men in your life, taking care of yourself, having connections with your kids through experiences, and constantly dating your wife are just some of the things you can learn about.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“The biggest helping and the thing that feels the best is when you simply let go of your ego. You don’t have to know it all, and you don’t have to figure this all out on your when it comes to fatherhood, when it comes to your kids, when it comes to being married.

Being constantly curious. As much time, effort, and training that you put into your job and productivity, you can take that same approach to being a husband and father. Be constantly curious, be a student.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at https://www.gooddadproject.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thedadedge/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheGoodDadProject/
• Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/GoodDadProjct
• Dad Edge Alliance: http://www.gooddadproject.com/alliance
• Money management software: http://ynab.com/dads

The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media

Today our expert guest is Phoebe Mroczek, a podcaster, coach and marketing strategist who helps online entrepreneurs create a profitable business that is an honest reflection of who they are and what they want the most. She is the host of the Unbecoming Podcast, a show that helps entrepreneurs release judgements, beliefs and past conditioning that holds them back from living a more meaningful life.

Over the past few years, she’s built an online marketing business that has helped established entrepreneurs refine their paid ad and launch strategies, created a podcast she co-hosted with over 900,000 downloads, and organized various in-person events, masterminds and online communities.

Phoebe grew up as one of six kids, using athletics to get attention and stand out from her other siblings. She ended up going to college, playing division one college soccer, and was hitting all her childhood dreams. She thought life was great.

Then, in her freshman year of college, her father passed away very suddenly. In that moment, Phoebe had the realization that she wasn’t living the life she really wanted to believe. Later on in her late 20s, she realized she had built a business, again, based around what everyone else told her she should be doing. 

Her “why” today is to connect people, to get them to live the life that they want, that they design for themselves.

If somebody has spent the bulk of their career, or even their own business, based on the expectations of others around them, where do you start the process of finding out who you are?

• Keep in mind it’s not an overnight flip; it’s a daily practice. 
• Give yourself permission to go as deep as you need to go. 
• Commit to growth and to own who you are. 
• Audit your life, figure out where you are supposed to be. 
• Reverse-engineer your habits to get you to the place you want to be, focus on the habits, not the outcome.

Unbecoming is the process of releasing expectations and judgement, getting rid of the things you aren’t to discover who you are. There are seasons of purpose in life, and instead of putting so much pressure about having to do this one thing, we can enjoy our life, live a meaningful life, and impact more people.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Give yourself permission to go deeper on finding out who you are, because everything comes back to who you are. When you know who you are and you know why you want the things that you want, give yourself permission to go for it. We can’t be playing small. Give yourself permission to play big, permission to dream bigger than you’ve ever dreamt, and permission to ask for help.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more: https://unbecomingpodcast.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/phoebemroczek/
• Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/198459357223812
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/phoebemroczek/

The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media

Today our expert guest is Sophie Morrison, the best-selling author of Brain Judo and host of the EPIC/FAIL Podcast. Her content focuses on how entrepreneurs can turn weaknesses into strengths and find opportunity in failure.

Sophie has always liked breaking rules. When she was 5 or 6, she saw a bunch of bottles of shampoo on a housekeeping cart. She thought, “well these are free, so I bet I could sell these.” She went through her dad’s rolodex, calling everyone in his company, and asking them “Do you want to buy shampoo for $5?”

This was just one creative entrepreneurial scheme where she didn’t quite realize what was inappropriate about them. In high school, she lived a double life. She was a really good kid, she had high grades and AP classes, but at night she would sneak out of the house, mostly just for the rush of it. When she graduated from high school, she found an opportunity at a journalism school where she started associating with kids who were doing drugs, and those drugs started to give her the thrill she used to get from sneaking out.

She was arrested for a felony shortly after starting school there. Everyone was telling her, “You’re going to go to jail for 7 years,” and she believed her life was already over so she got into drugs even more and ended up over-dosing. In the ambulance, believing she was actually going to die, she couldn’t think of anything but how much she regretted that her parents wouldn’t know how much she didn’t want to live her life like this. She borrowed the love that everyone else had for her and used it to motivate herself to get her life together.

