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Jason Belmonte: From Outcast To Bowling Prodigy | E75 · In Search Of Excellence

• 0:00
  Jason Belmonte: When I went to go ball on tour norm was still competing. And it was incredibly surreal for me to be competing next to my idol to be competing next to someone who I saw a glimpse of on a tape in Australia for the first time years ago, if I was going to become great at any one, the time that I would have to dedicate it to it would mean that I would have to give up something to do that. When I was honest with myself, I came up with a few answers. And I'm like, Yeah, you're really not good at that. You need to like check your ego a little bit.
• 0:30
  Jason Belmonte: Leave the arrogance at the door.
• 0:33
  Jason Belmonte: Be okay with the idea that you're not great at this and become great at it.
• 0:44
  Randall Kaplan: Welcome to Search of Excellence where we meet entrepreneurs, CEOs, entertainers, athletes, motivational speakers, and trailblazers of excellence with incredible stories from all walks of life. My name is Randall Kaplan. I'm a serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist and the host of In Search of Excellence, which I started to inspire motivate all of us to achieve excellence in our lives.
• 1:04
  Randall Kaplan: My guest today is Jason Belmonte, who is considered the best bowler in history, he has won a record 15 major championships for more than anybody else in history, and has been named PBA player of the year seven times. He has had 27 career 300 games and PGA tour events. And as the only second person in PBA history they have won the Super slam winning all five PBA major titles in the same year. When you're on these, your world tours or wherever you are, do you get to get out and go do fun things. Do you plan it and say I'm in Houston, what is your to do, and you just walk out and get out of the hotel room and go to a ballgame, whether it's football or baseball or the museum. I mean, I've been traveling the world since I was 16. And so been over to over 50 countries. And those first trips, were like, wow, I'm going to Indonesia for the first time I'm going to is to Turkey.
• 2:00
  Randall Kaplan: For the first time I'm going to the US for the first time. And so there is this element of while I'm there, I'd like to say a few things. Because I'm I'm a kid, I've never seen these things before or wherever you go. But when you have been traveling the world since she was 16
• 2:21
  Jason Belmonte: you I've kind of gone everywhere. And I've gone everywhere a few times. And so outside of yeah, there's a specific ball game that you want to catch with a couple of mates or whatever. You know, I'm definitely not looking up on on what to do in Houston on a Friday to go and catch a museum I think I've done a lot of that.
• 2:41
  Jason Belmonte: But it's something very specific pops up. Or sometimes like even if there's a very interesting exhibit a museum that's only in town or you know, it's only there for a period of time and I happen to be able to catch it I'll definitely try to go go and check it out. But yeah, my off days, especially during the season, my off days are so valuable just to sleep and relax like and we might get into it but a regular tour event is is brutally hard to compete it's long days the exhaustion of the mind of the body trying to perform at a very high level for such a long period of time over the course of five days. So those off days. You know you're not looking to go out into the Houston heat on a summer's day to go and check out I don't know the park you know, you kind of just wanting to close the blinds, turn on the TV or stream something that you're you kind of want to just veg out to so you can kind of just decompress.
• 3:48
  Jason Belmonte: But to say that I haven't done that is a lie. I've done a lot of stuff as I was going to these places for the first time. Plus, you know, when you're 17 years old, you can kind of live off, you know, for our sleep and and a bunch of a bunch of exciting and hardcore days. So now I'm 39 Yeah, I want my sleep.
• 4:17
  Randall Kaplan: What was the first event that you traveled to outside of Australia? How old were you and did your parents come with you as a chaperone?
• 4:28
  Jason Belmonte: No, no, the first event I ever went to was actually the the event I realized I could become a professional bowler and that I could make a living off the game. So I was 16 and I had four other mates from Australia who are a little older than I was they were a few years older than I was but they had organised this Singapore Malaysia mini tour and the They had said, Hey, listen, we're gonna go over to, to these two countries to play two tournaments. Did you want to come along? And I was like, yeah, like sounds pretty incredible. So told the parents the plan. And they were like, Yeah, okay. Get yourself to Sydney, get on the plan, and in a way you go. And so they were really supportive. My mum and dad, I've never really traveled a whole lot mums come to maybe two events. Internationally, in my career, Dad has come to two as well. They both came at the same time for one. And then in the other two times, they came individually to two different tournaments. Their time was, so they've been so busy with their, their own business, especially early in my career, that getting them to come to a tournament is not only costly to leave Australia, but it's also like, yeah, they're leaving their business behind for a period of time, which is a bit tricky. So the parents just said at the time, look, we're really busy.
