Accepting The Rare Chance to Change Your Life

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Gary Sanchez. At the why Institute, we've helped over 40,000 people discover, make decisions and connect using their why. This show will be much more powerful for you once you know your own why. So head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why. Today you're going to meet one of the leaders who discovered their why with us and actually going to share their story and the powerful lessons they've learned. So if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys, and then we bring on somebody with that why so you can see how that why has played out in their life. And so today we are going to be talking about the why of better way. So if this is your why, then you are the ultimate innovator. You constantly seek better ways to do everything from the most mundane task of brushing your teeth to improving the rocket fuel that powers the space shuttle. You can't stop yourself. You take virtually anything and want to improve it, make it better and share your improvement with the world. You invent things and take what has already been invented and improve that too. You constantly ask yourself the questions, what if we tried this differently? What if we did this another way? You contribute to the world with better processes, better systems, and operate under the motto often Pleased, Never Satisfied. You are excellent at associating and taking from one industry or discipline and applying it to another with the aim of improving something. You generally operate with a high level of energy because after all, that too is a better way. And so today I've got a great guest for you. His name is AK Ick Walker. He is known as Coach ak. He is a former professional athlete, entrepreneur and educational consultant and speaker who has traveled to 30 plus countries working with students, professional athletes, coaches, governmental agencies, celebrities, CEOs, employees of Fortune 100 companies, scholars and community leaders from around the world. Through his entrepreneurial ventures, he has led an unorthodox path which began by narrowly missing the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China to work at top educational institutions such as Phillips Exeter academy and the St. Paul School, to now founding a fashion company for athletes. AK has been featured in Sports Illustrated, Nike Earbuds, Women's Health, Sony, Fox Sports, the Doctors, and Are youe Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? With his triplet brother. Unfortunately, they were not smarter than a fifth grader. AK welcome to the podcast.

Gary, thank you very much. Super excited to be on.

So let's start with the thing that jumped out at me, obviously, was the last thing we said. What is this smarter than a fifth grader thing?

So back in 2013, I'm a triplet. I have a twin brother and a twin sister. I think that's how you say it. Right. And we're on the show are youe Smarter than a Fifth Grader? Hosted by Jeff Foxworthy. And.

I would say it's still kind of a sensitive moment because at the end, we realized that the fifth graders were much smarter than us adults in the audience, and also myself.

And it's not like you're uneducated or your brother and sister. Right. I mean, you guys have had a lot of education.

Exactly, exactly. So it was one of those moments where we had this strategy going in and it went to the final question where we could multiply it, I think like 10. And it was the first grade question left. Right. We've already knocked off all the other ones. And if you miss this when you go down to zero. And the first grade question was, is this a compound sentence? And that is the sentence. Oh, no, no, sorry. Like, how many words? How many compound words are in the sentence? And that was the sentence. How many compound words in this sentence? And the funny thing is, the first grader, the fifth grader said, 1. What would you say? What would you think? It is the answer.

How many compound words are in this sentence? Compound words are in this sentence? 2. I would say 2.

2. The first grader said 1, and the answer was 0.

Trick question. That was a first grade question. So a compound word is like.

Like two words put into one.

You know, so we missed it. We went back down to zero. And it was a very fun experience.

Take us back. So, AK you were born where in Colorado?

Yeah. So I'm first generation in the United States. I was born in Nevada, Colorado. My parents moved here in 76 as my dad went to get his PhD at the University or Colorado School of Mines. He's a geophysicist. So all of us are born in Colorado. And I also have three older brothers, so there's six of us in total.

And where was your dad and mom from?

Nigeria.

Oh, Nigeria. Okay. So you grew up in Nevada. I'm sure that has a lot of experiences in itself. And then off to university. Tell us what story.

Yeah, my story is this. Yeah. So I grew up, you know, youngest of six, and I wasn't the best student in school. So that's why I would imagine that as I work in education on a global scale, you know, I wasn't good in school I was dyslexic, but the way in which they taught was very much kind of this rote memorization learning. I'll be honest, today I have a bad short term and long term memory, so just imagine how that was. But I was lucky as I was a kid, actually, I got picked on a lot for multiple for different reasons. And so high school was a tough time for me. But sports was that vehicle for me where actually allowed me and my family to get a scholarship to go to the University of Colorado in track and field. Then I was there for a year and then I just happened to run at the University of Oregon at a track meet. Then one of my fastest times in the 400 hurdles. And then literally the next year when I'm transferring, the school I ended up going to was the University of Oregon. And I would say that was really where my career really took trajectory in a positive direction.

