The Exchanges

Q I think that's so important. I don't think you'll ever be exceptional at anything. You're not sort of thinking about constantly. Uh, when you were practicing, was it sort of regimented or was it more creative?

A It was creative at first, and then it became very regimented. The way that I think about my career is actually in three phases. I started playing the game when I was 12, and all the way up until my sophomore year in high school, I was playing because I had a passion for it. It was fun. I loved it. Um, the fun and the love didn't go away. It got superseded by competitiveness, and my sophomore year, I started getting, like, a lot of eyeballs and recruits, recruiting letters and stuff, and so then I started really, like, Like regimenting, gamifying in many cases, doing whatever I could, timing, counting, everything that I did. And that was both tiresome, but it was also, in my opinion, the fastest path to, to like high growth improvement. And that lasted really all the way until I was about 28 to 30 in that range. Um, that's when I started getting injured. And I think what, what happened is like, Sustainably, you can only be that competitive in a contact sport the way that I played for so long without finally breaking down. And the breaking down was my body and then my mind because of my body. That's when I got in, you know, had surgeries, got into sports psychology, got into therapy, and then the back portion of my career, call it 31 to 35, has been more reflective and more appreciative. I've had to recharge that compete level at moments, but I could also shut it off. And I could…

AI assessment note: “It was creative at first, and then it became very regimented.”

Q What are some of the lessons that you've learned about the business of sports that most people in the industry miss?

A If I could just say lessons in the business without really knowing if people miss, or I could refer to where MLL was missing, is, is that we're actually just in the media business. It's all about distribution. You can have the greatest product in the world, agnostic of industry. If no one sees it, it doesn't matter. Um, and so if, if you want to monetize your product in the commercial space, which we're a commercial business, um, you've got to get the core audience eyeballs on it and engaged, and then you've got to go after net new eyeballs. And so everything starts with your distribution deal, uh, professional sports, team sports in America dating back to the early 1900. And our pastime is major league baseball. That was a ticket business and I was an event business. It was just print and radio at the time. Television era of the sixties uplifted the NFL. Um, now you could say sports, especially emerging sports are, uh, transformative because of the digital and social era that we're in. That's our media, but you still have to access the knowns of media, which are television print and call it audio now. Um, because that gives you, maybe not the scale that digital and social does, but it gives you the, um, it gives you like the gold standard of respect and, um, And almost like eligibility of, of mindshare for sports fans around the world.

AI assessment note: “we're actually just in the media business. It's all about distribution.”

Q How do you take care of your mind? Go deeper on that.

A Well, taking care of your mind starts with taking care of your body. Um, cause your body will let your, your mind down as an athlete. Uh, and I think that's probably the case for anyone really. So there's like, there's tactics, tangible steps that will help your mentals by eating well, sleeping well, staying hydrated. That's one. Number two is, um, you know, really understanding why the way you are. And in particular, I find it very relational. Like what makes you happy? What makes you sad? What makes you agitated? Uh, what gives you your anxiety and stress and understanding whether that's attachment theory, whether that is the way that, you know, you have overlapped your career with your life and what are the upside and downsides there? The way to unpack it, the best way to unpack it is with counsel. Um, whether that's for athletes in sports psychology and therapy and couples therapy, I think that in sports, it's a, it's a great place to analyze how we improve. No one bats an eye at having a shooting coach, a head coach, an assistant coach, a strength coach, a medical team, doctors, physios, physical therapists, trainers, like they're all there to help because they're experts and Why not tap into if we want to improve our mental health experts in that field? Well, it's been stereotyped and stigmatized through modern media and, you know, slower turn advancements as to why, but …

AI assessment note: “taking care of your mind starts with taking care of your body”

Q I do right now? What's the next sort of thing to get me back on track? It's almost like remembering the basics, right? So it's like you get lost, you make a bad play, and then it's like, okay, I don't want to get fancy. I don't want to get complicated. I just want to get back to like, what are the core things I need to pay attention to?

A Yeah, but you know, the other thing is, You know, step one is that awareness. Step two is then adjusting the neuroscience. And that's where athletes really struggle. It's like, I know you can almost zoom out. I know what's happening to me right now. I'm losing confidence because I made two bad plays in a row. And I know that I can turn this around, but I have this feeling in my body. I'm running hot and I'm ruminating and I can't get out of it. That's like real biochemical takeover. There's science behind that. Um, so there are also techniques that you can do. Breathing, you know, actually getting, uh, an ice towel on your neck to like shift the chemistry that's happening in your body. Your body actually is getting hot when you're getting angry. And, uh, and I found that those tactics actually resemble a lot of in basketball. When you get on the free throw line, you go through your routine. That is meditative. It's a reset. For, uh, everything that's happened up to that point. So you can just put the ball in the hoop from close range, which you're tend to be really good at if you're at the NBA level.

