Filtering: Diligence, Discipline, And Vigilance Lead To A Successful Life With Joel Green

Life happens, and not always the way we expect it to. Every single day we face change, stress, and uncertainty. What if you could learn to thrive no matter what life throws your way? Resilience expert Adam Markel and his inspiring guests explore breakthrough strategies to fully embrace change and build the resilience required to become change-proof.

Hey everybody, it's Adam Markel, and stay tuned for another episode right now of the Change Proof Podcast, where I have Joel Green as my guest. Many would look at Joel and define him by his successes, but Joel has been on both sides of life, and his perspective and successes are a direct result of where he came from and where he is going. After retiring from a career as a professional basketball player, Joel Green founded Pro Level Training, a 7-figure company which is now partnered with Nike. In addition to running pro-level training, Joel is the national director for Nike Sports Camps and an accomplished speaker. He was honored to speak to thousands delivering his recent TED Talk as well. These opportunities have continued to propel Joel forward, and he recently released a book called Filtering: The Way to Extract Strength from the Struggle. Stay tuned for this episode. Sit back and enjoy. I really hope you're enjoying this episode of the Change Proof Podcast. If you've not yet gone out and gotten your own copy of Change Proof, it's not too late. You can get your copy right now by going to changeproof.com and not only getting the book and all the bonuses there, but getting access to our proprietary resilience assessment tool It'll just take you 3 minutes to do, and it's something that will really help you to utilize the book even more effectively to create practices and rituals and habits that will increase your mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual resilience for the long term. Again, go to changeproof.com to get your copy today. All right, Joel. So, I mean, you've got an impressive history, bio, all that kind of thing. My question to you right out of the gate is, what's something that's not in that standard introduction and bio that you would love for people to know about you? One thing you'd love for people to know about you that's not in that bio.

I would just say my, what I kind of call my superpower nowadays is my discipline. I will Do what it takes to get things done, whether I feel like it or not. That could have come from going to military school for a year. Only went for one year right before I went to college, but it instilled something in me to where, in a good way, I had to look over my shoulder to make sure I was on my toes. And now I look over my own shoulder in the mirror, in essence, to make sure I'm just getting things done no matter what, by any means necessary. So I would say that I'm exceptionally disciplined. I noticed that about myself. It's been told to me by others first, and then I had to take note of it on my own.

Yeah. I mean, that drops in for me because I've both been lazy at times in my life and dealt with the results, but not knowing it. Of course, when I was being lazy, I didn't realize there'd be results, like what the consequences were.

Exactly.

I was just like doing my thing, which was to do nothing or whatever.

Right, right, right.

But that changed for me in sort of midway through high school. So I was always into sports. I still am. I was always a bit of an athlete, never super great, but I was good and I was good in a bunch of different things. It was interesting in that respect. Midway through high school, I found swimming. My dad had said to me, I think you should go out for the swimming team. I don't even know why I listened to him, but I did. And I sucked. I could swim. I mean, I wasn't gonna drown or anything, but I wasn't like competitive. I mean, these guys have been swimming since they were 6 years old. I'm like 14 or 15 in high school. I sucked but loved it. Wow. And then I did get better. And the thing about swimming, for people that don't know this about that sport, I mean, it's pretty brutal because you swim before school. So that means getting in the pool at like 7:00 AM and they used to swim after school when everybody else is going to go home and hang out, party or whatever, do their homework. I don't know, stuff. But you swim after. So 2 hours beforehand, maybe an hour and a half or 2 hours after is fairly standard. And I remember with our high school, it was a New York City school. I grew up in this little town of Queens. There's, in a school that was like the Great Depression era and they didn't have heat. They had heat, but the pool wasn't heated and they didn't heat the pool on the weekends either. Wow. So like, I already just remember getting outside to get on a bus to go to the school. So by the time I got there, already freezing, jump in a pool that wasn't heated at 7 AM, like on a Monday morning and stuff. You need to have what you— that word discipline. That's— so you mentioned military school training. That was my military school.

But you jumping in the pool, that would have made me jump out of the pool having to jump in that type of condition of water. Man, that's something special, man.

But I mean, I guess what I want to do is I want to talk about, to start with, the importance of that. Because had I not had that experience, some of my friends at the time, some of them were athletes and some guys that I grew up with, they just didn't get on a team or something or whatever. But there was a difference. Some of those cats that I knew from like middle school, from junior high school as we called it in New York, by high school time they were hanging out in the park. Just smoking. They were like stoners in the park. They were my friends. I love them. Good guys and all that. Like, that wasn't a thing I could do anymore. I had other things that were taking me somewhere else. So, so discipline started for you at what age? I'd just like to get more on the context of that discipline. And as you said, since it drives you now to this day, I want to just unpack that a bit more with you.

Again, I mentioned military school, but that was just a refining moment. For me, discipline started when I was younger, when I used to be disciplined. I would get beatings when I was 5 and 6 years old just for doing silly stuff in the neighborhood, having fights with my siblings. 4 kids and 2 parents, 6 of us in an abandoned house. So it's like we just going crazy amongst each other. And then they say, get out here, go outside. All of a sudden we go outside and keep making trouble too.

And you grew up in Philly, right? That's the place?