Going back to school after getting out of the hospital, Sophie started to completely re-evaluate her life. She had always believed there were only two paths: you are either going to college, get your MBA, and get a great career, or you are going to be a bum. But when she got a job at Cutco, being around a bunch of people who were all working hard, making really great choices, and she realized there’s a third path, which was actually an unlimited number of other opportunities.

As Sophie got to know these highly driven people, she started to notice four main traits in common with everyone there that led to both their troubled pasts and their current success:

• High risk tolerance
• Hunger for variety
• Disregard for authority
• Obsessive thought

As she researched these traits over the next few years, she found that each of these traits are neutral tools that can be a weakness or a unique superpower. She learned the ways you can leverage these behaviors as entrepreneurial strengths, and turn what were thought to be weaknesses of character into something that gives you a leg up.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“There’s nothing wrong with you. There might be with stuff you do, but there’s nothing wrong with you. Everything about you is an opportunity to be a strength. It’s all about finding the right context, the right set of habits, and something that just lights your heart on fire that you can apply all of those personality traits to.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at https://itssophiemorrison.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegratitudegal/
• EPIC/FAIL Podcast: https://itssophiemorrison.com/podcast
• Read: Brain Judo

The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media

Today our expert guest is Grant Aldrich. He’s the founder of OnlineDegree.com. He has a purpose-driven mission to make higher education more accessible and affordable for everyone. He’s been a board member and a donor on a number of nonprofits and an advisor to many publicly-traded companies, a guest speaker at seminars and graduate school courses all over the country, and he’s graduated with honors from the University of California Irvine in Economics.

About 3 years ago, Grant almost drowned, which galvanized his mission today. Since that moment, he has taken a very distinct path. Before that, he had always wanted to be an entrepreneur. He started and exited two startup companies, and he had this idea that he was destined to go even bigger, to create an even bigger company.

While traveling with his family, he was swimming at the coast of northern California during a surf advisory and he got pulled into the currents and almost drowned. It wasn’t quite as cliche as having an epiphany immediately in that near-death moment, but staying in the hospital for a couple of days, plus the birth of his son shortly after, gave him the time for introspection.

Grant realized he had been living a very selfish life in hindsight. He thought all these things he had achieved with his startups were important, but that isn’t the person he is or what he really wanted. He was never interested in money, he pursued entrepreneurship for freedom, but he realized he had become a slave to his daily routine.

He began to transition his everyday life to make him happy, and he decided to get into education and tackle the problem of making college affordable to everyone.

Education was always very important Grant’s family, but his experience leaving school with student loan left him feeling let down by the whole system. All the work and time and money that it really costs. He talked with his wife about it and she talked about how it’s such a shame that stay at home moms find it so difficult to go back to school. Grant agreed, but he realized it applied to all working adults. The psychological and financial barriers that are preventing them from taking the first step, he knew that he could solve that problem.

Grant started OnlineDegree.com, where you can register for free, take as many courses as you like at institutions across the country, and there are instant tuition discounts that you can unlock towards your degree.

With OnlineDegree.com’s model, they have created a student-centric model where you can find the classes that are best for you, and you can take any classes from any university for whatever fits best.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“My favorite quote is “know thyself.” It was enscribed on the Temple of Apollo, which was the temple of wisdom. The belief was how could you obtain true wisdom or happiness if you didn’t know yourself, the one thing you should be able to know better than anything else? One you go through that exercise to really understand and know yourself, it becomes easy to be happy.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at https://www.onlinedegree.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/onlinedegree/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/onlinedegree/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onlinedegreecom/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/onlinedegreecom

The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media

Today our expert guest is Marcus Aurelius Anderson, author of the book The Gift of Adversity, TEDx speaker, keynote speaker, U.S. army veteran, and high performance mindset coach, who works with corporations, leaders, CEOs and entrepreneurs. He speaks, writes, inspires, and coaches others to overcome their own adversities and actualize their own personal definition of success in every life area.

