Battling To Be The Best: How To Be The Best In The World At What You Do Feat. Bo Eason

Everyone else can play the odds, we play against it. Do your dreams, do the visions you have for your company, for your relationships, do they have odds to them? Like, I'm wondering, like Dan, what, What sign did they have up in your high school that says dan Sullivan can never be this successful? Here are the ads, here are the odds against him. What sign was up at your high school that said, there's no way in hell you can do this? When I see odds like that, you guys, when I see that my son has zero chance of playing in the NBA and the NFL. Hey, John. When I see odds like that, guess what I start doing? Salivating. I love those odds that are no good. Why? Why do I love those? You? Huh? No one else is going to do it. Everyone else will quit.

All right, so I'm super, super excited about what you're about to be witness of. All right, so here we go. Imagine a newspaper reporter for the Arizona Republic who is doing a story on leadership and success approaches you and asks you this question for their article. Do you want to be the best in the world at what you do or are you striving to be just average? Of course, in this room I know exactly what you would say. You want to be the best at what you do. Yet why do our kids, your kids, playing in a sport, come home with a trophy just for participating? That's crazy. Unfortunately, that's a world we live in where average and ordinary is becoming acceptable. That's why I wanted you to have as your keynote speaker someone who knows what it's like to battle, to be number one. Someone who's been in the dirt and the mud. Someone who's gotten hit in the face and gotten their body broken in a battle. Someone who's had their will and desire tested. Someone who's been in the spotlight, been on the big stage with millions of people watching and judging him. Someone who can get you going full throttle. Can you imagine what else you could achieve if you were constantly battling to be your best? So what I'm going to do is show you a 90 second video to introduce our speaker for this 2018 Genius Network annual event. His title is Battling to be the best.

He was the only good looking guy that want to crash. He was a head honor. He was a cheap shot artist. Bo Eason, hard to hit her. Bo would run into a brick wall. Oh, he got his bell rung too though. I mean he is hurting. You can see Eason at the bottom of the screen through that right leg and ankle. Really gruesome it hurts to watch Chuck Connors, Jim Brown, Marvin Hagler and many others.

Now add another former pro to the.

Swelling ranks of athlete turned actor. They're going to say, oh, we're going to see a football player do his autobiography. You know, we'll be lucky if he can talk. Beau is a true actor. This is a true acting piece. I went to see a show last night, Runth of the Litter. Oh, yeah, down on 28th Street. Amazingly great. Bo Eason. Yeah, I can't sit through a lot of plays. This was an awesome, awesome play. It's such an insight into the human spirit and the dark side that we don't see. I'd really like to branch out into this public speaking genre. Beau is intense. He's present, he's alert, he's alive.

He's a storyteller.

Please help me in welcoming the man who has been called the greatest speaker to grace the stage in decades, Bo Heesen. Give it up, Bo. Thank you, man. Thank you, brother. Yeah, you got it. You got it. I have a daughter. I have a daughter. Her name's Eloise. She's just turned 14. And I have a son. His name's Axel. He's 12. And our youngest is Lila. She's nine. We're a little worried about her. Little like her mom. Little. Go get her. Right? So 15 years ago, when my wife dawn was pregnant with our first with Eloise, 15 years ago, and our kids were all 10 pounders, right? So my wife's belly was out to there that far. And we lived in Beverly Hills at the time. So if you live in Beverly Hills and your belly's out to there, this is what happens to you everywhere you go in Beverly Hills, Whether you go into the coffee shop or you go to have some dinner or you go grocery shopping, every person runs up to you on the streets of Beverly Hills and points at your belly like this. And these people, everyone sprints up to us. And dawn and I are like, what? And they go, where is this child going to preschool? And my wife and I were like, we don't know. We haven't even met her yet. No, no, no, no, no, no. You have to have this child in the right preschool today, because if you don't, she'll never get into the right elementary school, and she'll never go to the right college, she'll never go to the right high school. Basically, you'll be raising a loser. And my wife and I, we didn't want to raise a loser, right? So this is what we do. We get on this preschool train craziness in Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Brentwood, and we start interviewing and we start going to these preschools. And the first nine preschools turn us down, and each one was more expensive than the last. And Eloise is born, right? And the 10th preschool accepted us, and we were so happy with ourselves, right? And then we meet Eloise, and we're like, eloise, guess what? You're gonna be going to this preschool in four years. But we started paying for that preschool that day, right? So for four years, dawn and I are paying this preschool that we're not even at yet. Finally, four years goes by. Eloise is old enough to go to preschool, right? So dawn and I pull up in the car, and we get Eloise out of her car seat. And a lot of you, I'm sure, have done this where you push your little boy or girl behind the other side of the gate and you watch them walk into the preschool. And dawn and I were waving and we were crying, and Eloise didn't even really seem to care. She just walked right in, right? But what I noticed about this preschool was that we were the only parents there.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end of this video, or you can Simply go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