And so you ran the 400 hurdles.

That was your event, 400 hurdles, 110 hurdles, and then the 4x4, 400 relay or 1600 meter relay.

And so in your bio you said narrowly missing the Olympics. What happened?

Yeah, so for me, my. In college, I was lucky. I was top 10 in the world twice in the 4x4 relay. And my senior year, I decided to try something fun at University of Oregon and play football. And so during that summer, I decided to gain like 20 pounds. Wasn't good weight. I was a tight end. But that year in football didn't end the best because it ended with a torn acl. And that moment for me, especially after leaving University of Oregon, I disliked sports a lot because I felt as though the thing that has helped leverage me and do a lot of things that I needed. When I tore my ACL and I was leaving college, I felt like I was just a number. Right. You immediately, as soon as you leave, there's somebody to replace you. And I wasn't even getting my ACL repaired. I was like, I'm never going to play sports again. I don't want to do it. And then what ended up happening? Graduation year after I graduated, I went to Rarotonga with my girlfriend at the time. And at this time I was 40 pounds overweight, packing back beers. I was not the healthiest by any means. And then this guy named Pete that came up to me and he was a family friend of my girlfriend at the time. And he said, I kind of heard your story. And he said, have you ever considered potentially trying out for the Olympics? And I looked at him like this does not exactly look like the body of an elite level athlete, 40 pounds overweight. But that conversation really stuck with me a lot. So I came back, I ended up getting my ACR repaired, and I started training six hours a day. Three hours were training, and the other three hours were rehab and recovery. Because that decision really stuck with me. Because my path at that moment, I was gonna be moving to a small town to do something I didn't really want to do. And so I believe at this moment, when I decided to train for the Olympics was my first entrepreneurial endeavor. Right when I decided that I wanted to put life into my own hands and say, I believe that there's something better for me out there. And then from there, I ended up actually connecting with the Nigerian national team, and a couple weeks later, flying out overseas to Nigeria. Now, at this moment, for me to go there, I was still in Oregon, but I actually sold everything that I had other than what I can fit in my dodge knee at the time and. And moved to California. So I really had no place to live, But I was over in Nigeria. Like, my whole life dream was to be at the Olympics. So we get on the ground. This is my first time traveling overseas. And one of the coaches comes up to me and they said, hey, we're going to be doing the Olympic trials in a week. But we've kind of made a decision, and we're going to do the Olympic trials tomorrow. So I just traveled for, like, 19 hours, tired. It's my first time traveling for this biggest race my whole entire life. And they said, if you want to make the Olympics, you have to get top three. So I remember getting there the next day. I get on the track, I run my race. I remember crossing the finish line. I look up, and I get third place. All of a sudden, I start breaking down. I go home, call my coaches, call my family, call everybody, because I made the Olympics. I made the Olympic teams. And they start shuffling us around. And then from there, we end up getting on a flight and we go to Tunisia for this. Permit me to get this time that we needed. And on the way back, we stopped at layover in Egypt. And at this moment, all I wanted was a cold glass of water, right? Because everything we had had was, like, warm and couldn't have it. So we're going down to the bar, getting a cold glass of water. Later that night, I'm sitting in bed, and my stomach starts churning. I am not feeling good at all. And then what happens after that is I get back, fly back in Nigeria. After I just in sink, super dehydrated, I'm laying in bed, and this is actually a debut for the original Olympic trials. The cane coach comes to my room and she says, remember that whole Olympic trials we did a week ago? I was like, yeah, what about it? She said, we've decided we're going to redo it and do it tomorrow. Right.

I'm sick as a dog. And I was like, okay, I'm an athlete. I can do this. Except this time, it's an open casting call, basically. So instead of people that qualified beforehand, now it's anybody that wants to run the 400 gets to run it of like 200 different athletes. So instead of two heats, now there's like 15 heats. So I make it through the first round, I make it through the second round, but I failed to make it through the third round. Wow. And so when it comes down to it, I ended up actually watching the Olympic games from my home. Right. So that feeling of knowing that you've made the Olympics and also feeling like you've lost. Right. That feeling was a surreal moment.

