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 Markell 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 Markell. 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 seven 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. 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, it's not in that bio.

I would just say my, 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. You know, I 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, to make sure I was on my toes. And now I look over my own shoulder in my, in the mirror, you know, 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. You know, I've 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 really, that drops in for me because I've, I've both been lazy at times in my life and dealt with, dealt with the results, you know, but not knowing it, of course, when we're being, you Know when I was being lazy, I didn't, I didn't realize there would be, like, what the consequences were. I was just like doing my thing, you know, like, which was to do nothing or whatever.

Right, Right.

You know, whatever it was 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. 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 mean, I was not a. I could swim. I mean, I wasn't gonna drown or anything, but I wasn't like competitive, they mean. These guys have been swimming since they're six years old. You know, I'm like 14 or 15 in high school. But I loved it. I mean, and I sucked, but loved it. And, and then I did get better. And the thing about swimming, for people that, that don't know this about that sport, I mean, it's pretty br. You swim before school, so that means getting in the pool like 7am and you swim after school when everybody else is going to go home and you know, hang out, party or whatever, do their homework. I don't know, stuff. But you swim after. So two hours beforehand, maybe, you know, an hour and a half or two hours after is fairly standard. And, And I remember with our high school as a New York City school, I grew up in, in this little town of Queens there in a school that was like the Great Depression era and they didn't have heat on the. Or they, they had heat but the pool wasn't heated. And, and they, they didn't heat the pool on the weekends either. So like, I already remember getting, getting outside to get on a bus to go to the school. So by the time I got there, you know, it's already freezing. Jump in a pool that wasn't heated at 7am like on a Monday morning stuff. I mean, you need to have what you use that word, discipline, that. So you mentioned military school training that like, that was my military school.

Sounds like it. 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, that's special.

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. You know, some of my friends at the time, some of them were athletes, and some guys that I grew up with, you know, they. 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, you know, they were like stoners in the park. You know, they were my friends. I love them. They're good guys and all that. But I didn't. I no longer had the opportunity. Like, that wasn't a thing I could do anymore. You know, I had other things that were taking me somewhere else. So tell me about where to. So discipline started for you at what age? And give, you know, more. I just like to get more on the context of that discipline.

And.

And as you said, since it drives you now to this day, I really want to. I want to just unpack that a bit more with you. Discipline.

I mean, this is the plan for me, man. Again, I mentioned military school, but that was just a refining moment for me. You know, discipline started when I was younger, when I used to be disciplined, you know, like when I was. When I would get beatings, you know, when I was, you know, five and six years old, just for doing silly stuff in the neighborhood, having fights with my siblings, you know, four kids and two parents of six of us in the. In an abandoned house. So it's like we just going crazy amongst each other. And then, you know, when they say, get out of here, go outside, all of a sudden we go outside and keep making trouble, too.

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

Grew up in North Philly. And, you know, I loved it, man. It was difficult conditions, you know, 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. They 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 were. 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't 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 in their heater. I, you know, 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. You know, like as I began to get older, as we moved out of North Philly into, you know, better conditions, I was like, okay, all right. You know, 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 and say, you know what? Okay, don't talk down on anybody. You were just there, you know, 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 three years old. I saw this movie called Team Whiff with Michael J. Fox back in the day. And you know, 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. 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, you know, 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, you know, 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 you know how it goes. The sport just pulls you in. Like it just takes over your schedule. You know what I mean? Like you have practice there, you have practice there. You can't even like, honestly, you know, 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 athlete first after a while based off your schedule and so it just, 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 if from, from that point in my life, when did I, when did I acknowledge or, or connect the dots? Let's say a little bit about that. I would say for me it was when I saw my, saw my body change. I mean, it's gonna sound maybe a little odd, but you know, in my sophomore year I start swimming. By the end of that season, my body was different. Like, I mean, you put in that thousand hours in the pool. Exactly. Right, right. I was like, I was.

You feel better about yourself with things? Again, I was going to say the same thing in high school. It happened in high school for me. Probably going into my junior year happened for me. And again, like you said, for my end, I just, I just brought it up. You know, I kept growing and you know, again my body, 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, you know, like, I know it sounds basic, but there's, you know, there's not a lot of reward for sit. I mean, I love to sit around and watch Saturday morning cartoons. You know, I can watch, I could watch like whatever, whatever this 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. That was kind of like all that was in it, right?