Okay, grew up in North Philly. And I loved it, man. It was Difficult conditions. Again, abandoned house. Our walls had graffiti on them, so we were allowed to draw on the walls and just add to it because it already had literally markings from people that used to just go and kind of squat in the house before we moved in. It was abandoned. So my parents didn't even mind us writing on the walls and drawing Ninja Turtles on the wall and things like that. So it was difficult during that time, that age, wearing other people's clothes and donations from the church and stuff like that. But I didn't know as a kid really how harsh it was. My parents obviously knew. My older siblings knew. I was the youngest. Some things caught my eye. I knew we weren't as well off when we had to borrow water from the neighbor and put it on top of the kerosene heater so we can have hot water. Small things like that. Us all sleeping in the same bed from time to time because we only had enough kerosene for my parents' room and their heater. Some things caught my attention, but it was just life, so I didn't complain about it. But even those moments disciplined me for humility's sake. As I began to get older, as we moved out of North Philly to better conditions, I was like, okay, all right. I now know where we were. Okay. I didn't know that before. That's all I knew. So even just that level of discipline to say, you know what? Okay. Don't talk down on anybody. You were just there. I was able to start checking myself and disciplining myself. And you mentioned being a swimmer and versus your friends that you grew up with before that point, hanging out on the street, in the corner, in the park, stuff like that. Once I got into basketball, I've been into basketball since I was about 3 years old. I saw this movie called Teen Wolf with Michael J. Fox back in the day, and I never looked back. But I got into organized ball at 8 years old. And so once that happened, we moved to North Philly at the same time. So not having the troublesome side of the streets that I was experiencing in North Philly— I mean, we only moved to West Philly, which was kind of the same, but it wasn't as bad. And then getting into basketball, that organization, man, added to my discipline because, number one, I didn't want to get in trouble. So I couldn't play. So I was a little bit sharper in school. I was a little bit sharper at home. Talk back a little bit less, just so I could make sure I could play on Saturday with my friends in the game. So those many things added to my level of discipline as a youth. And then as I got older, I didn't have to think much about it because how it goes, the sport just pulls you in. Like, it just takes over your schedule. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like, you have practice there. Honestly, they call us student athletes, but you're athletic students. Like, you're an athlete first after a while. Your classes are based around your school schedule in college. It's just you're an athlete first after a while based off your schedule. And so it disciplined me by default after a while.

For sure. I mean, at a certain point, the discipline begins to pay a dividend. But I don't know. I'm trying to remember from that point in my life, when did I acknowledge or connect the dots, let's say, a little bit about that? I would say for me, it was when I saw my body change. I mean, this is going to sound maybe a little odd. But in my sophomore year, I started swimming. By the end of that season, my body was different. Like, I mean, you put in that 1,000 hours in the pool.

Exactly right.

Right? I was like, I was—

You see the difference, right?

I was fit. Yeah.

So you feel better about yourself when things— again, I was gonna say the same thing. In high school, it happened in high school for me, probably going into my junior year, it happened for me. And again, like you said, I just sprouted up. I kept growing and my body began to change. It added to my self-esteem. It just

Yeah,

things just kind of changed.

Yeah, there's a level of that, like a reward for the work. Like, I know it sounds basic, but there's not a lot of reward for sit— I mean, I love to sit around and watch Saturday morning cartoons. I could watch like whatever the shows were at the time. I could watch TV all day long. I could, I had that capacity to just sit around and do nothing. But this was paying a dividend that that stuff, the sitting on the couch stuff, never paid A dividend. It was just more like in the moment, it was entertaining. I mean, that was kind of like all that was in it, right?

Yeah. And again, for me, once I began to see that there was another level to this thing, I'm like, oh, okay. So if I take care of business now, it'll actually take me somewhere later. It can get me a scholarship and get me to college and things like that. Once I really began to hone into that, obviously, I always wanted to be like Mike. I grew up in that generation, late '80s, early '90s, to where I see the Gatorade commercials with Michael Jordan. He was the first person I said I wanted to be like, probably before I even said I wanted to be like I probably said I wanted to be like Mike. So I grew up in that generation of wanting to become a professional basketball player. So I knew where the game could take me, but I didn't see the tangible stuff. I didn't see college having to be first. I didn't see high school having to be first. But once I got to high school and playing, I'm like, okay, I can actually be one of those NCAA guys that I watch on Saturday afternoons in the college games. All right, let's do this. And I just took it more serious at that point once I saw the next stage of where I could be. I'm like, okay, go on.

Like a puzzle. You get to see what the finished thing looks like on the box, but how it sequences and how all that fits together, you don't know at that, and you can't know really. So I want to move in maybe a little chronologically forward. So at some point you realize you've got some gifts. That's easy to determine, right? Because you either play well, you play at a level, right, where you know you're really competitive, and then your body is starting to also change. and give you some extra boost. Where did you end up going to school? Where'd you end up going to college?

It's a heck of a story. Literally just wrote about it. But not just that, but that's a part of my story. I ended up having a section of a book, but I went to 4 different schools.

Well, drop the name of your book right here, and then yeah, let's—

my name is—

any piece of that you want.

Yep. It's, uh, Filtering: The Way to Extremes from the Struggle. Yeah, just released in September, September 6th, this past fall. I started off at Siena Siena College up in upstate New York in Albany.

I know the school. Yep.

Yeah. I had a great time there school-wise. I came in supposed to be the freshman of the this, the freshman of the that. Tore my hamstring before the season started. And so I had to sit out. And I redshirted the entire year. I had to watch my team play. It sucked. And the coach recruited over me the next season. I left midway through that. That's my second year there. Loved my teammates, though. Loved the school itself. The basketball became a little sour with the coach just literally overlooking me. He stopped talking to me and everything. So I was going to transfer to St. Joe's University in Philly because they originally recruited me when I was in high school. I was their number one recruit. So they said, well, hey, if you come here, NCAA rule is you have to redshirt a year. And I said, come on, man. I just redshirted due to a medical redshirt.

Yeah.

