[00:00.5]
Welcome to Inside Personal Growth podcast. Deep dive with us as we unlock the secrets to personal development, empowering you to thrive. Here, growth isn't just a goal, it's a journey. Tune in, transform, and take your life to the next level by listening to just one of our podcasts.

[00:20.0]
Well, welcome back to Inside Personal Growth. This is Greg Voisen and the host of Inside Personal Growth. And today we have Amit. And for those of you who are watching on video or YouTube, you're lucky because you get to see Amit and you get to see this same old mug you've seen however many times you've seen it.

[00:38.8]
We're exploring a skill that can make or break every aspect of our lives, and that's effective communication. And Amit, please pronounce your last name for me again so I do not mess it up. Sure. It's pronounced Chitray. Chitray.

[00:54.8]
Yes. Very good. The book that we are going to be talking about today is Amazon number one bestseller called the Other Playbook. Brand lessons every student athlete needs, but no one teaches.

[01:11.5]
Please hold that up. Here we go. Right there. That is the book. That's Amit's, work. And every author is proud of their work. So thank you for having that book and showing it to the audience. Thank you for having me. Well, and let me tell the listeners a little about you.

[01:28.0]
We have two links for you in the show notes below, for all of my listeners, and we'll give those to you in a minute. But he's, the founder of R3 Communications, which is one of the links you can look below. And, the author of the Other Playbook, which is what he just held up.

[01:45.6]
He's nationally recognized communication expert who has spent decades mastering the art of delivering the right message to the right audience at the right time. Amit's, journey is pretty fascinating. He started his career in broadcast news, working as a producer, reporter, anchor in news across all kinds of markets.

[02:03.3]
After a decade in the trenches of journalism, he transitioned to public relations, managing communication from major brands like Eastman Kodak Entertainment Imagination division. He spent 12 years at the American Heart association and visually not working for them as a consultant, eventually serving as VP of Communications for the Northeast affiliate and interim EVP of Communications for national organizations.

[02:30.4]
And then in 2016, Amit said, no, no more of that. I'm going to launch R3 communications with a clear mission to help individuals and organizations respond, rapidly to our ever shifting business landscape.

[02:46.7]
And boy, is it always ever shifting, especially these days. His firm specializes in cris management Strategic communications spokesperson, training and helping leaders communicate with authenticity impact. So whether you're navigating professional crisis, trying to inspire your team, or simply wanting to communicate more effectively in your daily life, Amit brings these proven strategies and real world wisdom.

[03:15.4]
So today though, we're going to explore this book and how he kind of built this between our three and the other playbook. And I think that's the important thing here. And so look, you went from boardroom to ball court.

[03:33.9]
When we did our pre interview, you were saying how you were always athletic, you're an athletic guy, you're always playing sports, and you've been training Fortune 500 executives on personal branding for so long. What is it about the moment of, practicing with your three sons on the couch that made you realize you were training the wrong audience?

[04:00.1]
Because that's the quick playover between who you are at work and who you are at home with your kids and why this book came about. Yeah, the kids on the couch story was really, an eye opening moment. So I have been doing this personal brand development training for executives for many, many years now.

[04:21.0]
And the week that I was going to give this training to a Fortune 500 company, I just wanted to run through the training one more time. So I needed a live audience. I told my boys, sit down on the couch, I just need someone to riff off of and just run through the training. And as I was going through it, I just had that light bulb moment.

[04:38.9]
You know, I, I talked to these executives and trained them on leading with clarity and communicating with confidence and understanding what your values are and how do you live those values. And it occurred to me that these aren't career lessons. These are really life lessons.

[04:55.5]
And I looked at my boys who were in middle school and high school at the time, and I thought about where they are at that stage in your life. Right, Greg, Imagine yourself as that middle schooler or high schooler and think about all the things that you will be going through over the next few years. Not just in sports, you know, competing for teams, trying out for teams, but you've got college admissions coming up, you've got admissions officers, maybe you want to play a sport in college.

[05:20.8]
So you've got recruiters or other coaches looking at you. Maybe you're trying to get a job right out of high school so that these employment, pressures and things like that, along with family responsibilities and social responsibilities. And it occurred to me that, you know, we talk to kids about things like responsibility and reputation, but no one really teaches them how to do it.

