9 Unbreakable Rules of Consistency and Commitment | Ed Mylett

If you want uncommon results, you have to live by uncommon standards, especially on the days you do not feel like showing up. In this mashup episode, I’m bringing together some of the most disciplined competitors and leaders I’ve ever sat down with to break down what consistency and commitment really look like when the lights are off and no one is clapping. You’re going to hear from people who have won at the highest levels of sports, business, leadership, and life, and every one of them shares the same truth. Success is not built in moments. It is built in habits. Troy Aikman takes us inside what it really means to be trusted as a leader when everything is on the line. He shares why the greats are never outworked, how daily preparation creates belief inside a locker room, and why commitment is proven long before game day. Jim Rome brings his trademark intensity and clarity, challenging the excuses we make and exposing why most people talk about wanting it but never back it up with action. His message is simple and uncomfortable. Consistency is not sexy, but it is undefeated. Gerard Adams opens up about discipline in entrepreneurship and why momentum is built by honoring small promises to yourself every single day. Dabo Swinney shares how faith, standards, and consistency shape culture, not just wins, and why who you become matters more than what you achieve. And Mark “The Undertaker” Calaway gives one of the most powerful reminders you will ever hear about longevity, professionalism, and showing up prepared for decades, not seasons. This episode is about doing the work when motivation fades. It is about staying committed when results are slow. And it is about building a life you can count on because you have become someone who can be counted on. If you feel stuck, inconsistent, or frustrated with your progress, this conversation will reset your standards and remind you what winning actually requires. You do not need more inspiration. You need more follow through. This episode will challenge you to raise your standards, lock in your habits, and finally live with the level of commitment your goals demand. Key Takeaways: Why consistency beats talent every single time How elite leaders earn trust through daily preparation The difference between being interested and being committed Why small habits done daily create massive long term momentum How discipline creates confidence even before results show up What it really takes to sustain excellence over decades, not months ⁠👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠INSTAGRAM⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠FACEBOOK⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LINKEDIN⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ➡️ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠WEBSITE⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 p.m. And my third day, 6:00 p.m. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time, too. And you definitely can't afford to waste it. Waiting weeks on a big bank for capital? Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

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• 1:06Speaker 01

  Hey, Bose here. When your next track starts, listen for the decisions that the artist makes. The vocal push right up front. The bass that waits half a beat. That sample from a '70s underground gem. Every choice deliberate. With Bose, you'll hear it all. Your music deserves Bose.

• 1:40Ed Mylett?

  Hey, everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow The Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Here's our first guest. Welcome back to the show, everybody. Today's special. It's not every day you sit across from a three-time Super Bowl champion, Super Bowl MVP. Let's just be real, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, one of the greatest athletes of all time. And by the way, ironically, I think actually one of the most underrated athletes of all time.

• 2:11Troy Aikman?

  Thank you.

• 2:12Ed Mylett?

  It's a fact. But actually, as impressive as his football career was, I like the fact that the dream didn't stop there and he was able to, post-football, create an incredible brand, an incredible career, an incredible life, post-football. So I just want to pick the brain of the great Troy Aikman. Troy, good to have you.

• 2:29Troy Aikman?

  Yeah, great to be on, great to meet you. Been looking forward to this.

• 2:32Ed Mylett?

  You too. By the way, he's also an entrepreneur, we ought to just talk about that first.

• 2:35Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 2:36Ed Mylett?

  He's in the beer business now.

• 2:38Troy Aikman?

  Yep.

• 2:39Ed Mylett?

  Tell me about that a little bit.

• 2:40Troy Aikman?

  It's been an interesting year and a half or so. Actually, we started two years before we launched. We've now been in stores for a year and a half, strictly in Texas. But I worked for a distributorship in college. I like beer, I don't drink a lot.

• 2:52Ed Mylett?

  You don't look like you drink any.

• 2:53Troy Aikman?

  Yeah, no. But yeah, I met my partners and we started kicking it around and seeing if it's something that I might want to do. And, you know, I work out, I'm mindful of what I put in my body, all those things. And I said, well, if we can do something that complements my lifestyle, then I'm all for it. And so, we spent two years coming up with the recipe. And what's unique about Eight, which is the name of the beer, is that we're 100% organic grains, we have no adjuncts and no fillers. So, we're the only widely-available beer that can say that. Every other widely-available beer adds corn, rice, syrup, or sugar. So there's a lot of junk that's thrown in there. Ours has none of that, and yet we're

• 3:37Troy Aikman?

  still at 90 calories and just 2.6 carbs.

• 3:39Ed Mylett?

  That was my next question, those two things.

• 3:41Troy Aikman?

  So it's been really good. And, you know, I feel like we're a lifestyle brand, quite honestly, because the people who I've always been inspired by are the people who never settle, and the people who do the work, and all those things. And I feel like I'm one of those people, you know? And that's why I'm usually drawn to that. And so that's really who this beer was made for. Now, anyone who wants to drink it, that wants a better for you beer, we'll certainly accept.

• 4:09Ed Mylett?

  By the way, you're in the right demo in this audience.

• 4:12Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 4:12Ed Mylett?

  They can drink beer and be healthy.

• 4:13Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 4:14Ed Mylett?

  And it's actually unique. They can get it anywhere? Where can you get it?

• 4:16Troy Aikman?

  In Texas. Yeah, it's distributed across the entire state. Eventually, we hope that we'll move outside of Texas and, you know, be in other states.

• 4:26Ed Mylett?

  Let's get it online, so we can buy it online.

• 4:27Troy Aikman?

  Yeah. I don't know what the restrictions are on that. I've been asked about that a lot.

• 4:32Ed Mylett?

  Shipping it maybe.

• 4:33Troy Aikman?

  But it's done really well. So we just kicked off our second year, and a lot of good stuff is happening.

• 4:37Ed Mylett?

  Congratulations.

• 4:38Troy Aikman?

  Yeah, thank you.

• 4:39Ed Mylett?

  You, like I said, you've had this incredible life. I want to, I'm gonna ask you hard stuff today. Stuff that I don't think you get asked all the time. I had a chance a few weeks ago, I was with Brady for a few days at an event. And I've been blessed that I've been around some guys that have played your position at a pretty high level. Woody John Elway's been a friend of mine for a long time. What's a through line for the great leaders in anything, but especially we'll just take quarterbacks now? What's the through line, Dan, don't be humble today, between like a Troy Aikman, because you're different personalities, very different, Troy Aikman, a John Elway, a Tom Brady? What is the through line that made you all great leaders? I know there's differences, but what's a through line?

• 5:17Troy Aikman?

  Yeah, I think we are all different. We all lead in a different way, which is true of any field, of course. But I think that probably what the through line is for all great quarterbacks, great leaders at that position, or in general, is that they put in the work and they're not outworked, you know? And I think that that, first of all, you got to play well, but you have to also be the guy who your teammates understand is there putting in the work and doing what's necessary in order to be the best that you can be. And I think that those guys that you mentioned, I'd like to think that I'm one of them as well, that your teammates never questioned

• 6:00Troy Aikman?

  your commitment, your dedication, and your persistence to being the best that you could be.

• 6:05Ed Mylett?

  Why does it matter? Like in business as an entrepreneur? I'll tell entrepreneurs, one of the reasons you got to outwork everybody is when you're leading a team, an ironic thing, and maybe this isn't true in football, but I think it is. You actually create safety for everybody around you, stability, when you're the hardest working person in the room and the leader. I think that's one of those like invisible things like you actually have created a sense of stability just by your mere presence and your work ethic that doesn't exist if you're a little bit hit and miss in an environment. Do you see that?

• 6:34Troy Aikman?

  Yeah, and I, and I think that in, in football, maybe this is true in all sports, but I know that, that what I can relate to is the dynamics of a locker room and within an organization. And what generally happens is for the quarterback, the quarterback, the franchise quarterback is always viewed as the guy who didn't really have to fight necessarily for his pay. He's been treated well, you know, that, okay, well, the organization and maybe even more so now, even though we've seen situations where some quarterbacks have had to hold out and hopefully get what they feel is their, you know, corrected, corrected pay.

• 7:14Troy Aikman?

  But I think in general, when you have a franchise quarterback, it's like, oh, okay, well, his contract's up, so we pay him and then we move on and then these other guys are holding out and then they gotta, you know, they gotta fight a little harder. The quarterback usually has great relationships with not only the coaches, but also the owner himself and, and all that. So I think that with that, the quarterback has to, in his way, make the other players, his teammates, understand that, that he's with them, you know, that he's one of them and that he's doing the work just like they are. And it's not always easy to do. And there, there have been those quarterbacks, those guys, those franchise quarterbacks that have struggled in that area. And it's, and it's not easy. And not to get off tangent,

• 7:59Troy Aikman?

  but I think that becomes a challenge right now with what we're seeing in college with the NIL is that now you've got, you've got 18-year-olds instead of 24-year-olds that are having to navigate those waters of getting paid more than the rest of the players within the locker room. And how do you do that? It's not easy.

• 8:15Ed Mylett?

  That's interesting because I, uh... I've had a chance, I had Peyton Manning, I've interviewed Peyton, I interviewed John Montana, and then you. And when I, when people make their lists, this is what's interesting to me, I don't know if you take this personally or not, but when people go, okay, my top five quarterbacks of all time, you're usually gonna hear Joe's name, you're gonna hear Brady's name, and then they'll interchange, you know, Marino, Peyton Manning, you know, whoever, they get their list. Rogers, I guess, is on that list somehow now, but Mahomes. I wanna know where Otto Graham is.

• 8:47Troy Aikman?

  Right, that guy won like 10 championships.

• 8:49Ed Mylett?

  I know, he doesn't get anything.

• 8:50Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 8:50Ed Mylett?

  But what is it, in your case, I mean, it's clear you should be in that, and by the way, I'm sure on many lists you are, I don't mean to say.

• 8:58Troy Aikman?

  Well, no, that's not, well, no, I'm not, I'm not.

• 9:00Ed Mylett?

  Why?

• 9:01Troy Aikman?

  And quite honestly, Ed, it doesn't affect me at all, I mean, it really doesn't. I mean, I played the game, hoping that one day I would be thought of amongst the greats of all time, and I feel like that happened by the simple fact that I'm in the Hall of Fame.

• 9:15Ed Mylett?

  That kinda happens.

• 9:15Troy Aikman?

  But, you know, when you're talking about, okay, name the top five, I wouldn't probably be in there, maybe I would be if they mentioned the top 10, but I understand that my career really was about winning championships, which ultimately is what everyone's career should be about, that's what they pay us for. But, I think that the world that we're in, especially with fantasy football, and then for those fans or people who are making those lists, that if they didn't see me play, they look at stats, and they say, okay, well, shoot, I mean, Troy, my numbers are pretty modest, relative to many others, and there's reasons for that. You know, Emmitt, of course, there's a reason why he's the all-time leading rusher,

• 9:57Troy Aikman?

  and, you know, but we didn't throw the ball as often, but when we threw it, we threw it as well as anybody.

• 10:02Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 10:03Troy Aikman?

  And that's why Michael Irvin's in the Hall of Fame as well, so no.

• 10:06Ed Mylett?

  It doesn't bother you?

• 10:08Troy Aikman?

  It does not bother me, in fact, during my Hall of Fame speech, what I mentioned was that I feel, like, everyone talks about how team comes first, you never hear a player say that, oh, no, I'm all about me, you know, they'll say, hey, I just wanna win, but there's very few, as you know, who really...

• 10:27Troy Aikman?

  Only want to win. They want to win as long as they're also putting up their big numbers, you know?

• 10:32Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 10:32Troy Aikman?

  For me, I felt like I did sacrifice individually. I felt like I could throw the ball as well as anybody, but I feel like I did sacrifice individually for what was best for the team. And so the greatest reward for that was that I then received the greatest honor an individual can ever receive, and that is to be voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. So that's what that's what meant so much to me. And and the rest of it, I'm proud of my career, you know, overly proud of it. If someone had told me, I, you know, I always wanted to be a professional athlete. If somebody had told me that I was gonna go on and win three world championships and have the teammates and the career that

• 11:14Troy Aikman?

  I was able to have, I would have taken it, you know, all day long. And so I'm proud of it. And where that ranks or where everyone else thinks I just, I just, you know, I've never, I've never really.

• 11:25Ed Mylett?

  It's not something you spend time.

• 11:28Troy Aikman?

  Dwelled on that.

• 11:29Ed Mylett?

  Because you know, a lot of guys, other guys do. I mean, look at, look at Michael Jordan's Hall of Fame speech. He's considered the GOAT and he's still like nailing dudes, you know?

• 11:36Troy Aikman?

  Yeah, right.

• 11:37Ed Mylett?

  And there's nothing wrong with that. I just, there's an ego that comes with being great at anything that I think is a healthy ego. But you did, you're also known as like one of the most accurate throwers of the football of all time, right? One of the most cerebral guys. Stuff that quarterbacks do. I asked Noel Mazzone one time, you know, the quarterback guru did. And he's like, probably the most accurate guy I've seen throw the football was actually Troy Aikman. But it was all the other things. It's actually getting into protections that you're supposed to get into. I remember when Peyton really couldn't throw anymore.

• 12:01Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 12:02Ed Mylett?

  Yet, they ended up doing a lot better with him than they did with with Brock because of his ability just pre-snap to get them into different, the right formations and blocking. And, you know, obviously, you know a lot more about that than I do. But I want to ask you also about your career. I'm always, I'm just fascinated by the people that are the best, like. People don't realize this because they watch it on TV, but every guy that's out there in the NFL was not only the best player, more than likely on their, you know, their high school team, but they became elite in college. You were a UCLA guy. Did you come from Nebraska before that?

