Interview: Purpose, Leadership & Peak Performance with the CEO of the Detroit Pistons, Dennis Mannion

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living Interview series. Today I'm thrilled to be chatting with Dennis Mannion, a new friend who is the CEO of the Detroit Pistons, one of the major sports teams out here in the US for those internationally. And Dennis and I connected when he became a member of our program. I often look at the new members and I happen to see the pistons or pistons.com as the URL and I said, that's pretty cool. Let's check that out. Did a quick search. And Dennis Mannion, the CEO of the Pistons, with an extraordinary background, having served at an executive level in the four major sports organizations, currently the NBA, in the past, Major League Baseball, the president of the Dodgers, and then the NFL and the NHL as well. Just a really cool story. We hit it off and connected. And as I was preparing for my upcoming class on peak performance, I reached out to Dennis and said, hey, I'd love to chat and to share some of your wisdom as I get prepared, and I'm sure our audience will love it. So that's a long prelude. But, Dennis, I really appreciate you taking the time and just thrilled the chat.

Well, me too, Brian, and I'm obviously a big member and a big fan of yours. I think what you're doing is, it is absolutely amazing for all of us that have aspirations or are already involved in any form of leadership to be able to synthesize so many great ideas and then also have an opportunity to purchase the great work that people have done. It's thrilling for me. I am an absolute fanatic about self and team development. So I just want to thank you before we get started.

Right on. That means a lot. And in our first emails, you mentioned that you felt like a kid at a sporting goods store.

I did. My wife said, what are you doing? You know, you think a very few days off, you're spending the entire time on your computer? And she said, you can't have that many emails. I said, no, I found a new friend.

That's awesome. I'm honored to be part of your life. And let's jump into to your wisdom. So I want to start with your story, you know, when I learned more about you and just looked at what you've done, it's just so cool, you know, to have created a career in which you've played such a role in each of these sports organizations. I just want to hear about your backstory and how you discovered. I assume you feel like you're living on purpose and doing what you're here to do and doing it in a really cool way. And just how you discovered that or stumbled upon it or created it, or how you would describe that.

Well, it's been an amazing journey and I'll be as brief as possible. I had always been a sports fanatic. I played baseball, football and basketball. Grew up in Pittsburgh, you know, a Steeler fan and a Pirate fan and a Penguin fan as well, and very, very into sports. And I ended up going to the University of Pittsburgh. I was studying economics and I had. I'd been playing baseball and I had a shoulder surgery followed by some elbow surgery. So I was in a swing for the first two years there. And it just happen that I had been in an English literature class two years in a row with the same dean of the English department. And he came up to me one point, said, dan, you've had that sling on for a long time. And I laughed. I said, I've had two different surgeries. He said, what are you doing here, Pitt? I said, I'm studying econ. You must be a jock if you're always getting operated. I said, well, I play baseball, but I think that's over now. And this was the most amazing thing. This is 1978. And he said, did you ever consider studying sport management? And I said, I wish there was such a thing. And he said, well, as a matter of fact, in fact, a friend of mine is the dean of the sport management program up at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and they're just starting an undergrad program. Ohio University and UMass always had grad programs, but UMass is going to have the first undergrad program. And he said, would you ever be interested in transferring there? I said, in a heartbeat. So he made a call for me and they said, look, we're only taking nine out of the 90 picks that we make from out of state, so if you want to come up, come up. And amazingly, I jumped in my little rabbit and my little blue suit, went up and interviewed with 13 of the faculty members, got into UMass, literally went there my junior year, and then halfway through my senior year, you get to do an internship for the second half of your senior year. And the UMass guys, the professors there, were so fantastic. They were dedicated to getting me placed with one of the teams in an internship. And as it turned out, I was 3 for 3 with major league Baseball, the Atlanta Braves, but most importantly, the Philadelphia Phillies. And that's where it all began. In 1981, in December of 81, I interviewed with a fellow by the name of Dave Montgomery, who's now general managing partner of the Phillies. And Dave hired me full time on the spot, which was just a total gift. And the lucky part of it, Brian, was I deeply loved sports and loved numbers and loved creative energy. And the Phillies at that point were in the forefront of database before there were even databases. So it was super cool to work in an environment where it was a learning environment, very open, and I got to do everything. I got to work in broadcasting, ticket sales, promotions, retail sales, the whole nine yards. So my freshman year of business, 20 to 30 years old, spent at the Phillies, I was learning basically all the tools of the trade on the business side of sports. And what was super cool. For me, I think that's a big growth time for people. You're not really sure what your purpose is. But it became apparent to me that I had two great skills. One was very, very creative and also very organized. And combining them together, I realized how many people we could make happy, especially at a sporting event. And everything from creating concourse exhibits where fans could come and do speed pitch or hit your favorite superstar's B to basically going in the upper deck and upgrading seats, it was a real turn on. I thought, man, there's such terrific power in this. I can keep being creative, keep creating inventories and just be organized enough to execute. This is going to be a great career. And as it turned out, I ended up spending 15 years at the Phillies and ran all the marketing and sales. And then I got recruited to be the COO of the Colorado Avalanche and the Denver Nuggets. And then three years after that, the enterprise sold and I reconnected with an old friend and went to the Baltimore Ravens as a head of business ventures. And we won the super bowl the second year I was there and stayed there about eight years and was hired to be the president of the Dodgers and then from the Dodgers to be the CEO of Palace Sports Entertainment and the Pistons.

