766: Your Potential UNLOCKED - The NFL Exec's Secrets to Playing Offense through Adversity 🔓

Brian Nichols  
Today we're digging into the power of playing offense plus, how do we make better decisions faster? Yeah, let's talk about that. Instead of focusing on winning arguments, were teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics, teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues they care about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Oil. Hey there, Brian hook, you're on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on a fourth, another fun filled episode. I am as always, your humble host joins us live from our cardio miracle Studios here in lovely Eastern Indiana want to improve your heart health with an amazing supplement that tastes great as well. We'll stay tuned. I'll talk about that later on. But first, we're gonna go ahead. And yes, address that question, though. I guess two questions I raised at the beginning of the episode. How do we in fact, start using offense to it to help us advance not just our careers, but also our personal lives? And number two, how can we go ahead and make better decisions faster to join us to discuss that and more. Paul Epstein, welcome to The Brian Nichols Show.

Paul Epstein  
Hey, Brian, fired up to be here.

Brian Nichols  
Fired up to have you here, Paul. I mean, come on. You spent what? 15 years in an NFL executive office. So I got to bring the energy. I played sports, right? So gotta bring at least some of that to the table today. Because I mean, goodness, you've been around football players, athletes your entire life and working in the business and professional world as well. Tell us about that. And a little bit of your background here. Not just in the business world, but as it is that right you're doing stuff with the NFL, San Francisco 40, Niners give us some context there.

Paul Epstein  
Yeah, for sure. So hung out a decade and a half in the NFL, NBA and like you said, I mean, look, full transparency. I'm five, nine and about a buck 65. So unless I can kick the ball very far. I was definitely not the player. I was the business guy. I was the boardroom guy. I was the front office guy, which was a total kid in a candy store chapter and the way it got started, you know, I was working for a fortune 10. After I graduated from USC, I was an outside territory sales manager, Mel Kiper, the NFL Draft guru. He comes on ESPN Radio, and he's even more fired up than I am right now. And he comes on and he says, Have you ever wanted to work in sports? Have you ever dreamed of working for your favorite NFL NBA MLB? And as I'm speeding down the highway just hollering? Yes. Yes. Yes. Is call to action was call one 800 SM w w now? SM W. W stands for sports management worldwide. I gave them a jingle. Eight weeks later graduate from their online course. The instructors said we'd love to introduce you to our network. Where do you want to be? I said I'm from LA born and raised. I'm not ready to leave. They said awesome. We know the folks at Staples Center. Now for context. This was the era where Kobe and Shaq were winning championships on the Lakers. Okay, and so here I was as a born and raised Angelina like, oh my gosh, I made it. And all my friends and my family. They're like you're gonna be hanging out with Jack and Jack Nicholson and the Laker girls, and Kobe and Shaq in the whole deal. Well, there was a problem. I didn't know Jack, and Kobe and Shaq were in the building. But they were on the other side of the hallway. Because I never worked for the Lakers. I got the introduction to the other team. I was an entry level sales guy for the LA Clippers. A year before I start, ESPN says you're the worst brand in sports. We too on the job. I cannot make this up. Brian week two on the job. The front cover of Sports Illustrated says worst franchise in sports history. Try selling that. What's your thought talk about playing offense, man. I mean, for me, that turned out to be the birthplace and the breeding ground for where I learned how to play offense in a defensive environment. Oh, because defense is nothing more than adversity, setbacks, hurdles, obstacles, all the things that typically are out of our control. But yet we let it overtake our lives, in our business in our careers. And so for me, it was a beautiful blend of I can't control what happens on the court or eventually on the field. But I can control my mindset. I can control how I show up every day. I can control how hard I pound the pavement and work. I can control my attitude. I can control whether I don't have a victim mentality and whether I have Extreme Ownership. I can control how decisive I am I can control how comfortable I am with imperfect action. Because I know that growth and discomfort cannot live simultaneously. And these were some of the earliest lessons that I learned. And just to add a little fuel to the fire, so I think this will be interesting. Especially I know we have business audience and beyond here, but we're all in the economics game at some point. And that fortune 10 that I left to break into sports and sell the lovely LA Clippers. Well, for the fortune 10 a goal, I had a six figure opportunity, not too shabby when you first graduated college. And I left those six figures to make $7 an hour. So I don't know how I eventually write a book called better decisions faster. Because you would say, Well, Paul looks like some dummies math. But again, I wouldn't trade it for the world. Because as I navigated the rest of the 15 years, and I'll give you the Fast Pass, I go from LA to New Orleans, we almost lost the team in a permanent relocation. I go from New Orleans to Sacramento and HR says, Paul, you're in charge of the company culture initiatives. And then a month later, bang leaguewide labor lockout. How do you manage morale when it feels like people's livelihoods are taken away? Right, fast forward, then I ended up in the NFL league office, that was obviously a positive chapter, we broke some Superbowl revenue records, and then I get to the Niners, we open up a beautiful billion dollar stadium. And in the midst of my four and a half years with the organization, Colin Kaepernick takes a knee and me my sales team, a service team. We're facing 70,000 fans in the aftermath of one of the most controversial days in sports, media news, history. And so how's that for a Fastpass? I mean, I just gave you a whole bunch to double click on and unpack. But brother, that is the exact journey that I was on for a decade and a half,