• 12:32Troy Aikman?

  Oklahoma.

• 12:32Ed Mylett?

  Oklahoma. So you didn't get it at Oklahoma. You end up red shirting at UCLA.

• 12:36Troy Aikman?

  Yep.

• 12:37Ed Mylett?

  And ends up winning three Super Bowls and an MVP, a Super Bowl MVP. But I look at guys like, that are just different. And I think, what's the commonality? Because even me as an entrepreneur, I'm different than Elon Musk. I'm not anywhere near as wealthy as Elon Musk. But, you know, Phil Knight, Elon Musk, and, you know, Mark Cuban, three very different dudes. What's the through line, right? And I look at Jimmy Johnson, I'll look at Bill Belichick, Bill Walsh, and let's just say, Andy Reid right now. They're very different four human beings.

• 13:10Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 13:10Ed Mylett?

  You know all of them, or knew all of them, or met them. What is common amongst them that made them great leaders? That's a tough one.

• 13:18Troy Aikman?

  Well, that's a great question. I mean, it really is. Because I, I actually was just having this conversation with somebody that, for the most part, for the most part, I would say, if you tell me someone's a player's coach, I will tell you, then they probably haven't won at the highest level. In general.

• 13:38Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 13:38Troy Aikman?

  In general, all right? But I think Andy Reid would be regarded as a player's coach. And he's been one of the most successful coaches in the history of the game. So, but I do think that players in general, they, they, they want to be coached by people that they know are going to make them better.

• 13:56Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 13:57Troy Aikman?

  You know, and that's, that's the bottom line. I mean, that's the key. And so, do they know something that I don't, and they can put me in a position to where I can achieve the things that I want to achieve, both individually and then as well for us as a team?

• 14:10Ed Mylett?

  This is true in business.

• 14:11Troy Aikman?

  True in, true in life, true in everything.

• 14:13Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 14:13Troy Aikman?

  I mean, it really is. And so, there's obviously a lot of parallels between sports and, and business and other things. But, you know, you take Bill Belichick, for instance. I've talked to a number of people, you know, clearly regarded as, you know, what may be the greatest coach of all time. He's on certainly a short list. But, you know, he's not a whole lot different in a lot of ways from the guy that we see. But, when you talk to people who have played for the Patriots, I said, how, how is he so effective? And they say, we know that if we do what he asks us to do. There's a really good probability that we're gonna win the game.

• 14:52Ed Mylett?

  Win, right.

• 14:53Troy Aikman?

  And so.

• 14:53Ed Mylett?

  Did you feel the way about Jimmy?

• 14:54Troy Aikman?

  Yeah, yeah. And Jimmy was tough. I mean Jimmy was really tough. He demanded a lot, attention to detail. Uh, no detail was too small. Um, and, and, and we worked hard, you know, so we had really talented players. That was his, Jimmy's greatest strength probably was, was his evaluator, his evaluating of talent. I mean, he was sensational at that. So we had really talented players that worked exceptionally hard. And then Jimmy didn't let anything slide. And so that's a pretty good formula.

• 15:25Ed Mylett?

  I watched something, I don't know if it was last year or the year before, I happened to be watching, we have some mutual friends that are involved at, at Fox Sports for Football. And, uh, I watched the day that they told Jimmy Johnson that he had made the Hall of Fame. And then they threw to you.

• 15:41Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 15:42Ed Mylett?

  And I watched your reaction. And I thought, I don't know that these guys necessarily got along that well. When a dude's beating the drum when you're playing and, you know, threatening you with, you know, I'm gonna play Walsh or whatever.

• 15:51Troy Aikman?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 15:52Ed Mylett?

  Right. But you sincerely seemed emotional about it on his behalf. And I wonder if that's just because when you're forged in a battle, even though you're building a company or a family or a football team, that when you get to the other side of that, although it may be messy in the, in the middle, but at the end, there's this tremendous admirer, you know, admiration that you've done something great together. Is that what that was or what was it? Cause you were pretty emotional.

• 16:18Troy Aikman?

  Yeah. Uh, and I didn't know that he was going to be told that he was going into the Hall of Fame. Uh, we were going to halftime and my producer said to me, hey, uh, the studio wants you to watch the, a little bit of this halftime show. They, they're gonna be doing something. And I just thought, okay, they're gonna be doing something. And then sometime in the second half, I'm gonna be asked to maybe talk on it. Uh, and so I'm just watching what's going on. And then when I see David Baker walk out, who was running the Pro Football Hall of Fame, then I knew that, that Jimmy was going in and I knew that there was a chance, but I had no idea that he was gonna be told that night. I thought he was gonna be months before he was gonna ever find out.

• 16:57Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 16:58Troy Aikman?

  Um, and so why I was emotional at was, was, you're right, our career, I've known Jimmy since I was about 14 years old. He was recruiting me, uh, out of high school when he was at Oklahoma State. And I didn't go to Oklahoma State, of course, and then he went to Miami, recruited me there, and I didn't go there. And then I go to Dallas and he's, he takes over for Tom Landry. So now he's coaching me. And then he drafted Steve Walsh. And, and, and you're right, it got off to a really tough start. But he and I have gotten, we're really close. And so he's never gone into the Ring of Honor at Cowboys Stadium where they have all the names. And, you know, we all feel, those of us that played for him, feel that if any of us are in the Ring of Honor, he certainly should be in the Ring of Honor, but that's a decision

• 17:41Troy Aikman?

  for Jerry Jones to make. And so I never was certain he would get into the Pro Football Hall of Fame because he hadn't coached long enough. Yeah. Was the reason. Not that he didn't deserve to be in. I just didn't think that, well, he, he wanted to go on and do, do his boat and be in South Florida and all that. And so I just didn't know that, because he'd been a finalist for a number of years. Hmm. And so knowing how much that meant to him and had not yet been recognized for what he had done for those teams with the Cowboys, for, to see him go into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, that night was, was really special. I mean, that's why I was so emotional. Just I was, I was so happy for him. And then to take it a step further is he asked me to

• 18:26Troy Aikman?

  be his presenter. So I presented him then. Wow. Which was, is the greatest honor. I mean, the, the greatest athletic honor I've ever received is, as I mentioned, going into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. The greatest honor I've ever received in general was Jimmy Johnson asking me to be his presenter because My gosh. When you go into the Hall of Fame, you can ask anybody you want to be your presenter. Wow. And so when he asked me, I just thought, man, that's, That is huge. That's a, that's a pretty special thing. And so. Oh, wonderful, man. Congratulations.

• 18:59Ed Mylett?

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• 21:02Ed Mylett?

  Speaking of emotions, dealing with failure. It's part of being an athlete. And I think back to just watching a lot of football, your rookie year. Was not gorgeous.

• 21:13Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 21:14Ed Mylett?

  So, most people that listen to my show may not even be football fans, but I'm interested to hear, why don't you describe it a little bit, tell them what happened your rookie year, which was not, you weren't winning a Super Bowl that year.

• 21:23Troy Aikman?

  No.

• 21:24Ed Mylett?

  And how you dealt with a lot of the rejection and failure, criticism that came with it, and probably even to this day, you get criticism, people saying things about you that aren't real favorable.

• 21:33Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 21:34Ed Mylett?

  How do you deal with that?

• 21:35Troy Aikman?

  Uh, no, it's, it's, my rookie year was, I guess it, when I first got criticized or had to deal with that was at Oklahoma. Uh, you know, I was trying to run an offense that just didn't fit my skills and, and so it was a real challenge and OU, of course, is a, is a hotbed for football and, and we were pretty good at the time and I was probably holding this back just because we're trying to run this wishbone offense and it just wasn't, wasn't for me. So that was the first time I really had to deal with it. I broke my leg and then I went to UCLA and end up going to Dallas as the number one overall pick, but I went to the worst team in football and then my rookie year, uh, you know, new

• 22:16Troy Aikman?

  head coach, college coach, bringing in a lot of different players every week, uh, we, we really did not have much of a fighting chance. I was 0-11 as a starter. Crazy. And, and, uh, it was tough. I took a beating, uh, we weren't very good up front.

• 22:31Ed Mylett?

  0-11, everyone.

• 22:33Troy Aikman?

  0-11. And so there were games where we should have lost based on how I played. Um, and then there were other games where I thought I played pretty well, you know, and, and we'd have a lead with 30 seconds left in the game and somehow we'd lose it, you know? And, and I just remember thinking, man, what does it take to win a game in this league? I mean, this is, this is brutal.

• 22:52Ed Mylett?

  A game, right.

• 22:52Troy Aikman?

  And, uh, but I never lost confidence and I, and I think the reason was I had a quarterback coach by the name of Jerry Rome and he had played in the NFL and, and he just, he refused to let me get down on myself. Um, and, and there were days when it was hard. It was hard to be positive, it was hard to be upbeat, it was hard to believe that good things were going to happen, but, but he was always there being my champion and he was in my corner and, uh, and so fortunately, my very first game, my second season, we won. And so I got that monkey off my back and then over time, we slowly got better and better and then of course, we won the Super Bowl, uh, in my fourth year and, and had great success, but. Yeah, I just think that.

• 23:38Ed Mylett?

  Does criticism hurt you, even now?

• 23:40Troy Aikman?

  Well, nobody likes it. You know, it's easy. I hear people say, hey, I don't pay any attention to criticism. I have a hard time believing that anyone just can totally brush it off. But if you get criticized enough, you know, and I'm now that I'm still in the public eye with the broadcasting and all that, that you just learn that that it's just part of it, you know? Someone once told me that, hey, it's part of the, you know, it comes with the dinner. And criticism just comes with the dinner and, you know, I'll read Twitter from time to time. And if you've called a game and you read Twitter, buckle up.

• 24:19Ed Mylett?

  My God, I can't even.

• 24:20Troy Aikman?

  But some of it's pretty funny and I laugh at most of it. But what I like, the reason I do it is because you know, you know, deep down, if there's truth to those criticisms.

• 24:33Ed Mylett?

  Sure.

• 24:33Troy Aikman?

  You know?

• 24:34Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 24:34Troy Aikman?

  And so I try to evaluate myself objectively and I don't dismiss that. I mean, I listen and then think, yeah, you know what? They're right.

• 24:42Ed Mylett?

  Me too. I do the same. I kind of dig some of it.

• 24:45Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 24:45Ed Mylett?

  Some of it's ridiculous, but some of it, I'm like, you know what? That's, I've heard this enough times. There's some validity to this.

• 24:50Troy Aikman?

  That's right.

• 24:50Ed Mylett?

  I do need to make that adjustment.

• 24:51Troy Aikman?

  And it's a bit of a wake up and all that's good. So I don't, I don't mind it. I mean, I honestly don't mind it. And even if the criticism, if you know, deep down, like you've, you've done your best and whatever it is, and then you just accept it and move on. And now, as you know, I mean, the critics, now everyone has a platform. So you get, you get all the, everyone gets criticized now.

• 25:14Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, we don't, we definitely don't lack feedback in this day and age. There's plenty of feedback. I want to ask you about winning. I've always wanted to ask somebody who's won a lot this.

• 25:24Ed Mylett?

  I'll be honest with you. So the things that have happened in my life where I've kind of won in business or whatever, there were, there were, it was amazing. There were elements of it that were better than what I thought it was going to be. But there are also elements of it that surprised me. And I'm curious, you win this, as much as you can go back and really be there. You win this first Super Bowl. Maybe you're still on the field. You're in the locker room. It's the next day. Was it what you thought it would be? Like, did you feel what you thought you would feel? Cause there's these new studies that actually say that you get more dopamine in the pursuit of something. But actually, when you hit it, there's like a dopamine crash in your brain and it's like, is that all there is? There's a little bit of a letdown.

• 26:00Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 26:01Ed Mylett?

  Did you have that happen to you? What did it really feel like?

• 26:05Troy Aikman?

  Well, I'll take you back a little bit earlier than that. When, when I was about 14 years old, I couldn't wait to get my driver's license. I mean, I thought that anyone who could drive, how could they ever have a bad day in their life? I mean, I just thought that, how could you ever be upset about anything? I mean, you can drive.

• 26:25Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 26:26Troy Aikman?

  Well, you turn 16, you get your driver's license and you, you, you learn to drive and all that. And you've got a car and, and then you realize that, hey, you still have bad days. And, and, and that always stuck with me. So I've, so I, I, I've always known that achievement isn't going to, it, it's not going to fulfill you anymore. I mean, you, you, you're proud and you're working towards that and you know, you reach these goals. But it doesn't, it, it's not going to make you any happier. It's not, you know, that comes from a totally different place. Now, I will tell you, I was, I was in my 50s before I really figured that part of it out.

• 27:05Ed Mylett?

  Really?

• 27:06Troy Aikman?

  And so, uh, but when I won my, my first Super Bowl, I, I knew it was, at least I knew that was in my back pocket and that's what I was drafted to do. So that's where the satisfaction came like, for the rest of my career, they can't say I can't win the big one.

• 27:23Ed Mylett?

  Was it satisfaction or relief?

• 27:25Troy Aikman?

  Uh, great question. I, I would say in all honesty, it was, it was more relief.

• 27:31Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 27:31Troy Aikman?

  Yeah. Because I was never one of these athletes who, uh, people would say, how come you, how come you don't smile more? How come you don't, you know, you don't look like you're really enjoying playing. I didn't smile or enjoy it till it was over, till we won, you know, till we won the game. I mean, that's when, that's when you were really able to enjoy the effort.

