When You Focus On Your Purpose, Amazing Things Happen With Paul Epstein

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. 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 their why has played out in their life. And so this week we're going to be talking about the why of contribute. So if this is your why, then you want to be part of a greater cause, something that is bigger than yourself. You don't necessarily want to be the face of the cause, but you love to contribute in a meaningful way. You love to support others and you relish the success that contributes to the greater good of the team. You see group victories as personal victories. You are often behind the scenes looking for ways to make the world better. You make a reliable and committed teammate and you often act as the glue that holds everyone else together. You use your time, money, energy, resources and connections to add value to other people and organizations. And so today I have got a great guest for you. His name is Paul Epstein. Now, Paul believes there are two types of people in this world. Those who play defense and those who play offense. These insights around purpose, performance and impact were gathered over a 15 year run as a professional sports executive where Paul successfully steered business teams that executed billion dollar NFL campaigns, broke super bowl revenue records and generated league leading sales results for seller dweller NBA clubs. Paul's proudest moment was when he was internally known as the why coach at the San Francisco 49ers, coaching others to find their why and act on it. Paul has now curated the most actionable ways into leaders playbooks of how he and his team produce this impact in these hyper competitive environments. He calls it playing offense. He is now the chief impact officer for Purpose Point and the chief purpose advisor for the Y Institute. Paul is a proud father of pj, married his best friend on the field of Levi's Stadium and has a slight obsession with bacon. Just don't make it too crispy. Ladies and gentlemen, Paul Epstein. Paul, thanks for being here.

Oh, fired up to be here, my friend. And if you have any bacon, it's going to be an even better conversation.

Yeah, tell me about that real quick. I mean, I can't, I can't bypass that one. What's the story with the bacon?

You know, So I had some early childhood holidays down in Mexico. My mom's of proud Mexican descent, so we would normally cruise down there, spend some time with the grand folks. And so for my fourth Christmas, I got a box that when they handed it to me, was shaking and I see a little black wet nose coming out of it and in there are two puppies. And so as a youngster you think, well, this is a normal Christmas. You get animals, you get pets, Come on. So when time came around before my fifth Christmas, they said, what do you want? And I said, a pig. And of course, I never got the pig. They looked at me like I was crazy. And that's only half true. But needless to say, I have been a massive fan. As much as I'm a 49ers fan, I'm a Bacon fan. And those two things have stood tried and true.

That's awesome. All right, well, Paul, tell everybody where you are from, where you grew up. Kind of take us through your journey because you have done some amazing things and at a very young age. And so take us back to, you know, where did you grow up? What were you like in high school? Take us. Let's start back there for sure.

So I mentioned the roots in Mexico. That was very easy to take a four hour drive because I'm from Los Angeles. So born and raised. My sports career, which we'll get into, had me visit a ton of different markets and spend years of my life outside of SoCal. And I'll tell you, humidity and the cold and something called the polar vortex. Go west, young man. So we're going to come back to that because I have some fun stories about being an Angeleno in cold weather. And let's just. I'll call myself a little softy there, but born and raised in LA and just two amazing parents. I was an only Child. And my dad was an educator. My mom stayed at home to, I always say, watch me like a hawk. She was one of those parents that was like the president of the pta, the Parent Teacher Association. So her way of making sure that I was doing the right thing and getting good grades and thank goodness, because A, having a dad that's an educator. B, having a mom that while I may not have liked it in the moment, I now, as a proud parent of a one year old. So we're very new in the journey. But now I get it, I see it, I feel it, I understand it. It just took me three decades to get here.

But look, I kept my head on straight. I was an athlete throughout. So football, basketball, baseball, had my stints. And I've just always loved sports. And I'm one of those classic go to the backyard, throw the ball with your pops kind of a guy. But the thing is, and you want to talk about childhood, childhood was amazing. Teenagers were amazing. But then something very tragic happened. And this is very important in my story because it all connects to why I do what I do and who I am, even today. So I go to usc. I wasn't ready to fly too far away from the nest. I got into some amazing schools again, the parents that I had, I had to apply to 15 schools. So imagine how many essays that is. I think it was Northwestern that I had to write for four. Okay, so let's say an average of two. So 30 essays later, gosh, I'm still traumatized, but that was the process that I went through. So I'm at USC. It was finals of my freshman year, I'm 19 years old, and I get a call that changed my life forever. It was a call that, well, after decades of my dad struggling through diabetes, he finally had his final day. And I kid you not, Gary, it was a moment where instantly you just feel like you went from a boy to a man. You as an only child, look at now, you're one standing parent being my mom. And she goes from a parent to a partner. So I Drive home, 10, 15 minute drive. And I, in some ways still remember, like it was yesterday seeing my mom. And, you know, we'll get to my purpose and my why and my values and how they've changed my life throughout this conversation. But one of the ways that I've been able to pull a lot of those things and reflect on those things and apply those things in my life today is because it all has an origin story. And for me, one of my core values is Courage. And that value of courage I got because of how I saw my mom that day and the next and the next and the next. And she breathed courage into me. The Latin definition of inspire is to breathe life into. So she breathed. She inspired courage. She breathed it into me, and it's never left. And it's because of that tragedy. And I'll share a story, if you'd like, at a later point in the convo about my dad and just the way that he's been able to impact my life even more after the day he passed than when he was alive. But that's kind of the early years, through the college years, and, you know, a couple of years later is when I broke into sports. Happy to go there if you'd like, but I'll kick it back to you.

Yeah. So tell you. So she breathed it into you. What do you mean by that? So. Because there's going to be people listening to this that are having their own trauma and stuff going on right now. So what was that like? What do you mean by that?