I can imagine. Wow. You know, we missed something really important there I would love to revisit. And that is, what did Pete say to you that rocked your world to going from a party and 40 pound overweight guy traveling the world to, I'm gonna go train for the Olympics. What happened there?

So, you know, funny thing enough is he actually ended up being a swimmer for the Rarotonga Olympic team that year. He didn't really talk about that, but he says, you're never going to have another opportunity. Right. You know, this path that you have, you already know, you can map it out for the next 80 years, but you'll never know what this path may lead if you go down to this way. Right. So it just kind of stuck with me. Like, I don't want to live in regret, especially for a dream that I've had I've always wanted to achieve. And the worst that would happen is I don't get it. But it guarantees I don't get it if I never try.

So it gave you a new possibility. What did it do for you? Because I'm trying to picture you sitting there over sports, done with it, pissed off, doing whatever the heck you want to do, and some guy comes up to you and says, hey, you ought to think about the Olympics. There had to be something really profound in that moment to say, you know what? I can do this now. I'm going to do this. What was going on in your Head.

Yeah. When I. When I tried to think about that moment, it was, I've been top in the world beforehand. And what he put on me was a belief in myself again, because the biggest critic was myself. And I had to realize that it wasn't the outside world. It wasn't me tearing my acl. It wasn't any of those outside factors. It was me making the decision that I didn't feel like I was worth it. I didn't feel like I was good enough. And he just helped me remind you, like, dude, you know, you want this deep down, but you've. You've shoved your dreams down so far that you've started to believe them that you don't actually want it.

That's an amazing lesson I bet you bring to all of your clients, because how often do you know, somebody like, you could go through that? What about somebody who hasn't really experienced that kind of success and still wants to.

Well, you know, when I think about that, and I was thinking a lot about the why even a better way, something that I use this example of, you know, did cavemen invent fire? That's the question. Do cavemen invent fire? Right. And usually I would. Most people, like, they would think about it for a second, like, no, actually, they discovered it. Meaning that fire was always around. Right. And mostly when I think about the world in which we live, especially talking about kind of what's like, status quo is. I don't think status quo is on this higher level of. Of a societal. Right. The status quo is your current thinking and understanding of the world. And my thinking at that moment was very, very limited. This guy's already been to the Olympics. My clients, the only world in which they know. And usually they're in these vacuums. The only world in which I've experienced is only themselves. I've worked in so many different sectors, and my goal is like, hey, how about just ask you this question to have you think just a little bit differently? Right. Oh, nobody's ever asked me this particular question. And then it gives them, what, a new sense of vitality. Because they've been doing something one way, and then all of a sudden, a new thought that makes sense. I get it. And then they're able to actually get that new life. Almost like that old way has been shed and this new way of thinking has now been put on. Yeah.

And for those of you listening, AK's why is to find a better way. And how he does that is by challenging the status quo and thinking outside the box. And Then what? He brings a simple solution to help others move forward in ways they never thought they could. And it's interesting. That's kind of like the power of a question, right?

Yeah. The question is, I mean, I would say questions or even stories are really, really powerful tools, Right. I could give you a statement, but when I asked you a question, right. It's causing you to think. If I give you a statement, you're telling you don't have to think but a question, you have to then think inside about your whole life in which you've had. Okay, well, okay, yeah, maybe it is possible. Right. And the power of a question, I think, is what you can actually find to get really, really clear or for myself, is I do this exercise helping people identify their why in some kind of capacity very different than yours. And if I asked you like, how are you doing today? Most people will say, good. Then I respond with, well, why be specific? Oh, yeah, because I woke up and I checked the stock market and it was working well. What do you mean by it was working well? Like, be more specific. Right. And you'll realize by asking questions and getting deeper, it actually gets into the root cause of any situation.

You know, that's a better way thing. That's what I do too. That's what I do. That's how this whole why discovery came about is just me asking question after question after question. And then you start to see things, Right. And I bet you've seen a lot of the same stuff coming up over and over and over, right? Probably you could put it into compartments or into buckets to figure out what are the same things that people are dealing with.

Exactly. And usually it's all the same. You know, what I really enjoyed about, even when I went through the activity with you as I was helping find my why is when we're staying on the surface level, it doesn't really. It's very, very logic. But when you go deeper, it starts to actually connect on the emotional level. And we know that the decisions that we make are from emotional level, but we use logic to justify our reasoning. So when you go deeper, you're able to actually connect at the eternal core level of who people are. And that's what really excites me.