• 27:52Ed Mylett?

  Yes.

• 27:52Troy Aikman?

  But during it, no, I mean, it was, it was a grind, you know, so. But yeah, I think, I think in all honesty, it was, it was more, more relieved.

• 28:01Ed Mylett?

  That's been my emotion too. It's interesting you say that. Like, it wasn't what I thought it would be, although there's other benefits that come with it that you don't dream of or imagine as well. But it's almost like, okay, a little bit of relief.

• 28:13Troy Aikman?

  Yeah.

• 28:13Ed Mylett?

  But the other thing that's unique about you, brother, is that you repeat. And I know it's a team sport, but we're gonna get into broadcasting in a minute. Then you repeated, I mean, most of you know this, but if you don't, I mean, Troy has had this prolific career at Fox. Now he's Monday Night Football at ABC. He's like, he's the number one sports broadcaster in football now. He's also become number one of that. So he's guys that has to leave college to go to UCLA because the offense didn't work for him. Ends up becoming the number one pick in the draft. Ends up being one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time. And then after that duplicates it with a career that's been dominant. And by the way, he could be a professional bodybuilder if he wanted to be right now too. So like the guy, and the guy is this finds this way to the top position. But a lot of people don't deal very well with rejection or failure.

• 28:55Ed Mylett?

  But a lot, a lot, and you know this, whether it's been business people you've met in your life or people that are in a good relationship or an athlete. Like we were talking about the UFC guys that I work with or the boxers. Guys work really hard to win a championship. And then something happens to them after they win a championship, that hunger, the drive, whatever it is. They don't, most people deal very poorly with winning is the truth. It seems like that has not happened to you.

• 29:19Troy Aikman?

  No, it hasn't.

• 29:22Troy Aikman?

  And I, I think in general, most people, well, my approach, whether it's in football or whether it was in broadcasting or it's in my personal life, is that most people aren't willing to do the work.

• 29:36Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 29:37Troy Aikman?

  I mean, that's, that's what I believe. And, and I don't know where it came from for me. I don't know if it was the way I was raised by my father. But that to me is the, is what has driven me throughout my life and, and, and everything that I've done. Now, the Super Bowl, as far as that goes, I, I can't imagine winning a Super Bowl and then not. Being more hungry than you were. And the reason I say that is because it is such a great experience that how could you not want to go and do that again and again? But you played with guys you didn't. You played with guys. Been with, and I've seen those, I've seen those teams and we all see, because it is. It's a bit of human nature. Jimmy was great in our repeat, Jimmy Johnson, in how, he

• 30:21Troy Aikman?

  treated us harder. I mean, he worked us harder the second year. And there was a reason for that. Jimmy was a psychology major and he felt that, hey, now's when people get complacent. I'm not going to allow it. And so he worked us even that much harder. But, you know, Ed, I'm asked a lot about why I work out so much, why I do all this. And the reason really is simple that I feel like my success as a player was because I just refused to be outworked. And so I was going to do whatever was required. And when I got into broadcasting, I'm not the greatest speaker in the world. But I just said, I'm going to, I'm going

• 31:05Troy Aikman?

  to give myself at least a fighting chance and I'm going to, I'm going to put more time into this. And so I, I work hard at trying to be as prepared as I possibly can be to go into a broadcast. And then with the working out now in my personal life, it's been about discipline and commitment. And if I let myself go, I feel like, I feel like then I become a bit of a fraud in what I believe is the foundation of who I am and why I've been able to have some degree of success. And so I think it's, you know, when you talk about a through line, when you've been asking me those questions, that's the through line for me. It's discipline, it's consistency, and it's commitment.

• 31:44Ed Mylett?

  Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. Welcome back to the program, everybody. I'm so fired up today. I have, it's a man I've admired from a distance for so many years. He is one of the great leaders in American sports. He just is, and he does it with a style that is all his own, and it's one that I've admired from a distance. Some of our mutual friends have confirmed what a good man he is for me. And let me tell you, 140 and 33 while he's been at Clemson as the head football coach there, but he started to get better and better and better. Last three years, only lost three games, undefeated in 2018, two national championships.

• 32:26Ed Mylett?

  The list goes on and on, and this is from a guy who was a walk-on at Alabama, by the way, which is even more ironic that you went to Alabama, now you coach at Clemson. But I am honored to have Dabo Sweeney on the program today. Coach, thank you for being here.

• 32:40Dabo Swinney?

  Thank you, Ed. It's good to be with you, man. This is a, what a, what a, what a great, great, great treat to, to be on, on this podcast or show and, and opportunity to, to meet you.

• 32:52Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, my pleasure, Coach. So, we're gonna go all over the place. We're gonna talk leadership, recruiting, culture, all these different things, but this is like a master class on leadership and recruiting, but there's one thing I gotta ask you, because I've always wondered this about you. Lots of coaches talk about faith in the locker room, right? Before a game, let's pray together, or, or they're, they're, they're Christian men or women that lead teams. You were the first coach that I saw do it outside the locker room in like post-game interviews. Now, I'm sure it's been done before, but it's not been done before, to my understanding, on the level you compete at, the magnitude of your job. And I remember watching you get interviewed after a game going, this dude fires me up. Man, he always acknowledges God.

• 33:37Ed Mylett?

  He always says something about his faith, and that's bold. And I actually thought at first, I thought it was aggressive because, or, or amazing because I wonder if it cost him some recruits, and it must be okay with him that he does do that. Was that a conscious thing where you're like, I'm gonna be bold about what I believe in the locker? I'm the same guy in the locker room that I am in an interview, that I am with my family, that I am coaching baseball? And I'm sure you might've caught a little flack for it at one point in your life for being so bold about it. I just wanna know your thoughts about your faith, how it plays into being a coach, a leader, and your boldness about it.

• 34:09Dabo Swinney?

  Oh yeah, I've caught a lot of flack about that. I think, you know, when, that's why the Bible says you better put your armor on every day. I mean, like, every single day. You know, and listen, I, I, I don't judge people or they, I just, I just believe what I believe. And, and you know, Colossians 323 says, one of my favorite verses says, it says, "Whatever you do, do it with all your heart as if you're working for the Lord." Right? Whatever you do. All right, and I tell them, if you're cleaning the room, your bedroom, do it as if you're working for the Lord. Cause that's, that's the perspective God wants us to have. And, and that's, you know, we, we have a really crazy world.

• 34:50Dabo Swinney?

  You know, we're, we're in a fallen world. Sin is real. The devil is real too. Nobody wants to acknowledge that. That's what I believe. All right? And, and maybe I'm wrong. I'm gonna meet my maker one day, but I know what I believe. And, and I believe in, in, in Jesus, and I believe in, in God, and I believe that in Colossians where it says, "Whatever you do, you do it with all your heart as if you're working for the Lord." And when you do something with all your heart, you, you're gonna go above and beyond, right? In, in everything that you do. And so God, I don't, I don't get how you can separate that. And, and so, yeah, I've had all kinds of flack. I've, one year where some, some, some group that, man, they tried to, you know, come and like, they said all this crazy stuff, like, "I'm only playing Christian." I'm like, "Let me tell you something.

• 35:33Dabo Swinney?

  If I'm only playing Christians, we ain't winning like we winning, I promise you." You know, ain't nobody checking roll at chapel. I got chapel, but, but I don't sit around and go, "Oh, you didn't come to chapel. You don't play today." No, give me a break. You know, I just think you have to be who you are. There, and that's what, that's what I said back then. There, there's nobody that comes to Clemson. If I was an atheist, guess what? Everybody who came to Clemson would know that. All right, I think you just be who you are, you know, and there's nobody that comes to Clemson and goes, "Well, there you go." Man, I know Coach Sweeney was a Christian, you know, and so I just think you just be who you are. I know what my job is. My job is to win football games, but, but I know who my maker is too. And I know that when you are a person of faith, when you're a Christian,

• 36:17Dabo Swinney?

  that's not something you turn on and off. You know, whatever you do, you do it as if you're working for the Lord. And so, yeah, I, my paycheck says Clemson University, but let me tell you, at the end of the day, I'm working for the Lord. Because one of these days, there's going to be a scoreboard, a whole lot bigger than the one that hangs out here in Death Valley. And it's going to be, I, you know, Dabo, I did, I gave you all these things and all these young people, what did you do for me? And, and listen, my job's not to save them. But I, I do feel like that I have a responsibility to, to, for, to, to be an example. And, and I try to live my, I'm, man, I'm the biggest sinner in the world. I try to live my life in a way that glorifies God. And in those moments,

• 36:59Dabo Swinney?

  from time to time, listen, I don't ever want anyone, we live in such a superficial world, I don't want anyone to ever think that, man, this is because, anything that I am is because of God. Anything that I've done is because of God's favor on my life, God's grace. You know, man, God's grace and his favor, his, his, his, his will, his Holy Spirit, you know, leading the way. I mean, that's just how I look at it. And so, because we live in this world now where everybody wants to put you up on this pedestal. And I, I try to be quick and say, hey, listen, ain't nothing great about me. If there's anything great about me, it's the Holy Spirit inside of me. All right. And guess what? Everybody can have that. And you said something a minute ago, and listen, greatness is for everyone.

• 37:40Ed Mylett?

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• 38:25Ed Mylett?

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• 39:10Ed Mylett?

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• 39:40Dabo Swinney?

  And I told our team back in, in 2013, we beat Ohio State in our first ever BCS win on the Orange Bowl. And then we've beaten Alabama a couple of times and we've beaten some of these big, big schools. If we walked out there at the middle of the field and we compared checkbooks and we compared budgets and we compared all, we'd get dominated. We would get smoked. Or if we, guess what I mean? Number one recruiting classes we've had in 12 years as a head coach? Zero. Zero. None. None. You know, so it's not all about that. All right. It's about, it's about.

• 40:16Dabo Swinney?

  People, it's about passion, it's about, you know, synergy, iron sharpening an iron, it's about attitude, it's about belief, that's what it's all about. And so, you know, I don't see it as being bold when I give God the glory, you know, I don't want any I don't want to give glory for anything that that that happens in my life.

• 40:40Ed Mylett?

  We're two guys that have that in common. I'm a sinner saved by the grace of God too. Thank God. And, uh, but I'm told that I'm bold when I do it because I catch some criticism for it, just like you do. That's I think what I meant by bold. And, and I like you so much.

• 40:56Dabo Swinney?

  Yeah, well, I can't worry. I just don't worry about that, you know? I mean, listen, I mean, that, that, that outside noise is always going to be there. And, and again, if we spend our lives sitting around worried about, you know, what, what we need to worry about is pleasing God. And, and when you live your life, and, and that's your belief, pleasing God, well, you're going to upset people. That's just part of it. And you know what? Um, the, the, the, it goes back to what I said earlier, being inside out. You know, I don't know who said it, but there was a quote, I love it. It says, you know, ships don't sink because of the water around them, they, they sink because the water gets in them, right? And so we can't let all that stuff in us. And, you know, we gotta let

• 41:36Dabo Swinney?

  the light inside of us be brighter than the light on us at all times, you know? And so the light gets bright, man. That was the last thing I told our team in 16. I was like, hey, you know, this is what we gotta do. The light's gonna be bright, man. But we've gotta, we gotta let the light inside of us be bright. What an opportunity that we have. And, and listen, you know what? Some of the best opportunities that we have is when we have failed miserably. All right? That's, that's, that's when, especially when you're a Christian, you know? And so, you know, it's, it's, it's all good. That's what God teaches us. It's all good. All things, all things work together for the good, for those who love the Lord. And so it's a mindset, it's a mentality. Yeah, it sucks. We hate

• 42:18Dabo Swinney?

  it. We don't, you know, but guess what? All things. All right? And so we're all here for, for a blink of an eye. I mean, a blur. I mean, we've lived long enough, you and I, we've seen young, young people die. I've spoken at a bunch of funerals. I've had, you know, former players die. I've had family die. We've, we, it's boom, it's a blink of an eye. So are we gonna live for? Something that's just superficial, you know, that's not my choice. And, and here's the good thing about the God we serve. He gives us the choice. It's a, it's, it's a choice and it's everybody's choice. But I hope that, that we can live our lives in a way where maybe other people may say, you know what, there's just something different.

• 43:00Dabo Swinney?

  And, and say, well, let me tell you about that. There's this guy named Jesus. And man, if you just put your eyes on him in the good and bad, and you believe and you don't quit, man, he's, he, he's gonna, he, he's gonna bless your life. And some things this side of eternity will never know, will never understand.

• 43:16Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 43:16Dabo Swinney?

  All right. But that's what fate's all about. You know, it's really just, just believing when you don't understand. And then one of these days when we meet our maker, man, we, we're gonna, we're gonna celebrate and, uh, you know, and, and see the bigger picture of, of life.

• 43:34Ed Mylett?

  So awesome. I was saying earlier, I just like you. I just like you. I respect you, but I like you. I'm so glad I like you. You know, when you have somebody from a distance you've admired, then you meet him to kind of exceed your expectations. That's a wonderful thing. And you're doing that for me. And I know this for millions of people too. That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Welcome back to Max Out, everybody. I'm Ed Mylett. Fired up about today because this is a man that I've admired from a distance. We have some mutual friends that connected us. And today is about really the longest tenured WWE superstar in the history of the

• 44:19Ed Mylett?

  organization. Kind of a leader in the locker room, more television appearances than anybody ever. Had the streak at WrestleMania forever. But what I'm excited about is we get to talk out of character now, not just in character the whole time. So we can talk about life and growth and longevity and being productive. With someone who's highly qualified to do it. So my guest today is the Undertaker, aka Mark Callaway. So Mark, thanks for being here, brother.