The rules. So I had to talk to the NCAA. I learned all these rules. I'm like, come on. NCAA told me the only way you can continue to play is if you do what's called a 4-2-4 transfer. You have to go from a 4-year institution, like a Division I, II, III, into a 2-year, like a JUCO or community college. And that's the only way you can continue to play without having to sit out. I said, just sign me up. I just want to play basketball. So I transferred to a school called Paris Junior College in Paris, Texas. I mean, I get down there, and there's literally an Eiffel Tower with a cowboy hat on top of it.

Yeah.

And

you ever been to Texas before that?

No, that was my first time. Right. So that was my first impression of the state, man.

I'm just trying to picture that.

Right? Right. That was my first impression of the state of Texas. It's the Eiffel Tower with a huge cowboy hat on top of it. And that was the first time in my life where I ever saw a true bale of hay blow across the street. I called home. It's like, guess what I just saw? It's like one of the westerns. And I saw a tumbleweed blow across the street. And I was like, this is crazy. So I go down there midway through the season, win a national championship. And I just wanted to be a little closer to home, so I transferred to another— I had to do another year of junior college in order to get back to the Division I level. Hopefully, they said, earn your way back. So I transferred to another school called Cecil Community College of Maryland and won another national championship there as well, and another Division I scholarship to Rider University. That's where I ended up going for my final 2 years of school and graduated.

Wow.

Yeah.

And how did Rider go?

I won a conference championship there. We finished number 1 in the league my senior year. Had a great time. We're all literally still brothers. We just got together We just got back together last week. This is after 15 years or so. Amazing experience, man. And so, despite the hardships of that initial part of the journey, getting injured, having my coach overlook me, I had to literally be— which, I mean, again, resilience. I had to be resilient. I had to keep my eye on the prize of who I am. That was the main thing. I had moments of insecurity along the way too. It was like, oh, shoot. Why is this not working out according to my plan? But I look back at it now and say, oh, shoot. I actually got 3 championships. Throughout my college career, 2 national, 1 conference. Can only thank God at this point.

And there's a discipline. I'm going to use that. I just want to go back to that word for a minute. But I mean, even when it comes to our, how do we take care of our self-image? You'd think, oh, again, that's not a thing you need to be taking care of. It'll take care of itself. But that's the lazy. Again, I would lean into that kind of laziness. I don't have to work on my own conception of myself. That's a less disciplined approach that pays that same sort of a no dividend. Like you get your mood. Right. Because I think the way you started this conversation, we say your discipline is to this day, you can do things even when you're not in the mood to do them. Like, I'm not in the mood. So you just, you go, oh, well, I won't do that. A lot of people, I think that's an approach that when you're not in the mood to do something, you don't do it. Right. I'm not in the mood to, Have work on, on my own self-esteem. What does it take to do that to begin with? Some people go, what? What are you talking about? Work on myself? Is this like some silly thing you stand in front of the mirror and go, I love you. You're awesome.

Right, right, right.

I believe in you, which I don't knock if people do that. Mm-hmm. Because that could work and probably does. But to take a disciplined approach to pretty much everything. And if the thing that gets in the way of your achievement in life, the goals, the dreams, the things you want outta life, the thing that gets in the way of that sometimes is your own lack of confidence. in yourself, then you straight ought to have a disciplined approach to getting your head straight, getting your heart aligned, and belief, and having a belief in yourself that you can accomplish well beyond, or that you can accomplish the things you want to.

Yeah. I mean, with me being a national director for Nike, for Nike Sports Camps, right? Obviously, I hear these 3 words all the time. Just do it.

Just do it.

There's so many times where I have to tell myself that. It's not in a corny way, because it's a tagline, or it's a It's just literally a part of who I am. It's a part of what I preach when I'm talking to kids training or adults or pros that I'm training, I'm working with. When I'm talking to my son, I'm like, look, stop talking about it. Stop talking. Just do it, man. Because like we talk ourselves out of so much. We start thinking too much. And we need to just think less many times because thinking leads to complaining. It leads to self-doubt many times. Not to where we need to strategically think about stuff. Think about those things. But the things that you ought to be actively working toward improving, think a little bit less about that and start getting to work once you've already thought about the groundwork and the foundation of things. Once you've thought about the foundation, the driving force is in you, everything you need is in you, just start taking steps. Stop doubting yourself along the way. And it's an interesting duality that takes place too that I've told people. Let's say going through my college career, right? Those 5 years to where I played forward. And I'm like, you have to be in the moment. You have to. You absolutely have to be in the moment. But sometimes being in the moment can actually hurt because while you're in the moment, you're getting, oh, you're not good enough. You don't belong there. Yeah, recruiting over you. Like, you have to be in the moment to stay focused, but you have to do other things as well. You have to look back every once in a while to remind yourself who you are, to remind yourself what got you there, to remind yourself you are amazing. You are great. And you also have to look forward, too, to say, OK, I got to see beyond this situation, too, because this will not last forever. And I remember I had to tell myself that. My parents had to tell me so often, Joel, this is a— they're pastors. Joel, this is a light affliction. It's only going to last for a moment. It's biblical. Like, they would tell me things like that to take me out of that moment for a brief moment to say, hey, look at where you're going to end up. Trust it. Keep grinding. And then now, all right, now bring yourself back to where you currently are and work your behind off. It's an interesting thing you have to do to where you have to be in the moment, but sometimes you do have to take yourself out of it to remind yourself who you are and remind yourself where you're going.