Every other kid was being dropped off by a nanny and a town car. So, you know, if you have kids this age, I don't know what it is about kids this age, but why is it that every single weekend, some kid in Eloise's preschool has a birthday? Every weekend, every weekend, there's a new birthday party for us to go to with from Eloise's classmates, right? So we go, and all these parties are exactly the same. They drive me a little crazy, right? We put Axel and Eloise, we put them in the car seats, right? And dawn and I, we drive to the fancy neighborhood, and we park on the fancy street, and we take the kids out on the fancy street, and then we walk in, right, to the fancy house, and I say hi to the fancy family, right? And I don't know how to talk to them or anything, so I just walked straight out to the backyard. And these backyards aren't like the ones you and me grew up in. These things like, open up, right? And remember Our, like the slides and the swings that we used to play on. Remember those rusty ass chain link? They didn't have any of that. No rust. It was wood, it was sand. It was beautiful. And then you'd walk in and Madonna would be right there. And then Paula Abdul's giving dance lessons right over there. Pinatas. It'd be unbelievable. So I don't know what to do right at these things. So I just always walk straight out to the yard and I find a little uncomfortable spot right about here every party, every weekend. Because every other dad who has a kid at this preschool is an entertainment agent or an entertainment lawyer. And this is what they do. They all get in a huddle right about here, and they all talk and brag about how they got their client to walk down the red carpet and on the COVID of People magazine. So I don't know how to contribute to that, right? So I just make my way right over here to my little uncomfortable spot and hang out right here. So here comes the weekend. Guess what? What a shocker. Birthday party. And we pack up the kids and we're gonna go, okay. So we pack up Eloise and Axel in the car seats, drive to the fancy neighborhood, park on the fancy street. I walk in, hi to the fancy family, and I go straight out, just like I always do, passing the huddle right there and find my little spot in the grass right about here. And I'm just looking around, watching the kids. Eloise is over there in the sand and Axel is over here in the shrubs right now. He's gotta be like two and a half at this point, right? He's covered in mud and you can't see his face. Cause his head is down in the shrubs like this. All you can see is his butt sticking up out of the shrubs, covered in mud. So I'm just watching Axel, watching Eloise in my little uncomfortable spot, and all of a sudden, Axel pops his head out of the shrubs and comes sprinting at me full speed with something in his hands. And this something is a little white plastic football covered in mud. And I said, okay, this is my kind of party. Finally, Axel comes running up to me and goes like this, dad. And he wants to play catch. So I say, okay, Axel, throw me the ball. So he throws me the ball, I catch it and I throw it back to Axel. He catches it, throws it back to me. I throw it back to Axel, he catches it right back to me. Catch and throw. And on that throw, Axel dropped the ball. And I said, axel, don't Let the ball touch the ground. And he said, oh, yeah, dad. Oh, yeah. He picks the ball up. And we continued to play catch. Well, right when I said that, this whole huddle did this. And they elected one of these guys to come have a little chat with me. And I could see him coming a mile away, but I pretended like I didn't see him. So I just kept playing catch with Axel like this. And here he comes. And I know exactly what he's going to say, because we're in Santa Monica. He comes right up to my ear, and this is what he does. Excuse me. Excuse me, sir. What did you just say to that boy? I said, that boy is my son. And I told him, don't let the ball touch the ground. Really? And why would you say that to that boy? I said, that boy is my son. And I say that to him because that's a rule in our house. We don't let the ball touch the ground. Really? And why would that be a rule in your house? And I said, well, that's a rule in my house. Because that was a rule in my house growing up. See, my dad got me and my brother a football for every Christmas, right? And my brother had to throw me that ball a thousand times a day. And I had to catch that ball a thousand times a day. And me and my brother figured out that if that ball never touched the ground for that whole year, it would last to the next Christmas. Cause my dad wasn't getting a new one if we ruined that one. That's why it's a rule in my house. Really? And how did that work out for you? I was so happy he asked that question. I said, it worked out pretty good. Me and my brother both played in the NFL. And he said, well, really? And as he turned around to go report back to the huddle, I say to Axel, axel, pick up that ball. We're taking it home. This family doesn't need it. And we start walking out of the backyard, say, eloise, over here, sweetheart. Over here. We're leaving. And we go into the house. I go, and Dawn's in there. She's talking to all the moms. I said, sweetheart, guess what? We're out. Let's go. And we go right out to the car, and I load the kids up in the car and we start driving home, right? And as I'm driving home, I'm squeezing the steering wheel like this. And my wife is next to me. She says, sweetheart. Bo, what happened? What's the matter? And I just said, we're Moving. And we got home and we packed up, we moved to a section of town, outside of town which was a little