[05:42.6]
And so as I looked at my kids through this lens of the corporate training, I realized there is this gap that maybe it wasn't the, wrong audience, but maybe there's this more important audience, this younger generation of student athletes, and teaching them how to build the best version of themselves.

[05:59.7]
Well, and don't forget a really important one at that age, which is either recruiting a boyfriend or a girlfriend. Oh, yeah, because that is a big lesson, and it comes with some hard knocks, at points, because relationships are so interesting to navigate.

[06:21.9]
I'll just say that navigating relationships. So look, in the preface you describe your boys were pretty reluctant participants, coming in from basketball in the driveway. Where did their resistance or reluctance turn into understanding?

[06:38.6]
And what did you tell them about when these lessons, these lessons need to be taught? What'd you tell them about the lessons that needed to be taught? You know, there wasn't necessarily a moment of time, but I noticed steps along the way. So, yeah, I dragged them in from, playing basketball outside and said, hey, boys, just sit on the couch.

[06:57.8]
I want to talk through this presentation. And, you know, you get the typical eye roll. Oh, do we have to sit through this? Exactly, dad. But there were moments where they started to see how it applied to their lives. And so, you know, I was talking to my youngest about the type of basketball player he wants to be.

[07:16.6]
And, you know, what does he want his coach to. To think about him or feel about him. And one of the things he talked about was being coachable. You know, we, we talk about that with our kids all the time. You want to be coachable. You want to be able to take feedback. And so I said, well, what does being coachable mean? How do you demonstrate that?

[07:33.3]
And he said, well, I don't know. I said, okay, well, if you're on the court and during a timeout, the coach pulls you over and he's trying to give you feedback about something, Are you looking down at your shoes or do you look the coach in his eyes? And he stopped, said, well, yeah, I think I'd want to look my coach in the eyes.

[07:49.4]
And so we started connecting the dots about how you can adopt behaviors to drive these brand values. It's not enough to say I'm coachable, but what are the things you're doing consistently over time to demonstrate that? And that's where they started to connect the dots.

[08:06.3]
And that's when I realized kids don't necessarily reject the lesson. They just need context. And once they see how it connects to what matters. Then they pick it up pretty quickly. Yeah, I think that young people are very astute that way most of the time.

[08:24.0]
And look, as you built from 2016, R3 Communications, you obviously are a very effective communicator yourself, and you understand the impact that makes when a CEO or any upper management person or anybody in the company can communicate effectively.

[08:44.3]
How did your experiences helping these executives craft their professional brands, inform you that you knew student athletes were missing? Because I don't think they often make that connection, that I'm a brand.

[09:04.2]
No, they look at themselves as an athlete and a good performing athlete, but not a brand. We know big athletes that play football and we can name hundreds of them that have become, brands in themselves. Right. Michael Jordan.

[09:19.9]
Right. It's like, hey, you're gonna buy some Michael Jordan tennis shoes. That brand is. Makes more money for him now than did ever playing basketball. Sure. Yeah. You know, I think it goes back to helping them understand what, what brand actually means.

[09:38.5]
Like, we in marketing throw around the term brand and brand value. And when I talk to executives, we talk about that. But I really wanted to break it down in simple terms for student athletes. And that's what I did with the book. It's, it's a, very easy to read, easy to follow progression of understanding the brand, building the brand, and then protecting the brand.

[09:59.8]
And so really starting with understanding the brand, it's not just about a, logo or how many followers you have on social media. At the essence, brand value is how you make people feel or how they feel when they engage with you.

[10:15.8]
And when I looked at student athletes, I saw that they, they aren't really top those fundamentals. You know, they're expected to represent their teams that are schools, and often their commun. They're told, you know, this is our school's values or our district's values. I actually remember, you know, every time our kids had to play a sport for the school and you register for them, you have to fill out the concussion test and the vaccination forms, and all of these forms you have to sign.

[10:43.9]
And one of them is the values. You have to read the values and click, I accept. But I think those were a lot like, you know, the cell phone contracts where you just kind of scroll through to scroll through and then click I accept at the bottom. And I wonder how much, that actually lands on the students.

[11:00.7]
And so, that for me is where the, the gap was of really explaining that brand values are what you stand for. And then rather, rather than telling students, here's what you should stand for, give them an opportunity to think for themselves.

[11:17.5]
You know, what are the values that I want to represent? What's the best version of me that I could put out there? And then give them the tools to help build that. I'm glad that you made this correlation because, you know, it's not something at this age.