Brian Nichols  
what a roller coaster. But there is one thing you did you didn't bring up there. And I specially noted it down here with my handy dandy red pen. And that was the idea of playing offense. In a defensive world. I want to dig into that a little bit. Because, you know, I teach my sales team and we talk about this a lot here in the sales world. One of the biggest competitors we face is not the competition we face on a day to day, but rather, is indecision, or in some cases, the embracing that of the status quo. And I kind of look at that, in the mindset, almost as you raised here have that defensive mindset, right? You go into a business environment, I'm not necessarily competing against the other guy who has another product that's similar to mine. But in this case, I find I'm actually competing against different players internally at the company I'm working through, because there's different key stakeholders and these accounts, and everybody has their own vested interest and the things they want to see checked off the box. And more often than not, especially when you're starting to deal with technical stuff, the status quo, the playing more defense seems to make more sense, because you don't want to start tinkering with things. And moving one thing causes 10 Other things to break. So I guess from a sales perspective, but also from a business owner perspective of disrupting that, that status quo, what one piece of advice you want to give to both your sales professionals but also those entrepreneurs that are out there.

Paul Epstein  
The world is sports taught me this beautiful mantra of control the controllables. And it was almost like a positive sense of brainwashing. And I mean that in the most positive sense of, if you can't control something, then don't let it occupy 1% of your mind. And that came from not being able to control the wins and the losses on the field or the court of the ice. But then it also came to your point of the environmental factors that are around you every single day in a workplace in a team and a culture in an organization. And we all know this. You can't force anybody to change. All change is willing. And so for me to occupy 1% of my mind on something or somebody that I cannot change at best I can influence them. Then I just got tunnel vision and locked in on what can I control that I can 100% guarantee there is a positive outcome to this story. So a little bit of context here. When I was a hiring manager in the NBA, I was responsible to hire ideally, the top sales producers in all basketball in the entire sports industry. That's what I was tasked with. And all of my colleagues and my peers that were fellow hiring managers. They focus solely on how well can this person sell widgets. And I did the opposite. I put all of the onus on me to hunt for the best talent based on skill. But in the interview process and the way I evaluated them after they started, it was almost no conversation about skill. It was 100% with L. So what I said to a salesperson, I said, my job is to hire the best talent. Now that you're on the team, congrats, you made it, that means I have a massive level of confidence in you. Here's three things that I need from you every day. And there isn't a second strike policy. I need work ethic, I need positivity, I need coachability you give me those three things, I will take care of you the rest of your life. And I kid you not Brian, to this day, I have lifelong business relationships and friendships, from people that both sold a lot of things in those environments, and didn't sell a lot of things. And then they realize this isn't a home for me. This isn't a profession. For me, this isn't an industry for me, but they put their hard hat on, they control the controllables of work ethic, positivity and coachability. Because the way I saw it was my job is to hire the challenge. Their job is to work their you know what off their job is to never be negative, always stay positive. And also, if they're not cutting aid, if they're not producing, if they're not performing. I'm not mad. My question is, are you coachable? Are you committed to get 1% Better Tomorrow, 1% better than next day, 1% better the following day. And if you are, then eventually we're going to figure out if this is for you. But what I did, it was very psychological to Brian it was authentic, but also psychological. I ensured that I took all the pressure off of them. I didn't hound them to sell more widgets. I basically just held them accountable for the three things that I knew they could put in their lunch pail every single day. And that created this onus of ownership, where am I? Okay, this is what we're doing. And I'll give you one last piece here. And this goes for business owners. This goes for everybody out there. We all have a daily scoreboard. And it's how we measure success. And too often where we find ourselves in really dark places in business in life. It's because we expect