I love that. And, you know, it's interesting to think back as, what if Pete had never asked you that question? You know, it's interesting. That's what's so great about what you do now is you are the guy. You are the Pete for other people.

Yeah.

And had you never Come along, right?

Yeah. I never thought about that. Yeah, but true. Yeah.

Had he never come along? Who knows? You'd be £300 and sitting. Who knows where you'd be? Right?

Exactly.

And you do that now for everybody else. You are the Pete that make take changes people's trajectory and gets them on a path that's different than what they expected. And you send them off with simple instructions so they can actually make it happen. So once you didn't make the Olympics, what happened with you next? What was your next step?

When I didn't make the Olympics, I ended up coming home and I was homeless. I didn't have a house. I didn't have anything because I put all my eggs into one basket. And then at that point, I was just kind of scrambling through to get by. I ended up still running track and field for the Nigerian Olympic team. Nigerian team for another four years. But I just started from the ground up. One thing that I was listening to last week's episode with Coach Green, he was talking about trust and how to, you know, building relationships. And that's what it came. When you come into a new environment, my situation had to be like, how do I create new relationships? How do I create new community to be able to get to that next stage? I ended up working at Cheesecake Factory. I started just doing these side gigs, and then the very next year actually ended up going overseas, becoming an Inter national champion, and then going once again on the European circuit and just made more connections as things went through.

Wow. What's it like competing in track and field? You know, it's not a tradition. Typical sport that you see every weekend or, you know, it seems like it's a lot of work for however long it takes you, you know, you do the 400 hurdles, what is that, maybe 50 minutes?

How many minute? 50. 50 seconds?

Yeah, 50 seconds.

And it was different because for me, I originally got in a track and field to get in shape for football. And so it was just a conditioning, and I ended up getting a scholarship to do it. But the thing about track and field that I liked about it is that it was very specific. I knew if I get this time, I can check that with all the other times in the world. Right. It was very, very specific and I could rate myself. But what I loved about it the most, especially with sports, it's almost like the original sport, like your brothers and everybody just get on the line, like, let's just see who's the fastest. And I really. And I didn't realize until after I did track and field that I didn't like running that much. I liked the competition. I loved every single day you're doing a rep in training where you're laying on the ground in pain, and then all of a sudden you're going to be like, let's get back up and do another one. You get back on the line to do another one, you run again. And then you almost recondition your mind to forget the pain that just happened, get back on the line and do it again, again and again, all over again. And, you know, if you're an athlete, what you realize, especially as you go through the system at the high school level, everybody's relatively. You could see the people that are great and people that are average, but as you go higher up, everybody's having the same coaches, everybody's in similar training. The difference, though, is the mind, right? When you're on that line, right? Everybody wants to win. Everybody believes that they're gonna get first place. But what's gonna happen when that gun goes off? Who's gonna let those doubts, who's gonna let those fears? Who's gonna let whatever happens affect them, Right? So that's what I always loved about the aspect of track and field, is because every single day when you get on that line, every single day when that gun goes off, you decide who you want to be.

I love that. What did you find was the difference between winning and not winning? What happens in the mind that makes somebody cross the finish line faster? I mean, you all have the skill, you've all trained, you're all in great shape, you're all fast. Why does one person win and why did you win and the other one, the other people are right behind you.

There's so many different factors, especially in the 400. I consider that a really great analogy for life. And the reason why is because when that gun goes off, or actually, as everybody's getting in that starting line, everybody has this particular mindset that's happening. My race every single time is. I honestly believe I was gonna win that race every single time. Even if the people right next to me, even if, you know, in track and field, how they position it out. Lane one to lane nine. Lane five in the middle is usually the fastest time. Lane one and lane nine is the slowest in that heat. Now, the reason I say that is because even though I was in lane one, I was thinking, ooh, I'm about to make my day. I'm gonna be walk these people down, right? No matter what happens, I'm going To show them today. But when that gun goes off, a lot of people fellow that the race starts when the gun goes off, but the race actually doesn't start when the gun goes off. The race starts actually roughly 200 meters in, right. When it begins to get uncomfortable, right? That's when you start to get that first feeling, okay, am I breathing right? My legs are getting a little bit heavy. And then you start to see that separation start. The first part is just coasting. And I would say that what really helped most people win, especially in that 400, was the end that last hundred meters. Now, have you ever seen a 400 meter race, those last 100 meters where you see those individuals or somebody surging ahead, it's not because they're being faster. It's actually because they're dying the least. Right? So the people that are surging ahead are the ones that are dying the least. And how I use this today in life is oftentimes we feel like to be successful, it's about being the fastest to start. No, no, no. It's really about, are you going to be able to maintain form Even when wind's in your face, People are right next to you to surge ahead. When most people are like, I'm too tired. I've already gone 300 meters. Like, the race is the last hundred. It's not the beginning.