[11:33.9]
I think many young athletes in high school, junior high get. So what patterns did you notice in your consulting work that you desperately wanted to prevent these young athletes from doing the don'ts?

[11:50.7]
Right? So, look, you've had all kinds of great people come across your transit at R3, and you know what it's like to work with an adult. How did your kids, and how do you think other kids who you've talked to with this book are adopting your brand strategy?

[12:12.5]
And if they are, what kind of success stories have you seen? Well, you know, getting back to your first question of, you know, the consequences I often think about when I'm consulting with organizations. The cost of not doing business, right. If you choose not to go down a certain path, where does that lead you?

[12:30.9]
And so what happens when you don't think about your personal brand early? The biggest risk is you leave it to chance. You give someone else the opportunity to define who you are. I often think when I was at the American Heart Association, I managed large teams, and you bring employees in for their mid year review or end of year review.

[12:53.2]
And I remember one case in particular, an employee was upset that she didn't get assigned to a, project that she really wanted to work on. And I had no idea that she wanted to work on this project. I had no idea that this was an area of work that she was interested in.

[13:08.9]
And I really didn't know much about what she stood for. She was kind of a fly below the radar type of person. Now, some of that is on me as a boss, but a lot of that is on her for not taking the opportunity to project her values or project her interests or make me feel a certain way in terms of interacting with her.

[13:29.2]
And I think that's what I want to impress upon with these student athletes. Your reputation, your brand may be one of the most valuable commodities you have and you'll ever have. Don't leave it to chance and don't give someone else the opportunity to define what that is.

[13:46.0]
If you can be intentional and think about what it is you stand for, come up with that list and then come up with behaviors that if you follow Consistently over time, you can develop that brand. Then you take ownership of it. You don't leave it to chance, for other people to define who you are.

[14:02.6]
So you're saying the most important thing is defining it, and this book will help young adults define it. Now, you dedicated this book to your sons, and your sons have grown into young adults already. What have you observed about their generation, this generation of student athletes that's different from previous generations?

[14:26.2]
And why does this make personal branding even more crucial or critical? Well, I think the easy answer, which we all know what makes this generation different, is the spotlight they're under with the 247 nature of social media, right?

[14:43.3]
Okay, Every action, every behavior is captured and it lives in eternity, and it's magnified, and that's on and off the court. And so you think, you know, every highlight or every bad play, there's game film of it.

[14:59.5]
And so they, they feel the pressure of that, every opinion they share on social media, every misstep that can be captured and judged. And so, they, they have a lot of pressure there. But that's what makes branding even more critical.

[15:14.8]
I think there, there are two lessons that I, I try to pull from the corporate world and share with students. One is, the best time to think about managing a crisis is before, whenever happens, right? You don't want to wait until you're in a crisis to think, okay, now how do we get out of this?

[15:32.7]
So if you are defining the positive traits that you want to stand for and taking deliberate steps to build that brand, and you significantly mitigate your risk of, ending up in a crisis in the first place. Now, that doesn't mean you're going to avoid one altogether.

[15:49.0]
I say bad things happen to good organizations all the time, and bad things can happen to good people all the time. Sometimes that's life. But if you are deliberate about taking the right path and following the right steps, then, many times you'll avoid some of these negative or crisis situations.

[16:07.3]
The second point is it, can take 20 years to build a strong brand and 20 seconds to destroy it. The loser. I think that's really critical, especially in this world of, instant media and social media.

[16:24.5]
And so if you look at the decisions you make through that lens, I think, well, I would just encourage students to look at it, decisions, they make through that lens because maybe that might help them avoid some pitfalls certainly can come crashing down on them, or they can elevate it.

[16:42.3]
And it's a choice they make by how Oftentimes that phone camera comes on and what they're recording and what they're saying. But I think as young adults they frequently don't think about that. So you. I have a little bit of a story and I want to add it to this question because you've watched your sons go through these high stake moments, knowing that they didn't have the tools.

[17:10.3]
So with recruiters or coaches, mission officers, that you'd been teaching and I've watched this and helped, at SDSU's basketball team, Dutch, actually became a friend of mine through a meeting.