Yeah. I mean, that self-care or that self-talk to me feels like self-care in the context of the things that I speak about, which is often about change and resiliency. And when I'm a keynote speaker, often I'm brought in to talk about how it is that we create more well-being. So what does wellbeing look like? And in particular, in the world I'm in a lot, it's wellbeing in the workplace for people. But the workplace is just another place, right? It's just a place where people are, whether that's virtually or literally in an office someplace. We bring ourselves there. Wherever we are, there we are. Right. Wherever we go, there we are again. So that self-talk that you're bringing up, I mean, there's a discipline to how you deal with yourself. How do you deal with yourself each and every day is a question. I didn't ask that question when I was in my 20s. I didn't have a mentor at the time that said that. I had mentors along the way. I've been so fortunate. I don't know if that's been the case for you too, where people will point those kinds of things out to you. Like, so again, what is the discipline for your self-talk? Because otherwise, if you just let your head do what it does, let your brain work the way it works, your mind chatter, it will chatter all day long, all the time, and it will often chatter in ways that are really not helpful.

Right.

And in fact, they get in the way a lot, don't they? So do you have a disciplined practice or did you develop one earlier on that has changed or something new even where you challenge your self-talk or have a disciplined practice around this idea of just getting your head straight? Because that's vital, right? It's vital in sports. It's vital in business, vital in life.

Yeah, I mean, again, believe me when I tell you, this is not a plug for my book. But what I wrote about filtering, that's the method that I came up with for myself to do that, to get myself straight amidst crooked moments, you could say that, to where I'm becoming overwhelmed, I'm becoming stressed because things are just massive. I had to literally filter them, to break them down into particles and bite-sized manageable pieces for myself so I can handle them. I came up with this method for myself in 20— 15, around that time. And I said, okay, this is what I got to start doing for myself. It was just for me. I didn't do this for other people initially. I had to handle myself and my own problems going through potential divorce and having at the time like a 2-year-old son, being a single father, moments here, moments there. It was a difficult time. So I was just trying to manage life. I'm reading all these books. I was reading 9 books every 3 weeks, literally, and just having this thirst for knowledge. And just, I wanted answers. I'm like, I wasn't getting them. I was insecure about myself, about my life. I'm like, what's going on? And so I had to find a way. And again, I said, okay, let me— I literally wrote down filtering. And I said, this is what I'm doing. I'm literally sorting out my issues. I'm breaking everything down for myself. And now I can handle it no matter how difficult it is. Sometimes filtering includes me calling somebody because I wasn't one to open up to people before. That's a part of me breaking down the situation, getting help and getting another perspective. And so that's become the main tool for me to really filter what I'm going through while I'm going through it. It doesn't have to be on a major level. This can be literally that thing as far as I want to get up and clean the house. Okay, let me break this down real quick. Let me just clean a room. Forget the house. Doing things like that on a daily basis to where I tell myself, do something, just do some part of it. And the funny part is, and you definitely know about this, the funny part is, especially as an athlete, once you start doing any part of it, you're willing to just Keep going. Like, as an athlete, there's been many times where I'm like, I don't feel like doing my normal 90-minute workout. All right, Joe, just go ahead and do 10 minutes. All of a sudden, I'm 50 minutes in, I'm an hour in. Sometimes the toughest part is just getting started.

It's the law of momentum, right?

We've all heard this, right? Exactly.

Right? But because it's been said so often, I think we discount some things that are said that frequently or that's become such a cliché, right? The body in motion stays in motion, the one at rest Sits around and eats Cheetos, right?

Pretty much

whatever. But you really brought that home for me. And people listening to this right now, I think, are just nodding and going, oh yeah, I mean, filtering, what a word. What a word to describe that thought management. And I loved how we found ourselves in that spot just now because you don't filter once a year. It's not like you change, like in your house and you got those filters, right? Right, right, exactly. If you're lucky, if you remember once a year to go Honestly, right? You're supposed to do it every 3 months or something, right? It's like,

it hasn't happened on my end, man. You're reminding me right now.

I'm telling you, there are people right now pulling off the side of the road writing themselves a note. Reminder, right? Personal PSA, right? For that. But that filtering is literally— it's moment to moment, isn't it?

Almost moment. Absolutely. I mean, that's literally what it is. It's I do it every day now. Initially, it was an intentional thing to do and to refer to, but it's become such a habit for me because, again, I was speaking it from the stage too. Anytime I'm on stage, I was speaking it before I was even writing about it. And then as I began writing about it, it just became ingrained in me, man. And I just started practicing this daily with everything, just honestly for fun. I'm like, okay, let me see if I can filter this. Let me actually try it here. Let me try it here. Let me just try it as a parent. If I'm being overwhelmed with parenthood for a moment, how can I break this down? You know what I mean? Okay, he wants to play, but you're tired, man. All right, just play with him for like 2 seconds. Just break this thing down. And all of a sudden, he's pleased. He's happy. He's running away with a smile on his face. It's actually all he wanted. All he wanted was attention for a second. For a second. They say, Daddy, look. Daddy, look. Daddy, look. All they want you to do is like, just look for a moment. And they're happy. And they look away after that point. And it's like, there's so many things that we overwhelm ourselves with because we think that we have to do a whole lot more than we actually have to do. You don't have to do a whole lot to achieve actually a whole lot. And one thing that's helped me out a ton throughout, especially recent years, is I tell myself, don't feel bad for myself. I tell myself that often. I tell my son that all the time, all the time. He's only 10. But while we're training— he's an athlete— while we're training for sports, I'll see him get down, right? Because he hasn't done something correctly that I'm showing him to do. Don't feel bad about yourself. Don't pity yourself. I tell him that so many times. I'm not. I see it on your face. Don't pity yourself. Because I'm like, the moment you start doing that, it's a chain reaction. And in the thoughts that follows, that self-pity is dangerous. It literally impedes your progress. So I check myself right away. Don't feel bad for yourself, number one. Put that over here. Now you can think with a clearer mind. So that's one thing is the self-pity, man. Again, that's what led to my past insecurities, past self-doubt. It was that pity. It's a disease.