That is awesome. Just to recap some of the highlights, as I was listening and taking some notes, I love the fact that it kind of started with an anti fragile moment, right? If you thought you're going to play baseball, get the surgeries, boom, you're out there, realize there's something more, you know, and then that mentor supporting you the way that he did. And it sounds like you've had a ton of support, obviously throughout, but particularly in that formative stage and then you going for it, right? Being willing to go and actually pursue that and then connecting it to service and seeing, okay, I love this. I'm pretty good at it. And there's a way to really give value to the world. That's such a cool arc of a lot of the things that we talk about when we talk about purpose 101.

Well, I appreciate that. And it's so. It's so special in that when I. When I think about people together and throwing them, I take the eye out of it because I don't really get off on myself being mentioned often I'd upgrade people and I still do it without telling them who I am. It's just something. There's something inside your spirit that tells you, hey, this is a great way to make someone's day or maybe a lifetime memory. So it's been very fortuitous to be in an environment where you can really help a charity group out or help a family or a business even have some of the most memorable moments of their life.

Yeah, that's amazing. When you look back over the arc of your career and you had to identify or if you had to identify kind of the number one thing that you think led to the success that you've experienced, what would you describe that as?

Well, I would say the number thing was the discovery of my personal talents, which included, as I mentioned, you know, some creative skills in terms of creating inventories and things that would turn on our fan base. And then secondly, ability to be organized and create an order. So for me, the highlight was figuring out that, hey, I can deliver a vision. And armed with that, I could deliver a ton of mini visions en route to the bigger vision. And that was really the starting point for me to really catch fire.

And was there a process that you went through to get that or is that more of kind of an ad hoc? Huh? I'm pretty good at this. How would you describe that?

That's a great question. Because it was discipline by discipline, whether it be ticket sales or broadcasting or even game entertainment in each of those disciplines that I was involved in breaking it down and making it better. There was constant self discovery and reinventing the approach that I would take. So I'd love to say it was ad hoc, but I also think that I'm just a structure oriented person. I got in this rhythm of creating vision and then a supporting order for it. And then eventually as I started to lead, I started to think about, I want to provide an ideology or a map of trust for people, for our employees to understand where I'm going with things. And all those three Elements added up to tons of opportunities.

Yeah, that's awesome. I want to talk more about your leadership strategy in a moment because I know you're so passionate about that. And we chatted a bit about that before. Before we go there, though, I want to just check in on any mistakes you might have made that were kind of the formative learning experiences that really helped shape everything and all that good stuff.