• 44:46Speaker 04

  No, thanks for having me, man. I'm excited.

• 44:49Ed Mylett?

  Talk about the very unique relationship you have with the overall leader of the organization, Vince McMahon. It seems that that's become a special friendship forged through loyalty, probably more than anything. And I gotta think that friendship's been both good to his career and your career as well. So speak to those couple of things.

• 45:06Speaker 04

  Yeah, absolutely. So as far as the, you know, being the leader, it was never really, it was never really something like I tried to pursue. It just, it just kinda happened through the years. And I fell into this unique position where the, the boys, the guy, the wrestlers,

• 45:28Speaker 04

  you know, they saw what the business meant to me and that the business always came first. No matter what, the business came first. As far, when we're out on the road, obviously, you know, your family comes first. But in a business sense, when I'm, when I'm older, I don't care how late we stayed out, how, whatever we did nightlife wise, it did not affect the next day's performance. If it did, then you knew you were gonna get, you know, you get pulled aside and say, "Look, if you can't handle this, then maybe you shouldn't be doing this." Because at the end of the day, it depends on what we do for our audience the next day. Guys appreciated that. But they, they knew, like, okay, hey, you know,

• 46:12Speaker 04

  takes one of us, he goes out and he has a good time, just like everybody else. But at bell time, all that goes out the window until after it's all over with. And so, yeah, so there was this, I had, and then I had the also, I had the, the trust of what we call the office. You know, there's the office and then there's the boys. Somehow or another, I kinda landed in the middle. Like, I was always accepted as one of the boys, but the office knew that, that they could, they could trust me.

• 46:44Speaker 04

  And there were a lot of times like whoever our um our uh our talent relations VP was, there was a lot of times they would come to me and say, hey, this is, you know, we're having this this issue and I could go to the guys or a guy or a person, pull them aside and say, look, man, you know, I understand and they appreciated it because they know that I've been through every everything possible to go through. So, you know, it wasn't like, oh, well, you know, Undertaker's a stooge for the office and he's trying to Ah, right. You know, they trusted me. So I had that trust on each side, but I could, many times I could talk to somebody and say, hey, look, this is, this is their perspective.

• 47:30Speaker 04

  Okay, I understand your perspective because I'm, you know, I'm talent, right? I'm talent, I'm with you. So a lot of times that happened and I could divert bigger issues with guys if they could kind of get over, you know, if they could get over the ego and then they knew and they trusted me enough like, well, you know, Taker's not going to screw me over. So it worked out, it worked, it worked out really nice. And then with Vince and and the loyalty and everything else, I um, so I was told by WCW.

• 48:09Speaker 04

  I was told, I went, I I'd been there for about a year, my contract was coming up and I went in to renegotiate my contract. And I wasn't looking for a huge bump, but I was looking for, you know, I'd been, I had a pretty good year and I was just looking for a slight, just a slight bump. And I was told by, you know, Jim Hurd, who was running the company at the time, Ole Anderson and Jim Barnett, they looked me square in my eyes and they said, you're a great athlete, but no one's ever going to pay money to watch you wrestle.

• 48:44Speaker 04

  Seriously, okay, that's all I needed to hear.

• 48:49Speaker 04

  So Vince, so I get a meeting with Vince and you know, he eventually gives me that opportunity. And that's all he ever promised me was an opportunity. He didn't ever told me, hey, you're gonna be, you're gonna be this guy here for 30 years and do all these things. He said, I'm gonna give you an opportunity. And, and then, but that's all I always remember. When I did become a commodity, when WCW wanted me back, you know, they wanted to pay me big bucks because they were paying everybody big bucks. Yeah. You know, it's like, no, I, I, I can't do that. I got, you know, they're offering me a lot more money, but this is the man who made me and, and that's just the way it is. And then obviously we just, our, our,

• 49:33Speaker 04

  we've been through so much together professionally, personally, that, um, you know, most times now I don't even deal with Vince hardly when it comes to business. Our, our relationship 90% of the time is more of that of friends than it is of, of business. Unless there's a special ask that nobody else wants to ask me to do, then they, they say, you're the only one that's gonna be able to get him to do it. So. Yeah.

• 50:00Ed Mylett?

  Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. Welcome back to Maxed Out. I'm Ed Mylett and I am so fired up about today's program because I have one of the most successful human beings on the spinning earth right now that is under 35 years old. This guy to my right, right here, you all know who he is. You can tell from looking at him. But let me give him the right introduction. Okay. This young man right here founded Elite Daily, sold that thing for about $50 million. He's one of the great thought leaders on social media today. He's a serial entrepreneur. Forbes magazine called you the millennial mentor, right?

• 50:44Ed Mylett?

  And above all of that stuff, having getting to know him today, I must tell you, my favorite thing about him is the caliber of man that you are and how generous you are and your spirit and your heart and your character. So today is going to be amazing. And so this is Gerard Adams. Gerard, thanks for being here, brother.

• 51:00Speaker 05

  Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

• 51:02Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 51:03Speaker 05

  So inspired right now. You know, it's one thing when you look through the lens of social media, you look through on the videos. It's another when you're able to actually come and feel the energy and see it. And most importantly, right back at you, brother. Like, there's a lot of successful people in the world. But for me, it's about character.

• 51:21Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 51:21Speaker 05

  And not only do you show up for your community, but the way that you are, you know, when I met you and how humble you are and how welcoming you were for me and our team. Really appreciate that, man.

• 51:31Ed Mylett?

  Thank you. It's my pleasure, man, to have you here. You know, I've wanted you to do this for a long time. And so, uh, the stars aligned. So, let's do something great here today. Um, I hope my billing of you was accurate because Gerard has a lot, you know, the very few people you would meet with the success that Gerard's had so young, who has kept such a humble spirit about them too, and such a generous giving person, so. But I think some of that, having got to know you a little bit, has to do with your upbringing. I always like to take people back just a little bit. And so, you grew up a little bit like I did in the middle, right? In the middle class. But tell everybody, you know, just a little bit about young Gerard, even though I still think you're young, but young, young Gerard. How'd you grow up? Tell us about your background.

• 52:09Speaker 05

  Well, um, you know, I, I really had an unbelievable upbringing because I had a really strong, you know, group of parents. Like, my mother, you know, she just really showed me a love and compassion and empathy and like the things that, you know, a lot of people, I feel like, don't have that's worth more than anything in the world. And my father was just a strong man, you know? He, he really instilled that leadership in a very young age. What he would used to do is he used to write, write notes and leave them for me hidden in throughout my house.

• 52:43Ed Mylett?

  Really?

• 52:43Speaker 05

  So if I went to go get a glass of milk, there's a freaking little ripped up note in there. If I went to bed, there's something under when I pull the blanket up. If I wanted to go to school, he's dropping something in a freaking notebook for me or something. And there were these, you know, just quotes from, whether it was John F. Kennedy, Marcus Aurelius, you know, just different leaders. And for me, you don't really understand it when you're really young. You're kind of like, oh, this is kind of cool again. But I really started to appreciate it as I started to get older. So I grew up with unbelievable parents, um, hardworking. They really instilled the work ethic for me, but I walked to school, I took the bus. I love BMX, I was a skater. And, you know, for me, I was just a very creative person.

• 53:24Ed Mylett?

  Even young?

• 53:25Speaker 05

  Yeah, I had charisma even when I was young. I used to make my own clothes, I used to, I loved, I begged my parents for one thing only, put me into art school.

• 53:33Ed Mylett?

  Really?

• 53:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, I wanted to go to art school.

• 53:35Ed Mylett?

  Were you an only child?

• 53:36Speaker 05

  No, I have two unbelievable sisters.

• 53:38Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 53:39Speaker 05

  Yeah, so.

• 53:39Ed Mylett?

  Did he do the same thing for them? Was he writing them notes too? Was that something he did just with his son?

• 53:43Speaker 05

  You know what's funny? I've actually never asked them.

• 53:45Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, it'd be interesting to know, wouldn't it? Were you the only one getting these notes?

• 53:49Speaker 05

  You know, it was just, you know, they were, he was very protective of my sisters.

• 53:55Ed Mylett?

  Okay, yeah.

• 53:55Speaker 05

  You know what I mean? And, yeah, so that, and he just, you know, they were way more educated and, and of course, he nurtured, he nurtured them. With me, it was a little more tough love, for sure.

• 54:06Ed Mylett?

  And your mom, by the way, I just get this feeling your mom's a major influence, just because of how hard you're working. I watched earlier when you talked about your mom, there's certainly something very special there with you and your mom too, right? What'd you learn from mom?

• 54:16Speaker 05

  Well, you know, on both sides of my family, I'm extremely grateful of my heritage.

• 54:23Ed Mylett?

  Which is what, by the way? People, I mean, I know you get asked this all the time, right?

• 54:27Speaker 05

  Well, I'm some Colombian and Italian, but, you know, my mother's side, I'm just, I'm gonna say like 30 days ago, I went and visited my grandfather, he turned 99 years old. And I, you know, I said it to myself, I wrote it down, like, my grandfather's turning 99 this year. I don't care what I'm doing, I don't care what interview, I don't care what, who wants to pay me for anything, what business, you know, opportunity there is, I am going to see my grandfather to help celebrate his 99 and ask him these questions about immigrating to this country. And, you know, I'm second generation and I just feel like, you know, my mom's, you know, parents, my grandparents, they came here, you know, with that typical immigrant story with nothing.

• 55:10Speaker 05

  My grandfather came here first, then he sent back for my grandmother and my mother. My mother was born in Colombia and she came here. So I think that, that work ethic and that, you know, and just the appreciation for, for being here and like, and making and building a life is instilled in my mom. And then, so I'm really, I really think about that and that's what really drives me. But it was the moment that I saw my mom working seven days a week in a supermarket. And that was my first job, you know, I wanted to work, I wanted, you know, my parents weren't like, they didn't give me things, like I had to earn it.

• 55:42Ed Mylett?

  Mm-hmm.

• 55:42Speaker 05

  So my first job, believe it or not, was like, working at the supermarket where my mom worked. She was an employee there. And I'd never forget getting that first paycheck. And it was like, maybe three hundred dollars. I looked at that paycheck, and I remember just seeing my mom working there, and I'm just like, wow, like, there's no way, like, I gotta get my mom out of this. Like, this isn't real money, like, how, you know, and at that moment, I started to really feel and think about that. I'm so proud of them. I'm so proud of what they've done.

• 56:12Ed Mylett?

  You watch your mom work, you see this struggle that she's gone through. You go away to college, which I'm sure was like a major priority for your dad and your mom, especially for you to go, right? But you didn't last in college. And so I want people that are listening to this, because a lot of millennials are gonna watch this because you're here, they're in my audience as well. What happened with you in college?

• 56:31Speaker 05

  Well, this is, uh, this is really interesting. I really didn't wanna go to college. I was a bad kid right before graduating high school. In fact, I lost touch with a lot of my, you know, my good friends that I had grown up with earlier. I started hustling weed when I was in high school. And I almost had a moment that really set me back. And I'll never forget the day my father caught me scaling in my bedroom. And typically, you know, my, I was old, my dad, my dad's a little bit more of an old school Italian, so like, growing up, if I did something wrong, like, he kind of like, I got the belt, like, my dad like pushed me around. It wasn't like,

• 57:04Ed Mylett?

  I know what you mean.

• 57:05Speaker 05

  You know what I mean?

• 57:05Ed Mylett?

  I relate.

• 57:06Speaker 05

  And I had a moment where I got pulled over, and I thought that moment, I was about to get arrested, and it was gonna completely

• 57:13Ed Mylett?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 57:14Speaker 05

  ruin, you know, my, the respect that my father would have for me, and just for my community. And that story I've talked about, but someone was committing grand theft auto in front of me. And when I was doing this drop-off, they ended up figuring that out, letting that person go, and saying, hey, kid, all right, get out of here. And when I had drove all the day, that was the day that I was like, okay, I'm going to college.

• 57:37Ed Mylett?

  Whoa!

• 57:38Speaker 05

  Okay, like, I gotta, I gotta take this muscle mentality, and I gotta learn about business, like, I cannot be someone who ends up

• 57:46Ed Mylett?

  Life-altering moment.

• 57:47Speaker 05

  That was a life-altering moment for me. But I ended up crying during graduation, because my father wanted me to get into a good college, he wanted me to go to Princeton, and I, I went to, I got into barely a community college. So I remember just completely freaking distraught, being like,

• 58:02Ed Mylett?

  You cried because you thought you let your dad down?

• 58:04Speaker 05

  Actually, no. I was actually really more about the fact that like the people that I had been friends with, they were going to these great schools. And I was alone going to this community college and I was like, fuck, like I'm such a disappointment to like myself like. And um, but going to college that first semester, I instantly was like, this just isn't for me.

• 58:26Ed Mylett?

  You just knew.

• 58:27Speaker 05

  I just knew. I think it was part of the reason why I hustled. Like I just always was this creative. I wanted to be outside the box. I didn't want to be, you know, I wanted to break the rules.

• 58:38Ed Mylett?

  That's that art thing in you, huh?

• 58:39Speaker 05

  The art thing in me, very creative to this day and you know, being in school, I was like, this isn't for me.