Wow, the pace of change over the last couple of years has been rapid. And if you're a leader, a business owner, an entrepreneur, you know exactly what I'm talking about. Every day it's something different and something new. But the one thing that I've learned in performing at the height of all of those roles has been that we must be resilient. In fact, it's the unsung hero in every success story that you will ever hear about. And it's the reason why my team and I created the resilience assessment that more than 5,000 business leaders across the globe have taken. And all you have to do to get your own free resilient leader assessment is go to resiliencerank.com. It takes less than 3 minutes, and it's our gift to you for being the leader that you already are. Other free resources and tools will accompany your score instantly. So go to resiliencerank.com and find out just how resilient you are. Holy smokes. Yeah. I mean, Joel, that's close to home for me. I mean, the worst moments in my life, looking back, as in worst, as in the most disempowering moments, the least confident moments, really the most painful moments have nothing to do with my failures. I failed a zillion times, like a lot of people have, right? It's the pity, the self-pity, the pity party, the feeling sorry for yourself stuff. I got good advice from my dad. He gave me some really wonderful things to focus on. I don't remember him ever reframing, helping me to reframe those situations. Instead, he would at the time, you know, get a little upset with me. And I remember my coaches at times getting upset with me, getting frustrated with me when they could see that my attitude went, cuz like you said, that next thought after that self-pity is dangerous. And the next one after that and the next one after that. So you are giving your son and you're giving these other kids, I wanna talk about the Nike camp in a second here. You're giving those kids a way to reframe that situation in the moment so that they don't have to feel guilty or confused or angry with themselves, like bad about themselves. Right. Because they're feeling the way they're actually feeling. Again, it just becomes more of a spiraling thing as opposed to, okay, next. Let's just next, right? Dust off, get up, and next.

I mean, it's funny that you say that. Again, I tell people literally, I coach as well. So whenever I'm seeing a kid getting down on themselves, they miss a shot, they get a turnover or what have you, I tell them literally, you have to tell yourself next play immediately. That's what a coach taught me. That was me as the player when I was early in high school. I would get so upset to where all of a sudden the play didn't go right for me. I'm pouting for probably the next 2 seconds. Those 2 seconds, it affected the other end of the floor, the next possession, because all of a sudden my guy ran back. He's on offense. I'm mad because things didn't go my way. And all of a sudden, he's scoring because of me pouting in that moment. So he told me, you got to tell yourself, next play, right away. And also, I was given a rubber band to pop myself, to snap myself back into reality. So anytime I'm getting upset, Pull it real quick and just stay in the moment, stay in the moment, next play. You're spot on with that, man. That's something I've had to train myself to do, and now I train other people to do it.

Yeah, it's a recalibration. We used to, in the company that I ran for a bunch of years, we used to do the rubber band bit as well, which is, it's a way to use a physical, something physical that is painful reframe. But what's more painful, like a snap of a rubber band on your wrist that gets you to change, snap out of it, literally. Funny to say it that way, right? Or the 10 minutes, or however long that negative spiral lasts. It can last a good long while. I mean, be lucky if it was over in 10 minutes, right?

Right. Honestly, I mean, that's the thing. It's a lingering effect many times, depending on the situation. It could just keep going from day to day. It's a scary thing, man. I had to learn so much again from athletics and teaching other kids now and Like you mentioned earlier, just the reframing of things. I help kids to hone their anger. I told them, I prefer you mad than sad. I'll take mad any day because especially in sports, anger is a good thing. It's a driving force many times. You just got to learn how to channel it. I said, but sadness don't help anywhere. Even just outside of sports in life, I'm like, the sadness, eh, it don't really benefit you much. You can channel the sadness to help other people empathy-wise and things like that. Just with expression, of course. But in the avenue that I'm in, I tell people all the time, I prefer mad than sad all day. I'll help you channel that and stay angry. And it's my job to help you channel that anger.

Yeah. Tell me about the sports camps. So Nike Sports Camps, you're the national director. Give us a little bit about what that gig has been like for you and where things are leading in that direction.

Yes. I mean, I love it, man. I retired professionally back in 2011. And I partnered with Nike Sports Camps That same year, believe it or not, I started my company, Pro Level Training. I'm CEO of Pro Level Training. And it was just training kids during my offseason. Even while I was playing, during my offseason, I would come back home. There was a kid or two that would work out with me. I told them they really couldn't work out with me because they couldn't handle it. But I used to invite them. I said, look, if you can, I'll pull up to your house around 4:30, 4:45. You got to come out because I got to get to the gym by 5:00 AM. I said, if you don't come out on my first horn, you're not coming with me. So I said, look, can't work out with me? They would ask all the time, high school kids. I said, but you can rebound for me. Right? So I would bring them to the gym. They would rebound for me. And then afterward, I said, you know, I'll show you a couple of things for like 20 minutes. And so I started enjoying that. This is while I was a pro. And so—

In what city was this? Or were you in a—

In Philadelphia.

In Philly. Gotcha.

Yeah, this was in Philly. So I started enjoying it, man. I would come back home, and I'm working with kids. And it just organically— once I came back, decided to stop playing a little bit earlier, and I started a company and got married at the time. So it was like the perfect time to see if I can be domesticated. I said, all right, let me start the company. And it was going really well. I was doing things— again, I call it pro-level training for a reason, because I really wanted to give these kids— they may not even really have a shot at making it. I want them to still be able to know how it feels, right? To go through what we go through at that level, to just feel good about themselves. They get to do things they know the top guys around the world are doing.

So approach it like a pro.

Like, that's it.

Approach the endeavor like you're a pro.

That's it.

This is how you do it.