Yeah. And again for me, once I begin to see that there was another level to this thing, I'm like, oh, okay, so if I take care of business now and 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. You know, I grew up in that generation, late 80s, early 90s to where I see the Gatorade commercial with Michael Jordan. He was the first person that I said I wanted to be like. Probably before I even said I wanted to be like my dad, 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. And those were, you know, 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, like a puzzle.

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

For Cotton, man, it's a. It's a heck of a story. You know, literally just wrote about it. But not just that, but that's a part of my story. I ended up, you know, had it in a section of a book, but I went to four different schools.

Well, drop. 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 filtering the way to extract strength from the struggle.

Yeah.

And it, you know, just released it in September, September 6th, this past fall. Yeah, man. I started off at Sienna. Sienna College up in upstate New York in Albany.

I know the school. Yep.

Yeah. Had a great time. Had a great time there, school wise. I came in supposed to be the freshman of the This, a freshman of the that, you know, 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, and I left midway through that. That's my second year there. Loved my teammates, though. Love 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 the number one recruit. So they said, well, hey, if you come here, NCAA rule is you have to register the year. I said, come on, man. I just registered due to a medical. Red shirt.

Yeah. Rules.

So this is the only. 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 four, two, four, transfer. You have to go from a four year institution, like a Division one, two, three, into a two 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 it'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. Eiffel Tower would have caught a hu. Probably had on top of it. I'm like. And I. 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 on the Westerns. I'm sorry, A tumbleweed. I saw a tumbleweed blow across the street. I was like, this is crazy. So I go down there midway through the season, win a national championship. I just wanted to be a little closer to home. So transferred to another. I had to do another year of junior college in order to get back to the Division 1 level. Hopefully they said, you know, if you 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 earned another Division 1 scholarship to Rider University. That's where I ended up going from my final two years of school and graduated.

Wow.

Yeah.

And how did Ryder go?

Like, I won a conference championship there. We finished one league my senior year, you know, had a great time. We're all literally still brothers. We just got together last week. This is after 15 years or so. Amazing experience, man. And so just despite the hardships of that initial part of the journey, you know, getting injured, having my coach over, look me, I had to literally be, which, I mean, resilience. I had to be resilient. I had to keep my eye on the prize of, you know, Who I am, that was the main thing. I had moments of insecurity along the way to. It's like, oh, shoot, why isn't this not working out according to my plan? But I look back at it now, say, oh, shoot. I actually got three championships throughout my, you know, college career. Two national, one conference. I can only thank God at this point.

And there's a discipline I'm going to use that. Just want to go back to that word for a minute. But I mean it. Like, even when it comes to our, how do we, how do we take care of our self image, it doesn't. You think again, that's not a thing you need to be taking care of. It'll take care of itself. But that's the lazy, that's how again, like I, I would lean into that kind of laziness. I don't have to work on my own conception of myself. That's, that's a less disciplined approach that pays that same sort of a no dividend. You know, you don't get any, you get whatever you like. You get your mood. 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, I won't do that. A lot of people, I think that's, that's an approach that when you're not in a mood to do something, you don't do it. I'm not in the mood to have you work, work on, on my own, 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? How do you work on yourself? Like, is this like some silly thing? You stand in front of the mirror, I love you, you're awesome. I believe in you. You know, which I don't knock if people do that because that could work and probably does, you know, but, but to take a disciplined approach to pretty much everything and, and if the thing that gets in the way of your, of your achievement in life, the goals, the dreams, the things you, you want out of life, the thing that gets in the way of that sometimes is your own lack of confidence in yourself, then you damn straight ought to have a disciplined approach to getting, getting your head straight, getting your heart in aligned and, and belief and having a belief in yourself that you can, you can accomplish, you know, well beyond, well beyond. Or, or that you can accomplish the things you want to.

Yeah, I mean, Again, I, with me, you know, being a national director for Nike, for Nike sports games, right? Obviously, I hear these three words all the time. Just do it.

Just do it.