Well, hundreds of them, because everything's on a stage. And the most humorous of them that I could tell you is that we had a promotion one night called. It was called Jamaica Night, and it was at the ballpark in Philadelphia. And we put balloons out all over the field, and only one of the balloons would have car keys for a car out in center field. And we had it on the scoreboard. And the fans ran out. There were four of them, I think, and they were popping all these balloons. And fans on the stands were getting really excited. You know, who's going to pick these keys up? And after every balloon was popped, there were no keys. The owner of the team and the president of the team turned just. They both were staring at me. Then all of a sudden, on the scoreboard, they saw one of the ground crew guys run back out, and inadvertently, it was caught on the scoreboard, dropp the keys onto the ground for someone to scramble the gravel. So the round of boos that came around was unbelievable. But even better, as the car circled through the infield, people were throwing things, Cokes and whatnot, hot dogs out onto the field. Okay, let's see if I have a job tomorrow.

And one of the fun things I do with my son now, who's three and a half, is we talk about mistakes and, you know, Carol Dweck style and growth, mindset of mistakes happen, you know, and it's. And he now says it's part of the learning process. And I now ask him, well, what did you learn with that mistake? So what did you learn in that one?

Well, I've listened to you before talk about that. And, you know, it's funny when I think about the things that we all garner from a collective energy from this kind of universe where it's a creative universe, we're all learning from each other. One of the big things for me is just how lucky I've been in terms of being nurtured by people, overcoming fear of failure, because it's generally been taken care of by the leadership that I've been involved with. Even my parents were big on nurturing you through your failures. And so I never really felt that pang of extreme fear of failure maybe in the beginning when I started doing public speaking, that, you know, it dissipated over time.

That's awesome. Well, let's talk about. Let's go to leadership. And then I want to talk about athletes. When you work with your team now, how do you help create a culture in which that healthy fearlessness and willingness to take risks and embrace mistakes and failure is part of what you're up to?

I think, Brian, the key thing for me anyway, it's all about clarity. So, you know, vision. Clearly everyone wants to know what the vision is. And that vision needs to ring with everybody in a way that they feel like they have a purpose filled job. But then the second step is to create positions on the team, if you will, that will support the vision. And that's where it starts to get fun. Because on the business side, you know, we look at it as, you know, there's a group of creative people and a group of operationally driven people, a group of influential people, the sales group. And they're all encircled by what I call the straight A students. You know, finance, legal, HR and it. And they make those three wheels roll. You know, the influencer and the creatives and the operations people. And so what I attempted to do here was create a system where you knew exactly what your role was. And even though your personality type was entirely different from someone else, you're almost forced to collaborate. That's kind of communication with friction on a regular basis. And the overarching reason not to fear failure is that everyone's involved in the group effort. So everybody's playing a role in the creation and the execution and the sale of everything that we do. Not that different from game planning in football where you take your offense, your defense, and your special teams, but they all had to be integrated around that game plan or you'd have a losing effort. So I think that's where you were getting at.

Yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. And let's step back on a broader level. One of the books that I still need to read that you recommended, and I think it's on your favorite list, is Team of Teams. Is that right?

Yeah. Yes.

Tell us what you loved about that. Give us the philosopher's notes on that.

Well, I'll tell you what, that book for me showed that, you know, in the military had traditionally been, you know, set up in these hierarchical structure, command and control, top down. And then in a very humble way, General McChrystal outlined for everybody how some of the interaction we had in the Middle east, how we were beaten to the punch every time because there was a randomness, sort of a systemized randomness to the Iraqi insurgents. And he said, like, we were just too slow. And if you took the Rangers, or if you took the Seals, or if you took the special Forces, they all did exactly what they were told, but they weren't integrated in a way where they were collaborating on a real time basis. So I loved, at one point in the book, he takes the traditional org chart and draws lines all over it where everybody's communicating to everybody. And for me, that was a major turn on in that book because he talks a lot about what we're into here, a lot about purpose and how that's the inspiration, but also spends a decent amount of time on creating a trust based culture so that you can collaborate freely without feeling as though you might be burnt.