things to happen on a daily basis that aren't achievable. They're unpredictable, or they're inconsistent. So if I have a high level b2b sales job, where I don't make a sale every day, maybe a transactional, b2c phone banger job, I can make a sale every day, but high level b2b corporate stuff, it doesn't work like that. So for me to say that I have a daily score. Well, excuse me a daily scorecard of making a sale every day. It's not, right, I'm setting myself up for failure, I'm going to become frustrated. And I'm just going to derail all of my progress and growth and momentum. So on the flip side, I have a daily scorecard. And it's this and I believe every single person listening in can apply these three things every day. I call it the principle of e i our experience, information, relationships. At the end of the day, audit, ask yourself, what experience did I gain today? What information did I learn today? What relationship did I build or enhance today, and when you can stack yeses and checkmarks in those three boxes day after day, just like money can compound with interest. You can have compounding experience, compounding information, compounding relationships. And when you want to talk a mindset, and an actionable playbook of how you can play offense in defensive environments. It's by taking ownership of those three things experience information, relationships. And that's what I learned that in early stage.

Brian Nichols  
I'm so glad by the way that you brought up the will versus skill issue. That's actually something I coach quite frequently I draw my my my little matrix right I'll and I'll have my will and my skill on each side love. And if you're in that bottom left hand quadrant, I man like I want to help you. But I need you to want to help yourself first and right and like, I can't coach the will. And I love that you brought up the idea of hiring for this skill. Because if I can, if I can get somebody like onboard who knows their stuff, that's great, but I can't coach you how to want it. I can't coach you the desire. I can't coach. The the intangibles that are there are they're not. And you have to find them yourselves. And I would love to maybe expand a little bit more on and this actually kind of goes into your next book. Right, the better decisions faster because I think one of the things we see folks right now is that we are just inundated with with information we are inundated with with decision making like like there's just so many things now that seem to be on the agenda that we get overwhelmed. So before I get your response here, Paul, what I want to do is actually go ahead and give a shout out to today's sponsor, and that is cardio miracle. Yes, you heard us here on The Brian Nichols Show coming live from our cardio miracle studios. Well, that's because I've been using cardio miracle now for about three months or so three and a half month somewhere in there. And I gotta tell you guys, the cardio miracle difference is 1,000% real. So if you are like yours truly and you want to supercharge your heart health and your energy levels, then I guarantee stop right now look no further found you're looking for a cardio miracle this unique natural supplement contains a special blend of ingredients to increase the nitric oxide levels in your system. Brian, why is that important? Well, nitric oxide is vital for promoting healthy circulation. And most importantly, if not, most importantly, protecting your heart. Now your higher nitric oxide relaxes and opens up the blood vessels which leads to improve blood flow, lower blood pressure and reduce inflammation. And guys, the benefits are clear enhanced delivery of oxygen and nutrients throughout your entire body. What does that mean for you? Sounds great, right? Well, it does sound great when it means more energy, less fatigue, and optimal heart function. If you want to get a better workout, if you want to get more sleep and you want to feel just a better version of you. Cardio miracle will ensure I guarantee a better you feeling truly refreshed and power to take on anything. So if you want to experience the cardio miracle difference for yourself, head to cardio miracle.com today and use code TBNS at checkout 15% off your order or if you're right here listening to us on the podcast version of the show, click your your artwork, he'll bring you The Brian Nichols Show dotcom cardio miracle is one of our top sponsors right there in the homepage. And if you click that link, you will instantly have the 15% discount applied to your order at checkout. So please join the 1000s of other folks out there who are on a path to improve their heart health and increase their energy and by the way, cardio miracle 100% money back guarantee. So you literally have nothing to lose and your heart will thank you one more time cardio miracle.com code T bn s. Alright, so let's get back to this. Paul. We're talking about digging a little bit deeper here. What say you, sir?