[17:29.9]
He actually is now the coach. And, and they would bring in athletes. I'm talking about skills now versus branding from the Congo. And I had a friend who came over here and brought these 7 foot tall Congo and they literally had, and this is interesting, they would make videos of these guys playing basketball and then they would send them to there and they're saying, well, how do they get admissions into San Diego State?

[17:58.2]
Because many of them didn't speak the language. They had to go through all this paperwork. These coaches would recruit. And it's a pretty interesting world that I learned about, a, world that maybe I didn't want to learn about. And I'm curious for your perspective on two ends because skill is one thing, brand is another thing.

[18:22.0]
I think if a guy can punch a basket in a basketball, who are seven feet tall and shows huge skills, but yes, knows nothing about branding, that person seems to be able to go a long way. So what would your comment be to kind of weave all that together and say, you know, I wanted to teach my, my children the, give them these tools that I gave executives.

[18:47.2]
Yeah, I've got several thoughts on that because I've talked to a lot of coaches about skills and talent and when you get to a certain level, a lot of that talent levels off. I've got three boys, two of them are in college and they play sports in college.

[19:03.0]
One at the club level and another, one plays soccer at the varsity level in college. And when you get there, everyone is good, everyone's a good athlete. And so for coaches that are trying to recruit, you have a pick of a lot of talented athletes.

[19:18.9]
So then what do you look for? It's these other intangible skills that might make them a good team player or make them a good leader or make them part of the culture that you're trying to build. So talent alone, it can get you far, but if you have talent and don't have these other life skills.

[19:37.5]
I think you're going to have a ceiling because you're going to run into other people that are also talented. So I think having that well rounded brand, and again, your brand isn't just who you are on the court or on the field. Your brand is who you are across all of these avenues to build the best version of yourself.

[19:56.6]
And you know, it's interesting, your experience with the basketball team, someone who has, a high level of talent but may not speak the language because the language is just one aspect of their brand. It's just one aspect of communication.

[20:12.3]
There are many other ways they can articulate their brand other than the language. If they don't speak the language, you know, are they coming to practice on time every day? Are they coming there early? Are they helping out their teammates? You know, what's their level of dedication, enthusiasm?

[20:28.3]
All of these things speak to your brand and your brand values and you can demonstrate those things in the case of those basketball players, even if they don't speak the language. And so I think that's really the point I'm trying to communicate is that it's not just the talent on the field, it's how are you building the best version of yourself for the field and in the classroom and in life.

[20:50.4]
Yeah. And in that world that I referenced. And I'll, put a nail in this at this point. You know, these people that come in from other countries or even are here, they end up at these quote, basketball camps. At these camps, recruiters come from all these schools to actually see the talent that's at those camps.

[21:11.9]
Right. And those gentlemen who came into this country, the reason is, is I put them up in my house and our grocery bill was like crazy because we had three 7 foot tall basketball players. And I thought, they're going to eat me out of house and home.

[21:28.2]
But they, they had, a representative, a gentleman who was studying law from the Congo was representing. Right. And their gig is, well, if I get this guy a pro athlete or get him in, I'm going to follow his career all the way from college through to the NBA.

[21:46.5]
Right. And I saw a side of this that I knew nothing about. I'm just saying this as a side note, which was really fascinating, how big of a business it is. So, you could have written any other book, for corporate executives because you have the expertise in this established market.

[22:10.9]
What does it mean to you to personally redirect your expertise into this book for student athletes instead of you having written a book about branding for business people that you speak with probably on a daily basis?

[22:29.2]
Yeah, you know I talk about this book being a passion project and it really is a passion project. You know my boys have been involved in sports since they were knee high. We were the stereotypical over schedule. You were kids in sports? Family. So we would be running around every weekend.

[22:45.7]
My wife would take one kid to one practice, I'd be at another game, I'd be coaching my kids teams. I was heavily involved in youth sports in our community. I helped run the travel basketball program for many years. And so coaching kids, helping them, you know, really is something that I enjoy doing.

[23:04.7]
And so when I saw how the lessons in corporate America could be applied to help student athletes, it became a no brainer for me. When I saw how kids had this gap, they weren't being told how to build the best version of themselves.

[23:20.9]
And here's a tool, a useful tool that they can have and that parents can actually use with their kids that helps them have some great conversations. It really is fulfilling a passion project for me. So look, you mentioned that this branding, because that is your company, personal brand development isn't just a career skill.

