Ross Mandell Passion

Foreign.

Welcome to the Mike Hartman Show. Mike is a performance coach and former Stanley cup champion with the New York Rangers. Topics on this show are focused around stories, mindset and champions. Mike will also go into details about helping you with your pain points and struggles and finding motivational solutions on how to have the mindset of a champion. Now, here's your host, Mike Hartman.

Foreign.

Welcome back to another episode. Today. I have my really good friend Ross Mandel with us now. Ross, you're going to learn a little bit about him. You can listen to him in a minute, but he's super passionate. He's driven, incredibly smart. I mean, you have to be smart to go to an Ivy League school. He ended up going to Dartmouth. But I don't want to get too much into his story, but I'm going to share a little backstory with you. When I moved back to Charlotte, North Carolina, about a year ago, when I right away when I got back, Ross and I went out for lunch and he started telling me about his new profession and how much he loves it, how he loves helping people, that he actually had a tear in his eye. So just listening to Ross is so inspirational. Everybody, I really hope you enjoy the show. If you have any questions, go to Hartman Academy. We would love to help you on with the show.

Hello, this is Ross Mandel from next college student athlete. I'm very honored to be on the Mike Hartman Show. Mike's one of my favorite people. I love him, respect him. And for him to ask me to be on the Mike Hartman show to talk about my story is just absolutely tremendous. And I really appreciate that and excited to share my background to help people out there. You know, life's hard. Life's usually not easy for people. Mike's a great example of overcoming incredible odds to be ridiculously successful in the National Hockey League and get a Stanley cup championship. I don't have that kind of success, but professional athlete, but, you know, like to share my story and, you know, when you look at the big picture in life, I've always felt that if you follow your passion and you stick with your integrity and quality morals and values, then at the end of the day, you'll be great and successful at a minimum in your own mind. And like many people, I've had a lot of ups and downs. You know, I nearly died in a car accident when I was a junior in high school, which was quite serious. And, you know, I was in the ICU for a while and my face was basically reconstructed. And I'm only five, six and I, you know, I'm on a spectrum of ADD where, you know, school was never easy for me and I went to a very affluent high school in public high school in Connecticut with a lot of pressure. And for some reason I just had it in me where I wanted to achieve. Maybe it's because I was a middle child, maybe it's because I was short, maybe it's because I was Jewish and in the minority. But I always had this passion to win, to achieve, whether it was scoring the winning goal in a soccer or hockey game or just coming out on top in some way, but always with high integrity, always doing the right thing, always, you know, for the betterment of not just myself, but the team or the group at the school or whatever. And I really believe if you have your big goals, your big values, being those types of things, looking out for the greater cause, sticking to your guns and principles, you know, having high integrity. I really believe in the end you're going to be fine and do well in life. So when you look at my situation in particular, as I mentioned, I almost died in a car accident in junior year in high school. They didn't know if I was going to ever be able to play sports again or what my cognitive function was going to be. I came back after being in and out of school for a while, junior year, that's the year you take all these AP classes and really push your academics and everything for, for college. And I came back after missing the first half of hockey season to, you know, be one of the top players and scorers on, on a very competitive public high school team in Connecticut and just tremendous where we came back to, to win, win the division and I was one of the top players after missing a lot of the season and then I, you know, fast forward. I ended up going to an Ivy League school to realize my dream of going to an elite academics institution and, and play top 201 soccer. And that's, that's great if the story ends there, you know, but there's always hurdles, right? So, you know, I showed up at, at Dartmouth College, you know, thinking I was the man and recruited and I'm going to conquer the world. And I got, I got a pie in the face, if you will, or, you know, a slap in the face in terms of a wake up call, you know, even though I was recruited, little did I know that so were a lot of other people. And I was found myself on a team of like, what, 25 guys, incredibly talented guys that were bigger than me, faster than me, better than me. And I fought for, during college, I fought just to be on the team and really, you know, came to the realization that just being on the team and competing was, was a win, was a win, you know, and you know, during my, my time at Dartmouth, you know, the team was a top 20 team and won a couple Ivy League championships and went very far in the NCAA tournament. And you know, I'm 52 and I look back and I mean, how, how many people get to do that? How many people get to go to a Division 1 school and play their sport, let alone a team that's, that's coached by one of the most respected coaches arguably in