Marcus joined the military out of a need of service. His great uncle, who was in the Special Forces in Vietnam, was one of his biggest role models. At his funeral, Marcus realized the gravity of his uncle’s influence on the country’s establishment. He had always made excuses to not join the military, but he always had an excuse not to. Recently divorced, no kids, he decided to put his education on hold to serve in the military.

At 38 years old, he talked to the recruiter. The age limit was 35, but as he was turning to walk out, the recruiter asked him to tell him about his story. He ended up taking an entry level course, took a PT test, and the recruiter told him he’s exactly what the army is looking for. Despite having the option to work in any job they had, he chose to serve in the infantry.

Preparing for deployment, the training started to ramp up quickly. They pushed deployment back, but if they have more time, they continue to increase the intensity. In the midst of that, Marcus suffered a severe spinal injury that left him paralyzed from the neck down.

From all of the training, attrition and compression, a disc in his neck had ruptured, and when that happened, it exploded into his spinal cord. He was rushed in for an emergency operation. They were planning to remove the debris, but it became clear that even with that, recovery was not likely to happen. The doctor did not want to promise that he would ever walk again.

Marcus moved on from denial to anger very quickly. Taking away his physicality was the worst thing that could happen to him. At 40 years old, he felt like he had nothing. He wanted to take his own life, but he couldn’t even physically do it. He decided, there had to be something within this, some lessons to pull from this. 

It took 3 months of anger before Marcus woke up and realized his anger was not serving him. In fact, it was holding back his ability to heal, to move on. It came back to gratitude. Acting in a grateful manner, being thankful.

Marcus thought whether there was anyone who had benefited from his injury. He decided that his injury was inevitable, and if it had happened overseas, it would have put dozens of people’s lives in harm's way. And when he realized that, he was genuinely grateful.

A week after Marcus had that genuine, radical gratitude, feeling started to return to his left hand.

Marcus doubled down on his gratitude, he started to get feeling back in the rest of his body, and over a year and a half of physical rehabilitation, he was able to recover. The hard part was after, trying to decide how to share the message.

Getting back into martial arts helped Marcus get the rest of his physicality back. He had a private student who he was teaching martial arts to, and his student said to him “I’m getting more value from you than I am from my business coach.” After making a joke about writing him a check, he had his first client for 6 months of training.

Feeling stuck? Marcus recommends asking yourself this question: If you woke up paralyzed from the neck down, what would you wish you had accomplished with your life? Really sit with that, and let it be your call to action to be concerned about the things that really matter to you.

Learn to put your adversity into perspective. There is a lot of hardship in life. One way to be objective about it is to write it down on a piece of paper. It takes the emotion away from it and makes us look at things very logically. When you rate being stuck in a traffic jam as a 3, you realize it’s not so bad compared to most things.

We only have around 30,000 really good hours available to us. If you allow those to go by you, it is going to be difficult to have any sort of impact in your life.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“People say you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone. That’s not true. Everybody knows what they have, they just assume they will always have it. If there’s something you want to get done, do it now. Stop waiting, stop hesitating, stop compromising, and start taking action on it.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at http://www.marcusaureliusanderson.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marcusaureliusanderson/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcus-aurelius-anderson/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/marcusaureliusanderson/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/the1realmarcus

The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media

Today our expert guest is JV Crum III. He created his first million dollars at the age of 25, he hosts the Conscious Millionaire Podcast & Radio Network which was named by Inc. Magazine as one of the top 13 business shows. He’s a number-one best-selling author, speaker, and serial entrepreneur. He is a high performance business coach to entrepreneurs who want to scale to their first million, or double their 7-figure business. Conscious Millionaire provides accelerator masterminds to help entrepreneurs accelerate in just 30 days.