Paul Epstein  
Well, before that wonderful sponsor break, by the way, like I'm feeling as healthy as ever, man, like, I was clicking some buttons while you're doing your thing, I freaking love all this. But before that wonderful break, what you said was, you cannot coach the will. Yes. And I have a saying that I preach from the mountaintops every single speech and podcasts or whoever will listen to this. Because I see the level of frustration that exists within business and work in in our community and in politics and beyond. And I always tell folks, this, you cannot coach care, you cannot coach care. So I had a saying in sports, because I worked in environments where there was a lot of apathy in the marketplace. And that's a pretty bad place to be. Tell me you love me, excuse me, tell me you love me, tell me you hate me. But don't tell me that you don't care, because I can't change care. And I can't coach care. And so now fast forward, let's connect this to making better decisions faster. The way we do that. It's when we align our head, heart and hands. Head is our mindset. Heart is our authenticity, hands, our actions. Care is most connected of all three to the heart. And in my opinion, that's where we have a massive gap in the world. We forget we forgotten to lead from the heart. It's become a forgotten art. And so part of how I'm training and coaching and speaking all over the world about making better decisions faster. I call it the head heart hands equation. And it's exactly this. Head plus heart equals hands. So as a reminder, head is mindset. Heart is authenticity. Hands are action, head plus heart equals hands. In other words, when deciding whether to take action whether to use your hands, there's two checkpoints, head and heart head. Do I think it's a good idea? Heart? Do I feel it's a good idea. And just like a signal that you pull up to every single intersection, you know exactly what to do when you see green, yellow, red. That's how the head heart hands equation works. Head plus heart equals hands. When head and heart are on board. That is a green freakin light. Every single green light you encounter, in business at work at home, in your relationships in health, you pull that trigger. Now, the opposite is also true. No head, no heart should be no action. That's a hard pass. That's a stop doing. That's a 180 That's a U turn. Now that we're aware we stopped running red lights. And when one of the two head or heart is on board, that's a yellow light We got to solve for the gap. So when I share this, with so many people, and I coach this simplicity, it's to overcome decision fatigue, overcome decision overwhelm, overcome paralysis, by analysis and beyond, because all of those things lead to the worst possible decision of them all, which is in decision. Indecision is the silent killer. And so many of us struggle with that. And here's what I realized, from my 15 years in the NFL and NBA. People that play offense, versus people that play defense, those that play offense are highly decisive. And they're hyper comfortable with imperfect action. Because in a world where we want to fixate so much on the outcomes and on success, and hey, if I'm going to swing the bat, then I want to make sure that I'm fully capable of hitting the ball, and then I can hit it far, and I can get the home run, and I can get on base. So our entire society is so obsessed with the outcome. And the result. The challenge is, we don't control that. But that's all we focus on. Well, that's a defensive mindset. The offensive mindset is, I'm not focused on whether I hit the ball. I focus on taking swings every day, I swing the bat every day without obsessing about whether I'm hitting the ball. And in business terms in life terms. This is when we prioritize action over outcome, those that win consistently prioritize action over outcome. And that's the beauty of the offensive journey. That's how we make better decisions faster. Because when we go forward with our hands, when we take action, we're doing it because our head and our heart are propelling us to do it. I don't know if it's going to work out. But I trust myself that I'm going to have one or two outcomes, I succeed or I learn, I succeed, or I learn, I succeed or I grow, I succeed or I evolve, I succeed or I develop, I succeed or I get better. And that's what this is all about. Life is just a game of decisions and actions. And the number one regret that people will take to their grave. It's not what they tried to do and didn't work out. It's when they never swung the bat.