There's, there's so many times where I have to tell myself that. And it's, it's not in a corny way because I, it's, it's a, it's a tagline or it's a slogan. This is literally a part of who I am. It's a part of what I preach. You know, when I'm talking to kids, you know, that I'm training, or adults of 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. You know, 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, you know, 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. You know, once you've already thought about the frame, the groundwork and the foundation of things, once you've thought about the foundation, everything is, 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, you know, let's say going through my college career, right, those five years to where I played for. 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 a moment can actually hurt because while you're in the moment, you're getting, oh, you're not good enough. Ah, no, you don't belong there. Yeah, recruiting over you, like, you have to be in a moment to stay focused, but you have to do other, you know, 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, you know, to remind yourself, you are amazing, you are great. You also have to look forward too, to say, okay, I gotta 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. Joe is the, they're pastors. Jodas is the light affliction. It's only gonna 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, you know, 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. So that's what I said. 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, 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 well being in the workplace for people. But the workplace is just another place, right? It's just place where people are, whether that's virtually or literally in, in, you know, in a, in an office someplace. We bring ourselves there. I mean, wherever we are there, there we are, you know, where we go, there we are. Again, I mean that, so that self talk that you're bringing up, I mean there's a discipline to how you deal with yourself. How, how do you deal with yourself each and every day is, is a question. I didn't ask that question when I was in my twenties. Nobody asked me. No, 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, will point those kinds of things out to you like. So again, what, what is the discipline for your self talk? Because otherwise if you just let your head do what it does, let your, your brain work the way it works, your mind chatter. It will chatter all day long, all, 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? I mean, often. So do you have a disciplined practice or did you develop one earlier on that you know has changed or something new even where, where, where you challenge yourself, talk or, or have a discipline practice around, around this, this idea of just getting, 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, it is. 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 can say that, you know, to where I'm becoming overwhelmed, I'm becoming stressed because of things that 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. So I, you know, I came up with this method for myself in 2015, 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. You know, I had to handle myself, my own problems, going through potential divorce and having at the time like a two year old son, you know, being a single father, moments here, moments there. It was a difficult time. So I was just trying to manage life. You know, I'm reading all these books. I was reading nine books every three weeks, you know, literally, and just having this thirst for knowledge and just I wanted answers. I'm like, I wasn't getting them and I was becoming, 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, for me it was, I said, okay, let me. I literally, I wrote down filtering and I said, this is what I'm doing and I'm literally sorting out my issues. I'm breaking everything down for myself and now I can handle it, you know, no matter how difficult it is. Sometimes filtering includes me calling somebody because I wasn't one to open up to people before. So that, that's a part of me breaking down the situation, getting help and getting another perspective, you know, and so that's, that's, that's become the main tool for me to really filter what I'm going through while I'm going through it. It can, 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, well, you know, let me break this down real quick. Let me just clean a room, forget the house, you know, so it's doing things like that on a daily basis to where I tell myself do something, just do, 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 willing just keep going like, you know, 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, Joel, just. Just go ahead and do 10 minutes. All of a sudden I'm. I'm 50 minutes in. You know, 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. Exactly.

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 cliche. Right. The body emotion stays in motion. The one at rest, you know, sits around and eats Cheetos or whatever. But I was just listening. I mean, you really. 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 and to describe that thought management. And I loved how we. We found ourselves in that spot just now. Because that's not a. You don't filter once a year. It's not like you change, you know, like in your house and you got those filters. Right, right, right, exactly. And if you're lucky, if you remember once a year to go. Right. You're supposed to do it every three months or something. Right. It's like.

It hasn't happened on my end. You're reminding me right now, telling you.

There are people right now pulling off the side of the road writing themselves a note.

Reminder. Right.

This is my personal psa, right. For that. But that filtering is literally. It's moment to moment, isn't it? Moment.

Absolutely. I mean, that's literally what it is, is I. I do it every day now. You know, initially it was an intentional thing to do and to refer to, but, you know, it's become such a habit for me because again, I was speaking it from the stage, too. You know, anytime I'm on stage, I was just. 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. I 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 out here. Let me try it. Here, let me just try it. As a parent, you know, like, if I'm being overwhelmed with parenthood for a moment, you know, how can I break this down? You know, I mean, okay, he wants to play, but you tired, man. All right, just play with him for like two seconds, you know, 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. That's actually all he wanted. All he wanted was attention. For a second. You say, daddy, look, daddy, look, daddy look. All they want you to do is like just, 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, 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 has helped me out, you know, a ton of. Throughout, you know, especially recent years, 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, because he's an athlete, you know, while we're training for sports, you know, I'll see him get down, right, because he hasn't done something correctly that I'm showing him to do. Hey, don't, don't feel bad about yourself. Don't pity yourself. I tell him that so many times. Don't. 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. It's the self pity man again. That's what led to my past insecurities, past self doubt. It was that pity. It's a disease.