That's how we teach them. It's a mentality. That's exactly what we've been teaching them. Nike caught wind and we caught each other's eye and everything. It was just a perfect situation. So began working with them and had one pro-level training Nike camp back in 2012 after being partners for a little bit. And to date now we have over 80 camps around the country. We're in 14 different states, about 45 different cities across the country. And it's a lovely situation, man, to where my business being in other states, it just feels great to have an influence.

Yes.

On kids that I've never met, right? That's the best part. It's like the people that I don't meet, it just feels good to know that my influence, that my mentality is being built into them. There's nothing like it. And I don't even know these kids firsthand. So it's been a great time.

You're mentoring. I would use the word mentoring. It's like a mentorship that is so valuable. And it's impossible to see the full ripple effect of that too, because those lessons you're teaching them are going to be with them More likely than not for their entire lives.

That's the goal, man. I mean, when people ask me, I speak on goals when I'm keynoting somewhere, I speak on goals and 3-step process in this. So I've been asked often, well, what's your goal? I'm like, impact. I said, I have the same goal, similar goal to what McDonald's had back in the day. You would drive past and see on there the yellow marquee, served over a billion people.

Right?

I said, that's one of my goals. And I said, exactly what you mentioned. I said, I'm not going to see all these people. I'm not going to meet all these people. I said, but I can guarantee you, if I go ahead and affect 300 people from a speaking engagement, or 1,000 people from an engagement, all of a sudden they go back home, they're able to affect 10 other people individually. And there's a ripple effect. They may say one thing that I said to somebody else. And they repeat that, like a meme that travels around, but it could be a quote. And I said, that's impact. Now I just influenced 300 other people by way of that one person, just because they quoted my quote. And then that person they talked to quoted my quote. So I said, that's one of my goals, man, to have an overall impact across the globe. I don't have to gauge it. I don't have to measure it. I just know it's happening.

Yeah. I love that, buddy. I mean, I absolutely love what you just said. You don't have to gauge it. Don't have to measure it. You just know it. You just know it. That's what's happening out there. And you gave a TED Talk as well. So for our audience, if there's people listening right now who are new to it or watching on YouTube, show notes will have information about Joel's book, but there'll also be access, a link to his TED Talk. The TED Talk was about filtering. I haven't seen your TED Talk, so that's one that's on my list to catch up. But—

In a way. So as I mentioned, it's 3 steps, right? I talk on goals all the time. And I wrote about these 3 steps in the book Filtering. But the TED Talk itself, this is during a high time. This was during shutdown while we're all shut down. I was supposed to be on stage. I remember before the pandemic started, and they asked me, said, hey, obviously, No one's seeing each other in person. Are you willing to do this virtually? I said, absolutely. And this was not long after the George Floyd incident, Breonna Taylor. And I was talking about it so much behind the scenes. I said I was going to choose another topic to talk about initially. That's what I discussed with them. But I said, I do not feel right being on a national platform and not bringing these issues to light. Yes. So I spoke on equality. I said 3 essentials to equality. And I know essentials was a big word during the time, essential workers and all this stuff. And so I called it 3 Essentials to Equality and just spoke on ways we can become more united as opposed to divided and just offer some suggestions, tangible suggestions as well, excuse me, as opposed to just saying, hey, let's be equal, let's come together. Like, that's what everybody's saying, but how? I love discussing the how, man. That's the most important side of things is the how. Like, how can we do this? So that's what I talked about.

Hey, I want people to watch that. I'm going to watch it as well. I'm being selfish here and just in the interest of time, I'm not going to ask you to do a lot with this, but can we talk a little bit about the how? I mean, we can also have a second conversation and come back and just hit on that. So I don't want you to do it any short shrift. I'm just asking you, can you say a little bit about that? And then I'm going to get out there and watch this TED Talk. I'm sure people are listening to this right now are going to click that link and go and do the same. So,

well, I mean, what I did was again, it gave 3 quick steps. Childlike imagination was the first step. Just letting people know, at some point, you got to sit down and really think about this thing. You got to see beyond what you see physically. You got to see beyond that. So using your imagery, your imagination a little bit, sit down and really think about how things could be as opposed to how they are. You know what I mean? And that's the initial phase. We can't be so caught up. It's tough to do. It's easy to say, but you can't be so caught up in the dislike of what's going on to where you can't think about what could happen beyond this point. And so that's why I tell people all the time, I sit myself down in silence many times and just breathe. I let myself think. I have literally thinking time. It voids my emotion. And that's what I need. So that's what I was talking about for a little bit. You'll see that just to have a childlike imagination, dream big, just like a kid would, so that you have to literally— not in a cliché way, but so that you have to actually grow in order to reach that goal. Like, you literally will have to grow in a figurative sense, I should say, in order to reach that goal and to pursue that goal. And again, I was relating it to forms of equality. And my second step that I said was you have to need your wants. We want things too often, but wants are optional. We're fine if we don't get the things that we want.

Right.