AI assessment note: “step one is that awareness. Step two is then adjusting the neuroscience.”

Q Talk to me a little bit more about, what did you call it? Competitive.

A Competitive compromise. But yeah, I think the difference between sports and, and real life is compromise. And, um, you know, we, my position's unique because I got to build a league and play in it. Most athletes play in leagues, and then when they retire, they transition. So the conversation is always transferable skill sets between sport and business, sport and life. I got this See, oh damn, I actually think there might be better transferable skills in business back to sport. It's just, that's reverse order that most people don't get. And, uh, it really helps with leadership. And, and essentially what I'm referring to in sports and why people love it is that we get to sit for two hours and count on a binary outcome. Someone's going to win, someone's going to lose. And it's, it's usually a derivative physicality. Um, and then there's community and engagement tied to which team or which players you're backing. Um, so it's these like exits that we get from the reality of life. And we get to know that we're going to either win or lose in life. If you approach it with a win or lose mentality, you're always going to lose because in business, put it this way, the network deal that I'm, I'm, I'm structuring right now. If, if we feel as a company that we won, that means that they lost. And, and it, and there's certain aspects of the deal. You know, it's nuanced. Same thing in sponsorsh…

AI assessment note: “Competitive compromise. But yeah, I think the difference between sports and, and real life is compromise.”

Q Were you always the hardest worker on the teams that you were on?

A I mean, I think that's, that's relative, or I shouldn't say it is relative, but mostly subjective. Um, I believe that I was, um, and there were probably guys that thought that they worked harder than me, but they, but they maybe only thought of it linearly. They worked harder than me in the weight room and worked harder than me maybe on the field. But why, why I think that, My meter was always full is I never stopped thinking about it. And even to this day, I think what helps drive our business is that Mike and I think about it all the time and it's a blessing and a curse, but I'll be watching, you know, squid game and thinking about how squid game became the most popular title on Netflix. I immediately start thinking about the business and And I'm reading about it and seeing the simultaneous release in a 190 countries and 31 different closed captions and 13 different dub overs all at once. First time they ever did that. So they eliminated the language barrier. It became a universal title overnight. What, what are the lessons in sports? And so that's what I mean. Whether I was playing, I was like watching Chris Paul make a pass with his weak hand off balance. What's that lesson in lacrosse? How can I emulate that? It wasn't just what I was doing on the field. It was what I was doing really in everything in life.

AI assessment note: “I believe that I was, um, and there were probably guys that thought”

Q Yeah, that was an interesting one. You mentioned putting cold ice around your neck, right?

A So, so similar to, um, schools that specialize in educating children with learning differences, um, I think that certain therapy that is focused on working with certain people on the DSM, call it, it's, it's actually like really good therapy for anyone. So, so example is dialectical behavioral therapy. It's called DBT. It is a process often worked through with people with personality disorders. Um, but it's very tactical because people with personality disorders are often dealing with disassociation. Um, but the difference between personality disorder and someone who doesn't, at least from a prescription standpoint, non-medical is, is like, we have the same thoughts. We just are able to step away from it. It's that critical inner voice I was just mentioning. Someone who experiences disassociation has that same thought that we do, and then it becomes reality. So DBT, uh, will give tactics to stepping out of it. One of them is changing your body temperature. So like putting your hand in the freezer or like having, having an ice pack and just going off your head, taking a walk, um, and, uh, you know, meditating, things like that.

AI assessment note: “So DBT, uh, will give tactics to stepping out of it. One of them”

Q How do you maintain that level of work ethic and sort of dedication and love for the sport through the grind, through the years?

A Yeah, it's, it's, um, I think a lot of it is innate. To be honest, and it's a, it's a dangerous path because to have that endless competitive streak, you've got to have a fire in your belly morning, noon, and night. And that's hard to reconcile with because most of the time in sport, most of the time in life, you fail. And so those that have that competitive streak and that desire to be the best and that relentlessness, the doggedness, um, they also sit in that seemingly black hole of failure more than others, but that's also why they come out better more than others. And, uh, and so you need therapy and you need like good sports psychology. And the, the trait that I'm describing too is really the one percent of the one percent. And you know it when you see that competitive, because it's kind of a competitive asshole is what you have to become in sports, at least. And what I've learned in business and in life is you've got to be a competitive compromiser. And, uh, and that requires kindness, empathy, ingenuity, uh, but the same level of like aggressive competitive spirit, but it's shifted in sports. It's binary. You can just tackle someone and win. Can't do that in life.

AI assessment note: “I think a lot of it is innate... you need therapy and you need like good sports psychology.”

Q a game or sort of after a game, like you make a mistake, how do you put that out of your mind, go on to the next play, the next series or the next game? Like how, how, what is the mental process you go through? To sort of, you know, in Belichick's words, we're on to Cincinnati, right? Like what is that process that you're, you're sort of drawing?