That's awesome. Which goes back to that fearlessness. Right. Of the team is playing together, orchestrated as a whole.

Absolutely.

That's awesome. What else on the leadership front?

Well, I think that the important thing is that there's two pieces to the team on the field, on the court, on the ice, and the team in the office here. One part of it is the individual, and you can't discount how important individuality is. And the second part of it, of course, is the collective effort of the team. So we break that into rise on the individual side, and that stands for realize, improve, share and expand your individual talents. And then on the team side, we call it halo, which is to say, high above life's obstacles, you have to work with others. And so this is all rooted in a set of values that we have that support individual behavior and a set of values we have that support teamwork. And I think that that clarity drives forward. Okay, look, this is how I can have. This is how I can be safe in my work environment or on the court, or on the ice or on the field, and at the same time express myself. So that, to me is the real key to all this is just this business of rise and halo. And when it's all functioning, when the individuals are at their ebb and the team is operating in a systemized way where everyone's interacting appropriately, you move into this special space that we call leap. And LEAP is an acronym for love, enthusiasm, appreciation and peacefulness. And I'm thinking about changing the word peacefulness to playfulness just because when it's fun, it's fun, you know, And I think peace is just something that's rooted all through it because of the clarity. So rise, halo and leap is our mantra. And then here we separate all our floors. We've got our accelerators or the administrative team. The leaders are the operational people and then the relators are the sales people. And the creators of course, are all our creative and communication folks and the igniters are our performers on the stage and on the court.

That's so cool. Amazing to imagine that integration throughout the organization and also exciting to see how that kind of permeates down to the team level. How does the team just speak very specifically about your domain with the Pistons? How are they involved in that overall process, if at all?

Well, you know, it's very interesting. I think Stan and I have in previous previously with the former general manager Joe Dumars, same thing. We're on parallel paths. We both believe that you've got to have not to say that you want a team filled with players who have character. You've got to define what character actually means and whether that means hard work and accountability and focus, proactivity, whatever it might be. You've got to have a working definition. And then the key to it, to make it all gel, is that the players, they don't have to go out and socialize with each other after every game. But we are demanding that they have gratitude and appreciation for each other's talents because only then can you have a more explosive vision. Go back to Raven days when Rex Ryan was the defensive coordinator at the Ravens. He'd bring the defensive players, Ray Lewis and the rest of that group in on Tuesdays to game plan with him because they'd have a more explosive vision because they'd know each other's talents and how they all could be rotated and used in efficient ways. And then when you have the big vision, obviously that leads to big passion. Big passion for us leads to faith and courage, which is totally necessary, especially when you go through losing streaks or injuries and things like that. And what I love about watching teams that gel, you know, when they have character, they have gratitude for each other, vision, passion, faith and courage. They move into this place, they call it competitive spirit. And you'll see this swagger the team has. And for example would be our young, young, young team, one of the youngest in the NBA, played its way into the last spot in the playoffs but had to face the Cavaliers. And it was fun to watch them, especially our 19 year old Stanley Johnson, to watch him go out on the court with some competitive spirit and a swagger almost. And that's when you know, like, okay, you've arrived when you've got that swagger. And then the last piece of it, of course, is you're always going to face defeat. We got swept in that series and there's a sense of humility and humility with teams. It either feeds the character, which then feeds the whole wheel again, or they go a different way. And you know, when you have a good team, if a team is humbled and they come back even stronger.

Right on. All that is so inspiring with character as the base of that foundation and the engine for that swagger. Right? Not an arrogance and a kind of flying away egotism, but just a deep, deep sense of character. I'd love to hear you. What's your definition of character?