It is. You know what? Wow, that's. Holy smokes. Yeah. I mean, Joel, that's close to home for me. I mean, the worst part, the worst moments in my life, looking back, as in worst, as in the least, the least, the, the most disempowering moments, the, the, the least confident moments, the most, really, the most painful moments have nothing to do with my failures. I failed a zillion times. Like, you know, a lot of people have, right? It's those, it's the, it's the pity, the self pity, the pity party, the, the feeling sorry for yourself stuff. And I didn't have, you know, like, I got good advice from my dad. He gave me, gave me some really wonderful things to focus On. But he never, I don't remember him ever reframing, helping me to reframe those situations. And instead he, he would at the time, if I remember, you know, get a little upset with me. And I remember my coaches at times getting upset with me, getting frustrated with me at. When they could see that my attitude went. Because 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're giving your son and you're giving these other kids. I want to talk about the Nike camp in a second here. You're giving, you're giving those kids a way to reframe that situation in the moment so that they don't have to feel guilty or, or confused or angry with themselves, like bad about themselves because they're feeling the way they're actually feeling. Because then it just, again, it just becomes more of a spiraling, you know, thing as opposed to, okay, next, like right, let's just next, right, dust off, get up and next.

I mean, it's funny that you say that again. It's. I tell people, literally I coach as well. So whenever I'm seeing a kid getting down on themselves after 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 because I used to get so upset. That was me as the player when I was in, early in high school. I'll get so upset where all of a sudden the play didn't go right for me. I'm pouting for probably the next two seconds. And those two seconds it affected the other end of the floor, the other, 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 me pouting in that moment. So he told me, you know, you gotta tell yourself next play right away. And also I was given a rubber band to pop myself, to snap myself back into reality, you know. So anytime I'm getting upset, pull it real quick and just stay in the most. Stay in the most next play. So, I mean, 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.

Yes, it's a re. 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, you know, it's, it's a way to, to use a physical, something physical that, that is output painful reframe. But, but what's more painful like a snap of the, you know, snap of a rubber band on your wrist that gets you to change, you know, snap out of it, literally. Funny to say it that way. Right? Or, or the, the 10 minutes or the, or how however long that that negative spiral lasts and it can, it can last a good long while. I mean, too long. Be lucky if it was over in 10 minutes. Right, right.

Honestly, I mean, that's, that's the thing. It's. It's a lingering effect many times, you know, depending on the situation, it could just keep going from day to day, you know, and that's, it's a scary thing, man. It's. 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, you know, hone their anger. I told him, look, 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.

No.

You know, so even in, just outside of sports, in life, I'm like, the sadness, it don't really benefit you much, you know. Now obviously, you know, you can channel your sadness to help, you know, other people, empathy wise and things like that and just with expression, of course. But you know, in the avenue that I'm in, I tell people all the time I prefer mad and sad all day. I'll help you channel that and stay angry, you know, and it's my job to help you channel that anger.

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

Yes. I mean, I love it, man. I retired playing professionally back in 2010. 11. No, 11. And I partnered with Nike Sports Camps that same year, believe it or not, because I started my company Pro Level Training. I'm CEO of Pro Level Training. And it was just training kids during my off season. Even while I was playing during my off season, I would come back home, it was a kid or two that would work out with me. I told him 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, 34, 45. You got to come out because I gotta get to the gym by 5am I said, if you don't come out on my first horn, you're not coming with me. So I said, look, you 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 things for like 20 minutes. And so I started enjoying that, you know, while this is, while I was a pro.

And so in what city was this? Or were you in Philadelphia? In Philly. Gotcha.

Yes, this is in Philly. And 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, you know, got married at the time. So it was like the perfect time to see if I can be domesticated. So I said, all right, let me, let me, you know, 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.

Endeavor, like you're, you are, like you're pro.

That's it.

This is how you do it.

That's how we teach. It's a mentality, you know, that's exactly what we've been teaching them. And you know, Nike called win. And you know, we caught each other's, you know, I 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 in 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, you know, it's a lovely situation, man. To where, you know, 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. You know, it's like the people that I don't meet. It just feels good to know that my influence, my mentality is being built into them, you know, like it's not. There's nothing like it. Not even know these kids, you know, firsthand. So it's been a great mentoring.

I would use the word. It's like a mentorship that is so valuable, you know, can't even you. And it's impossible to know to, 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 with. For their entire lives.