• 58:45Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I went to college and it's one of the things that I, you know, there's more and more people I interviewed, but that wasn't their thing. And I think the consciousness about that is changing too, because when I was in college, one of the things that I observed too was like, it just sort of brings out these cookie cutter people, the business school, you know, you gotta, and it sort of squashes from people their ambition, their creativity. I'm not knocking college at all. I have a degree.

• 59:05Speaker 05

  Me neither, and I'm producing. If I had kids, I would sell them.

• 59:08Ed Mylett?

  It's a great debate in my family. My wife's like, they don't need to go to college. They go, absolutely, they're going to college. Well, they're going to be entrepreneurs anyway. It'll give them experience and it's an achievement. It shows work in finishing an idea. That was a great conversation. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. Welcome back to Max Out, everybody. I'm so excited about today's show because this is somebody that I admired from a distance for, shoot, a couple of decades now at a minimum. And to put it bluntly, he is the most successful man in the history of his craft. He's the most successful man in the history of sports radio. And he's done a whole lot more than that when it comes to television as well. Right now, The Jim Rome Show is hosted on the CBS Sports Radio Network. It's simulcast over to the CBS Sports Network.

• 59:53Ed Mylett?

  He also makes appearances on CBS for the NFL. And he's had a storied career in an area and an arena that I'm very, very fond of. And it's great to have him with me here today. So Jim, thanks for being here.

• 1:00:04Speaker 06

  That is so good to see you. Boy, that is some kind of you, my man. That lives up to all the hype. That is a beautiful, beautiful scene. Well done.

• 1:00:10Ed Mylett?

  Very blessed for sure. And so have you been, by the way. I'm curious as we start, because you know, most of my audience knows you for sure. And I've admired you for so long. And one of the things I admire about you is your humility for how successful you've become. But today, I want to give you permission to be, you can brag a little bit when it comes to the truth about your career. So I want to ask you, how did you get started? Because I know that you went to University of Santa Barbara because we were both in the Big West Conference.

• 1:00:35Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:00:35Ed Mylett?

  But did you know way before you even got to Santa Barbara that this is what you wanted to do?

• 1:00:39Speaker 06

  You know, I would say this, my, my only advantage, I think that I really had was I did know exactly what I wanted to do at an early age. You know, unlike you, I mean, I had professional athletic aspirations, but I did figure out early on, this was not going to happen for me. You have to understand, I grew up in Los Angeles at a very different time when there was no internet and there was no cable. But I was obsessed with sports, man. I loved it. I had my childhood heroes. And I couldn't get enough. I mean, if my old man was not saying to me, get your ass out of the house, it's beautiful day, I would have watched sports all day long and read sports. But I did realize at a pretty early age that I could not hit a curve ball. I was not blessed with this great size and ability. So how do I stay in sports? And I just kind of got it in my head, maybe I could be on the radio.

• 1:01:20Speaker 06

  Maybe if I got really lucky, I could be on TV. So I knew at an early age. And what that did for me was I knew that the second I got to UC Santa Barbara, I checked into the dorm and I went right to the radio station and I never left. And I just kind of locked in. So my one advantage was I knew when you're not supposed to know. Who knows when they enter college, what they want to do? Did you know? Well, you want to be a pro baseball.

• 1:01:41Ed Mylett?

  And it didn't work, right? Yeah, you ended up doing what you wanted to do.

• 1:01:44Speaker 06

  But, but I think it's like my son just started college. It's okay not to know when you start college, right?

• 1:01:48Ed Mylett?

  Absolutely.

• 1:01:49Speaker 06

  But I knew and I was willing to lock in and start paying the price. So yes, I knew.

• 1:01:53Ed Mylett?

  That's awesome. You, so you get started, I was a radio TV broadcast major, I was a communication major. And one of the things that I, I tell all entrepreneurs is, I think especially in this day and age with the internet technology, everybody wants stuff to happen right now.

• 1:02:06Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:02:06Ed Mylett?

  Like, hey, man, I'm gonna give this a shot for six months. I'm gonna make a run at this, you know, until it hurts a little bit. One of the things I admired about you because you chose a craft that it does not happen quickly in. So what about like staying power? You get going. You leave Santa Barbara. It's not like the next year you're, you know, in San Diego, you know, becoming the gym room that we know now.

• 1:02:26Speaker 06

  No, no, there's like, there's lots of layers to that. It's a really interesting question. You know, like Mike Tyson said, everybody's got a plan till they get punched in the face. Everybody's like, I'm gonna do this. Like, when I was in Santa Barbara, we all thought we would go right to the top because you're in college and you're naive. You don't know how the world works just yet. So we all believed that until you actually get into it. And then all of a sudden, you see what's going on around you. So when I was a young person in the business, I would apply myself, but then I see my other friends who were not in the business and they're going to law school or they got into marketing or they got into sales or they went to Wall Street and they're killing it. And all of a sudden now I'm still grinding in Market 174, which is Santa Barbara. And I'm not making much money and all my buddies are just thriving and they're killing it.

• 1:03:07Speaker 06

  It's at that point that people start to say, it's a dream. It's a pipe dream. It's not meant to be. It's not for me. I'm gonna give in and then people give in. So I would say, this is a great story. I I knew not to give in, but you know what? I did. I was one of the guys that gave in. So here's what happened. When I was in college, I had seven internships in three and a half years because I was obsessed. Man, I was like, I was terrified of falling behind. And I was so committed, but then I had one bad experience. I got punched in the face once and did not react well to it. I worked for a radio station in Santa Barbara for free for nine months.

• 1:03:41Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 1:03:41Speaker 06

  A paid position opened up. The news director says to me, you're the guy. You've earned it. It's your time. I'm just kidding. You cut a demo tape. We play it for the owner and then you're in. The owner hears it. He hates it. He goes, I'm not hiring that guy. And I'm like, wow. But I had a fallback plan. My parents owned a business. So I go to my old man because I have visions of there's the BMW, there's the house, there's the presidency. So I go to my tough old man from Boston. I'm like, hey, Dad, listen, I want to go to work for you. He goes, no. No? I'm like, Dad, every old man wants their son to follow in their footsteps. So legacy. He's like, not this one. And I'm looking at him like, what? And he says to me, you've never once displayed any interest in the family company.

• 1:04:26Speaker 06

  You don't come to me now, right now, and say you want to? No. He said, no. I'm like, Ed, I'm like, what do I do? I want to control my own fate, my own destiny. And then, radio's not fair, life's not fair. So, I talked him into it, I wore him down. Because I always had this kind of drive and passion. I wore him down, I worked on him for six months. Of course, it was the wrong thing, for the wrong reason. He fired me. And then, you know, to make this super long story short. I've never heard this before. Yeah, it's unbelievable. So, he, and keep in mind, I grew up at a dinner table every night, where my parents owned a small business, they were manufacturers. And they manufactured high-tech garments, and they had a factory in Chatsworth. And I heard every day at dinner, "Business is business, business is business. You take care of the business, the business will take care of you."

• 1:05:08Speaker 06

  So, about six months in, he fires me, nicely, but business is business. He said, "What are you gonna do now?" I said, "I'm gonna go get a sales job." He looks at me like I'm crazy, he's like, "You suck at sales. I just fired you." I'm like, "No, I suck at selling your product, I will sell something else." I got a job working at Harris Lanier, selling dictation equipment. Oh my god. And, because, when I went to a headhunter, they said, "We're gonna send you out, and here's the best one, here's the one that everybody wants." I could always sell me, but nothing else. So, I got the job. I stayed there 38 days, I quit, they're furious, and then I'm selling phone equipment. And it's going terrible, man, I'm getting my face beat in. And finally, in a fit of just, I'm near tears.

• 1:05:52Speaker 06

  I call my old boss, where I had an internship in Santa Barbara, and I said, "My life..." He's like, "Hey, Rome, what's going on?" I'm like, "Nothing good, nothing good." He's like, "What?" "I lay out my whole sales life, I'm a failure, I'm worth nothing. Do you have any radio work in Santa Barbara?" He said, "I got one thing, 30 hours, vacation relief, traffic reports, $5 an hour. Do you want it?" I said, "Yes, yes." And I tell my old man, he's like, "How you gonna live?" I said, "I have no idea, but my life is going right down the gutter, I gotta get back up there." And so, I committed to this, Ed, $5 an hour, 30 hours a week, for one month. No benefits because a kid was on vacation for Christmas.

• 1:06:36Speaker 06

  And I said, I'll figure it out when I get up there. I just know that I'm not good at sales.

• 1:06:39Ed Mylett?

  Brother, I've

• 1:06:40Speaker 06

  I don't even know where that question started. Sorry about that.

• 1:06:42Ed Mylett?

  No, no, no. I knew your whole story and I did not know that part of it. Like, that's a huge thing. Like, I'm so grateful you said this because a lot of entrepreneurial types listen to this, right? And probably in your life, you know, you've pursued the business side and maybe a lot of you listen to this right now. You've gone back to some goofy plan B that you know you don't belong at. You know it's not your calling. You know you're not great at it. It's like this place you're kind of hiding. Because this other thing's so painful. And it's really cool to know that, I mean, and you're humble about it, but someone who becomes the best of all time at what they do. This man's in the radio hall of fame, guys. I mean, legitimately. Three decades plus on the air. I mean, the staying power's been unreal. To know that you went through this little stage where you were a little bit lost is nuts to me.

• 1:07:24Speaker 06

  Yeah, I'm sorry, go ahead.

• 1:07:25Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, no, no. What I was gonna say, the thing that I admire about you is that post that, it seems to me you made this decision like, okay, I want to play with the stuff I'm not any good at. And then there's becomes this part of you, I love when you talk about this, you're like, this is what I'm gonna do now. I'm gonna figure this shit out. And it's like a burn the boats type thing for you. You've almost got this theory about success that it doesn't always go to the that's sort of the most talented person with the most gifted person, but it goes to the who.

• 1:07:49Speaker 06

  No, and I've seen you talk about this as well, that it's not always the talent, but it's the grind and it's the effort and it's the dedication. And I think that's where the separation is. And by the way, if you know that you're not the most talented guy and you know that you're not the most brilliant person, what are you gonna do? Like, here's the one thing. The one thing that I had aside from I knew what I wanted to do at a pretty early age. I knew the price that I was willing to negotiate with myself to get that done. Like, that's here, sidebar. When I was in UC Santa Barbara, I thought nothing of getting up at 4:30 in the morning to go work in internship for free. When the other kids were saying, dude, I'm not gonna make that 8 o'clock class. And I'm not saying I'm a hero for doing that. In fact,

• 1:08:31Speaker 06

  I'm kind of a loser for doing it because I was terrified of falling behind. I was afraid that somebody else would get that gig if I didn't do it. But because I knew what I wanted to do and because I negotiated that price with myself at an early age, I, it was nothing for me. In fact, it felt good, man. I've heard you talk about this, like the dopamine that goes off in your head. It was a drug. It was an adrenaline thing, it was natural. I felt good. I was getting up early, going to work, getting a line on the resume, so I felt good. But at the same time, to your point, the reason I, I was self-aware. And the, the one other advantage I had, I did this, I did this math. When I got to UCSB, I thought to myself, why you? Why you?

• 1:09:12Speaker 06

  You were not a professional athlete, you don't have an amazing look, you don't have an amazing voice, yet you want to be on the radio, yet you want to be on TV. Exactly, what do you have to bring to it? Why you? And I couldn't answer the question at first. And I thought, man, if I don't come up with that answer, I'm not gonna make it. So why you, why you, why you? And what I finally came down to was this. It's gonna be me, because I'm gonna come at it differently, with a different slant. Rather than being the, the answer man on the radio, I'm gonna come at it with a declarative slant, a point of view, a take, have a take, don't suck. And then the other thing that I was gonna bring to it, if I wasn't smarter and I wasn't better, I damn well were gonna want it, I was gonna want it worse than anybody else.

• 1:09:51Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:52Speaker 06

  I was not gonna give in. I was not going to give in, and I had learned my lesson by going into business and sales. Luckily, I got my face beat in, so now I knew what it took. I'm like, this time, you don't punk out, you lock in, no matter, it's not up to you to know how long it's gonna take, you just put your head down and you go to war until you find out.

• 1:10:13Ed Mylett?

  I freaking love it. I freaking love it, and that's what you're, that's what, people that I know that know you, that's what you're known for. This dude has a psycho work ethic, he's ferocious. And I'm curious about the mechanism that drives you. Like, that's loaded with stuff there for all of you trying to do something great. I'm curious, you said something like, almost like fear-based. Like, hey, I might miss this, or it may get past me. That self-awareness piece is a monster. You and I both, most of the most successful people we know are very self-aware. They know what they're good at, they know what they're not good at.

• 1:10:42Speaker 06

  That's it.

• 1:10:43Ed Mylett?

  You agree with that?

• 1:10:44Speaker 06

  Yes, I do.

• 1:10:44Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I like immediately in meeting you too, it's like, this is one of your great gifts. And I think it also gives you an element of humility too. I know what I'm not good at, so I'm gonna have to outwork somebody. But I'm curious what's made you, to this day, and I don't know the answer, I'm curious. Do you have this little thing where you're afraid it may leave you? Is that a driving mechanism for you, or is it always what you're trying to create? Which one moves you more?