[23:43.7]
You say that it's a life skill. I, don't know if everybody would see it that way. But obviously as a professional you do. As both a communications professional and as a father. Why do you think that we as a society have really kind of failed to teach this to this younger population earlier than this?

[24:10.2]
I mean you gotta wait so long to do it. Yet all this time they've been influenced by buying certain brands every which way but loose from Amazon to, you know, every commercial that runs. But yet I think that they don't think about it.

[24:30.8]
You're 100% right and you hit the nail on the head, which is something I talk about in the book, which is they've been influenced by Amazon and other companies. These companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure you feel a certain way when you engage with their product.

[24:50.2]
And one thing I talk about in the book is to think of yourself as a product. And it, you know, it may sound cynical. I think maybe we're turned off by the idea of thinking yourself as a product or we think of branding as more of a marketing term. But if companies are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make sure you feel a certain way when you engage, then we also have to be deliberate and think about how we want others to feel.

[25:15.0]
When they engage with us. And that is, is really the gap. Again, you know, we talk to students so many times of this is what you have to do. These are the values. This is what you have to do to represent the community. But there is no tool or resource that gives them ownership of that or shows them the path or the plan of how they can build their own brand values and drive those own brand values.

[25:40.5]
Yeah, it's, so imperative and I think, this other playbook. And again, for all my listeners, click the link below because you're going to be able to get a copy of the book from Amazon. It's a really important one. If you have children or you are a coach or you're somebody in this field and you want to learn how important this is, admit it would be your default.

[26:04.7]
Because I'm going to say, I don't know very many other books like this for that are focused on this particular age group. But again, anybody can read this. So if you're a coach, this is important for you to pick up and understand, because I think you've got a lot of coaches out there too, who probably don't understand this as well as they could, especially at the, let's call it the high school level or the junior high school level.

[26:32.7]
Probably not there. Comment on that. Yeah. So it's interesting. I spoke with a lot of coaches, both at the high school and collegiate level, as I was writing this book, to understand their thoughts on culture and team building and development. And you're right, there is a pretty broad spectrum.

[26:49.3]
Some don't, know a lot about it or don't do a lot with culture building. They just focus on the talent on the field. And the XNOs and others are very much into culture building and leadership development. And so, I wanted to talk to a lot of coaches.

[27:06.2]
I want to reach them with this book. It's interesting. As I brought my voice through this journey, one of the things one of my sons said was, dad, you know, this is a great idea, but the kids my age, we really don't want to read more than we have to. And I kind of chuckled. I said, yeah, I get it.

[27:21.8]
But if your coach asks you to read something, you probably will. And sure enough, you know, he's the one that plays soccer in college. And before he even set foot on the college field, the summer before he went to college, the coach sent a book to all the players, and they had weekly zoom calls scheduled, and they would discuss a chapter each week.

[27:42.7]
And it was something that he did to build culture and get the students talking about leadership, before they set foot on campus. And so I would definitely encourage coaches to look at the other playbook. And again, the way it's set up is chapter by chapter.

[27:59.4]
It's very easy to digest, so they can read a chapter and discuss and work their way through. And the other interesting, observation I had is it's a great tool for parents. Like I mentioned, all three of my boys read it. The older two were able to read it and discuss, and the younger one, I had to twist his arm a little bit to read it.

[28:19.8]
And so I told him, okay, don't worry about the whole book. Let's just focus on the first chapter. Read the first chapter, and let's go through the questions and talk about them. And as we went through that, it was a really interesting journey because I went through it with him, not as the author, but as a parent.

[28:38.7]
And I got to ask him questions like, well, here you said you valued this more than that, and why is that? Or you talked about this athlete, and you said this. Why did you say that? And it led to some great, great conversations, with my kid that I otherwise would not have had.

[28:57.3]
And getting back to something we talked about earlier, you know, the kids, they. They get it. They just need to be shown the structure. And after having those conversations, I realized my youngest is. Is more mature than I probably gave him credit for and maybe more thoughtful than I gave him credit for.

[29:14.2]
But we have to ask them the right questions, and we have to give them the opportunity to. To think about the best person that they want to be. And so going through that process as a parent with my. With my child was. Was really gratifying.

[29:30.0]
Well, and I think that's what this book does. Every chapter gives them an opportunity to answer those questions and give some contemplative thought about it. Now, there's going to be some parents out there who, listening to this, or even others, you know, you say this, the book kind of draws heavily on your business and marketing principles, brands, customer value propositions.