That's the goal, man. I mean when people ask me what, what's your. Because I speak on goals when I'm keynote keynoting somewhere, I speak on goals and three step process in this. And so I've been asked often, well, what's your goal? I'm like, impact, you know, I said, I have the same goal, you know, similar goal to what McDonald's had back in the day. You would drive past the CEO and 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 a thousand 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 just like a, like a meme that travels around, it could be a quote. And I said, that's impact. Now I just influenced, you know, 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, you know, to have an overall impact across the globe. And I, 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. Just you just know it. You just know it's. That's what's happening out there. And you gave a TED Talk as well. So for, 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 they'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 in a way. But so there's three steps, as I mentioned, it's three steps, right? I talk on goals all the time. And I wrote about these three steps in the book filtering. But the TED Talk itself, this is during a high time. This was during shutdown. While we're all in shutdowns, I was supposed to be on stage. I remember before the pandemic started and they asked me to, hey, you know, 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, you know, the George Floyd incident, Breonna Taylor. And I was talking about it so much behind the scenes. I said I would not feel I was going to choose another topic to talk about initially. That's why 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 three essentials to equality. And I know essentials was a big word during the time, essential workers and all this stuff and so called it three essentials to equality. And just spoke on ways we can become more united as opposed to departed. And he just offered 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, that's what everybody's saying. But how. I love discussing the how, man. That's, 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, watch as well. I'm being selfish here. And just in the interest of time, you know, 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, have a second conversation to come back and just, just hit on that. So I don't want you to do it any short, you know, short trip. I'm just asking you, can you say a little bit about that? And then, and then I'm going to, you know, again, I'm going to get out there and watch this TED Talk. I'm sure people listen to this right now, are going to click that, click that link and go and do the same. So.

Well, I mean, what I Did was again gave three quick steps. Childlike imagination was the first step. You know, just letting people know, you 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, you know, 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? That's. That's the initial phase. We can't be so caught up. It is 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. And I just, you know, I. I let myself think. I have literally thinking time because 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 cliche way, but so that you have to actually grow in order to reach that goal. Like, you literally would have to grow in a fingertip 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, you know, my second step that I said was you have to need your wants. We want things too often, but once optional, like we're. 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 know, 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 to begin to happen in increments, you know, and that's, that's what it's about for me. I don't go after anything like I just wanted anything great rather if I want some, some Fruit 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, you know, something, you know, a life goal. You know, something 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 why 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 this desire 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. Yes, we know what happened. We know what happened in the past. It sucked. Slavery, it sucked.

Right?

We, we know. And even me speaking to African Americans often, I tell them, look, I feel we all feel the same way. It sucked. But what we have to do is we gotta still be in a productive mindset as opposed to always just only looking back. There's nothing wrong with looking back. You gotta know where you come from. You gotta know what your past look 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 to get yourself, you know, 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, you know, especially dealing with, you know, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor. I said, well, honestly, there's a lot of, you know, white officers that's policing minority neighborhoods. I'd say what should begin to happen is relationships would be more developed in those areas, you know, between the officers and the societies. I said, because, number one, it only takes four months to become an officer. I said, it takes about four to seven years to become a lawyer. Takes about 10 years to become a doctor. It takes four 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 four months to be certified to literally take or preserve my life. That's scary, you know, So I said that 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 will know the faces of those officers. The officers. We 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 six plus 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 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 three steps and pretty much what I touched on.

Oh, my goodness. It's both big thinking. Big and little thinking. You know, the micro. The micro components of any system are so vitally important. We can never overlook that. You know, people who have great visionaries and think big and, you know, they're. They have a genius to them, but you always need to have the. The small pieces and parts to it. You know, I've used the example of the two Steves, you know, 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. That big vision, you know, why. Why do we do something, you know, to change the world, right? Like. Like that. That ad that I think was, you know, one of those early great Apple ads was. Was think different. And so it was like, okay, that's big. That's big, big vision. But you still need the how. And without the how, the why doesn't work. Without the Steve Wozniak, the Steve Jobs doesn't. Is it just a barefoot, hippie, smelly dude that nobody want to want to spend any time with. You know, like so you need, you needed both. And what I, I just so love about the way you encapsulated that and, and that's why the TED talk will be so wonderful for everybody to check out is that you give us, you're giving us both there. We're getting the, we're getting the big end and the small man. Joel, I, I have so loved this conversation. So I will set the intention that we'll get to pick this up again and do a, do another part to this. I know I'm certain people are going to want that as well. I'm advanced reading the comments and people that people leave and what I also want to say, I 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, you know, this, this last word and then, and then we'll wrap things up here.