Well, what I mean by that is oftentimes when fear or risk are highest. So you could think of, in a small level, it's a setback, it's a hurdle, it's an obstacle. Then there's another level, like, oh, I don't know, a global pandemic. And maybe a loss that happened, whether a person or a place or a job or an industry, a lot of loss has happened. The loss of being able to build a community and hang out with the people you want to hang out with, whenever the heck you want, those types of things. And then at the highest level, maybe there's something that is terminal on a medical front, maybe there's something like what I experienced, where you literally lose one of the two most important people in your life at an age that you're not ready to lose them. You're never ready to lose them. But I was 19, and so I kind of had this thought in my head that this is supposed to be the end of the world. My dad just died. I'm not even 20 years old. And I not only saw her strength, more importantly, I felt her strength. And when I just wanted to crumble and she didn't let me, and she's just the rock star in my life, the rock in my life, if you will. And so when you ask the question of how did she breathe life into me, the same way that I measure people today, action. She could have told me, stay strong, be strong. But if I saw weakness, if she did not show up strong. If she just said the right things but didn't do the right things, I don't know how I would have processed that experience. And so that's what I mean. To me, life is about how you show up. If it's not in action, it doesn't count.

I love that.

Love that.

And so you're at USC and you know, I went to.

So we're fellow tied on. Yeah.

And. And so what, what did you major in? And then how did you get into the whole sports world?

Yeah, so I was a business guy. And you know, interestingly, when some of our other conversations, Gary, that we've had, you always talk about, you know, the way you were raised. And again, it's not even about criticizing anything but like, oh, the whole, you know, kind of Hallmark card advice that sometimes we get, whether it's to build it and they will come or you can do it or whatever it is. Anyways, my family always told me growing up, whether it was down in Mexico, my Southern California, my LA family, they said, boy, this kid can talk. I would not shut up. So they told me, gary, they said, you're going to be a lawyer or you're going to be in sales. There's only two options. And so that's not exactly why I got into business school, but I knew that I had a passion for not only speaking, but more importantly, connecting with people. So I am not the cubicle guy. I am the guy that needs to feel like there is a partnership. Now, in my playing offense terminology, I say, meet me at the 50. And what that is, that is when two people literally have the same amount of energy, the same level of resources that they're bringing to the table, like literally you are meeting at the 50 at AS partners. The way I like to think about it is I'm not just going to run through the wall for you. I don't want you to run through the wall for me. Let's lock arms and let's run through the wall together. That is my philosophy on life, on business, on partnership. And that's why I got into sales, because I saw an opportunity to do that. And so I go to school. Business, sales and marketing was the background. And I didn't get into sports until a year after. But I'll tell you where I worked before. And I rarely share this, not because I. I'm in denial of it, but it's not the most positive story, but I feel like we can go there. So I worked for Philip Morris, now they're called Altria. So that, for those that don't know, that is the parent company of Marlboro Cigarettes, amongst other brands. And the way I thought about it, because I had friends that worked at the company and they just recruited me in, I was like, well, this is pretty badass. I'm 19, 20 years old, working for a Fortune 10 company. I don't even care what the product or service is. Do you know how amazing that is on a resume? Again, that's how we think at a certain point. So I'm a summer sales intern. I end up being a recruiting ambassador, meeting those tents in the middle of campus at a career fair. I'm the guy representing Philip Morris under one of those tents, and I'm trying to tell people to join me in this army of Philip Morris folks. And it went fine at usc. It was very pleasant in la. Then they send me to the Bay Area at a school called Berkeley. And for those that know the brand of Berkeley, you know, there's some different cats up there. And by the way, my. My wife went there as an undergrad, so I gotta say, go Bears. Just to stay married. So let me just put that out there, okay? But I'm at a Berkeley career fair, and I kid you not, Gary, as I'm approaching with all of my materials, I see a flock of people that's a couple hundred feet in front of me. And I'm thinking, oh, what's going on? Like a protest? Or what is this? And I creep up, and they are right in front of the Philip Morris booth. And so within five minutes of the start of the career fair, I was pretty much. I had security on both sides of me. People are holding up signs in front of me. And I'll just say this, and this is in my book, so I'm not afraid to put it out there. Even though this really had an impact on me. The two signs that I will never forget. One said, you work for the devil. Another one said, you sell cancer and you want to talk about putting things in perspective. All of a sudden, that Fortune 10 thing didn't matter. All of a sudden, the brand and the resume, like, you got to think about tribes, that you stand for, values that you stand for, that you're attracted to. And on the flip side, what repels you? And that moment taught me that there's many superficial reasons to do things in life. Work for the big brand or go for the supermodel, but you can't even have a conversation with them. Like, there's all these things or places that we engage with for reflecting back the wrong reasons. But you got to go through some life experience for it. And so, you know, needless to say, that was my Berkeley experience. And a few months later, a few months later, this is the break into sports and then I'll kick it back to you. So for those sports fans, there's a guy named Mel Kuiper. He is a college draft or a college football draft guru and he's a high energy guy, like the fire, the burn, the energy, all that good stuff. So I'm driving in my Philip Morris van and now I'm graduated. It's not too far from that Berkeley career fair. And I'm on ESPN radio and all of a sudden Mel comes on. Have you ever wanted to work in sports? Have you ever dreamt of working for your favorite mlb, NBA, MLB team? And. And I'm speeding down the road like, yes, yes, yes. And then his call to action was call 1-8-7, 7, SMWW now SMWW stands for Sports Management Worldwide. Eight weeks later, I graduated from an online program. And the deal was if you are a good student and you can turn some heads with the professors, they will plug you into their network. And that was my break in. They said, where do you want to be? I said, la. They said, great, we have an opportunity at the Clippers. And this was at a time. And then again, I'll kick it back to you. The Clippers, at the time this was Lakers with Kobe and Shaq. Clippers were the redheaded stepchild here. From a brand perspective. And just so you don't take my word for it, when I first started with them, ESPN called us the worst brand in sports. And then Sports Illustrated doubled down a year later and said, you're the worst franchise in sports history. And I had to sell that. So that is my break into sports.

So what was it like working for the Clippers in those days? Because I remember living out in la, you know, it'd be hard to get anybody to go to a clipper game. It's almost embarrassing to show up at a clipper game. You know, you don't want to go to that.