more accepting of excellence. I am not comfortable with my life in the hands of amateurs. I am not comfortable with my kids in the charge of people who see mediocrity is as high as you can go. We don't let the ball touch the ground. Now, back when we first started this, when Axel was two and a half, it touched the ground all the time. Right now he's 12. Now he's 12. We can be out there for two and a half, three hours, it doesn't touch the ground. And the standard is set for all his friends, everybody who's on his team. What do you think? The kind of teams he's going to be on for the rest of his life? They have to play to the standard or they just eliminate themselves. You get me? Can we play like that in here? Like with complete. Here's the problem. What if these dudes. What if these dudes right here held the standards that we have right here? What if they held the same standard that me and Axel hold? What kind of movies could you and me go to every weekend when there's nothing to go see? Why do you think that is? Why do you think you turn to your spouse and you go, sweetheart, let's go see a movie. I love movies. Let's go be inspired. Why are there none to go see? They make thousands a year. This is why. This is why. Mediocrity, they love it. They promote it. I got nothing to do with it. So can we, in this room, play like that for the next three days? Like we are the standard bearer? Right? Cool. Okay, good. Okay, good. I'm gonna do something I've never done on stage. This is my first time, so bear with me for a second. Let's put up that slide. I've never put a slide up. You're the first to see a slide. This is. I'm kind of virgin territory here, right? So I just want you guys to see this because it's. A buddy of mine just sent this to me. This is a sign, you guys. That is a sign. He just took the picture of a sign that is in a high school locker room. A high school athlete's locker room. Okay? So there are the numbers. Why do you suppose they're putting this sign up in a locker room in high school? Why do you suppose they do that? I think that's the funniest shit in the world, why they do that. Look at that. How those odds look, odds look real bad, right? Yeah, if you play the odds, don't play odds. Right? So say a kid is in that locker room, like me and my brother, and we have dreams of playing pro football, and so they put that sign up to help us. Isn't this school's job to help us make our dreams come true instead of showing us impossible things? So take a look at that for one second. So the chances of playing in the NFL if you play in high school is 0.03%. So basically, there's no way in hell that's happening. Is that right? Is that what they're telling us? And then what are the odds of that person being the top player at their position or being the super bowl quarterback? What are the odds of that? Even less. Right? Like, that can't happen. Right. But it happens every year. Somehow somebody's got to do it. So if I ask you, and if you've heard me do this before, don't answer, okay? Let other people answer. So I went to a high school called Delta High School. My little high school has 200 people in it. Farm people. Grew up in a farm community. 725 people in my hometown. 200 people at the high school. Right. 27 boys on my high school football team. 27 farm boys. How many do you suppose, based on that statistic right there, played in the NFL? But let me just tell you one more thing about this high school. This high school's never had a pro athlete. Not since before I got there and not since I left. So imagine that it's been around for 83 years, the high school. Never has there been a pro athlete before I got there. Never has there been one since I left. How many of those 27 farm boys do you suppose, based on that statistic, made it to the NFL? Anybody? Yeah. Zero. Right. Or less than zero, if that's such a number. Right. So it just can't happen. Right. So I'll ask you again. How many boys, 27 farm boys off my team, went all the way to the NFL? 2. 5. Where'd you get 5? Four. For A total of 25 years. Two Super Bowls. A statistical impossibility. Can't happen, can it? Can't happen. Especially being that no one ever did it before we got there and no one ever did it since we left. And here's the crazy part about it. Four of us go all the way to the NFL. But listen to this. And these are the guys I think of every single day of my life. I'm 57 now. It's years ago. There were five guys on that team better than us four. There were five guys on that Team better than us four. And what are you supposed to happen to them? They had to quit at one point or another. They just said, I can't do it. I quit. My son wants to be the first player to play in the NBA and the NFL. So that's never happened. So there's no. I can't show them any odds because there's no odds. There's no odds for Axel. Right? But I can tell you with 100% of surety, that's happening. That's happening. So we ain't looking at odds. Dreams don't know odds. Everyone else can play the odds. We play against it. Do your dreams. Do the visions you have for your company, for your relationships, do they have odds to them? Like, I'm wondering, like, Dan, what. What sign did they have up in your high school that says, dan Sullivan can never be this successful? Here are the ads, Here are the odds against him. What sign was up at your high school that said, there's no way in hell you can do this? When I see odds like that, you guys, when I see that my son has zero chance of playing in the NBA and the NFL. Hey, John. When I see odds like that, guess what I start doing? Salivating. I love those odds that are no good. Why? Why do I love those, you think?