It's so interesting. I mean, to keep it simple. You know, for me, it's a set of a set of slogans we use. You know, so hard work, we say go hard or go home. Accountability and focus, we say focus, don't fold. Commitment, we say commitment over involvement. Positive attitude, we say willpower over won'tpower. Self improver, we say contribute to yourself, don't contaminate yourself. And as a team improver, be a fountain, not a drain. And lastly, on the proactive side of it, we say warriors win and fools react. And that's kind of our. From hard work down to proactivity. And we have three simple rules for teamwork. Always be authentic with each other, but be respectful about it. Be resourceful, but be disciplined about being resourceful. And then lastly, no victims and no villains. And that's the hardest one to enforce because everybody, you know, likes to get into that kind of the victim thing. And so that's. That's pretty much the definition of it.

Wow, it's amazing. Let's just pull the thread on the last part of that. So then how do you navigate particularly no victim part of it?

You know what, it goes back to being authentic and respectful with people. So we have, for example, let's say we had a player who felt that they were stripped of some of the responsibilities that they had on the court. I think Stan is very open and uses facts to express why he's making the changes that he's making. We do the same thing, obviously, on the business side. If we have a deal maker, for example, that we don't think is performing at a high level, we'll sit them down and go through, you know, the actual stats and then make corrective positive changes in the way in which they're. In the way in which they're operating. And it's so interesting because you can basically go back to the seven or so pieces of definition of character that we have and usually you can identify one, two, up to three different things they're failing on. So. So that's the basic remedy.

That's awesome. And then it's in a sense of empowerment, not the demonizing them. Right?

Yes. Yeah, yeah. It's just like we were talking earlier, it's like not about fear of failure. It's all about getting better and being the best you can be.

Rise.

Rise. Exactly.

Put on that halo and make the leap. I love it. Let's talk about athletes for a moment. So having worked with some of the best athletes on the planet in their respective sports and overall, I'd just love to hear from you, what you've seen differentiates the truly exceptionally elite with those who don't quite make it to that level. Have you noticed anything?

Yeah, obviously in 35 years of doing this, I've spent a lot of time, you know, analyzing winning and losing teams and winning and losing players. I hope this doesn't sound too complicated, but generally what I find with the individual athlete as an individual, so many of them are rooted to a higher source and there's any number of higher sources they're rooted to, but generally, God. And I think that generally the second thing that I run into is they're spirited. They've got sort of this sort of spiritual sense about them. And that to me seems to drive their free will. The third thing, and with their free will, you know, we all have choices to either do the hard thing or do the easy thing. And I've found with most of these athletes, they're pre wired because of their commitment to their higher source and their spirit to do the right thing for their mind and their body. And it's an amazing thing because people look at professional athletes as these completely elite and entitled type of folks. And the reality is they're more like artists. They're special, they're different. They've got physical talents that are exceptional, but when you get to the major leagues, it's a whole different, whole different game there. It's so much more than just physical talent. And it gets into this business of them being able to create the world that they want to create. And so that's the individual part of it. Kind of this commitment to their inner source and their spirit and drive their free will in ways that productively help their minds and their bodies on the cordeisor field. The other thing that's kind of interesting to me is that the really exceptional players that play well from a chemistry standpoint, same commitment to the universe at large, but they seem to find rhythms with people. They're like. Almost like musicians, where they will play the rhythm to the. You know, to the other musicians. And I think the other thing I've seen them, too, is that they have. Generally, all of them have had somewhere along the line a coach or multiple coaches, that they've had good nurturing when they're good team players. And the biggest thing of all, they value companionship at a different level than most people. They live for that chemistry with their teammates. I'm not saying all the players that way. I'm just saying the exceptional ones who become that heartbeat of the team. To me, that's kind of the three or four things that they're really into.

That's amazing. I just love your clarity and thoughtfulness and the frameworks with which you break these ideas down. I want to go back through that really quickly because I found it really inspiring. I've never made the connection between. You're talking about the spiritual and the faith and something bigger than themselves and that spirituality. That spiritual connection led to them being spirited. Right. And having that energy which then fueled their. Their free will. It's interesting because the umbrella business that we run everything through is called Entheos Enterprises and Theos, you know, the two little Greek words that make up enthusiasm, God within. And so I've always said, you know, that, well, you need God within in order to have that enthusiasm. And Theos leads to enthusiasm. But I hadn't heard that and made the connection of the spiritual connection to be spirited, right?