No. Imagine you're entertaining clients. You're trying to paint this facade that it's a sold out arena and you're trying to push urgency, that they're the last seats in the house and there's 10,000 open seats around them and you just say, oh, maybe they're a little late to the game. That's what it was like. But look, here's the Reality. And this is just good advice for life and something that I learned at a very young career stage. You got to control the controllables. I know it sounds like a cliche, we've all heard it, but do you actually do that when you think about what do you control? By the way, folks, it's a very short list of things that both you either fully control or, or fully don't control. The majority of things kind of fall in the middle. I call it the land of influence. Most things in life are gray. You influence them. The things you don't control are things like the weather, the economy. If adversity enters your life, like I already shared a few of my stories and now flip the script. What do you control? It all is within you. It's things like your mindset, things like your actions, things like your attitude, things like your energy level. So my actions, my attitudes, my reactions, my energy level, My, my, my, my, my. And not the selfish my, but the self awareness my, the perspective my. And working at the Clippers, if you listen to all of the outside noise that is so uncontrollable, whether the media or, or a pissed off fan or whatever it is, you're going to lose. And I'll tell you a fact. I was in a 12 person recruiting class. I was the only person to make it to the second month on the job. Why? Because they just wanted the glitz and glamour of getting into sports. I was doing it because I was on a mission. I was on a mission to sell as much of the unsellable as possible. And I would argue that early in your career, I don't want to work for the market leader. I want to work for the underdog.

Now what was that like trying to sell the Clippers? And how did you eventually sell the Clippers?

Yeah, so you got a. It's interesting. It's actually, I know we'll get to the why process in a bit, but it's not too different. Where I think there's a why and sometimes there's a why under the why. And so what we would do, we would always call what we call single game buyers. And so what I would do, I would call folks that came to a Clipper vs Lakers game because they're local, that you remove a lot of the barriers. A lot of the objections are out. Plus Lakers seats are so tough to get and they're so expensive. So already that's. Already I'm winning some of those battles before I even pick up the phone. And then I really just start to Understand why they come to games. I know they're Laker games, but why? And who do you come with? And what's that memory, that event that you're never going to forget? And how have sports been a part of your life? Oh, so you like coming with your son or your daughter or your better half and like, what's the coolest event that you've ever been to and what transpired because of that moment? Oh, because of that. It forged a greater relationship. And so I get very deep under the surface and then I get into why they love the game itself and who their favorite players are and all of these different logistics and details. And then I say, what if? What if you could be a handful of rows off the court, which doesn't exist with the Lakers, and I keep on peeling the onion back. You could have these amazing experiences with your family and you could this and that and that. And you just hear them incremental. Yes and yes and yes. Great. So let's get this done. And it's almost like they said yes to so many things that were important to them, they forgot that it was Clippers. I sold the NBA. I sold family. I sold what I could control because I can't control if the Clippers win games or not.

How did you learn to do that?

Gosh, that's a great question, because that's not. And I'll be humble. I'll be humble when I say this. I know some of this is a gift. Okay, I do know that. But that's not all it is. I refuse to answer in a way that, hey, man, some of us are just gifted at whatever. Like I. Look, I know, I'm humbled to say I know a lot of great performers, whether professional athletes or folks that are in the entertainment world or whatever, they didn't get there A, overnight and B, just because of their gifts. I know for a fact off spending 15 years in sports, countless people have gifts. Very few apply them. And that is my fundamental belief. Because I was not the most talented. I believe I was talented. I'm too humble to ever say I was the most talented. But you know what I had? I had this kind of hard hat mentality of really, when I say control the controllables. And even when I became the sales manager a few years later. So I managed the room that I once started in as an entry level sales guy. And I always told folks when I was recruiting, my job as a hiring manager is to hire the best talent. So don't worry about whether you think you're amazing at sales. That's my judgment to make in this interview process what I need you to do. Our contract is I need three things. I need your work ethic, your positivity and your coachability. That's it. That's the lunch pail. Those are the non negotiables. You give me those three things, I'll take care of you for the rest of your career. And that's how I inspired and motivated teams to forget about the noise and the negativity of the market and to start focusing on what they they truly wanted and that deeper burn, that igniting of passion. And I found that when you can understand what's important to other people, it's kind of that Zig Ziglar thing, right? You help enough people get what they want and life tends to reward you too. And I don't do that strategically. I don't take score. I don't give with the expectation of getting. I just give. As you know, I'm a contributor. I always have been. I didn't always know that cause I didn't take this wonderful assessment until recently. But you know, reflecting back, that's how I inspired others. And that's the same pep talk that I had to have with myself when I was on the front lines in a producing role.

Okay, so you were at the Clippers for how long and then what was the next step?

Yeah, so selling for about a year and change and then I ended up managing the team. Like I said, that was about a two year run. And I'll tell you, two years as a manager. First year we finished 28th in revenue. The second year, second in revenue. So how did we do that? Hint, hint, the Clippers won no more games in that second year than the first. How do you go when you said seller dwelling NBA clubs when you were introducing me? This is what we're referring to. How do you take bottom in league revenue to second next to the top? And it was a partnership agreement that I figured out for one. Let me back up. I'm going to give tremendous credit to one of my guys. His name is Eddie. Eddie was the only person in the room that by age was older than me. Yes, technically he reported to me, but I never viewed it that way. I actually believe that I learned more from Eddie than he could have ever learned from me. He had already run his own real estate businesses and this was kind of, you know, his family giving him the blessing to come in at A$7 an hour entry level job with no benefits and no bonus potential. And all this stuff. But he got that blessing and he ended up being one of the biggest blessings in my life. And so Eddie and I, six months into that two year run at the Clippers, we go out for a bite and I say, eddie, I look around the room and I feel like we've got this amazing locker room. There's such good talent. I'm so fired up. But the scoreboard doesn't reflect that. Our sales revenue kind of sucks. What's going on? And he said, well, Paul, what are we doing right now? So I don't know. I mean, we're hanging out, we're having lunch. He goes, yeah, Is it fair to say we're breaking bread? I said, sure. And then he hit me. He said, when's the last time you did this with anybody else on the team? And it was a very simple yet profound message that I needed to hear because I, I basically was managing, not leading. There's a difference managing people. The way I was managed. I'm not going to claim that early in my sales career I had amazing coaching or mentorship and I'm not knocking the guys. It's just, you know, in the sports industry, it was a little bit of a transactional feel inside the front office. It's just that's unfortunately how it was. I'm not going to BS about it. So you asked how I became, how I became a lot of it. I could probably owe to people like my parents and to others that sometimes you need to extract life lessons and apply it to your business. If you don't have all the right resources in your business roof. And that's just a reality of life. So Eddie woke me up and when I realized that relationships are the secret sauce of life, relationships are the currency of business. Trust is one of those things that you need to form within a team. Those sound so simple and so fundamental. But I was blind. I was blind as an entry level manager. And thanks to Eddie, I woke up. And that's how you go from 28 to number two in revenue. Because I know the people game, I know the culture game, I know the leadership game. And when I started to realize that that should be put ahead of goals and metrics and key performance indicators and all this quantitative stuff, that's when the.