Huh?

No one else is going to do it. Everyone else will quit. Hey, Michael. What's up, brother? Everyone else will quit, and it'll just be Axel standing there. That's it. That's how these things go. These guys quit and now they have regrets for the rest of their life. And this is what quitting looks like. Now I'm 57. They're 57. Now these five guys, these four dudes who went to the NFL, they got like, you know, super bowl rings and shit. They got like, cool lives and cool marriages. But the five who quit don't. Struggling, drunk, overweight, unhappy because of regret. They knew they're better. When they look in my face, they go, I know I'm better than you. And yet you went all the way. Why? Because I just didn't stop. That's it. That's it. Everybody got me. So us in this room, we don't play odds. We're not going to Vegas. You see? Zero odds that you can do something. I say go for that one, because that requires everything of you. And you'll have no competition because there'll be nobody around you. You Will be alone. Everybody got me? Are you guys cool with that? Are you cool with playing, like, against the odds like that? Because I promise you one thing. You, Your dreams, your vision of your company, your relationships, they don't have odds. They don't gamble. You play. Players play fans. They sit on the sidelines, they critique, they complain, they whine. Players have to play. That's rain or shine. Snow, tornadoes, don't matter. You're playing. Game is on. Nobody got me? Next three days, can we do that? Yeah. So first, we don't let the ball touch the ground, right? So we bear the standard. So everybody has to play up to us. Second, love those odds. Love those odds. Salivate when you see bad numbers for you. So when I was a little kid, I drew up this plan, right? I drew up this 20 year plan to be the best safety in the world, right? A little piece of paper. Paper's 49 years old, I think. No, no, 48 years old. 48 years old. And here it is, right? This is my little declaration of independence, okay? So that, that's, that's crazy. I'm going to show you this. That's me, John. Check that out. Best safety in the world, right? Look at my hairdo, right? Like, yeah, same haircut. I got the same haircut I drew when I was 9. And look at the. So this would have been in like 69, 1969. But you got to check out this Dude's mustache from 1969.