I love that.

Have you discovered your why yet? You can join us for that essential first step in a live virtual event with myself and the other leaders from the Y Institute. Head over to yinstitute.com and register for the Y discovery live webinar. Now let's get back into it.

As you're walking to the starting line, do you look at your opponents? Do they look at you? Is there a mind game going on? Is there a I wonder if I can beat him. What's going on in your mind as you're walking to that starting line? I know it's, I'm gonna go show them.

But see, because there's human nature in that, the race, people think that a race. And I do a lot of speaking and I'm lucky to do that. And a lot of people feel like speaking. It starts when you get on stage. But I actually believe that it starts the moment that you've accepted that particular gig. Right? So for me, by the time I get up in that warmup area or by the time I even I'm walking across, when I get into the stadium or even the night before, like, I know who those people are in my race, and I Can see them? Am I seeing them joke around? Am I seeing this like goofing around? But that all starts at that point, the warm up period. Right. We're looking at each other, we know their times, we know who our competitors are. And so it's this ongoing mind game. And the whole thing is like, how do you control your mind in the positive way and are you going to be the one that lets some small thing or maybe you had to rush or something happens that's going to affect how you perform when that gun goes off? Everything that happens before is a mind game that you're playing with yourself and others. You might be nervous, but are you going to show it?

Mm.

You're gonna be stoic to letting that people know. Or you might just be too goofy. So he's not being serious, but in your mind, you know, oh, I'm ready. I'm ready.

So how much of winning happens before the gun sounds?

I would say. I would say 50% of it. Yeah, I would say 50% because you'll see. So if you have a mindset beforehand that says you're not ready or you don't feel a certain way, any type of discomfort is only going to confirm the limiting beliefs you already had. Everybody's going to get tired. But when you start to feel like, oh, I'm tired here, you start to overanalyze. And I've always realized that the more you think here, especially in athletic competitions, the less it's going to get you out of the zone. Right. So when you're doing a race and you're like, oh, I don't even remember that. Those are the individuals that are ones like, oh, wow, you succeeded because you weren't in your head. It was just automatic. And you just cross that finish like, oh, wow, because you were in the zone. But if you're here in the head, nine times out of 10, you can't be in the zone when you're being over analytical during the race. You cannot be the coach and the runner at the same time.

And I can imagine this is translated well to other areas of your life and other areas of the. The people that you work with as well.

Right. I do a lot of work. I do executive coach and I do a lot of coaching. But a lot of the work that I do is mindset. Yeah. And the reason why mindset is so important and mindset is everything. The way you think, the way you believe, because your thoughts also create your behaviors and your actions.

So if I am thinking, and I would say I'll use a perfect example for. When I was training in sports at University of Oregon, we had a solid group of six guys on our team in our sprint group, and we had another part of our team as well. And we had this vision on our six guys that we wanted to be the best in the world, while everybody else said, you know, we just want to win a conference championship. Now, what happened when we were thinking we wanted to be the best in the world, our mindset and our way in which we train, the way that we lived outside of the track, also affected what we did on the track, affected how we ate, affected how we slept. Right. It affected the times that we needed to hit in practice. And by having those big goals, yes, we're still going to get city championships, we're still going to get conference championships, but if you're thinking you only want to get a smaller level in terms of, you know, a city or conference title, your actions are also going to be the same. So when I asked individuals in companies or teams or entrepreneurs, I asked them the question of, so what I want you to do first, I want you to remove any type of expectations. I want you to almost feel as though that anything in the world is possible. You're not putting the limits and there's no judgment. Right. And I want you to put a list together of what is that you want, things that you love, that things that you'd want to achieve. Right. There's no judgment. If you said, you know, I want to be the next drug king, that's fine. I'm not judging you. You need to be able to have this free mindset to get out of your own head. And then when you start to realize that, you also see that their physiological state rises. Right. Because as they're writing that down, they start to believe it. So with companies, as we talk about, let's talk about the perfect vision and then work backwards, what decisions do we need to make to be able to hit those targets?