Game changed, when you created a team, or was it about the team or the culture or. What was the biggest thing that, what was the. What made the biggest difference to take you from 28th to second?

Yeah, so we had something called the constitution. What it was, was a whiteboard. In the room. And this program of sales, it's called inside Sales, it was designed to be six to nine months. So let's say for everyone listening, and let's say you were hired on January 1st, that means that between, let's call it July 1st and September, October, whenever nine months is, that's your window of getting promoted if you're a top producer. So that's the environment. Now what I told folks, remember those three non negotiables, work ethic, positivity, coachability. So I connected with everybody and I said, you give me those three things, I don't care how poor your sales performance is, because that's on me. That means I did not see a lack of a gift or talent or skill or ability in the recruiting process. I will own that you will not be fired for lack of revenue, but you will lose your seat if you don't have work ethic positivity and coachability. And not most of the time, all of the time. This is not a 90% rule, it's a 100% rule. And so when I basically created a constitution that and I made it sound very formal and I said, I will hereby and I put the three elements of the constitution, work ethic, positivity, coachability, and I would write the dates of their six to nine month window next to their name and I would sign it, I would have them sign it and then I would say, let's say Susie, Susie, you do these three things and in this three month window, I will not only take care of you, then I will take care of you for the rest of your life. And that is what got people. I treated them not as an employee, not even as a team member, I treated them as a family member. And that family word gets thrown around in business way too much. And 90% of the time you do coaching and consulting, Gary, like I do, you go in and you're like, this doesn't feel like a family. But y' all say you're a family. It's situations like that where I started to. Some would say, Paul, you're over committing yourself. You know, why would you ever put yourself on the line? I'm like, how could I not? Because I essentially had to become the leader that I never had.

I love that. And it's amazing that you were able to do that at such a young age. Cause at that age, I mean you were in your early twenties, right?

Yeah, probably at that time, mid ish twenties. Yeah.

So then, okay, you were there and then where did you go next? Keep us going on the journey.

Yeah. So then. Then I had to fly away from the nest because the way it works in sports is you either wait for your boss to leave or you got to go external. Right? And for me, I was at this time, you're kind of feeling yourself because you're riding some mojo. You get second in league in the NBA. So I had a lot of opportunities, but the one that I ended up landing and that felt right was I went out to New Orleans. So from Hollywood Boulevard to Bourbon street, if you will. And that was crazy. Mardi Gras, a real thing. And what's even scarier is that it's almost 365. But look, it was a heck of a time. Here's what I learned in New Orleans. So remember, I'm not knocking the folks I was working with. I'm simply saying that a void in my life to that point was I was still kind of looking for that business leader that I would do anything for. I was still looking for the mentor that I would just dedicate my life to. Like, I wanted it, I wanted it, but I wasn't going to force it. And you can't force anybody's leadership style. So I go to New Orleans because I fell in love with my fellow leaders. When I look to my left and right, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is like thunder buddies for life. This is awesome. And what made it even more interesting was that eventually, and there's a little bit of sadness and tragedy in this story too, but it leads to purpose. So unfortunately, the owner of the Hornets, now they're called the Pelicans, the NBA team in New Orleans. But the Hornets, at the time their owner, Mr. Shin, became very ill, his cancer, and he had to give up operations of the team. So the then, now late commissioner of the NBA, David Cern, comes in and he has a group of people which still exist in the NBA. They're called Teembo, which is team marketing and business operations. So think of them as like the super women and supermen of the teams that get promoted to the league. And now they fly in with capes and they fix things. Whether it's your sales, whether it's your marketing, whether it's your game day operation, whatever game gaps you have, they accumulate best practices throughout the league and give you the playbook. And in a case like this, because they took stewardship of the franchise, it wasn't just giving us a playbook. They were locking arms and executing with us. So you want to talk about that void? I had of working for amazing people with amazing gifts and amazing talents. I stumbled into it just by being at New Orleans at the right place at the right time. But Commissioner Stern was a little bit of a bulldog, and so he studied the books of the franchise, and we were the worst. We were the least viable in economic terms. Franchise in the NBA on the books, there's no team that you would rather own less for finance reasons than the Hornets. And so he basically gave us an ultimatum. Sell 10,000 season tickets, which is kind of the gold standard in the NBA, or you're going to lose the franchise. So we had a buckle down. Thankfully, again, we had a lot of support, but it was a scary proposition because if I could just be real with you and everybody listening, the south is a football part of the country. Basketball was an afterthought. And so I can take at the Clippers, I love you. I hate you. I can have those conversations. What I can't do anything about is apathy. What do you do when somebody doesn't care? I can't make you care. And if you don't care about basketball, how do I inspire you to join this movement that's going to save the franchise? But what if you don't care about that franchise? So we went back to the drawing board, and what ended up coming from that, Gary, is that we said, well, if they don't care about basketball, what do they care about? And for those that are either in New Orleans, from New Orleans or have been in New Orleans, Nolan's, as they say, you know that people are passionate, they have pride, whether it is the jazz or the food or the drinks or the. Just the parades. They love themselves some knowledge. That's what they love. So there's a tremendous amount of identity. Whereas where I'm from la, not a lot of identity, a lot of transplants, kind of a melting pot, whatever, but not the best identity. Identity lives in New Orleans. And so we captured that magic and we said, hey, let's build a case around what it would mean if we lost the franchise and how it would be the scarlet letter on the identity of your city. So we start this campaign called I'm in. I'm in. I'm in. And we pulled in all these influencers from the world's top chefs and people, the politicians, people that call New Orleans home. And we said, host events in your home because that's authentic. That's authentic. Pull people into your living rooms, invite them in and rally them to be in. Because if they are in, here are the Benefits to the city that you care so much about. So we made it bigger than basketball. And that was my first lesson about organizational purpose. Even if you don't love the product or service, if you love the purpose. Purpose and why you do what you do and you feel like you're a part of something bigger than yourself, whether as an employee or as a customer, my goodness. The power of purpose is real. And thankfully, there's a happy ending to the story. We got to the number, and without purpose, I 100% know we don't even come close.