[29:53.1]
And some of the parents, they might worry this sounds a little too corporate for their kids. How do you bridge this gap and make it relevant without losing the innocence of youth sports? Yeah, it's a fair point.

[30:09.5]
And I really thought about that a lot as I was writing the book, because I didn't want it to feel like a marketing textbook or a textbook at all because of the students who will be reading it. And I wanted to make it fun and engaging for Them. And so, you know, again, I kept the chapter short.

[30:26.8]
Each chapter follows a similar pattern where we talk about an athlete's story, someone they might recognize, and then we draw lessons from that story, and then we end with some questions that they can reflect on for themselves. But again, it's maybe demystifying the word brand and not thinking of it as a marketing term, but really thinking about it as a.

[30:48.9]
As a human term. It's not about the logos or the followers or the pr, but it's really about character and how you show up and how you make people feel. It's identity, consolidation. And what I mean by that is each one of your sons has their own identity, has their own unique skills.

[31:13.2]
Each child and or parent knows this very much. And all you're doing is giving them the opportunity to, I don't want to say, leverage these, identities.

[31:30.1]
And, you know, I know people go through brand consolidation. They say, oh, yeah, we've got two or three different brands. How would you like, address this alter ego that sits out there? The son's name is Greg.

[31:46.2]
That's me, with me as a brand, because I'm a good athlete as well. Because I think there's kind of a separation, and I think you're actually asking for a, consolidation.

[32:02.8]
And I wouldn't necessarily even look at it in terms of separation versus consolidation. I think your brand values are your brand values. It's who you are. And that's true whether you're on the court, on the field, in the classroom, at work, or on social media.

[32:20.8]
I think if you're true to yourself and you want to live, life authentically, you know, we hear so much about being authentic, understand what your brand values are, the person you want to be, and that's the same person you are in all out across your life.

[32:39.0]
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I think that's important because I think as young people, we can get divided and we do have cliques, and we want to belong in certain areas. So we have in the past, I don't know if it's true now.

[32:57.1]
We act a different way to be part of that, because some of those cliques aren't accepting of us the way that we are, but yet we long or desire to be there. What do you, what do you think about that? Because there are a lot of clicks that are still very relevant, especially with social media these days.

[33:17.9]
Yeah, it's. It's true. You know, one of the things I, I talk about in the book, you use the Term clicks. I'll use the term customers to get back to, you know, the, the marketing premise of it that I talk to corporate executives about is if you want to think of yourself as a product with a brand, understand who are the different customers in your life.

[33:36.9]
Now, these aren't necessarily people who are buying and selling you, but people who you want to engage. And those circles could be, for the student athletes perspective, it could be coaches, teammates, friend circle. You've got recruiters, parents, family, social circles.

[33:54.0]
So you're not going to behave the same in front of your coach as you will with your, you know, best friend group. I get that. And there's going to be some variation there based on your personality, but your values will be the same across all of your customers.

[34:09.5]
And different values might resonate a little bit more based on which customer group you're you're engaged with at the moment. And we talk about all that in the book. It's, it's a lot for, a student athlete to maybe get their head around. But that's why we kind of break it up section by section to help them understand first what their brand value is and then how different customers might perceive those, brand values.

[34:36.0]
You also touched on something else that I wanted to dig into and we talk about in this book, is that brands do change over time, and that's important to recognize. Sometimes they change for the better and sometimes they change for the worse. We see it with companies, we see it with people in the social spotlight.

[34:53.5]
We've seen it with athletes. So for example, take, you know, Tiger woods, brand. How might his brand have changed from the early stage of his career through, when he went through the personal problems and issues and now back again. So it's something that student athletes need to be aware of.

[35:11.7]
Brands can change and that's okay, they can evolve. But we want to give them the tools again so that they own that journey. It's not others defining who, who they are, but giving them the opportunity to define who they want to be. I think that's very well put.

[35:28.9]
And, you know, look, in kind of wrapping up our interview a minute, you know, you, you look at your three sons now as young adults. You and your wife drove yourself crazy going to all these different events and running them. You have no idea. I, I know I don't, but I kind of did it.

[35:47.5]
I had a son who was doing jiu jitsu and football and basketball and baseball. Right. So I played a role like that too, where the car was going this way, that way, this way, and rollerblading.