I’m sure to want to know more about that first million. At 5 years old, JV had already trained himself not to ask for candy bars at the store because his family couldn’t afford them. He decided the best way to be able to afford those candy bars was to grow up to become a millionaire. He believed it whole-heartedly believed in it. He was on track to go to medical school, but realized it just didn’t feel right so he decided against it. He ended up with a masters degree in clinical psychology.

His dad’s regional trucking line was on the verge of going bankrupt, and his dad had asked him to come home and work with him, so he decided to do so for 6 months. It was there that he realized he was tuned for business, only realizing the signs in his childhood in hindsight.

JV’s mission is to help a million entrepreneurs become conscious millionaires, financial millionaires who made their money by making a positive impact. He became aware of this purpose when, at 25 years old, he was looking out at the view from his new four-story home. There were palm trees blowing in the wind, people sailing out on the bay, and yet he had a breakdown. He realized he was very deeply miserable. 

To solve his problem, JV started to focus on his purpose. The money didn’t make him miserable, it was his lack of direction and purpose that was. The money gave him options, so he started to focus on what he wanted to do with that money and what his goal was. Finding his why was the core of what became the Conscious Millionaire.

When working with a business and focusing in on the conscious millionaire philosophy, JV always ask them 3 why’s:

• Why are you choosing this impact to make? Business is impact-driven, solving a specific problem. But you are at the center of that, so it has to come out of you.
• Why are you doing this in terms of how much money you want to make?
• Why am I doing this particular business, following this particular journey?

When you are aligned with your purpose, not only do you feel fulfillment, but your customers will want to spend money with you when you actually care.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“I’m going to go back to why. I think a lot of times “why” gets viewed as kind of fluffy, but I think it’s the core reason for the impact you choose to be making with your business. The core reason for deciding how much money you want to make and what you’re going to do with it. The core reason for deciding “what do I want out of this?””

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more at consciousmillionaire.com
• The 7-Figure Formula: consciousmillionaire.com/7figureformula
• Podcast: consciousmillionaire.com/podcast/

The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media

Today our expert guest is Mark Eaton, successful motivational speaker, entrepreneur, and best-selling author of The Four Commitments of a Winning Team, as well as a 7’4” NBA all-star who played for the Utah Jazz. He’s spoken to numerous world-class organizations including IBM, FedEx, Phillips 66, T-Mobile, and LG. He’s been featured in print and online publications such as Forbes.com, Sports Illustrated, and Entrepreneur.com.

Despite being tall, Mark didn’t expect to go anywhere with sports. He was at the end of the bench in high school and wasn’t playing very well, so at the age of 18 he decided to put it behind him. A friend of his was going to trade school in Arizona and convinced him to go with him.

Mark ended up working at a tire shop in California, and a college coach came in and started talking to him about playing basketball. After many visits, he convinced him to go out on the court with him and he taught him some techniques that were intriguing enough to get him to continue practicing and eventually go to junior college. Two years later he was being recruited by several schools, and he ended up at UCLA, where he sat on the bench for the better part of two years.

After junior year there, Mark was starting to consider transferring. He was going to the gym every morning, and in the afternoon he’d play some practice games. Everybody in LA that was a player showed up at this gym, Magic Johnson, Norm Nixon, and several players from the Lakers. He was struggling to keep up, the players were all so much faster than him. One day, he felt this big hand come down on his shoulder: it belonged to Wilt Chamberlain.

Wilt grabbed Mark and he told him, “your job is not to catch these smaller, faster players.” He took Mark out on the court, put him right in front of the basket, and told him that his job is to stop players from getting there. It was this short comment, but it was life changing.

That one conversation turned into a five year career in the NBA. It didn’t get any better his senior year, but his coach told him “we’re not planning for next year, we’re planning for 3-4 years down the road.” He gave Mark a game plan, and he focused on it.

Mark wasn’t drafted, but he started trying out for teams. He looked at all the worst teams in the NBA, and he knew they’d need the most help. With the Utah Jazz, they had just come off a horrible season, so he called them on the phone, sent in a tape, but it didn’t go anywhere right away. He paid his own way to play at some free agent try-out camps, some NBA scouts saw him, and got word back to the coach of the Utah Jazz who decided to give him a shot.