Wow, that is awesome. And so you were there for a couple of years.

A couple years, yeah. Off to the fourth, then Sacramento, then the Kings. And that was my quickest stop. That was a quick one year ish stop. And what happened was there was an NBA lockout, and I was in charge of company culture during an NBA lockout. I don't think anything in life is impossible, but that's pretty close to it because your livelihood is kind of taken away. And I can laugh about it now, but, you know, that was a tough chapter. And here's what I'll share is my next stop is New York, and we'll go there in a second. Remember that relationship lesson from Eddie? So in New Orleans, I befriended in a very human and authentic way. No, not because I wanted them to take care of me. I just fell in love with that MBA crew that I referenced earlier, and some lifelong friendships organically came out of it. And so how did I end up in Sacramento? Well, one of those MBA folks was helping the Kings and said, paul, can you come help? How did I end up in New York? The same guy said, hey, I'm now with an agency, Legends, owned by Yankees and Cowboys. We're based in New York. We got some clubs out here, a little soccer, a little football, a little baseball. We'd love to plug in. You want to join us? Absolutely, I do. I wasn't following the place. I was following the people, because I finally found my people. I found folks that I could align with on a deeper level, bigger than a career. I genuinely just felt like we synced. And so that's what led me to New York. It wasn't that I ran away from the Sacramento adversity. It was just, honestly, we were kind of throwing paper airplanes in an office, which for somebody that wants to contribute and make an impact, throwing paper airplanes, while it sounds fun, it gets old after about a day. And now you actually want to go back and make a difference in the world. And so that's what took me to New York and that's how I got into the sports consulting space. That's what leads me to the NFL League office where I ran a national sales campaign and we ended up breaking an all time revenue record for that game, which was just a tremendous accomplishment. But my heart was always in football and all these pit stops in the NBA. I loved them, but I always wished that I could get into that granddaddy of them all, the NFL. And so it is that my agency had some connects at the NFL league office. I got to have strategy sessions with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. Just a tremendous experience and one I wouldn't trade for the world.

Okay, so you went into the NFL League and then you did you and then you ended up with the 49ers.

Yeah. So what happens? Again, you'll notice a trend here and again I say this from a very humble place, but out of 15 years, okay, I'll give you two stats and they're, they're almost oxymorons of each other. So for anybody listening in, if you're a sports fan, let's say you root for fill in the blank team for 15 years. What are the odds that they're going to make the playoffs? You would say a third of the time, half of the time, two thirds of the time, you're not going to make it every year, but you're also, you're going to make it sometimes. Well, I worked 15 years in sports. The teams I worked for made it to the playoffs once. 1 out of 15 years. And now here's the second step out of the 15 years, we hit goal 14 out of 15 times. So when you have a scoreboard and this is not necessarily your job on the line, but more about this is how you get rewarded and recognized and how your career grows. Imagine you're consistently achieving success. And so we break a revenue record in the NFL. And that was the super bowl was a project. It was not a full time. It was full time in the moment, but it was a nine month sprint. My agency was brought in. I was the point guard. I was the leader of that national sales campaign. There were 50 people spread throughout the country, but I was the only person with booths on the ground in Headquarters. 345 Park Ave. Let's go. And we did the impossible and it turned a lot of heads. One of those heads was the then CEO, now president of the San Francisco 49ers, Al Guido, who's a dear friend and just an amazing, amazing leader. And so Al comes calling and says, hey, how would you like to come back to Cali and we're opening up Levi's Stadium? And essentially, they carved. They created a role for me. They were. They were doing well. They were on pace, but they just wanted to level it up. And I had some relationships in common with Al, so he just believed in me through the people that he referenced. And all of a sudden, I got out of the polar vortex world and I made it back to California.

Wow. And so what was your position with the 49ers and what was that like working for them?

Best job I've ever had, best place I've ever worked, best leaders I've ever worked with. And for. Had I not found my why, which we'll get to that, I would still. I would hope that I would still be at the Niners. Like, it was like a family to me. And now the magic question is, why the heck would you ever leave a place that you describe like that? But my role was head of sales and biz dev. So think of 70,000 people in a stadium. We are. The sales team is responsible to put the butts in the seats. Who calls Levi's. To eventually become Levi's Stadium? All those corporate sponsors, you need a sales team. Who sells all those luxury boxes and the premium hospitality, you need a sales team. So there's a lot of outbound effort that needs to happen in order to monetize what is this sport that. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of incoming interest as well, but to close the gap and fill the place or. And. Or to maximize revenue, that's where the sales team comes in. It's not because sports can't sell themselves, but if you price it aggressively, you're going to need some muscle for that. And so we were the muscle. And, you know, my. My role there was really to recreate what was an old revenue model of, well, you have 10 games and maybe we have some concerts and a soccer match here and there. So at a365, we light up the building 20 times, and the other 345 are dark, aka you don't make money. Versus, in this case, our president wanted. Our owner wanted to monetize it year round. So in order to do that, from things like having restaurants on site to stadium tours year round to private banquet events. So literally, Facebook did a holiday party for 20,000 people in the stadium that. That would. There was a wedding. One might have been mine, full disclosure. But there we had weddings at Levi's Stadium. You're not going to believe this, Gary, it was her idea, not mine. I kid you not. I kid you not, man.