[36:03.0]
And I was on the board of the YMCA as well this whole time, so it was pretty interesting. So look, your kids have grown young adults, and now you're writing and sharing this. How this book changed your relationship with them. What do you think about their, your mission, to help others, students and athletes like that?

[36:26.5]
Because this has been an evolution for you. Getting to this point of writing this book has been an evolution, and you have seen changes. What are the changes that you've seen in them for the good as a result of your own evolution to write this book and come out with it now?

[36:45.2]
And what do you hope that this will do for other readers, young readers, coaches, managers, all kinds of people that might read this book? Yeah. So, it's going to be hard for me to answer that question without taking a moment to just kind of brag about my boys a little bit.

[37:03.1]
I am really proud of them. I feel like they are first, you know, good listeners. They do, you know, sometimes, despite the eye rolls, they do listen to what my wife and I tell them. And they have been able to take, a lot of what we talk about here in the book and apply it to their lives.

[37:18.3]
And so as a result, they're, they're independent, they're confident, they're thoughtful, they're, they're kind. They understand who they are. And, I think that will serve them a long way in, in their lives.

[37:35.3]
And it's really gratifying for me as a parent. You know, as a parent, you, you want to have, your child have the best opportunities, right? You want to do everything in your power to, to help them remove some of the obstacles that you might have faced, remove the challenges that you might have faced, give them the opportunities that maybe you didn't have as a child.

[37:53.5]
And so for, for me to be able to provide them with these tools and see them put it to, to use is really gratifying. And again, as a coach, you know, I've seen it firsthand when kids maybe don't recognize how their behavior is shaping perceptions about them.

[38:10.4]
They think that they're doing the, you know, maybe one thing on the field, like I'm, being a leader by doing X, Y and Z. But yelling at a teammate isn't necessarily the leadership that they, they think it is and how that's perceived. And so when I talk to student athletes about who is the person you really want to be and why is that, and they take the time to Stop and think about it and then develop the plan to get there.

[38:36.0]
It really is gratifying because, as I said, I've coached them in sports for many, many years. But now to offer them the same type of coaching, so to speak, that I've done with executives and see them take it to heart, it's an amazing feeling. Well, congratulations to you on having this be a, passion project and writing this book.

[38:57.3]
And I always have said, and I was in a class in a graduate program in spiritual psychology, and the professor used to say, if a video camera followed you around during the day and you then viewed that back at night, would you like what you saw?

[39:15.5]
And I think, more importantly, what you're doing is you're taking young adults and turning them into good adults, meaning adults or young athletes and adults. And you're turning them to people who have high integrity, they're accountable.

[39:31.7]
They've got compassion, they're understanding. And this book can do that for anybody who reads it, because it's the principles that are in the book that you need to understand and the discussions that you have with your parents or coach as a result of this.

[39:48.9]
So thank you for writing the Other Playbook. Thanks for being on Inside Personal Growth and sharing your message. Any last words, Amit? Well, thank you for the opportunity to be here. This has been, a great conversation, and as you could tell, it's something I'm really, really passionate about.

[40:05.2]
Again, it's an interesting journey for kids. This is something that they're not necessarily taught. We talk to them about the X's and O's and how to be great on the field or on the basketball court or whatever sport it is. But, we need to give them some guidance on how to build the best version of themselves, how to identify what are the things that you want to stand for and what's the path to get there.

[40:28.7]
And once they can build that best version of themselves, they really will be successful in sports, in school, and in life. So, Amit, where all my listeners need to go Then is the OtherPlaybook Pro. The Other Playbook Bot Pro at the bottom will also have a link to Amazon on there as well.

[40:49.5]
There also at that website, you can learn more about Amit. You also can fill out a little form and submit, hey, I'm interested in learning more. You'll see some of the, accolades that, this book has gotten. Do submit this because Amit will answer you and he'd be happy to speak with you about bringing this book into your team.

[41:13.8]
Or teams, and I hope you'll reach out to him and make that connection. Amit, namaste to you. Thanks for being on the show. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Done. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast on Inside Personal Growth.

[41:29.9]
We appreciate your support. And for more information about new podcasts, please go to Inside Personal Growth.com or any of your favorite channels to listen to our podcast. Thanks again and have a wonderful day.