I love that.

The other thing.

So you're talking, you know, really talking about the power of a big vision, right? I mean, of course, yeah. But I love when you said, you've got to maintain your form. Who's going to maintain their form when the pressure is on?

Exactly.

Right. It's easy to just go crazy, you know, have a lot of passion and energy. But if it's not put into a. Into a package or a form that's useful, what's it going to do for you?

Exactly. 100%.

Yeah. I love that. And.

You know, you Also said, I'm gonna show them. I'm gonna show them. I'm gonna show them what I got.

That is also, to me. See, I competed in. I was a world champion in racquetball. So I know what it's like to compete at a pretty high level, and I know what it's like to be ready. And I know that I would win most of my matches before I ever walked in the court, in the way that I walked and talked. Even the way you pick up your bag. Right, Right. There's certain things that you learn that put doubt in the mind of your opponent.

Exactly.

And that's the key, is giving them doubt. How have you replaced competition? Because, see, that works so well on the track, but when I'm out with my buddies doing something, I don't want to use that kind of, you know, psychological warfare there.

Yeah. Which.

Cause that's kind of what it was. Right. Don't you think it was psychological warfare?

Well, it's psychological warfare, but I would also say similar to the example of the caveman. Right. It is. We live in a world where oftentimes the hardest person to be is ourselves, because everybody's telling us who and what to be. Right. So when I believe some people, there's this quote by Mia Hewitt, and she talks about. It's not about doing more, it's about being more. Meaning, if I truly believe within myself all the things that are capable. Right. Is it me being arrogant or me just being true to myself? And that's how I really look at it. So when I'm going out there, like, I can do this, because most of the time I'm doing, when I'm out there with my friends is like, the world is telling you're not good enough. Right. And we can pretend that it doesn't affect us, but it does. So we're always comparing. So my goal always is like, how do I get out of my own head to have a sense of clarity and a sense of just peace and centering within myself? So I don't feel like it's too much. I just feel like it's. Overall, you are the birds of the feather flock together. You want to create a circle around you of people of a similar mindset. And I think that has been the biggest challenge since I've been out playing sports. It's because, you know, in terms of sports, training partners, yes, we're competitive, but we also want to see the success of our training group. In the business world is people might have those particular beliefs, but there's also a lot more competition. People may want you to fail. Right. So I just miss having a group of individuals where we all wanted to be the best in the world, but we didn't have the opportunity. But I didn't have. But that's something I'm missing right now. But I wish I had much, much more. That group of high level thinking.

Yeah, I ran into that same thing. So you have to find something to replace that competitiveness in you and something. What have you used and found to replace the thrill and the, you know, the training for something and having to show up and waiting for that gun to go off, you know, don't you miss that? And what have you replaced with that?

Oh, I replaced that with one.

Public speaking. Yeah, Speaking is one of those. Because every single time I get on the stage, I get those feelings. Especially because the way in which I speak, I don't memorize. It's mostly a lot of that is in the moment, a lot of interaction and dialogue. Two, I do some improv. Getting out of your own head. I do a lot of sports like rock climbing and those things. So I do. Oh, even actually another one. Sky zone. Right? Sky zone. I know it sounds weird, but the ability to do these flips on a trampoline, most of the time I'm jumping, I'm jumping and I overthink it. But to actually be able to do it is actually to like. No, no, no. It's just any other day, right? So it's all of these mind games. Because I do believe it actually translates into all activities in your life.

Love it. So I agree with you on speaking. That's it. That's. It's definitely the same sort of thing. The gun goes off when they introduce you and you gotta, you gotta be on, man. You can't just, you cannot fake it. And if you're having a bad day, you gotta go. The show must go on. Right.

And you gotta be good because there's their only chance to meet you and only chance to see you. So you don't want to let them down.

Well, I would say another one in terms of public speaking was I got into stand up comedy. And stand up, I would say in terms of the public speaking realm is a trip because I would say that's the closest thing to sports in some ways. Because when they introduce you, everybody's expecting you to do something, but the feedback is immediate. Meaning you might have a joke, but if nobody laughs, you're going to walk upstage or you're going to. Nope, I'm going to step up for it. I'm going to keep on going. Right. But it's also good is because you can have a really good set in one place, but go to the next set and it may not work. So what are you going to do? You got to switch it up in real time because you still have the end goal of saying, I need to make sure that everybody in this audience has an amazing time.