You married, right?

I did. And I converted a Raider fan. Even better.

Not easy.

Not easy. So that was my role there and it was awesome. And obviously we could talk about the retreat if you want, but there was a retreat in year three of four of my journey with the Niners that eventually led to my eventual Jerry Maguire leap from the Niners.

Yeah. So it seems like being in such a great spot, it's going to take something really big for you to want to leave. And so what happened?

So what happened is August 2016, there was a two day off site retreat and changed my life. I found my why. It was led by. I know you know him and you've, you've been very kind about your relationship. It's Simon Sinek and his team. They led the experience. And this was after he had done a keynote. And so, you know, the message of why was permeating throughout the organization even ahead of that. But then a small group of us, let's call it a two dozen of us, we got off site and we tapped into our why. We all walked away with the why statement. We all walked away with identifying our core values. And I knew that something special had happened. Gary. I didn't know what was going to come, I didn't know what was going to follow, but I knew that life was different. And so fast forward, I get back in the office and I'm just radiating this different level of energy. Like, folks are just like, dude, what was in the punch? What did you drink at that retreat? Because, Paul, you've already got too much juice. You're just at another level now. You're at a 10. We kind of need you at a 2. And so that's how I shot out of a cannon back into the front office and I shared what happened at the retreat and that was the end of that conversation. But then the next day, one person that I shared it with came up to me on the side and said, hey, Paul, that thing you did at the retreat, you think you could coach me through the same process? And the next day, another person, one led a two, led a five, led a ten, led to nearly 51 all water cooler buzz that started on the business side eventually made its way to the football side of the organization. And that is how I became known as the why coach of the San Francisco 49ers. It was literally a passion project that I was just paying the gift of purpose forward. I found my why. It Felt like a special thing and I couldn't contain it. I couldn't keep it inside of me.

Which is very much my story as well.

Yeah.

And so what once you became the why coach for the 49ers? Well, a. First of all, did you get to work with many of the players?

Yeah. Toward the tail end of that 50? Yes. It started almost exclusively on the business side because those are the folks that I knew best and those are the folks that I was around every day. And also this. It happened to start in the off season. But yeah, once we got into the season and they were around, we share a cafeteria, which was that if you ask what's the number one thing I miss about sports, I miss the freaking 49ers player cafeteria. That's what I really miss. It's a tremendous, tremendous place. So, you know, when you share a cafeteria, you're going to be sitting at the table with, in some cases, the who's who of the NFL and the Niners and all that. And so you drum up some relationships. And so I don't say it lightly. There was water cooler buzz. There was, hey, this guy's got a little bit of the potion. This guy can get you to your why. And I was probably having two three hour sit downs, and that's about the time it was taking me to get him from start to finish. And 6am we were showing up evenings, weekends. This is a side hustle. This was not a part of the day job. But what's interesting, what's interesting, Gary, is that HR caught wind of it. Hr. I get a kind of a cryptic email, which you never want from HR. And they say to head into the head of HR's office. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, is this my last day? What's going on? And quite the opposite, actually. They said, paul, we heard through the grapevine what you're doing. We think it's phenomenal. We think it's tremendous. What are your thoughts on integrating it into the recruiting or onboarding process here at the Niners? And I mean, gosh, I can't. I don't know. I'm not a list guy. I don't know if that's the top five, top ten. But if you could say the proudest moments in life, like, that's gotta be close to the top, was just having that resonate so deeply in a community I cared so much about. And they saw the value in it and they wanted the why to become a part of the fabric of the company.

So you're at an amazing team, amazing culture. You love everybody there. You're getting to do what you want to do, and then you leave.

And then I leave. Okay, all right, so here's. You know me. I'm just gonna just shoot straight. So part of the challenge of finding your why is when it inspires you, it becomes an obsession, and you almost need to follow it. Forget almost. In my case, I had to follow it. I felt called to do this work. And so then I started to do internal introspection. Okay, if my why is the start of it, and that kind of has my North Star elements, and that's what gets me out of bed. But the parts I was able to apply more actively in my life on Monday morning were my core values. So my core values, in no particular order, are belief, growth, authenticity, impact, and courage. Those are my five. And I really started to assess how I made decisions in life. Like, am I being congruent with those values and my why am I aligned? Or is how I show up connected to what I believe, connected to who I am? Is there alignment there? I really think of that as those are the. When I trained this, those are the three layers of our identity from the inside out. Who we are, what we stand for, and how we show up. Are those connected? And if not, you're not in alignment, and you're not being true to your purpose. You're not living your why. And so when I really gave myself that stress test, I realized that I was not living true to my purpose. I was doing a good job, not a great job. I had some gaps. And so I started to tear through the muscle I started to implement. I found that when you apply one value, it can help you overcome a deficiency in another area. So I leveraged my value of courage to make tough decisions. When I was afraid, when I knew there was risk, I'm like, well, Paul, are you a man of courage or not? Like, I would almost have that locker room talk with myself. And when I was like, all right, let's go express courage. And it helped me make other decisions. One of those decisions was to. I told myself, paul, think of something you said you would never do, but maybe now you would reconsider. And one of those things was, go back to school, and school was fine. I took high school seriously because, again, of my folks at college was a party, and I passed. And I didn't see the need in business, in sports, you don't need the three letters mba. Just in some industries, you need it. In that one, you don't. And So I tore through the muscle. I committed to the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. They had a Los Angeles cohort, kind of a satellite program like this is perfect once a month. But I had no anticipation of leaving sports at the time. But here's what it led to, and this is the lineage. And here's how I want to connect to the audience here. When you follow your why these inexplicable connections start to happen. You reflect back and you say, well, if A didn't happen, then B doesn't happen, then C doesn't happen. But you don't know that. If you forecast forward, you just need to take action. And if you're being true to your purpose, if you're letting your why be your operating system in this case? That's when the amazing things happen. So for me, I go back to school. Best ROI on the school was not in the classroom. It was for the first time in my life I had an executive coach. And remember going back to my sports days, I always wanted that leader. And sometimes it's different when they work in your industry because what if they know your boss better than you? And it's kind of a weird thing, but an executive coach is an executive coach is an executive coach. They are neutral, they are unbiased, they are just there to serve you. No outside agenda. Her name was suanne and I talk about her tremendously in my book Power playing offense like she was a life changer. Suanne basically said, paul, I know what you do. Head of sales for the Niners. Awesome. What do you love about it? What do you hate about it? And what do you tolerate? So love, hate, tolerate. I answered all three. And she said, go deeper on that love bucket. I said, well, I love the people side of the business. I love building a culture, rallying a team, motivating, inspiring, and coaching. And she said, awesome. On a good day, what percentage of your time do you do that? And I started to slouch in my chair because I knew I would not love the answer. I plussed it up. The truth was probably 10. I told her 20 just so I would feel better about myself, myself. And she said, okay, Paul, 20%. If I was to wave a wand and you become your boss tomorrow, does that number 20 go up, down or sideways? I said, more strategy, less people. So down. And she said, and your boss's boss. I said same. And this was the question. She said, so what are you after? So simple, Gary. Nothing magical about the question, what are you after? Shame on me that I had never Thought about that. My NFL boss taught me or told me and apparently I didn't listen. He said, buddy, in life the easiest thing to do is to stay on the treadmill you're on. He told me that and it didn't register. But now I can connect the dots and say, oh my gosh, that was tremendous advice because that's where she was bringing me. The easy thing to do is stay on the treadmill I was on. But as I realized how I felt about my day to day, I loved the industry, I loved the organization. I felt out of love with what I did every day. And that's the juice, that's the fuel. And so mentally, as I processed the answer to that question, I knew I was going to leave. It took about 2, 3 months to make the call because I had to figure out what I was going to do, where I was going to go. But I knew mentally at that point that I had to follow my calling and passion. And I base it on a value impact. That is my number one value by far. I asked myself, can I create more impact inside the walls of this industry or beyond? And when I framed it like that, it was one of the easiest decisions I ever made.