Brian Nichols  
It may smile there because I'm so I just listened to one of my old episodes. And I had it was the fear of failure. And in the episode nine, I think with Andrew Thorpe King is who we had in the show here, I'll make sure we include that if you're joining us here on YouTube folks, that would be that the video that pops up afterwards. So please continue there. This will be my final thoughts, by the way. And in that episode, we talked about the importance of embracing failure, right as an opportunity to what you said, grow, learn and and to not look at failure as you lost, like you're done for the day, but rather a chance to whether it start again pick up where you left off or something different, right. But it's a chance to move forward. And you know, I think back to my my, you know, my own personal struggles with with weight and I used to weigh 385 pounds, I was huge. And I remember when I kind of had that moment of realization specifically after a doctor's appointment where my doctor told me, bro, you got to lose weight, or you're you're on your way to an early grave and that kind of like, you know, jumpstart your right because all sudden, you're 1718 years old, and you're feeling like oh, wow, I should start thinking about life and death stuff, which isn't something you would want to think about being a kid more or less. And then that after two years of going to the gym every day, not knowing this is working right just like trying to do something I would go to my barn and walk up and down the middle of the barn that was empty my old family barn that just been sitting there empty for 20 years. I go out there. Let's go for a walk in the middle of February in Northern New York with like 20 degrees outside. Why? Because well, first of all, I was terrified going to the gym. I want people see me in my gym clothes with my fat self. But number two, I knew the heck I was doing right I didn't I didn't know if I was this stuff worked. If it wasn't going to work. Like I didn't want somebody else to see which I guess in retrospect, that didn't really make sense. Because here I am, I could have learned from somebody else, maybe somebody else who went through something similar, which now I feel like you have a chance to help other people. But after two years, I lost 180 pounds of fat. And I guess you know, to your point, the the activity, right the importance of of showing up every day. There were days I did not want to go to the gym. Like I would wake up and I'd be like, I don't want to go I actually started going to the gym. I was like I don't wanna go to the gym. Oh, I walk on the treadmill. I didn't want to go lift weights. I don't want to do these things because I knew they were they were tough and they were exhausting. And sometimes I didn't want to go face what I had to do, but I did it and it turned into me living the healthiest life that I've been able to live. I know what needs to have if I had continued down the path I was going down originally. So thank you for Yes, helping kind of articulate that I really am.

Paul Epstein  
And 100% And Brian, if you don't mind, I have a super quick question that the shortest answer possible would be helpful, because then I want to flip it back. And I know we're closing out here. But if I could ask you, as shortly as possible, why did you what's the why behind why you wanted to lose weight? Like was it tied to a value or something that you hold near and dear? Like, what was the why,

Brian Nichols  
um, I felt that I have more to do here. And to hear in to hear the possible bookend to my story. At 17. No way, like I have a lot more to do. I have a family, right. And that, like, that's a new thing that I have to focus on. But that that would be the main reason why.