Yeah.

And then, interestingly, like, I, for whatever reason, happened to read an article on Steph Curry's faith, and I thought it was just the coolest thing where he's. He's obviously a devout Christian, but he made the point that he didn't think he needs to beat people with the Bible, that he just wants them to watch him play and say, something's different about that guy. He's playing with a different spirit. And it gives me tears of my eyes right now, even as I say that. And I shared it with my wife, I'm like, that is just the coolest demonstration of one's spirituality I can imagine, you know, that there's some other thing working through us, working through him in this context that you can feel. You know, there's something special there. And I just love your reflections on that being the essence of. Of what you've seen differentiate the truly elite.

It's amazing. And the greatest player, though controversial on some level, the greatest player I've ever been around is Ray Lewis. And it's funny, inside his shoes, he was number 52. And inside his shoes, it says five plus two equals God, number seven. And Ray was 190% every single practice. It was like having a coach on the field. And I've never seen anybody more committed to his God. You know, a lot like Steph. And he didn't want to run around proselytizing. He was more like, watch how I play. I play with full power all the time. Played with a separated shoulder in the last Super Bowl. It's amazing.

Wow. Which leads us to one of the themes of all of my work, of how do you arrive at that and express that deep connection to something bigger? And it's arete, right? It's 190% doing your best moment to moment to moment. Let that be the demonstration and the expression and the reconnection to that. That ultimate force that is super inspiring. Anything else on there you want to share? No.

I would just say kind of back at you with what you just said, because I honestly think we all face so much diversity. Everything depends on how you look at it. But in listening to a lot of the things that you've done, you tie it all back to the one expression. And it's a big deal, because I think what you're saying, if you have high blood pressure, you have heart disease, whatever it might be, you have an opportunity to be inspirational with yourself and take things to a new level. And that's what I love so much about the work you're doing, learning so much from so many of the amazing people that speak but yourself especially, because you're tying it all together so well. I really enjoy it.

Well, again, I appreciate that. And, yeah, just excited to take that inspiration and serve profoundly and see what we can do over the long run and make a difference. I'd love to hear from you. What specific. As you know, I'm all about the fundamentals, those things that keep us plugged in and operating at a high level. How would you describe your fundamentals? The things that you've integrated into your life that have really made a difference?

Well, you know, not dissimilar from the individual athlete. Like, I have a. I have a commitment. Mine is Christian, so I'm an expression I use called calm, which is, you know, Christ always loves me and that feels my spirit, makes me feel like, okay, all right, this and this haven't gone right, but I'M being watched. It's an order to my life and a rhythm, and I've got to just listen. And it usually helps me make the right decision on a free will basis. And that's affected me. I love, love, love, love when you describe the rituals that you go through in the morning. I think that when your free will is operating at a high ebb, it's usually because you've got a set of rituals that you live by and you're committed to. So for me, that calmness and spirit and then leading all the way down to my body, it's all very, very important. And the truth is I'm most driven by this purpose to bring people together and thrill them. So I know I have to stay healthy and I don't have to stay energetic. And in my down moments, it would be because I violated a ritual and or enough diversity hit me that it just wasn't ready to bring it. And that's what I work on all the time.

Right on. And you're a big rower, right?

Yeah, God, I'm a rowing. I'm addicted to rowing. Totally. I started that, like almost 20 years ago with a Concept 2 rower. I've never gotten off it. It's great.

That's so awesome. Dennis and I both share that concept too. Although I think you're hitting it hard. I had a pretty good workout today, actually. What's your most recent workout on that thing?

Okay, so I do it basically same as you every day. So I'll hit an elliptical, we have for about 20 minutes. Then I get on the ride for almost 40 minutes. So it's an hour in total. I kind of hit that every day. So I hit that this morning and then go through. I can't do for the life of me, I can't do 100 perfect burpees and certainly couldn't do 300. But I just do a lot of. I do some weight lifting and planks usually every day. And that's kept this old man at 56 pretty healthy.