And thus, purpose point.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean that's a little.

Tell everybody a little bit about purpose point.

Yeah. And that's a, that's a new partnership. That's really a new family for me. So I'll kind of of give the quick backstory of I was in sports till the end of 17 and I joined the same company that helped Simon's team facilitate Simon Sinek facilitate my why discovery at the Niners. And so I joined that leadership institute and I spent 20, 18 and 19 with them. And I was on a mission, Gary, to. I treated it like a leadership laboratory. I was such a geek of the space, the people side of the business and I just fell in love. And I wanted to stress test the things that I thought to be true after 15 years in sports. Are they industry agnostic? Like, it became an experiment for me. And so I'm literally coaching C suite at one of the top airlines. I'm coaching Navy seals. I'm coaching like literally I'm in these environments I never would have been in had I stayed in sports. It's exercising my core value of growth. It's exercising my value of belief. How much do I believe in what I do, what I do? All of these core values are this wonderful melting pot. And I got to fully express them over a two year journey with this leadership Institute. And that took me to 2019. And then I started to realize this ecosystem of thought leadership. It's one that you're in, it's one that I'm in. And I know a lot of your coaches are in as well. And I just thought, what if I could permanently change industries from what was the sports industry to the leadership development industry, to the people industry? How does that feel to me? And it just started to excite me more by the day. And then I started to think about the how. How do I go about executing this? Because I know the why behind the spirit and the mission and the calling and the cause. But now how do I want to show up and what differentiates me? And so I got to wrestle with that. And then I said, well, what do I do? How do I express this? And the answer and the one gap I had, my old company wasn't massively into keynote speaking. And I love keynote speaking. I've been doing it since I was in sports. And so for me, I always say, if there's 5,000 people I speak to and 50 wait to talk to you, after those 50 people prove to you that there is impact, they prove to you that it was the right message at the right time, and they were transformed. And you just feel like, oh, my gosh, what if they pay this forward? How tremendous of a scalable impact of such genuine, compassionate reasons do you have? And so keynoting was this portal for contribution for me. And so that's when I bet on myself, crazy me. I didn't have. Apparently I don't have a great crystal ball because I started my own live event speaking company in January of 2020. Okay, it was a fantastic two and a half months, but everything that has happened Since March of 2020, while it was certainly not easy in the beginning, and I will not sugarcoat it, I probably am not an author right now. If I don't have months in quarantine, I probably would not have been now proud member of Purpose Point. So the way Purpose Point came to be is I started my own company. And then I just. It almost reminds me of the Y Institute's mantra of the getting clear and playing bigger. And really I just thought about, is there a bigger, faster, stronger version of Purpose Labs out there? And I feel like I met them in 2021 and they became Purpose Point. And now, effective of this month that we are listening to this right now, I am chief Impact Officer. So again, that core value, my number one value of impact, I am there to make a difference. And Purpose Point to share very quickly. I think this is a beautiful message and it's why I was so drawn to it and why I was drawn to them as people and equally as important their mission. And every company starts with a point of purpose, every single one. And they invite people to join them on the journey. And then as the journey evolves, you start to create process, you start to measure performance and eventually you start to measure profits. And so there's a lot of P's going on. And what I have seen is that over time, the further away you get from that foundation, there is a drift away from that origin, that purpose point. And now you start to care more about performance and profit and process more than the people and the purpose. And those other three Ps are critical, they're necessary, otherwise there is no business to run. But the order matters and the harmony amongst all those P's matter. And most companies that we see now, they're over flexing the performance, the profit, the process, they're neglecting the people, the purpose, the outcome is you have this thing called a global pandemic and voila, there's a great resignation. Why? Because people fell out of touch with their why with their purpose. They had a timeout that was forced by the world to look within themselves. And so I think of the great resignation as the great awakening. And when I heard purpose Point speak about this awakening, it drew me in and I decided to join a bigger, faster, stronger tribe. And that is why we are here today.