But if you don't get the things that you need in life, you feel that. There's something scars you if you don't get that thing that you need. If you don't get the love that you need, if you don't get the food that you need, that your body needs, you feel it. So I said, we have to start converting our wants over to needs. I said, so often we want equality, That's not enough. That's not enough. You don't want water. You don't want food. You need that. If we only pursued equality in that same fashion to where you needed it, it's almost impossible for it to not begin to happen in increments. That's what it's about for me. I don't go after anything like I just want it, anything great rather. If I want some Froot Loops or some Fruit Roll-Ups or something like that, or some Skittles or candy, I want that stuff. I don't need that stuff. We're talking about something, a life goal, something that I truly desire to have happen. Oh, I need that to happen. Even if everybody else doesn't see it that deep or as important to them, that doesn't matter to me. It's that important to me. And that's what I tell people all the time. Your goals and your desires, they're yours. They were given to you, put on your heart and your mind and your spirit and your soul. If they're important to you, go after them like they are that important, despite what other people have to say about it. So that was the second thing, was just letting people know, let's go after these desires of equality like we need it. Like, it's been too long. You know what I mean? It's been too long of having all this inequality. Like, yes, we know what happened. We know what happened in the past. It sucked. Slavery, like, we suck, right? We know. And even me speaking to African Americans often, I tell them, look, we all feel the same way. It sucked. But what we have to do is we got to still be in a productive mindset as opposed to always just only looking back. There's nothing wrong with looking back. You got to know where you come from. Got to know what your past looked like. But beyond that, now, how can we move forward? So that's what I was talking about with that step. And the last one was to focus on the journey and just letting people know, look, right now is extremely important. Where you are is extremely important. But like I talked about earlier, you have a goal beyond this moment. But don't focus on that goal. Focus on the journey to get to that goal. You know what I mean? Like, we want equality. That's a huge goal. What does it then take to become more equal? So I began touching on different things as far as the police brutality, especially dealing with George Floyd, Breonna Taylor. I said, well, honestly, there's a lot of white officers that's policing minority neighborhoods. I'd say what should begin to happen is relationships to be more developed in those areas between the officers and the societies. I said, because number one, it only takes 4 months to become an officer. It takes about 4 to 7 years to become a lawyer. It takes about 10 years to become a doctor. It takes 4 months to become a police officer. And it's like, for me, that doesn't measure up to the obligations of those comparative professions. I'm like, man, our lives are being put in the hands of somebody who took 4 months to be certified to literally take or preserve my life. And that's scary. So I think it should be a little bit longer for someone to become an officer. I think that more community service should happen in different neighborhoods between for the officers to get to know their neighborhoods that they'll be policing. Because that way, at least the people in that neighborhood would know the faces of those officers. The officers would know the faces of those people, and they may be more or less apt to do something violently toward each other in a high-intense situation because they know each other a little bit more. There were 6+ months of community service that took place before they were officially allowed to police that neighborhood or something. So I was just kind of throwing some examples out there as to a how to where we can connect the officers to the neighborhoods and those in the neighborhood so that both parties are more, just mutually more aware of each other. They don't have to love each other, but if they at least know and respect each other a little bit more, there'll be a little bit less. I'm not saying everything is perfect after this point, but it'll be a little bit less occurrence of what we hear about so often. So those are the 3 steps and pretty much what I touched on.

Oh my goodness. I mean, Joel, it's both big thinking and little thinking. The micro components of any system are so vitally important. We can never overlook that. People who are great visionaries and think big and they have a genius to them, but you always need to have the small pieces and parts to it. I've used the example of the 2 Steves, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. And most people know about Steve Jobs and some people know about the other Steve, but it's like there's the why and the how. And the why is that big vision. Why do we do something to change the world? Right? Like that ad that I think was one of those early great Apple ads was Think Different. And so it was like, well, okay, that's big vision, but you still need the how. And without the how, the why doesn't work. Without the Steve Wozniak, the Steve Jobs, is it just a barefoot hippie smelly dude that nobody want to spend any time with? So you needed both. I just so love about the way you encapsulated that, and that's why the TED Talk will be so wonderful for everybody to check out. Is that you're giving us both there. We're getting the big and, and the small. Man, Joel, I have so loved this conversation. So I will set the intention that we'll get to pick this up again and do another part to this. I know. I'm certain people are gonna want that as well. Advanced reading, the comments and people that people leave. And what I also wanna say, and normally circle back to just something that you do on a ritual basis each day. to help you be more resilient. Is there one thing that is that ritual? Is it the filtering? Is it that moment-to-moment ritual? Is it something else? I'll give you that last word, and then we'll wrap things up here.

Well, I mean, you can say it's ritual or my routine. I mean, I wake up at 4:55 every day. And it's funny. This is just for me, the whole 4:55 thing. I just want to tell myself I woke up before 5:00, right? So I'm a self-competitor. I'm that guy. I'm like, why wake up at 5:00 when you can do 4:59? You know what I mean? So you woke up before something. That's how I operate. So I wake up at 4:55 every day. And I wake up, first thing I do is I pray and I just thank God. I mean, I'm just so intentional about it. It keeps me grateful, keeps me humble. It keeps me aware of my blessings and just gives me opportunity to hope and pray that other people will do well and are protected. And it makes me feel good inside, man. It's saying it that way sounds corny, but it makes me feel amazing.

It does not sound corny. I'm just gonna put that out there. I know sometimes people are triggered by words like God or stuff to do with religion. And that's fine. I mean, that's That's the dark side of religion, I think, that it turned off so many people to spirit. Because, man, from my perspective, it's the same as yours, my friend. There's nothing that fills me up more, more quickly, more fully than what you just described right there.

Yeah, man, there's nothing like it, man. And I realized I get the best feelings from giving. I mean, that's just really what it is, is me giving thanks, me just giving good hopes, good feelings, praying for other people, things like that, man. So My routine is just to wake up, get in that mode, and I train after that. Usually I get my workout in right around just before 6. I eat a small breakfast, get my workout in. I wake my son up around 7 o'clock. And I just love to start my day while I feel like most people are asleep and just kind of just— it's a quiet time for me. It gives me peace, man. It gives me peace.