See that?

That was the style then, man. That's it. That's a 20 year plan, right? So years go by, years go by. 1984 comes around, I'm the top safety drafted, right? I'm the best safety in the world, okay? I'm like, okay, cool. That dream came true. Here we go. And I go out, I'm with the Houston Oilers, right? Meet all my teammates. And then we got our first game and our first games against the former super bowl champions of six months ago, the LA Raiders. They were in LA at one time. So in 1984, 1983, the Raiders won the Super Bowl. I was in college, I watched them win the super bowl, right? I watched this running back that they had win the most valuable player in that game. And I was like, damn, look how good they are. Six months later, it's the first game I'm playing is the super bowl champs, and I'm the free safety, right? So I just line up in my safety stance like this and I'm looking over there, I'm like 21 years old, right? And I look over and I'm like, holy shit. And I see Jim Plunkett is their quarterback, guy I idolized growing up when he went to Stanford. And then Dave Dalby's the center, then Gene Upshaw is their guard, Art Schell is their tackle. Dave Casper is their tight end, and Cliff Branch is their wideout right over there. And I'm like, holy shit. I got all their bubblegum cards at home. And so I line up and all I could think about was that piece of paper, huh? You know, after all those years, all I could think about was, oh, my God, this is going to happen. This is it. This is it. And they snap the ball, and they threw the ball. They pitched the ball to their most valuable player, their running back. And he starts sprinting to my right toward the sideline. And I'm like, okay, here we go. And my whole life just is in slow motion as I'm running up to make this tackle. And all I could do think about was my 20 years. And I was like, everything is coming into fruition. I did it. All that hard work, all the naysayers, everything is happening right now. And I could hear the wind blowing by my ear holes of my helmet. I was running so fast, and my hair was long back then, and so it was smacking me in the head like this. And I was running like this. And I'm like, this is it. I'm in the best safety in the world. And I'm about to. It's all going to come to a ahead right here, right now, with the most valuable player in the Super Bowl. And here he comes, and he gets one yard from the sideline, and I get one yard from the sideline, and I start lining him up, and I start putting the crosshairs right in the middle of his chest. And I say, okay, this is it. Here it all comes. Here it all comes right now. And he steps out of bounds. He steps out of bounds. So what do you think I did? Yeah, I hit him anyway because, you know, I figured 20 years, you know, and I ran a long way to get there, right? So he steps out of bounds, and I just say, too late. And I line it up and I hit him so good right in between the three and the two, and we both go rolling up underneath the Gatorade bucket. Gatorade all over the place. We're under the bench. The whole bench is like, f you, rookie. F you, you bitch. You cheap shot artist. You can't hit our man. And I was, like, so happy that I hit Him. And as I was getting up, I couldn't see because my helmet was sideways like this, right? So I was looking out the ear hole like this. And as I stood up like this on the sideline, I see a yellow flag flying toward me like that. And the flag hits me, and I straighten out my helmet, and the referee goes, rookie, you can't do that. And I go, what do you mean? He goes, you can't hit a man when he's out of bounds. And this took. So I got to get in the huddle, right? This next play's got to run in 1 minute, 60 seconds, right? So I got to get back in the huddle. And this whole conversation happened during this 60 seconds while we walked back to the huddle. And I asked the referee this, and I'm sure he never heard this before, and I said, wait a second. You're penalizing me. And he goes, yes, I'm penalizing you. I go, well, because I'm playing this game with the true spirit in which it was intended to be played. And then the referee's like, what the hell's wrong with this guy? And he keeps walking, and I keep talking to him, and he goes, you can't hit a man out of bounds. I go, but wait a second. So you're telling me that the NFL is supposed to be the manliest guys there is. It's supposed to be the greatest, that my dream is coming true, and then you're gonna penalize the man who plays the game with the true spirit in which it was invented in the first place, and you're gonna reward cowardice? And he just shook his head, and he goes, yeah. And he says, the rule clearly states you cannot hit a man when he's out of bounds. And then as I went back to my huddle, I said, well, my dream doesn't know that rule. And that's the world we live in. That was in 1984, right? Here's the thing, guys. I kept playing the game with the true spirit in which the game was intended to be played. And I kept getting penalized, and I kept getting in trouble until I was named dirtiest player in the league, which my mom was real proud of. But eventually this happened. Eventually this happened. They stopped throwing flags. The referees adjusted to the game how it really should be played, not this fake way.