• 1:11:08Speaker 06

  It really is both those things. And I think one drives the other. And understand this, I don't, yeah, I have this fear that they're gonna come to me one day. Hey, listen, if they came to me today, if I walked outside your door, and somebody came to me and said, yo, man, you've had a pretty good run, we really don't care. The last thing this world needs is a 50-something smack talker. And to hit the bricks, a-hole. Then I far exceeded anything that I ever thought that I would do, and it was a great run. However, I don't want it to end, and not for the reasons you may think. Like, I'm not one of those guys like, I gotta be on the radio, I gotta be on TV, I gotta... It's not about that ego, it's about the process. It's about wanting to be relevant, it's about me still wanting to be competitive. It's about me wanting to have another act. It's about me wanting to reinvent. It's about me wanting to have people look at me and my brand and say, damn, man,

• 1:11:51Speaker 06

  that guy's not looking for an off-round, that guy's not going away. I still care what that guy thinks. Because one day, it will be over, and it will be a great run. But man, I feel good, and I'm still really motivated by the puzzle. Like, the whole world has changed. It's not the way it was when I got in, or when you were getting in. So now it's up to me intellectually to figure it out again. And I wanna be able to say, hey, man, I did not give in, and the world changed, and I changed with it, and I'm still relevant. And that's important to me. That still gets me out of bed.

• 1:12:20Ed Mylett?

  Like, literally, right now, as much as when you're that guy that get the $5 paid 30-day deal. Like, you think you want it that bad still right now?

• 1:12:27Speaker 06

  Yes, and I frequently, I don't keep notes, but I don't have to. I remember what my mindset was, it was a weird deal, you probably know this too. Like, I could get into a flow state back then. Like, I knew. I knew I'd walk around campus and I could lose an hour at a time because I was just so into this. This is what I need to do. This is what I want. And if you think about it hard enough and you're vivid enough with your imagery and how badly you want it, you lose time, don't you?

• 1:12:53Ed Mylett?

  You do.

• 1:12:53Speaker 06

  You get into a flow state.

• 1:12:54Ed Mylett?

  You do, 100%.

• 1:12:56Speaker 06

  And I knew it. And so now I'm trying to think back, like any athlete, right? You guys always, they want to get back in the flow state. So when they have their best game ever, what did they do? They thought about what they did that morning. They thought about what music they listened to. They thought about the rituals.

• 1:13:08Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 1:13:09Speaker 06

  And I'm trying to think, man, do it again.

• 1:13:12Ed Mylett?

  Do it again. Do it again. Do you have a big ritual you do? Do you have anything specific you do? You get up real early, don't you?

• 1:13:16Speaker 06

  Yeah, I drink coffee. That's my ritual. Yeah, I get up, I get up early, but not as early as I would like. And I fight that thing every single day. But, but I try to be very ritualistic about it, man. Get up, get going, get to work, lock in. And you know, like anybody else, like any entrepreneur watching, get yourself to do the things that you do not want to do because that's also one of the separators between those who do and don't. Make yourself do the things you do not want to do and do them consistently.

• 1:13:42Ed Mylett?

  Hmm. You guys see why I wanted him on?

• 1:13:45Speaker 06

  Yeah, I think because a lot of us read the same things, think about the same things. Like even before I got into this, I probably read a lot of the stuff that you read on the way up. I would read Zig Ziglar, Og Mandino, Tom Hopkins.

• 1:13:58Ed Mylett?

  Me too.

• 1:13:58Speaker 06

  Dale Carnegie, you know, like, and some of it resonated more than some of the other stuff. But I, but I read a lot of that stuff too.

• 1:14:04Ed Mylett?

  I have this feeling and you don't need to acknowledge it. I think that some of your brand is going to end up in this area. I think that, here's what's rare about you. And it is, it's significantly different about you. One, you were born with some incredible giftedness to articulate thoughts. Let's be real. I mean, you're given a great voice. You were given the ability to think and process information through your mouth at the speed of thought. That's a very rare thing. But you seem to be, I think a lot of people, success leaves clues. I think there are a lot of people, and you've met them too, I don't think they can explain to you why they're successful. A lot of people have arrived to success because they're not self-aware. They can't explain to you the steps. You're very unique in that you do know what the things were that made you who you are.

• 1:14:47Ed Mylett?

  And you can articulate them very well. I think you'd be shortchanging people by not doing more of this stuff.

• 1:14:51Speaker 06

  This is fun.

• 1:14:52Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I mean.

• 1:14:53Speaker 06

  This is fun. I like this. I've always, I've always, I've always liked this. And again, I don't, I, I think about these things. I think the reason I can articulate it is because I've thought about it long and hard because of what you're talking about. I really, I'm not being cute when I say this. I, I really think that I'm, I'm pretty average in most things. So I wanted to figure out where I could be above average or way above average. And the only thing I kept coming back to was have a very different approach to the format as it exists. And if you're lucky, people will like it and then control what you can control. And that's your attitude and your energy and your grit and your ability to deal with adversity and bounce back.

• 1:15:31Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, you, you do something else. I've seen guys that outwork everybody the first year or two or the third or fourth year. And then there's this point where like they're bought. We all know these, they just get bought with their success. Their price tag gets met and then all of a sudden they don't show up like they used to. They don't, they don't innovate. They don't evolve. They don't think through. For most people, what makes you special, why I was so attracted to you is it's 30 plus years and you're still trying to get better. You're still fighting for these inches. That's the separator. It's like, that's what, that's what separates to me. Someone like a LeBron in his 17th year.

• 1:16:05Speaker 06

  Bam, 100%.

• 1:16:06Ed Mylett?

  Don't you?

• 1:16:07Speaker 06

  100%. I was just gonna say to you that you will, you will recognize this. It is exactly like LeBron. It's exactly like your guy, Tom Brady. Explain to me how people who've had that much success, that have paid that kind of price, that have all the shiny things and the view of the ocean, why are they still working as hard as they are? Because you know what? It wasn't about the shiny things. It wasn't necessarily about that money, man. It was about the right stuff. Who in their right mind is still getting up at 3:30 in the morning when they've got money that they can't get to and their kids can't get to and they can't get to? Because they still want it so badly. We're, this is what I'm saying. This is why I watch you and we talk to similar people. How do you bottle this stuff? How do we get this stuff?

• 1:16:52Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:53Speaker 06

  And, and I wanna.

• 1:16:53Ed Mylett?

  How do we give it to our kids?

• 1:16:54Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:16:55Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:16:55Speaker 06

  Right. How do you do that? How, by the way, that's a whole sidebar.

• 1:16:58Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:59Speaker 06

  But when you have this, your kids. Aren't coming up the way you came up.

• 1:17:03Ed Mylett?

  That's right.

• 1:17:03Speaker 06

  So how do you explain that?

• 1:17:04Ed Mylett?

  I know.

• 1:17:05Speaker 06

  Your kid never went to a public shower in a swimming pool, right?

• 1:17:08Ed Mylett?

  You know the whole story.

• 1:17:09Speaker 06

  Because his old man busted his ass.

• 1:17:11Ed Mylett?

  Exactly.

• 1:17:11Speaker 06

  So how do you put that in your kid? And by the way, if they don't want it as badly as that's fine.

• 1:17:15Ed Mylett?

  It's okay.

• 1:17:16Speaker 06

  That's okay.

• 1:17:16Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:17Speaker 06

  However, just know the whole world isn't this. It's tough out there.

• 1:17:21Ed Mylett?

  I do think one of the ways you do it, by the way, I have a dad from Boston too.

• 1:17:24Speaker 06

  Really?

• 1:17:24Ed Mylett?

  I was born in Boston and my dad and mom are from Boston. Yeah, and my mom and dad, my dad and mom are Boston too. But one of the things I've tried to do, and you have the same situation, your children have grown up completely different than you grew up, right? But one of the things I think is a key to that is that they have seen their old man still after it. In other words, they've linked it to the work. So many kids that get to this, another thing, so they have a success if you have children. You know, your children may be later in life than your effort was paid, your price was paid. My kids have still seen me paying the price even after the money part, don't you think?

• 1:17:57Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:17:58Ed Mylett?

  And same with yours. Like, I bet if I asked your kids, they'd be like, hey, one thing about my dad, he's a horse. This dude gets up and goes all the time. They've linked what they see you doing to the work, as opposed to maybe someone who inherited it or something.

• 1:18:10Speaker 06

  You'll get this, like, my son Jake, so now he's a freshman at the University of Madison, Wisconsin, Wisconsin-Madison. And what I do on Fridays, we have a little ritual, I'll go in my backyard. It's probably like you, Ed, like, how hard do you work just to get the five feet over there?

• 1:18:24Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:18:25Speaker 06

  It's not easy, right?

• 1:18:25Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:18:26Speaker 06

  And so you spent your whole life trying to get to those five feet, but I bet it's hard to get to unless you already understand. I know I'm killing myself to get to that backyard. It doesn't happen very often. On Friday afternoon, once I put in a long work week and I've done my workout, I'll go in the backyard and I'll pour myself, you know, a dope beverage. And I'll take a picture of it and I'll send it to my kid and I'll write, cheers, love you, son. And you know what he says to me? Dad, now pops, pops, you earned that.

• 1:18:51Ed Mylett?

  I love that.

• 1:18:51Speaker 06

  Enjoy that.

• 1:18:52Ed Mylett?

  I love that.

• 1:18:52Speaker 06

  And I'm like, man, that is just so deep. Like, it worked. He, he got it.

• 1:18:57Ed Mylett?

  He got it before he left the house.

• 1:18:59Speaker 06

  Not, not, I love you, I miss you.

• 1:19:00Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:00Speaker 06

  Send money, and that may all come later on. But the text always says, you earned it.

• 1:19:05Ed Mylett?

  I love it.

• 1:19:05Speaker 06

  Enjoy that.

• 1:19:06Ed Mylett?

  I love that.

• 1:19:07Speaker 06

  It's beautiful, right?

• 1:19:07Ed Mylett?

  That's beautiful. That's the key, man. That's one of the keys. One of the things you've done well that I've noticed, so you said something that is another line that I agree with, line of thinking, I mean. I had a guy on here a few weeks ago named Mark Laurie, he runs Walmart, said a couple of big exits, successful dude.

• 1:19:21Speaker 06

  Pretty good.

• 1:19:21Ed Mylett?

  By the way, just at the combine for 250 grand. He's a 43-year-old, middle-aged, white dude. For $2.50, he races Jerry Rice in the 40.

• 1:19:30Speaker 06

  How'd that go?

• 1:19:30Ed Mylett?

  He beat him.

• 1:19:31Speaker 06

  Yeah, man.

• 1:19:31Ed Mylett?

  He beat Jerry Rice.

• 1:19:32Speaker 06

  By the way, Jerry's taking care of himself.

• 1:19:34Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, and Jerry's in still good shape. This isn't like running against some guy who's put on 30 pounds. He beat him.

• 1:19:38Speaker 06

  I guarantee you, he didn't want some rich guy to beat him either.

• 1:19:40Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, I know, but like legit. He ran around about 5 flat 40, which at that age is remarkable, right? Anyway, one of the things he said was, I said, "Give me some advice for entrepreneurs." And he said, "Find something that already exists and just do it better. Quit trying to make up some brilliant thing."

• 1:19:52Speaker 06

  Interesting.

• 1:19:53Ed Mylett?

  And what you've done on your show, I want you to talk about this for a minute. One of the separators for entrepreneurs, for any business, is culture. Your show with The Vine, The Jungle, The Clones, Have a Take, Don't Suck, the way you lead the group, the way you talk to them. There's a culture to the gym room experience. Did you consciously kind of create that whole deal?

• 1:20:13Speaker 06

  Not consciously, but I think it was part and parcel of what I was doing, that it was different. And I didn't know how they would react to it. Here's the funny thing. The real secret to the whole thing is, I just did on the radio what I was doing with my buddies in college. We just talked shit. I just love sports, and that's just the way I saw the world, literally. I did not sit around with a legal pad at night and just think of, "I'm gonna just make up all these terms and just like call the Knicks, the Bricks, because they can't shoot the ball." That really was the way I saw the world. You know, and we would just talk shit. And I'm like, "Wow, this is amazing. They might pay me to come up with this as a format."

• 1:20:46Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:20:46Speaker 06

  So, but luckily, again, understand the world that I came into. When I got my first big break in 1990, not to date myself, there was two sports talk radio stations in America. FAN in New York and Extra Sports 690. In fact, when I started to apply for that station, which is a whole different story on itself, they weren't even all sports. They were like news talk, but they had the Chargers rights, and there was a sports talk show in the afternoon.

• 1:21:09Ed Mylett?

  Were they the Mighty 690?

• 1:21:10Speaker 06

  Sure was. Mighty 690, exactly. So, there was nothing. And when they did that, there certainly was not a format like that. You had a couple of gunners that would kind of come pretty hard, but I just came at it a whole different way with the vernacular and the way I was kind of going after athletes and doing tough interviews. But smart, I wanted to make sure that I could always back up what I was saying. Like, even if you didn't agree with it, it was well reasoned. I didn't just get in there and start running off the mouth.

• 1:21:33Ed Mylett?

  You're not a hot taker.

• 1:21:34Speaker 06

  You like really believe the things you're saying. Yeah, you might not like me at all, but this is really who I am now. That said, that said, I think part of your thinking might be like, I want to talk to this guy because I think there's more to this guy than that guy who's on the radio. Of course, it's a show. Now, don't get me wrong. I mean, I mean, I mean what I say and I say what I mean. And I wouldn't walk any of this back, except the stuff that I was factually wrong about. I mean, this is who I am, but I don't go around talking smack 24 and 7. It is a show. The one thing I did figure out too, be different, never give in, always keep coming, but give them a show. That much I understood early in my life. Make it a show. It's showbiz. Anything you regret you've done? I mean, sure. I mean, sure there. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I kind of regret calling Jim Everett Chris several times.