Yeah. Joel, I know we never met before this, but I'll just say I feel really close to you. My friend,

I appreciate that, man. Likewise, man. I appreciate you giving me your story too. I mean, that's things like that. It's always important for me to hear, especially having a conversation with somebody. So I appreciate

it. Awesome, folks out there. We'd love to hear from you. So the usual, right? AdamMarkel.com/podcast. Leave a comment. That'll be me. I don't have anybody on the team that answers those comments except for myself. So we'd love to also have this particular conversation get to more places so that ripple. That we were talking about earlier. How's the ripple work? Well, I'm not the most techie guy, but I know there's an algorithm, lots of them that help this to reach the places that it can reach. So if you wanna share this episode with a friend or family member, somebody you know that could be uplifted by it, learn something from it, feel free to do it that old-fashioned way. Just share it. That's probably the best way. But another way to do it is to also leave a 5-star review or whatever makes sense to you. But when you leave a review on the platform that you've just consumed this podcast, It tells that platform this was valuable content, and then the algorithm does the exponential work for all of us, which is get it out in front of more and more people. So we appreciate you doing that as well. And of course, if you've not yet found your own level of resilience, not discovered where you are in this moment, as we've— Joel and I were talking about, it's a moment-to-moment effort. It's that the vigilance moment to moment. Where are you in this moment resilience-wise? You can go to resiliencerank.com. And in 3 minutes, use this assessment to figure out— and it's entirely complimentary. It's, it's our gift to you. Figure out just how resilient you are mentally, emotionally, physically, and, and even spiritually. And there's a whole host of things that you can do with that information. It's really valuable. And again, Joel, I just wanna say thank you for your time today. Thank you for your insights today. Thank you for your heart and the work that you're doing in the world.

Thanks, Adam. Thanks for having me on, man. I appreciate it.

Man, I absolutely love talking to Joel Green. I could speak to him for hours and hours and hours. What a wonderful human father, single dad, just taking care of his son and doing the good work. I mean, as Joel and I got to talk, it's daily practice, daily vigilance and discipline that is required for successful living, success in our finances, in our business, in our relationships, in our health, all of that. And Joel is a disciplined man. And discipline can get— it has a connotation of, in some respects, it's hard. And it's almost like it's punishing. It's grueling. And I don't get that sense from Joel at all. He reframed that word in wonderful ways during our conversation today. We talked about some pretty important things. I mean, this conversation really covered quite a distance from talking about his history and what discipline meant to him as a young person growing up in a very difficult neighborhood in Philadelphia and living in what would be extreme poverty, living in an abandoned home, and yet being able to not just rise out of that situation, but what it was that he was experiencing in real time, what he was learning in real time about life and about discipline, and then applying those lessons to other areas where he could thrive. Where he could rise above those kinds of early circumstances and have taken many, many people out. Joel's journey is pretty epic and continues to be, and he's a remarkable leader. One of the things that we talked about was his TED Talk. I really highly recommend that you, in the show notes, go and get yourself a link to that TED Talk. It's one that I've already watched, and now having opportunity to talk to Joel about it, I had to watch that TED Talk and listen to him. Talk about some things that are so important and have been so divisive in many ways, and also things that have brought us together, that have brought us to the same page in many respects in terms of personal dignity and, and how we are protected and cared for by those that are entrusted to care for and protect us. And so I'll leave it to you to check that out. I was moved by it. Joel talked about converting our wants to needs. This is really, really powerful stuff right here because so often it is that we say we want something like we want this or we want that. But if we don't actually need it, what are we willing to do? To what lengths are we willing to go to accomplish that, to see that come to fruition? If we want to breathe, it's one thing. If we need to breathe, it's another. And I think that's the thing. There are certain needs we have in life, like to breathe, to eat, We need love. There are things that we don't just crave, but we actually need. And so one of the things that stirred up in me when I was listening to Joel is to think about things like equality. Think about how it is that we treat one another, how it is that we want the world to look and feel for ourselves, for our loved ones, for our kids, for our friends, for our colleagues at work. What's the world that we want to really live in? How do we want it to feel? And to what extent is that a need, an actual need versus simply a want? I'm going to leave that question hanging in the air for you all. I've been chewing on it since Joel brought it to my attention. He wrote a book that's really remarkable called Filtering. Love, love, love this title, Filtering. I didn't understand it until I got to hear him talk about what filtering actually is. It's his own process. Talk about that diligence, that discipline, that vigilance. To watch after your own thinking, to manage your thoughts, manage what's going on in between your ears and your brain, managing it, filtering it for a very important purpose, to be able to make better decisions, for better thinking, for right thinking. Joel makes time to think. That's something that I learned long ago. It's pretty remarkable to schedule time on your calendar to think, like schedule thinking time. What a remarkable thing. Joel is just, he is a remarkable person with a remarkable history. And I love this conversation. I know that you have as well and will share this episode. I already anticipate that you will share this particular episode with people in a variety of different contexts. There's a lot of ways that this episode could be valuable to others, and we would appreciate, as always, that you do that, that you share it. Leave us a rating if you could. 5 stars is always great. That's helpful. Helps other people to find it who you don't know, you're not connected with. And that help, I'm, I'm happy to ask for as well in humility. It's something we all have to do, just ask for what we want in life, or otherwise, how can we expect to receive it? And of course, I would love to check in as always on just how resilient you are feeling in this moment. How resilient do you feel? If you wanna know, just takes 3 minutes. You go to resiliencerank.com, resiliencerank.com. 3 minutes later, You're going to get a report of how resilient you are mentally, emotionally, physically, and yes, of course, spiritually as well. You can do that. It's entirely free, and you get some resources as well that are complimentary to go along with it. So once again, thank you so much for supporting Change Proof Podcast. We'll see you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening. We hope you now have even more tools and greater insights to build resilience and become change-proof. Remember to leave a review on Apple Podcasts and you may be featured in an upcoming episode. For more resilience tips and strategies, including support for building change-proof teams, visit adammarkel.com. To get your own free resilience assessment, go to rankmyresilience.com.