Yeah. So sports has set you up well for these types of performances.

Exactly.

Yeah. Let's go back to your story because you were what happened that got you out of track and field? What was your last race like? And then where did you go?

Yeah. So I don't remember messages at my last. My last race. But after I finished with the track and field, I was living in Long Beach, California. I just got married and I was looking to coach. I wanted to coach in college, except when I was looking out at coaching, all the opportunities were already filled. And so somebody said, well, how about you consider maybe coaching at a boarding school? And so I went on Google and I typed in top boarding schools in the country and a school called Phillips Exeter Academy. And this and Phillips Andover Academy came up. Now this is where like Mark Zuckerbergs and all these type of individuals go to. And it was crazy about how all of these the worlds kind of connect. It happened to be that the head coach of the track and field team went to Penn State. So my ex wife, she was an Olympian hurdler that went to Penn State. And the head coach at Phillips Andover, the partner school, went to the University of Oregon.

The next thing that happens, we're being flown over and actually start working in the educational realm. And the reason why that experience was good was because similar to the caveman example, being in that environment also caused me to think differently. You literally had kids from all around the world. This is what I first learned about investing. This is what I learned about so many different aspects. And it's also when I started speaking, I had to give these announcements. And it's funny because I remember literally sitting there and typing my speeches for these announcements, word for word. And I would even add in the ums and the ahs to make it feel like I was speaking naturally. And I remember I had this speaking engagement where I would do this announcement. No. So I had to do the speaking engagement where I had to talk about fear. And I said, I'm going to talk about fear. I'm going to show you instead in real time. So this is my first time doing a speech without writing anything fully off the cuff for 40 minutes. And it was my best speech to date. So this is what got me first started in really public speaking. While I was working in the boarding schools, I was also started an NGO called Empower to Play where we did sports diplomacy and youth development with the US government. And that just happened randomly because of a ticket similar to like the Olympics with Pete. Someone said, how about you go over to Philippines and do a, do something fun? And I did a sports camp. And that led into, you know, during work with over, you know, 1200 students, helping them have a better future doing VR technology and also helping bring, helping bridge relationships between the United States and Haiti.

Wow. So that's taken you on quite a journey.

Exactly. It's taken on quite a journey. And it started to me with that first decision when I decided to have that conversation with Pete because none of that would have happened if I never said yes.

Yeah, I see a new speech for you.

Be Pete or something.

Oh yeah, yeah. I mean you don't realize. And he probably. The funny thing is I saw Pete exactly 10 years after the fact in 2018 and I let him know that you don't realize that you changed my life. He said, what are you talking about? And we had that conversation of how my life was changed because of that one conversation. He's just said something walked away and he didn't realize because that one conversation, the steps and how my life changed after that moment.

Wow. What did he say?

He was like, he was surprised. He was like, he just thought he was just having a regular conversation, but he didn't realize really the impact.

Yeah. That's awesome. So now what are you doing tell. So people are listening and they're saying, man, I really love what AK is all about. What, what is it that you're doing right now?

Yeah, so a lot of the work that I do is I do strategy consulting, I do speak public speaking training. And so companies will bring me in. I've done work with like Google with all these different, you know, companies as well. And I really work on, on strategy as they have these problems or these solutions. Some of them might be on team development, some might be on like what kind of strategy should I take. I work with early stage entrepreneurs to get from idea into actual vision until something actually being to being built out even on the implementation side of things. And some people ask, well, what do you mean by strategy? Right. And how do you pitch that? Well, imagine you're having a conversation with somebody and they have their whole entire team and they're having this problem that they have not been able to solve. That means they're wasting time, they're wasting money. And every single day they're not able to solve that particular problem, they are going one in the opposite direction and wasting time. So my goal, especially because of my work in sports and nonprofit and for profit and E commerce and speaking all around the world from multiple different sectors, I'm able to to bring in solutions from my experiences in one area and apply it to another situation to have them think differently. So oftentimes I do not bring the problem to them in their industry. I have to make them think outside of it to then better understand because I've already probably thought about it. So that's really what I do in terms of helping the strategy. Because once they're able to figure out that problem, they're not able to get to the goal that they're trying to get to. And then obviously just the speaking, training.