• 1:22:19Speaker 06

  I know he was so I regret that I didn't understand that situation better. That's really interesting. So, so Jim Everett, people know, a lot of people know me as the guy, the quarterback attacked him. Understand this about this, this incident. That was not a setup. That was not me. People think this really. What happened was there's a whole backstory to it that I've told a few times. But this guy was coming on the show and it was, it's kind of interesting how it got booked. Okay. Like I didn't, I didn't say, go get this guy as a guest, but I always had a standing policy. Yes. Okay. And you understand that, that's good. We have always had a standing policy, especially back in the day when I was really coming hard, really coming hard. That if somebody, and I could tell you lots of stories about athletes that had an issue. And I said, if you have an issue, here I am. Here I am.

• 1:23:04Speaker 06

  Come on the show and we'll discuss this and we'll be up for, let's put them all on the table, man. And so he wanted to be on the show and I'd been pretty critical of him. And I said, good, that's fine. But I didn't know how that came to be. So I said to my booker, did you call him? And my booker said, no, he called us. I said, okay, because that's what my policy was. And then right before, like the night before, and I asked the question a few times. Now you called him, he called us, right? Yes, yes, yes, Jim, he called us. Right before my booker admitted me, I called him. I said, all right, let's get on the phone and be sure that he knows. He knows. So my producer, who is an extraordinarily successful guy, my name, Mark Shapiro. He ran ESPN for years. Yeah. He now is with.

• 1:23:49Speaker 06

  William Morris where I am right now. And he said, hey, listen. You know Rome has called you Chris Everett? Yes, we know. He's talking to him. He's like, yes, I know. You know he's gonna say it on the show because he would never not say to a guy's face what he said about him on the radio. Yes, I know. We know what show we're getting on. But this is not gonna be the show. We really wanna do this interview. There's a lot here. He's like, I know. I'm aware. And then he came on. And then I said it. And then he goes, I bet you don't do it again. And I said it again. So one regret is I didn't need to say it again. You know, and I really, honestly, I didn't know he was that angry. It was live TV. And I didn't play it right. It was live. It was live. Yeah. And so that was a really bad day at work for me. Jim, good to have you on the show.

• 1:24:29Speaker 07

  Good to be here, Jim. Thank you.

• 1:24:30Speaker 06

  Check that. Chris Everett. Good to have you on the show.

• 1:24:33Speaker 07

  You know what? You know, you've been calling me that for about the last five years.

• 1:24:37Speaker 06

  About two years, actually, Chris.

• 1:24:38Speaker 07

  Well, hey, you know what? Let me say one thing. In that game, how many sacks did I have that we came back and won?

• 1:24:43Speaker 06

  How many sacks did you have?

• 1:24:44Speaker 07

  Yeah, how many game? How many sacks?

• 1:24:45Speaker 06

  Well, see, but this was back in 1989.

• 1:24:47Speaker 07

  Okay, that was about six.

• 1:24:48Speaker 06

  You may have even been Jim Everett back there, but somewhere along the way, Jim, you ceased being Jim and you became Chris.

• 1:24:52Speaker 07

  Well, let me tell you a little secret. That, you know, we're sitting here right now, and if you guys wanna take a station break, you can. But if you call me Chris Everett to my face one more time.

• 1:25:02Speaker 06

  I already did it twice.

• 1:25:03Speaker 07

  You better, you call one more time, we better take a station break.

• 1:25:05Speaker 06

  Well, it's a five-minute segment. Our five-segment show. We got a long way to go.

• 1:25:09Speaker 07

  We do.

• 1:25:10Speaker 06

  We got a long way to go.

• 1:25:11Speaker 07

  We do.

• 1:25:11Speaker 06

  I'll get a couple of segments out of you before.

• 1:25:13Speaker 07

  Well, it's good to be here with you, though.

• 1:25:14Speaker 06

  Well, it's good to see you, too.

• 1:25:15Speaker 07

  Because you've been talking like this behind my back for a long time.

• 1:25:17Speaker 06

  But now I said it right here.

• 1:25:19Speaker 07

  Right.

• 1:25:19Speaker 06

  Well, we got no problems then.

• 1:25:21Speaker 07

  I think that you probably won't say it again.

• 1:25:23Speaker 06

  I bet I do.

• 1:25:24Speaker 07

  Okay.

• 1:25:25Speaker 06

  Chris.

• 1:25:32Speaker 06

  That was a really bad day at work for me. Was that a career-threatening type day for you? You bet it was. You bet it was. And people, people to this day say to me, it made you. It made you. I kinda take exception to that. I didn't wanna be known for that. Yeah. I did not wanna be known for that. I own, look, I'm accountable. I had a bad day. That was my bad. I've apologized for that a million times. I always will. I did not handle that well. Period. The backstory's pretty interesting, though, to be honest with you. I mean, he knew what he was getting into. The reason I asked you. You know, I think, here's the thing, though. Somebody said to me, excuse me, somebody said, I think he was coming for you. I don't know that he was. I think that he got really upset. And understandably so. I think in the moment. You bet. Of course he got upset. Right. And what's he, you'll find this even more interesting. For years, I tried to do the interview.

• 1:26:16Speaker 06

  After it happened, I'm like, let's get some closure.

• 1:26:18Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:18Speaker 06

  And not for the wrong reason. Now people want to see it just to see it. Would you believe to this day we've never spoken?

• 1:26:25Ed Mylett?

  Wow.

• 1:26:25Speaker 06

  I tried for years and years and years to do the interview and he always said no. And I just stopped asking after about 10 years.

• 1:26:33Ed Mylett?

  Well, of course, after a decade of asking.

• 1:26:34Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:26:35Ed Mylett?

  Maybe he'll see this and agree to do it.

• 1:26:36Speaker 06

  Maybe.

• 1:26:36Ed Mylett?

  That would be awesome.

• 1:26:37Speaker 06

  Maybe I don't want to anymore.

• 1:26:39Ed Mylett?

  That's a big takeaway. The reason I asked you, I wasn't going to bring the incident up, I was going to see what you answered was, that's the other thing I kind of want people to get another lesson through you. Is that that could have been a career altering day for you. It certainly didn't.

• 1:26:51Speaker 06

  No, no, it was scary.

• 1:26:52Ed Mylett?

  Right, it certainly didn't make you, that's not true. What's made you is the prolific culture you've created and your relentless work ethic over time. That's what's made you, your preparation, the way you interact with the athletes, your ability to articulate. However, it's a great lesson. It's a great lesson because I look at a guy like our mutual buddy, A-Rod's a good buddy. And I look at A-Rod, you know, three, four years ago, he was a pariah, right? Like, nobody in the world would touch him. And he's remade himself into this like, he's the ESPN, face of ESPN baseball. He's revered again, right? And so, the reason, why that's important is, for everybody, a lot of us have this one mistake in our life. It could be a divorce, a bankruptcy, and we shame ourselves the rest of our life. Like, okay, I don't, I can't win again because I've made this one particular error in our career.

• 1:27:37Ed Mylett?

  You're proof of that, whether it was an error or not, on air, it was one of the most shocking sports interview moments in the history of sports interviews.

• 1:27:44Speaker 06

  I don't want to give myself too much credit, it was one of the most shocking moments on TV.

• 1:27:47Ed Mylett?

  Ever.

• 1:27:47Speaker 06

  In a long ti- ever, ever. And I will tell you one more thing too, I don't know if you know this, but it's a little cheesy, but I think it is apropos.

• 1:27:54Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:54Speaker 06

  The LA Times did a piece shortly thereafter, and the title of the article was, is this the end of the Roman Empire?

• 1:28:00Ed Mylett?

  Whoa.

• 1:28:00Speaker 06

  I put it on my mirror, I looked at it every day for a year. I saw it every morning when I shaved, I saw it every morning when I got out. Like, they're speculating that my career is over before it starts. And so, it's one thing to pump yourself up with, don't give in, don't quit. Yeah, easy to say all that until adversity hits. Adversity hit. And, you know, the world was different then. I mean, there was no social media then, which would have made it tougher, but I'll tell you what, there was. There was Saturday Night Live, Katie Couric talking shit about me. They were killing me on Saturday Night Live. And so people like now say, yeah, well, that's, that's awesome. It's not awesome when you're in it and you think that maybe you're not getting contracts renewed.

• 1:28:41Speaker 06

  And then all of a sudden, when people don't know you, you're going to restaurants and everybody knows you and it's for the wrong reason. Because it was one bad night and let, let that be a lesson, you know, one, one bad decision could impact the rest of your life.

• 1:28:53Ed Mylett?

  During those moments, I'm curious about Janet.

• 1:28:56Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:28:56Ed Mylett?

  So I've been married once and she's had my back through a bunch of different ups and downs. You talk about Janet on the show, but I think she's only been on the show like one time.

• 1:29:05Speaker 06

  One time.

• 1:29:05Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, we both are, both also have this thing where we're real private with our families. We're not doing a lot of posts and pictures and things like that. I'm protective of that too. But if you don't mind talking about it, because I, I just think it's, she's been such an important part of your life. How important has Janet been through moments like that in your career? Or are you just like, do you do your thing and she does her thing?

• 1:29:24Speaker 06

  No, no, she's definitely right in the middle of that whole thing because we, we met through the business. The funny thing about Janet, when I met Janet, she was way more successful at this business than I was. She was a vice president of the corporation that owned the mighty 690.

• 1:29:38Ed Mylett?

  Okay.

• 1:29:39Speaker 06

  Janet heard me and tried to fire me right away. So Janet's a vice president of human resources. And the funny thing about, because the corporate office was in San Diego where the station was, but they own several stations nationwide. They all had a vote at the conference table about programming. I always thought that was kind of weird that why is accounting voting on programming? Why is human resources voting on programming? Because they could, I guess, and they did. Because I did this differently than anybody else had, they had never heard anything like that before. So Janet grows up in Long Beach, she's a huge Dodger fan. And I get on the radio and I said, let me tell you about Fernando Valenzuela. Man, that old man will be on food stamps by the end of the week. And she was, she literally was mortified. This is a church going girl who grew up loving the Dodgers and she, she was mortified.

• 1:30:24Speaker 06

  She's like, I don't know who the new guy is, I don't know where he came from. I move that we fire him right now.

• 1:30:30Ed Mylett?

  Really?

• 1:30:31Speaker 06

  So I married her ultimately.

• 1:30:33Ed Mylett?

  That's awesome.

• 1:30:34Speaker 06

  But, but the, the moral of that story. She was doing way better than me, making a lot more money, way more successful. And she saw me before any of this happened. And so we, I kind of schooled her and my friends and family that when I came up. And people who liked me loved me and people who didn't like me hated my guts and said things that were not nice. In some cases horrible and didn't know me and family and friends get really upset. I'm like, listen, this is part of it. This is what we signed up for. So you need to understand, you cannot react to this. You can't fight everybody who says something, yeah, but they don't know you. Well, you can't control that.

• 1:31:10Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:31:11Speaker 06

  So she knows that. So when, when it hit the fan, she was there, she was fine.

• 1:31:16Ed Mylett?

  That's awesome, man. You've had a great partner all these years, which led you into, I just want to talk about this for a little bit because I think it's a really weird part of your story. Like somehow this sports guy was in all these other sports and I knew enough about you, we had no interest in horse business before.

• 1:31:29Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:31:30Ed Mylett?

  Like all of a sudden, you're like, and by the way, like anything you've done, like you didn't just do it a little bit. I mean, eventually you got into like, you're pretty deep.

• 1:31:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, I was really, I was really deep and I had no interest in that either. So no interest in that. So there's a guy named Billy Koch and Billy Koch. Actually was a college baseball player, Northwestern and a Beverly Hills kid. And he was in this, he had a racing syndicate. So what he would do is he would go out and he'd find people and they'd invest and they'd buy pieces of a horse. And he saw me in Del Mar and said, hey, hey, he knew me. And he's like, you're gonna love this, you're gonna love this. I'm like, no, I won't. No, I won't. I have no interest. I have no interest. Why would I want to do that? I want to go to Del Mar. I want to watch the races. I'll put on a suit, have a few pops and I'll do that once or twice a summer and I'm good. He's like, no, no, you'll love it, you'll love, love it. I didn't want to do it. Janet says to me one night, you know, you really should, we should do this. I said, do what? She said, buy a horse. I'm like, why would I do that? You need a hobby, you need a hobby. We bought 10% of a horse. I go to Santa Anita, the horse is Argentinian bred. They bring him in, he runs.

• 1:32:24Speaker 06

  And I was naive. I thought I'm a sports talk show host, man. I know everything. I didn't know that much about horse racing. I really didn't. Running styles, strategies. I buy 10% of the horse. The horse is running dead last. I'm like, I must be the biggest sucker ever. There must be like easy mark on my forehead. I'm like putting, I'm trying to put a stop on the check and then throw the race asshole. The horse comes from dead last to win the race in the most exciting fashion ever. And I've told this story. It's like somebody rolled up behind me and injected me with equine crack. I look at this guy, I'm like, dude, you got anything else you can sell me? What else do you have for sale? And I couldn't stop. It felt so amazing, you know? So then I'm all in and some of the best and worst days of my life have been at the track.

• 1:33:05Ed Mylett?

  But you went up to like 14 horses or something, right? And then you get to Ms. Direction and you're talking about a horse that's like multiple victories at the Breeders.