Who?

Some goofball made up a rule that anybody can just jump out of bounds when you're trying to fulfill on a dream. You guys feel this. You guys know what I'm talking about. So you look at your life and you look at your companies. You look at the regulation and the rules and all this stuff. Who makes those rules? Who? I don't know these people. I. And I asked the referee. I go, dude, why are you a referee? Why are you? Who would want to stop greatness? And he said.

He.

You know what he said? He goes, I'm actually here to protect you from yourself. But listen, can we play like that, you and me? So we got into this game, you and me, this big game. And this game wasn't intended for the faint of heart. This game that you began wasn't. You didn't start this because you thought it was going to be easy and you were going to fit inside some boundaries of rules that some goofball made. You got into this game to express yourself with the full intent of the spirit of the game in which it was invented in the first place. Yet they want to reward cowardice and punish greatness. But you keep. You don't slow down. You keep pushing the boundaries. You keep pushing. And eventually they feel the spirit that you have, and they start bending and they start opening it up, and they say, well, if they're going to play that way, they're going to play that way. It's just. Adjust to the foul. Everybody get me? Can we play like this? Right? Right on the edge, A little bit over the edge. Your toes are hanging over the edge. Look, as I'm saying that, you know what's crazy? As I'm saying that, like, you're smiling. Everybody's smiling. Why do you think you're smiling? Like, you could be like, this fricking bow's a dick. You could be doing that. You could be going, well, this guy's just a cheater. He doesn't play by the rules. Hey, don't run out of bounds. You don't want to get hit. Don't run out of bounds. Don't run over there. Don't even play. Don't play the game if you don't want to get hit. But everybody in this room. Oh, I'm so sorry. You all right? Tried to hit her. Everybody in the room smiled because that's who we are. Everybody in this room, because you work with Joe, you're true to your nature, you're true to Mother nature, while the rest of the world is trying to fit into something else. That's who we are. We are competitive. We are predators. We protect. We're primal, and we have to trust it. Can we play like that? Three days. That's it. Three days. Can you? Yeah, you can. I know because I met Mother Nature and I know you can. I know you can play like this, but you kind of don't want to. You kind of don't want to because the media might call you out. Social media might just call you out. Oh, she's too pretty. Oh, hey, Brian. A little too great, little too effective. But just let's do it inside this room for three days. Let's not let the ball touch the ground. Let's hold that kind of standard, right? Let's play against those odds of you being the best in the world at what you do. And number three, play the game with the true spirit in which you started in the first place. Everybody get me? Are we going to play like that? Cool. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

I hope you found that video awesome and useful. So if you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here.

Go ahead. They're over here. Do it now. Come on. Thank you. Watch them.