That is awesome. Well, I know we are running a little over time, but I would love to finish with one last question for you because you have taken us on the journey. There is a lot of great stuff in there, a lot of lessons you have learned, a lot of places you have been, things that you have done. What is the best piece of advice you have ever given or the best piece of advice you have ever gotten?

This one is going to hit close to home because.

It is right up the alley of what you are preaching every day. And the best piece of advice that I have given because I was not told this and it's what led to a lot of angst and maybe not loving my early stages of the career, even though it was very fun. It's because I was over focused on the what I was solely focused on what I was doing and then they'd bring in trainers to try to help you how to do it but nobody ever told me to focus on why I do what I do. And also they never asked me questions about who I am who I've been, who I want to become. So I was playing the doing game. When I think there's a sequence to it. Doing is great, but you must first know who you're being and who you are and your why. Those two are the most powerful things you can know about yourself. The how, whether through a five minute discovery or through life experience, if you're passionate about something, you'll figure out the how. But you got to first be a believer in the why, and then the what you do now becomes so much more of a blue ocean. It really is because I used to think, oh my gosh, I have this singular purpose in life and if I don't do X, it puts so much pressure on you and you feel like you have this one North Star. That's BS. I now feel like I can do 20, 30, 50 different things. I shouldn't because of bandwidth, but I can. And that's such an empowering feeling. I got my freedom back when I started to apply my why and live on purpose. So that's what perspective I would share with everybody listening in.

I love that. And so, all right, so what's next for Paul? I know you're going to be doing some great stuff with us. We're looking forward to that. Let's talk for a minute about that.

Yeah. Well, Y Institute and Paul Epstein are meeting at the 50 in order to touch and inspire a billion lives. So that's what's next. Now, the part that I feel the most excited about is I'm in the earliest stages of writing my second book, which is called On Purpose. And the big question I'm trying to tackle is, are you living your life on purpose or is life just happening to you? And my process, my how, if you will, the system I will introduce in this playbook is when you can align your head to your heart, to your hands. That's when you know you are living on purpose. So I've really been ideating this thing that I'm calling the triple H equation. Head plus heart equals hands, meaning if you're going to take action, make sure that your mindset and your heartset are on board. Because otherwise you will fall out of purpose. You'll still live. But then in six months you wonder, why am I no longer fulfilled? Why do I feel stuck? Why do I not have a deeper burn? Or maybe there's a self limiting belief that's preventing you from taking action. And that's the point. It's kind of the green, yellow, red light philosophy. Head is in Heart is in green light. Only one of the two is in yellow light. Proceed with caution. And if it's two or zero for two, if your head is out and your heart is out, Stop, stop. That's a red light. This book, while, yes, it's about living on purpose, the flip side is it's to get people to stop running red lights in their life.

I love it. You know, there's a company I'm going to introduce you to that you sparked something in me. I know a gal named Liz Ellis I want to connect you with, because she was the CEO of her company and she a big production company, and she changed her position to the chief heart officer. Oh, it's right up your alley. And she had. So she said, I'm going to put somebody else as the CEO because I can find people to do the. The thinking. The head part. Yeah, you don't have anybody to do the heart part, and that's my specialty. And we've got lots of hands, we've got the brains, we need the heart. And so really fascinating. Yeah. I think you'll love it. I love it. I love it.

And that's the beauty of these types of conversations, is we're all connecting. We're. We're expanding our tribe. Yep. I would have never known a chief heart officer if it wasn't for this conversation. So needless to say, Gary, just. Yeah, look, when you're living your calling and everything's coming from not only the heart, but the head, and you're taking purposeful action, I mean, that's what life is all about.

So if there's people listening and they want to get a hold of you, Paul, what's the best way for them to connect with you? How do they follow you, learn from you? What would be the best way to connect with you?

Absolutely. So, Paul epstein speaks.com is the absolute best way. That's the. The home of all things. And, you know, I'll just say this, Gary, as far as not only where to find me, but I'm somebody that I get intimate with the folks in my community in the sense of it's me engaging, it's me responding, because that's a core value of mine. And so for me, while, yes, you speak at these football stadiums and the world thinks of like, oh, my gosh, they put it on. There is no pedestal here to me, if you ask me, why am I really writing the second book? And I mean, everything I've shared already. But it is to democratize purpose. It is to democratize purpose. Because we all deserve to be in that space. So, yes, find me at Paul Epstein Speaks. Shoot me a note. Follow me on LinkedIn, Instagram @Paul Epstein Speaks. You can find me very easily, but just know that it is 100% me connecting with you to meet you at the 50.

Awesome. Paul, thank you so much for being here, man.

Great.

I loved our conversation. More listening for me, which is exactly what I wanted. So you did awesome.

Awesome. Thanks. Gary fired up the journey ahead.

Yes. It's going to be fun. So thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

Okay, so it's time for our last segment, which is guess their why. And for this, since we just talked SP sports, I want to use Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers is the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers. He's one of the most successful. In fact, he'll probably win the MVP this year and last year. And he's also very controversial. He had that whole thing around the COVID being immunized versus having the vaccine. And so I would love to know, what do you think Aaron Rodgers? Why is. Because I have a really good sense. I happen to listen to him a little bit more recently. He's been on different podcasts. He's been on different television shows. And I believe that Aaron Rodgers why Is to challenge the status quo and think differently. He's not somebody that wants to follow the rules. He's not somebody that wants to draw inside the lines. He wants to do it his own way. And he has his whole life. He's got his little man bun now. And he didn't, you know, he didn't talk about following traditional medicine. He wanted to do it his own way and get quote unquote immunized. And so I think his why is to challenge the status quo and think differently. So if you, if you've been listening to the beyond, you'd why podcast and you love what you're hearing, please give us a review of on whatever platform that you are using and bring this to more people. You know, our goal is to impact 1 billion people in the next five years. So the podcast is going a long ways towards doing that. And I look forward to seeing you and having you here next week's episode. Thank you so much for listening. See you next week.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez, and I'll see you on the next episode.