Well, I mean, you know, you say ritual or my routine. I mean I wake up at 4:55 every day and it's funny. This is, this is just for me the whole 455 thing. I just want to tell myself I Woke up before 5.

Right?

So I'm just always, I'm a self competitor, I'm that guy. Like, I'm like why wake up at 5? We can do 4:59, you know what I mean? Before something, you know, so that's, that's how I operate. So I wake up at 4:55 every day and, and I wake up, first thing I do is I pray and I just thank God. I mean I'm, I'm just so intentional about it. Keeps me grateful, keeps me humble. It keeps me aware of my blessings and just, it 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, you know, saying it that way sounds corny, but it makes me feel amazing.

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

Yeah, man, it's nothing like it, man. And I realize I get the best feelings from giving. I mean, that's just really what it is, is me giving thanks, you know, me just giving, you know, good hopes, good feelings, you know, 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, you know, right around just before six, you know, I get it, eat a small breakfast, get my workout in. I wake my son up around 7 o' clock and I just love to, to start my day while I feel like most people are asleep and just kind of just, it's a quiet time for me and just. It gives me peace, man. It gives me peace.

Yeah. Oh, Joel, I, you, you, you're. We, I know we never met before this, but I'll just say I, I feel so, I feel really close to you, my friend.

I appreciate that, man. Like, 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 you know, having a conversation with somebody. So I appreciate it.

Awesome folks out there, we, we love to hear from you. So the usual, right? Adammarkel.com forward/podcast. Leave a comment, that'll be me. I won't, I don't have anybody on the team that answers those comments except for myself. So we'd love to also have this, 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, I'm not, 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, you want to share this episode with a friend or family member, somebody you know, that could be uplifted by, learn something from it, feel free to do it that old fashioned way. Just share it. That's the best, probably the best way. But another way to do it is to also leave a five star review or whatever, you know, 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 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's the vigilance. Moment to moment. Where are you in this moment, resilience wise? You can go to resiliencerank.com resiliencerank.com and in three 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, and there's a whole host of things that you can do with that information. It's really valuable. And again, Joel, I just want to say thank you 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, 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, and doing the good work. I mean, as, as Joel and I got to talk, you know, this is a daily, it's daily practice, daily, it's daily vigilance and discipline that is required for successful living, success in our finances, in our business, in our relationships and our health, all of that. And Joel is a disciplined man. And discipline can get a, you know, like, it has a connotation of like net in some, in some respects. Like it's hard and it's, and it's, 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, be extreme poverty, not, you know, living in a band in an abandoned home and, and yet being able to not just rise out of, out of that situation, but what, what it was that he was experiencing in real time, what he was learning in real time about, about life and about discipline and then applying those lessons to other areas where, where he could, where he could thrive, where he could rise above those kinds of early circumstances that, that could take and have taken many, many people out. Joel's journey is, is pretty, pretty epic and Continues to be. And he's a remarkable leader. One of the things that, that we talked about was, was his TED Talk. And I, I really highly recommend that you've, in the show notes, go and get yourself a link to that TED Talk. It is one that I've already watched. And now having, having had that 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, to the same page in many respects, terms of personal dignity and, and how, how we are are protected and cared for by those that are entrusted to, to care for and protect us. And, 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, that we say we want something, like we, we want this or we want that, but, but if we don't actually need it, what are we, 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, it's, you know, one thing. If we need to breathe, it's another. And I think that's the thing. We, there are certain needs we have in life, like to breathe, to eat. We need love. There, There are things that we, that we don't just crave, but we actually need. And so one of the things that, 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, 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. For our colleagues at work. You know, 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, I've been chewing on it since, 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 till 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. You know, 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, it's pretty remarkable to schedule time on your calendar to think, you know, like schedule thinking time. What a remarkable thing. Joel, Joel is, 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. You share it. Leave us a rating, if you could. Five 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, that help I'm, I'm happy to ask for as well in humility. It's, it's, it's, it's something we all have to do. We have to just ask for what we want in life or otherwise. How can we expect to receive it? Funny. And, and of course I would love to check in as, as always on just how resilient you are feeling in this moment. How resilient do you feel? If you want to know, just takes three minutes, you go to resiliencerank.com resiliencerank.com Three minutes later, you're gonna 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.

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