Right on. How many meters are you rowing in 40 minutes?

I literally go just about 8,000 meters. So I move it a pretty good crack. And I like to keep. I have sort of a low resting heart rate, so I have to work pretty hard to keep it up high. So I just love it. It's just so full body. It's awesome.

Do the math on that for me, and sorry if you're not a growing geek right now, but do the math on that. What's the pace on that? 500. Is that man.

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah.

You're doing two. So you're rowing for 40 minutes at a two minute pace, is that right?

Yeah, I just, I crush that thing.

That is crushing. Just to be really clear, Dennis is hitting it hard for the 40 minutes. That's awesome. You do that every day, basically.

Yeah, I do it every day. I've got friends that say, you know, you're foolish to work that hard. But everybody has different of kinds chemistry that I, I need to exercise. I'm not doing that. I'm in big trouble.

Well, this is cool because one of the things we talk about, as you know, is that number one self care habit. Right. And Michelle Seeger, who's actually really close to you at the University of Michigan, one of the world's leading scientists talking about the, the science of motivation behavior for health behaviors, says we got to know that number one thing. So it sounds like that exercise is your number one thing. And I just want to shine a spotlight of awesome on you. 8,000 meters a day. I wrote a million meters a few years ago and I thought that was pretty cool, which was averaging, you know. No, but you're, you're rowing 2 million meters.

Yeah, I go way past.

You're making me look like I was, I don't know what I was doing. Going to the kiddie park for a little, little baby swing or something. That's awesome.

Now you're gonna get, now you're gonna get me thinking about it. I'm not gonna be able to do it anymore.

That really stopped up my standards. I appreciate the inspiration. I appreciate you and I want to end this chat with one more question and then also see if we can point people to learn more about you. But I'd like to end these chats with the question of if you could share one piece of wisdom with people passionate about optimizing their lives, what would that one piece of wisdom be?

I think aspire to leap. Aspire to love. Be enthusiastic, appreciative and playful and or peaceful. That's my one main piece of advice. I think it's so critical and I get conflicted with all the things, but that to me is more of an original thought. I was extremely, extremely inspired when you talked about identity needs to proceed your action and that will lead to your feelings. I think that's huge in terms of living your life. Probably bigger than my idea of leap. But I feel like if you do things from a place of love and enthusiasm, appreciation and peace, you're probably going to be in pretty good shape.

That is amazing. I really appreciate you taking the time. I appreciate your thoughtfulness, your leadership and your embodiment of these ideas. I know you're really focused on leading your organization, but is there anywhere that people listening to this can go to find more about you?

Well, you know, I really don't do the only place would be like our website at Fistol's and into our Google search, you know, just some of the articles. I don't do any social media because I feel that if I did that I would have to be committed to it and have to be committed to our fans and I didn't feel like I could appropriately deliver in any medium. So I pretty much have been relegated doing a little two minute features now and then on our Pistons programming network, but probably the best place is just on the website.

Awesome. And we'll keep track. It was awesome to watch the Pistons excel this year. Such a young team. And again, that is just another demonstration of your humility and your willingness to be behind the scenes and really just thrill people from behind and elevate others. So I admire you. I'm inspired by you and appreciate you. So thank you so much Dennis.

Thank you. Thank you.

Brian hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that interview. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson. Me two basic things one our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And 2 our optimal living membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. 10 bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes. When you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my Optimal Living classes. This is where I take all the ideas we cover in the Philosopher's Notes and boil it down to the most practical stuff you can apply today. Classes include Confidence 101, Getting Stuff Done 101, Relationships 101, Habits 101, etc. You'll also get access to what we call micro classes that I think you'll love. We aim to astonish and we're blessed to have thousands of members telling us we're helping them change their lives and that this is the best 10 bucks they invest in themselves every month. Go to BrianJohnson ME membership to learn more. Thanks for your support and have an awesome day.