And coaching, what you just said right there was I people that have challenges, I help them find a better way by getting them to think differently and come up with something simple that they can actually do.

Exactly.

And how.

What exactly and what I'll do, those also help them in terms of implementation, right? So I call myself a strategy and implementation consultant because I help with the strategy, but I can also help with them implementing it. Right. Because everybody wants something tangible, right? Feeling good is good. But they want to make sure by the end of that, to make it really clear, this is what you're going to have by the end of us working together.

So give me an example of that. How do you help them implement it? So now they've got this problem, they bring you in, you're like, okay, let's find a better way. I can associate that to this problem I saw. Now let's think outside the box. Let's create something that makes sense, something that's simple to do, something that is possible for you to do. Now how do you help them implement it? What do you do?

Right. So the first one would be, let's perfect example. I had this female, she was looking to actually she had this health food company for.

Five years and it was never really getting any traction, right. And immediately when I first saw her materials, I realized, oh yeah, this is why she's communicating her message to herself and not thinking about the client in mind. A lot of features, but not a lot of benefits. Like how do they actually benefit, Right? So what I'll actually do is I helped her not only build out the website, but also create the marketing channels, also the partnerships, because what she was really lacking was certain customers. So I actually walked her through the process, help her implement it. And so by the end, I say, this is what you're going to have by the end of us working together, that is tangible. Meaning, just like coaching. We know that Wisconsin coaching is similar to, like the stock market, right? You see that you're getting better, but you have tough days. It's this wavy type motion. Now when you have somebody on the outside that's able to help them through this process, if they have a bad day, you're like, no, no. This is still part of the process. Right. Understand. And if you have a really high day, cool. You don't get too excited. But because how do I keep that, that level equal? Because I've been there before. So I not only help on the mindset and the emotional ups and downs, but I also have to think to get here, we got to remove all those distractions because they're going to come let that not affect us from getting to that end. Goal, desired result.

So my goal is implementation, is you have to have some tangible result that you can grab onto because that is your guiding star.

Got it. I love that. I can imagine you had some pretty significant coaches yourself along the way.

100%.

You know, like I said, I was picked on a lot growing up. A lot, a lot. You know, teachers told me that I was going to be successful.

And it was my. I didn't say this part, but I was a follower growing up. And, you know, my two best friends growing up, three of them, one of them is dead and two of them are in prison. Right. So I knew the path that I was going on. And it was actually the coaches, the track coaches that believed in me. And they didn't, you know, make it easy on me. What they did is they held me accountable to what I needed to be. They believed in more and they held me accountable. I said I was going to show up at a certain time. I showed up. Right? And they believed in me through the whole entire way. So I would say a lot of the stuff that I'm doing now is mentoring, supporting, coaching, teaching. Those words sound different, but they're really all the same. How do we educate people? How do we get them out of their head? How do we get them to think differently, to produce better results?

I love it. So if I'm listening to this and I want to connect with you, AKA what's the best way to connect with you, I want you to come speak at my event or I want you to come work with me or my organization. How should people get a hold of you?

Well, I'd say they can go to my website@just akwaquar.com or AK Unbranded or they can just connect with me on LinkedIn. Just with coach Akwakor, I do believe. I'm pretty sure I'm the only Akwakur in the world. So that's a lucky one for SEO.

So spell it. You better spell your name because I don't think I would have got that.

Okay, so it's a K. Last name is I K W U a K. Or even if you sometimes type in Coach ak, I'll come up.

Awesome. Ak man, I appreciate you taking the time to be here. It's been great speaking with you. I love the journey that you've been on and I love the journey that you're going. I can see it, man. I think the same way. So it's fun to talk to another better way person because you are speaking.

My language.

Sports, better way, all that kind of stuff. So in Colorado. So there's a lot of synergy. So super excited that to have this conversation because I think a lot of people need it.

Yes. So I look forward to staying in touch as we keep going on our journeys. And thanks for being here and enjoy the rest of your week, man. I appreciate it.

Appreciate it. Take care.

You too.

All right.

Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode. Every listen, share and review helps others learn about their their why, how and what. Together, you and I can help 1 billion people find their why. If you haven't discovered your why yet, head over to yinstitute.com and discover yours today. See you there, my friend.