A I think every athlete will tell you it's easier said than done. Uh, but it is the key to success and consistency over time is your ability to have resilience in a game. I think what makes sports great is that you can have a poor game and then use the week to recalibrate. So you go back and you practice and then you get the benefit of time, which time is, is a healing mechanism. Uh, to do that in the, in a 60 minute game is a lot more difficult. It requires, I think, a high level of mental aptitude, um, and, and mental training. So, uh, I'll give you one example. It's called a rebound goal. I think golf gets it right because golf is a really challenging sport and that's the genesis of rebound goals. Uh, an example of a rebound goal in golf is an up and down where like literally Phil Mickelson has made Tens of, if not hundreds of millions of dollars being famous for hitting miraculous shots, which by the way, it's a miraculous shot because he had a shitty tee shot. Um, but they celebrate and up and down. And that's a, that's a rebound goal because it's coming off of a bad shot in, in most sports. If you have a bad shot, what do you think the next shot is going to be bad again, bad again, bad again. And that's what we're trying to fix is your suggestion. So creating in team sports, a lot more difficult than golf. Um, because they, because of what kind of just said in team sports, …

AI assessment note: “I always focused on what are my rebound opportunities off of a bad play”

Q You're still going, I mean, you're still playing. What things do you sort of do to take care of your body now? Like what nutrition habits do you have? What do you do from a physical standpoint to keep it going? Is there like a Tom Brady stretching thing? Um, sort of pliability regimen going on here. What do you have on the back end here?

A Well, I, I just, uh, I just retired after the season. I, uh, yeah, I had a really good season, which actually didn't make it difficult to retire for me because I had made that decision at least, uh, personally in advance of the season because of The toll of building the league and playing in it physically, my body continued to break down, and then just mentally, I was, I was not there as I used to be. Coming out of the pandemic and building the bubble and playing in that was difficult as well. Um, but I felt like it was time to, to really, like, centralize my efforts and drive lacrosse forward. Um, so, so it turns out I, I had one of my best seasons as a thirty-five-year-old playing injured. Um, and that's, I think, Largely because I knew, and I was the only one who knew that I was emptying out the tank every weekend. But to, to sustain a career into your thirties, even into your twenties, as a, as a hard charging professional athlete that's in a contact sport, you always have to take care of your body. Sleep, number one. Hydrate, number two. Eat, number three. Stay on your workouts, number four. Stay on your skill, number four, 4.2. And the reason I say that is like, You know, as you get into your late twenties and thirties, the margin for improvement on skill is really thin. Um, and in fact, like you're able to tap into skill better if you're smarter that you weren't able to …

AI assessment note: “Sleep, number one. Hydrate, number two. Eat, number three. Stay on your workouts”

Q example to this, but You know, it seems to come from anger in a lot of people or, I mean, even Brady, a huge chip on his shoulder, right? Like gets to Michigan, can't even, you know, start. Drew Henson comes in. He's like switching duties with him. Like, talk to me about where that drive comes from for you and where you see it come from for other people.

A I don't think that it comes from anger. Cause I think operating with anger isn't the best path. And if you look at best in class, In theory, operating from anger, like, I, I have a hard time thinking that that was the source. I do think that mentally elevating doubt and fear is probably, uh, the better, uh, way to describe how these top athletes think. They're, they're, they're, they're fear motivated, uh, fear of not being the best, fear of losing, uh, And, and fear of not performing well. Uh, it's a huge motivator. And so I think that that's probably it versus anger. Um, and I think that that can come from a number of things. It comes from the way that we're raised, product of our environment, socioeconomic disparity from athlete to athlete, you know, again, like all things that differ from one person to the next. Um, and then I think there's I think there's gene pool as well, whether you're a, you know, a descendant from a conqueror or an emperor like Genghis Khan or not. Um, that's a crazy theory, but like that, that, like, I think that, that conquering spirit performs quite well in sport.

AI assessment note: “I do think that mentally elevating doubt and fear is probably, uh, the better”

Q When are you most likely to lose control of your thoughts?

A Pretty regularly, actually. I struggle with ADHD. In, in today's technological world, there are, uh, there are things happening to me, not just in my own head, but around me with hardware that distracts me. It's, it's a big challenge of mine is, is, um, is being present. Um, And then the flip side, embracing some of the, uh, benefits of the way that my mind tends to work, which shoots off in sometimes a dozen directions at the same time, helps me solve for problems that I think are multidimensional or abstract. So it's, it's again, that balance of what got me here, uh, is also making me feel this way. And so let me Use the strengths and also acknowledge the weaknesses and care for those and help cure those.

AI assessment note: “Pretty regularly, actually. I struggle with ADHD... around me with hardware that distracts me.”