By February of that year, Mark was the starting center of the Utah Jazz.

After 12 years with the Jazz, Mark began to transition away from the NBA. It was a struggle to reinvent himself, as he wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He got involved in the restaurant business which was successful, and then did some broadcasting news programs, but hadn’t come across anything that really struck him.

People were always asking Mark to tell his crazy story of going from an auto mechanic to an all-star, and 10 years ago he started his motivational speaking career. Over a period of two years of speaking, he kept honing his speech to solve business problems. He started to think about what to do next, and with all of the ideas in his presentation he decided to put it in a book.

What are the Four Commitments of a Winning Team?:

• Know your job. Double down on your character traits and who you already are. What can I do with the skills I already possess? What else can I do with it?
• Do what you’re asked to do. Do you know what your customers really want from you? When was the last time you asked them?
• Make other people look good. Stop competing with each other and start cooperating, and your individual accolades will start to show up.
• Protect other people. Are you really there for your teammates? That is the key to trust and long-term loyalty.

Outside of his speaking career, Mark is also involved with Tribe of Kyngs, a group dedicated to helping men create better relationships with other men and working to abolish domestic abuse, and a Veteran’s group called Pay It Forward which takes veteran’s out on hunting trips. Up next, he’s working on a series of kids books based on the four commitments.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“Consider that your success is directly related to the success of people around you.”

“Be coachable, be willing to listen, and be willing to help someone else next to you, and you will have a much higher quality of life and a much higher degree of satisfaction.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more: 7ft4.com
• Read: The Four Commitments of a Winning Team
• Tribe of Kyngs: tribeofkyngs.com/
• Operation Pay it Forward: opif4ourvets.org/

The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media

Today our expert guest is Peter Lazaroff, chief investment officer at Plancorp which manages over $4 billion for its clients and author of the book Making Money Simple. He’s here to share complex issues and make them manageable to just about anyone.

At a young age, Peter knew he had a future in investing. On his 12th birthday, he received a single Nike stock from his grandma. While it seemed disappointing at first, he was impressed by these $1 checks he received in the mail every quarter. He continued to receive stocks for companies he was familiar with each birthday up until age 18.

Peter had a great mentor, who taught him that he had to learn something new every day. He started taking notes at every meeting, and at one meeting he ended up being asked to send his notes to the president of his company, and then eventually he was sending them out to everyone in the company. He used his writing, which naturally led to his book

This was the book that Peter had in him, and he wrote it in the evenings, outlining his philosophy on building wealth, and the system he uses.

How do you make money simple?

• Try to focus on the endgame: What are your goals? The neural patterns in our brain view saving money the same as giving it away to someone you don’t know. Find meaningful goals and prioritize them.
• Budget in reverse: automate your savings once you know what your financial goals are.
• If investment seems overwhelming, don’t be afraid to hire a professional. They will find things that you might miss, but you will also be buying back time.
• Make sure you’re asking an advisor the correction questions.

Getting your finances under control doesn’t have to be difficult or overwhelming. Peter’s best piece of advice is to just start. Small actions can make a big difference, so discover your financial goals and work backwards to start achieving them.

The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway

“The most important thing is to start now. There is something that everybody can do to improve their finances, even if it’s small. One of the things we don’t respect is the power of compounding. Small habits compound over time, and if you start today, I assure you there is something that can change the rest of your life in your finances.

There is probably something that you’re thinking about that you’ve been putting off. Whatever that thing is, go home and block some time off on your calendar and do it.”

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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.

Resources:

• Learn more: peterlazaroff.com
• Read: Making Money Simple
• Worksheets: peterlazaroff.com/resources
• Find a CFP: letsmakeaplan.org/choose-a-cfp-professional/find-a-cfp-professional
• Broker Check: brokercheck.finra.org
• Smart Money Quiz: smartmoneyquiz.com
• Twitter: twitter.com/PeterLazaroff
• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/peterlazaroff

The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media