Paul Epstein  
Yeah, so whether we call that hope or belief or, or optimism or whatever, like, like, there's, there was a purpose there. And so if we called, I'm just going to make this up, if hope was a core value of yours, right? You just had belief in the future, I have a formula that is and everybody listening should use this. Confidence equals values times action, the multiplication is how consistently you do something, show me a person that consistently acts on their values, I will show you a competent person. So what you did Brian to lose all this weight, you grabbed on to a core value, whether it was hope, or belief, or optimism, or whatever it was, and then you consistently acted on it. And as a result, you're conditioning yourself to believe in yourself more to be more confident. And the more confidence is, the more committed you are to your actions, and the more your value can become a superpower. So always remember, for everybody listening in confidence, which I believe is the differentiator of those that are going to make it versus not and by make it I mean happiness, success, fulfillment, significance, all that the people that crush it, crush it, they have consistent confidence. And it's because they consistently act on their values, just like you did, Brian, so I just wanted to call that out.

Brian Nichols  
Paul, truly, thank you for that. And you know, as we wrap up today's episode, I really want folks to please like, if you got some value from today's episode, this is one of those episodes. It's a feel good episode, right? Like, it not only kind of gives you the blueprint, but it also gives you I think, the call to action that so many folks need in life. I know I need it right? My doctor gave me the call to action, do this or die. Pretty, pretty empowering call to action. But you know it some people need that kick in the pants, right? And if this is the episode, that was your pants, well, you're welcome. So with that, please go ahead and give the episode of share. And when you do, please tag yours truly at B. Nichols. Liberty, Paul, where can folks go ahead and reach out to you if they want to continue the conversation. But also, we're gonna go ahead and grab these two awesome books, the power of playing offense plus September 26. better decisions faster? Where can they go ahead and find those.

Paul Epstein  
Let's go. Let's go. I'm fired up. Paul Epstein. speaks.com is the home and the hub for all things. From books. And beyond. Of course, there's this little website, you might have heard of it called the Amazon. So if you want to check out power playing offense for better decisions faster on Amazon, have at it. And the last thing is a free gift for me to every single person listening. And I'm talking specifically to you confidence. It's a separator. It's a differentiator. It's one of the greatest gifts that I could ever provide to somebody because I've had two chapters in life pre confidence, post confidence. I feel like we've cracked the code, and we've been coaching it to a lot of people. Here's what you'll find on my website, confidence quiz, you'll find your confidence score one to 100. And we'll even email you this is all free 12 keys to build and sustain Unshakable Confidence. So at Paul Epstein speaks.com right across the top, hit the confidence quiz. And in less than five minutes, you will know exactly where your confidence stands. And just like a dimmer switch will give you all the tools to level up 1% Every single day, a gift for me to your entire audience. Brian,

Brian Nichols  
Paul, we went a little over today, but you know what? I think it was worth it was a really good conversation. Yeah,

Paul Epstein  
it was good. Folks,

Brian Nichols  
I hope you you thought so as well. So with that being said, where can you find the show, folks? You're finding this somewhere. But just for if we are finding us on the one spot where we're not? Well, I'm gonna tell you where you can find us across the board. So we have video and audio versions of the show, YouTube and rumble and also by the way, yes, Ben Swan sovereign SOV r en is where the main shows can be found. We've also been uploading our entire shows to Twitter recently as a new thing. Elon Musk changed over on Twitter. And now you can upload long form videos. So we've been having a lot of success over there. So we're doing all those areas. But if you are joining us on the traditional YouTube's will hit that like button, hit the little notification button and also hit that subscribe In terms of single time we go live also, when you go ahead and you're watching today's episode, if you got some value go down below in the comments, let us know. Also, we are a podcast. So YouTube Music, Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever it is, you get your podcasts from Go ahead, hit that subscribe button. Also, we have 700 and like 70 other episodes here on the program. So please go back. If you have a question. And you're like, I wonder if Brian's covered that. Probably go check in the archives. And if you do, go ahead, let me know if you got some value. And oh, by the way, I did mention Yes, our episode there where we talked about the fear of failure. I'm gonna go ahead and include that right about here. It should be popping up. So go ahead and check that out. Folks if you are joining us on the YouTubes. But with that being said, that's all I have for you. Brian Nichols signing off here on The Brian Nichols Show from our cardio miracle studios for Paul Epstein. We'll see you next time.

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