the world and that helped develop us and as people and you know, guys that are your best friends for life and whatnot. And those are the things that through hard work and persistence and being a good person, that's where you win. You know, when you go through life and you don't like a job or you don't make the team or you don't get a lot of playing time, it's easy to complain. It's easy to complain about politics or the coach or something's unfair, you know, but at the end of the day, you got to put your big boy pants on or big girl pants on and do your best. And do your best and really overcome life's obstacles and challenges, whether they're, you know, fair or not. Usually they're not. But moving forward and giving it everything you possibly can by knowing what to do and listening to others who have succeeded and putting your own little spin on things, you know, that's how you're going to succeed again in a job, a career, school, sports, leadership positions, those kinds of things. So that's, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I do appreciate that Mike having on the show again, you know, I look at the success that Mike's had and I mean, how inspiring is that? And I think when people like Mike and myself, different degrees of success that we have, you know, can be, can be quite inspiring to others. And now when you look forward to my career, I've had ups and downs in my career too. You know, I think people expect you're going to go to a good school and get a good job and off you go to the races. And frankly, it's not the way it works. You know, I had the pressure of, you know, going to an Ivy League school, which is great, but it's a double edged sword because the expectations, you know, people think you go to an Ivy League school to become a doctor, lawyer, Wall street tycoon, etc. An entrepreneur CEO, which a lot of people do. And that wasn't me. And I kind of struggle with that, both at Dartmouth and throughout my, my career. But I always knew deep down that I was going to be happiest with doing something I'm passionate about, helping other people, being involved in sports, being involved in technology, those types of things. And I found different organizations and companies, whether it be Apple or Activision, the big game company or care.com and I found different roles and positions to grow and be part of that kind of a team, you know, wading my way through the craziness that is corporate America, which can be frustrating and painful at times, had, you know, big highs and wins and big lows and frustrations and woe is me kind of moments, you know. But I've taken the guidance of a few, few interesting and successful people. You know, Oprah Winfrey in a commencement speech to Stanford, which I highly encourage you to watch, she talks about how things happen that are bad and they really frustrate you and they get you down and it's okay to spend a few minutes feeling sorry for yourself and being frustrated, but then kind of let it go and move on and use it to grow and be better, you know, and not everyone takes the same path in terms of going to college or going to a great college. I mean, my goodness, you know, Steve Jobs himself from Apple never finished college, right? One of the most successful innovators of humankind. So I kind of followed a path that had ups and downs and struggled internally of that need to be passionate about what I did and make a certain living and lifestyle and provide for my family and everything. And I really had never found true happiness until I was after 50 years old. And, you know, I found my way to where I am now. That next college student athlete. Not to be a promotion, this isn't meant to be a promotion for ncsa, but I finally found a company where I fit in and I was respected and admired and I'm succeeding on a daily basis, contributing to the greater good of the company and families and kids that want to play college sports and whatnot. Just incredible gratitude I get helping families and representing the leader in collegiate recruiting and the education and technology that we have. It's just absolutely tremendous when you can do something on a daily basis that you are passionate about. That impacts people every day. People have gratitude for it and doesn't hurt to make money again. As Oprah Winfrey says in that commencement speech at Stanford. You know, life's not about money. Not everything is about money. But money buys things and gives you opportunities, right? So that ability to kind of keep things in check, keep within your goals and your values and do something you love while making a good living, but, you know, not necessarily having money being a driving factor. To me, these are the keys to success. Not easy, not, not. There's not a straight line sometimes to that success. Sometimes it takes, in my case, decades to get there. But if you're persistent, you have your eye on the ball, you're realistic, and you achieve little bits and pieces in the short term, those create long term realities. So I'm Ross Mandel with next college student athlete. Thanks to Mike Hartman for inviting me to the Mike Hartman Show. And Mike, keep inspiring people, keep doing what you do. You're one of my favorite people on earth. So thanks for inviting me.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Mike Hartman Show. If you're enjoying what you've heard so far, please feel free to rate, subscribe and leave a review on your preferred podcast listening platform. We really appreciate that effort. We'll catch you in the next episode of the Mike Hartman Show.