• 1:33:14Speaker 06

  So, so yeah, so the really short version is so Janet's like, hey, how much money have we lost? By the way, doing this, I'm like a lot. She's like, maybe we should stop. I'm like, you told me to get a hobby. She goes, I didn't tell you to get one that expensive. I said, here's the thing, one more time, there's this horse named Ms. Direction. She's like, Jimmy, stop. I'm like, listen to me. This horse won its, it's made and raced by nine and a half lengths. We've never been anywhere near an animal like this. I want to take one more shot. She's like, all right. So that was it. Ms. Direction literally saved my horse racing life because up until then, that was the last shot. And then I bought in, they made us the majority owner. We ran in our silks and she won two Breeders' Cup races against the boys, which was unbelievable.

• 1:33:55Speaker 06

  And to this day, I've never experienced anything in business that felt like that first win that she had. It was the most surreal moment of my life that did not involve the things that matter.

• 1:34:03Ed Mylett?

  So that was the high, the lowest shared belief, right?

• 1:34:06Speaker 06

  The lowest shared belief.

• 1:34:07Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, just tell them about that.

• 1:34:08Speaker 06

  So shared belief was a, so we sold Ms. Direction at auction because we wanted to retire her, give her the right life. Shared belief is a horse that we bought that we thought we'd have some fun with. He was a gelding, okay? So you cannot, if they're gelded, they've got no residual value. You cannot breed them. That's why he was for sale. And we bought the horse and the horse was unbelievable. We had no idea. He went from a horse that we thought we'd have fun with to the top ranked thoroughbred in the world. He was the number one ranked horse in the world. He beat California Chrome. He won the award for the two-year-old male of the year. He won the Pacific Classic in Del Mar, which is the biggest race here, I think. The San Diego Handicap. I mean, unbelievable athlete, Ed, unbelievable. And then he comes down with colic. I get this phone call one morning during my radio

• 1:34:53Speaker 06

  show from my race manager, Alex Solis, who says, Jim, the big horse has colic. And I said, oh, my God, how bad is that? He goes, they're rushing him to Davis Medical Center. He may not make it. Keep in mind, the horse is four. The horse has lived to be in their twenties. And he was like larger than life. And the horse passed away, you know, and I'm still not over it. Like, it's like anything in life, right? Really bad things happen. You hope to get beyond it, but some things you don't really ever get over. So it's like also in sports, the lows are much more intense than the highs are high. So as good as it was that Misdirection won the Breeders' Cup twice, the intensity of losing shared belief like that, I think, will far outweigh everything.

• 1:35:36Ed Mylett?

  I can see it on your face.

• 1:35:38Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's hard, man. Yeah, I said to my, I told the story, maybe you've seen the video I did, but I said to my 10 year old at the time, Logan, was at my office crying, my desk at work. I had this whole thing, man, don't you ever cry at work. Don't cry. I don't care how bad your work day is. You don't cry at work unless you get a phone call with some really bad news. You don't cry at work. And my 10 year old goes, Dad, I've never seen you cry. I said, because I don't very much, but man, I love that animal.

• 1:36:02Ed Mylett?

  Oh, man, I'm so sorry about that. But the whole reason you did it, I'm gonna get into like your mind a little bit. So, or you, like, be real. I mean, I know you've been real, but like, be real. You needed a hobby. That sounds like something my wife would say. And one of the things that I've always struggled with, and I just want people that are like this, maybe you're this way, maybe you're not, I'm not, as much as I relate really well with people, I'm not like one of the guys. Do you know what I mean?

• 1:36:28Speaker 06

  No, I know exactly what you mean.

• 1:36:29Ed Mylett?

  Like, my, because I think this is a model or a personality trait that I see in a lot of people that are successful that surprises people. But like, my social circle is not as big as most people would think. Like, as many people as you and I both know, like, who I really spend time with is surprising.

• 1:36:44Speaker 06

  I'm shaking my head because I totally know exactly where you're going with that.

• 1:36:46Ed Mylett?

  Yeah. So what is your, what is that like for you? Like, is your social circle really as big as most people would think? Are you, or like, what are you like socially? And what's your kind of, are you, are you a dude who's like kind of playing grab ass with dudes all the time? Or are you typically more serious?

• 1:37:00Speaker 06

  No, no, I've got like four guys. I got friends, I have associates, but I've got three or four dudes. Like, I don't, I used to be a big Bombay Sapphire guy. So we had a Bombay club because who drinks gin? Only old men, old lawyers, and me. Until I didn't, but I, but I had a crew. I got some guys and, and I don't want the guys. I'm not doing this in any order of importance.

• 1:37:22Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:23Speaker 06

  But my guys are guys like Rob Guthrie, Mike Trezel, Matt Coleman. You know, I just have a crew.

• 1:37:29Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:30Speaker 06

  And, and we used to be almost fanatical about once a quarter, no matter where we are. We drop everything and we go out and we hit it pretty hard responsibly.

• 1:37:36Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 1:37:37Speaker 06

  And it, you know, as you get older, it's tougher because everybody has lives and kids. But no, I'm not, I, my job was my thing.

• 1:37:44Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:44Speaker 06

  My career was my, career and family, career and family.

• 1:37:47Ed Mylett?

  That's what it seems like.

• 1:37:48Speaker 06

  Family and career, family and career. I didn't need all that other stuff.

• 1:37:52Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:37:52Speaker 06

  And if I had to blow off some steam, I'd blow off some steam and then get right back to the grind. So when you say to me that you have a tight knit circle of the people who matter most to you that you want to hang out with.

• 1:38:00Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:01Speaker 06

  I understand that.

• 1:38:02Ed Mylett?

  I really believe what you said. Like I take to heart that I think you have some unbelievable gifts and talents. But I, I know from being around you now, like this man's made it because he's a crazy competitor. He evolves, he works his ass off and he flat out wants it probably more than most people, right? And I feel like I'm kind of in that boat in my own unique way too. Like I know I don't have a super high IQ. You know, I'm not six foot three. I'm not super gifted in any particular area.

• 1:38:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, but Ed, you can bench the house though.

• 1:38:30Ed Mylett?

  No, I can't bench the house. You know what I, they put, I had Mike O'Hern on here, if you know who that is. That dude can bench the house, like, but comparatively speaking, but I, but I do like, I really want to win.

• 1:38:40Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 1:38:41Ed Mylett?

  Like I really want to be somebody. I connect with athletes.

• 1:38:43Speaker 06

  Why, why do you think that is? Like what, here, here's the thing. I always, always ask guys like this.

• 1:38:47Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:38:47Speaker 06

  Nature or nurture? Are you wired for it or are you a product of your culture? Where does that come from?

• 1:38:54Ed Mylett?

  What do you think?

• 1:38:55Speaker 06

  For you.

• 1:38:55Ed Mylett?

  What do you think? For you?

• 1:38:58Speaker 06

  I, I think, okay, for me?

• 1:39:00Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:02Speaker 06

  For me.

• 1:39:02Ed Mylett?

  This is the ultimate question of all questions right here.

• 1:39:05Speaker 06

  Because I have an upper middle class upbringing.

• 1:39:10Ed Mylett?

  Me too.

• 1:39:10Speaker 06

  Okay. I did not, I did not come up the hard way.

• 1:39:13Ed Mylett?

  Me either.

• 1:39:13Speaker 06

  I lived in a gated neighborhood.

• 1:39:15Ed Mylett?

  Okay. I didn't quite go there, but same close.

• 1:39:17Speaker 06

  I mean, I wasn't, you know, my parents were not wealthy, but they worked hard and they had a business and they did well. I'll be honest with you, me personally, because even my old man, my dad, he passed away when he was 59, he had leukemia. And this is amazing to me, really, just sidebar really quickly, he was fine with it. Like, it's a strange thing, like, he, this Boston guy, he's diagnosed with cancer at 50, and he and my mother don't tell anybody. They don't tell anybody, they pull, yes, just, just us, though, my sister and I. And they say to us, we're not telling anybody. I'm like, are you, what? You just told me you have leukemia and you're not telling anybody? He didn't tell his mother, they didn't tell anybody in business. They're like, this is how we're handling it. If you want to talk about it, we'll talk about it all day, every day, but we're not talking about outside these doors.

• 1:40:02Speaker 06

  I thought that was unbelievable. And then, and then when it's, it gets into his brain, and it's terminal, he has brain surgery, he's fine. He's fine. He's at peace. He's like, man, I had an amazing life. I've got these incredible kids, he didn't, you know? He's like, I had this, I never thought I'd be good in business, I am. Like, he was fine. He had this peace of mind. But we had this one talk, back to your question, he's like, you gotta relax. I'm like, what do you mean, I gotta relax? He's like, I don't know where you got your drive from, you didn't get it from me. I'm like, I don't know, dad, you've had a pretty good run. He's like, you didn't get it from me. So to answer your question, where'd it come from? I don't know, man, I, I kinda had a chip on my shoulder, maybe it was because I was a dorky kid, maybe, I don't know, but I wanted it.

• 1:40:42Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:40:42Speaker 06

  I wanted it, and I was able to feed it and tap into it.

• 1:40:45Ed Mylett?

  Yep.

• 1:40:45Speaker 06

  And I,

• 1:40:47Ed Mylett?

  And you still do, though. That's the crazy part. You still do, like, I can feel you, like,

• 1:40:55Ed Mylett?

  I think you're as hungry like this minute after Hall of Fame, 30 years, millions of dollars in income, live a great life.

• 1:41:01Speaker 06

  Part of it is game recognizes game, I think I'm kind of in the element, but, but no, I mean, I still, it gets me up in the morning still yet.

• 1:41:09Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:09Speaker 06

  And you gotta answer your question now, where, where did yours come from?

• 1:41:12Ed Mylett?

  I think, it's a great question, I think it's probably similar to yours, my dad, here's what I got from my dad, maybe you did. I did model like a work ethic from my old man, like, and a decency from my parents, that they're, they treat people well. There's a, like, I think I picked up some of that, I hope. Like I, but my dad never had ambition. My dad's told me many times, I just wanted to work and provide for the family. I wanted a good life. Like, what the hell happened to you? My dad and I have this conversation all the time.

• 1:41:37Speaker 06

  I bet.

• 1:41:37Ed Mylett?

  And, and it sort of shocks him. I don't even think they saw, I think they knew they wanted me to be successful, but I'm not sure they thought whatever happened, happened. I think that-

• 1:41:47Speaker 06

  So what happened?

• 1:41:48Ed Mylett?

  I don't know. I think some of it was that I was an undersized athlete, stuff like that too. But again, I think it's probably more nature. Cause I'll just, I, four siblings grew up in my household, were very different people. Same stimulus, same family, same parents. And I'm different.

• 1:42:01Speaker 06

  I'm always fascinated by that.

• 1:42:02Ed Mylett?

  I am too. And, but I think that the people that have that psycho streak, that have that, I wanna be somebody thing, need to know that it's great. Like I, my dad says that to me too. You need to chill. Like, hey, when's enough enough? And hey, even this morning, we're talking about some deal I'm doing. He's like, you know, put the pressure off yourself a little bit. Cause I think as a parent, you want them to be okay.

• 1:42:22Speaker 06

  Right.

• 1:42:22Ed Mylett?

  I don't know that that's, maybe it's good that he dials me in once in a while, that someone does that. But I wouldn't recommend that to somebody. Like if I'm not in pursuit of something, I'm miserable. I tried for like a half a year to like golf and sit on the beach. And I just, it's not what makes me happy.

• 1:42:37Speaker 06

  Yeah, but you enjoy this though, right?

• 1:42:38Ed Mylett?

  I do.

• 1:42:39Speaker 06

  I think it'd be a real mistake to hit it. And it took me a long time to figure this out. And then you have all these things that you worked so hard for, but you just keep grinding and grinding and grinding. And then it got, it got away. You didn't take that minute. I'm not saying dial it down. I'm not saying downshift. I'm saying, this is the best view I've ever seen. Hopefully you get your ass out on that deck. And you have, you have some of that tequila once in a while. I mean, you have to do it, right?

• 1:43:03Ed Mylett?

  We both had a little before we started today.

• 1:43:04Speaker 06

  I, I didn't, well, maybe a little.

• 1:43:05Ed Mylett?

  You had a sip, but I had a lot. I had a little bit. I do do that. I think that's one of the things that maybe you're right. Maybe one of the things, you're, you're pointing out something that to me. Maybe, maybe I need to show that side of me a little bit more. The people go, I wanna be like that. Like I wanna have some fun doing it too.

• 1:43:19Speaker 06

  Well, not even show yourself, just do it.

• 1:43:21Ed Mylett?

  Yeah, do it.

• 1:43:22Speaker 06

  Just do it, man. Just do it. Like, I'm not saying, you don't ever, ever compromise who you are and what you do. Because you're right, what are you gonna, you're not gonna be happy.

• 1:43:29Ed Mylett?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:29Speaker 06

  You're not gonna be, what are you gonna do? Not, not get up in the morning and workout? Not get up and go to work?

• 1:43:33Ed Mylett?

  Right.

• 1:43:34Speaker 06

  You know, one day, maybe.

• 1:43:55Speaker 08

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• 1:44:25Speaker 09

  Mr. President, my company tore me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap the blame on me. Tom Cruise is.

• 1:44:36Speaker 04

  Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up.

• 1:44:39Speaker 09

  From the director of Birdman and The Revenant.

• 1:44:42Dabo Swinney?

  What would happen if I stopped going?

• 1:44:43Speaker 06

  You start, you freeze in there, that's what.

• 1:44:46Speaker 09

  With great power comes great deniability.

• 1:44:49Speaker 06

  I'm not the first then.

• 1:44:50Speaker 09

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17. Not a middle without parent.