• 6:03
  Jason Belmonte: If you want to go do this good luck. You know, and give us a call when you get there. And I happen to ball really well. And I made a bunch of money, I bought a perfect game in Malaysia. And that paid me at the time, it was the equivalent of like, 30,000 Australian dollars for ball in the perfect game. And as a 16 year old, you know, $30,000 in, like, literally none to 30,000 in like, the span of one game. It was incredible. I was just like, like, I'm Rich, I can buy anything in the whole world.
• 6:35
  Jason Belmonte: That's how I how I felt. And so I came home. And I thought, well, if I can do that in Asia, why don't I just keep doing that? Why don't I keep coming back to Asia, keep bowling these tournaments and keep making you know, these big checks. So I quit my job at Blockbuster. I used to work there. And when I was starting to travel a little more, my dad fired me from the ball family business because I was traveling too much. So he fired me so then I was like, Holy shit, like this bowling thing really needs to kind of pay pay off because I don't have a job anymore to fall back on.
• 7:13
  Jason Belmonte: And luckily for me, I worked really hard at at some stuff actually the the I haven't told too many people this part of the story but after I won all that money, I actually reinvested it into my travel and thought okay, now I've got a bunch of money.
• 7:30
  Jason Belmonte: Mum and Dad, you know, they they weren't funding my my tourist Capades. So I was like, I got a bunch of money. I started a plan my Asian tour and European tour kind of Bolin experiences. And it was expensive. And I remember I'd lost all of it. I just I don't know how to describe it.
• 7:49
  Jason Belmonte: It's It's okay, supposedly, like you know it with a golf ball there. Depending on the altitude, the ball will fly differently, right. So imagine going to a high altitude golf course unaware that bit at a higher altitude, your ball flies further, right? And you just didn't know. And so you're hitting 100 yards out. So you're thinking it's a it's a nice little soft pitching wedge in or something like that. And it just flies over the over the green every single time. So in bowling, it was the same type of experience for me the oil conditions, the lane patterns that we're bowling on, were wildly different to what I'd experienced in Australia. And so this bank account was just getting drained because I was flying away. So I had I had enough money for one more trip.
• 8:41
  Jason Belmonte: And I remember talking to my dad and I said listen, I got I got money for one more trip. And then I don't think I can do this anymore. So I think I was kind of like on there poking poking him a little bit to say is there job for me when when this one fails? I can I come back to work with you because I need money.
• 9:00
  Jason Belmonte: And yeah, he said, Listen, if things don't, things don't work out, of course you can come back to to the business. So I said, Okay, I got one more, one more event in a month. And so I spent that entire month been a little bit more creative in my practice sessions and learning how to recreate that Asian zone oil pattern and the scenarios and really working on things that I was suffering with when I went to Asia. So I really worked hard in that month. And I went back to Singapore and ended up coming second in a major championship there for like ended up winning like 40 or $50,000. And so that kind of was the, I guess in my own head. It was like the catalyst of understanding.
• 9:48
  Jason Belmonte: You're not as good as you think you are, and that there is so much more for you to learn. And anytime that I experienced that type of like, I guess you could say defeat or poor execution or just not having any clue what I was doing. It became this challenge of mine to see how quick I could learn it, how quick I could understand it. And you know how quickly I can get back and win. And so, yeah, that that last trip was a pretty significant trip just because if I, you know, if I didn't do well, I don't know, maybe I would not be talking with you right now. I might seriously be back at the bowl or back home.
• 10:30
  Jason Belmonte: Yeah, just doing doing that.
• 10:36
  Randall Kaplan: Most people don't realize that the community bowl, the lanes are very different than on a professional bowl tournament. So you talk about you touched on it briefly.
• 10:46
  Randall Kaplan: The slickness of the professional lanes, is that harder or more difficult? And how do you prepare for you talked about Malaysia and it's a different altitude? How do you prepare, prepare for something that's 500 feet or 5000 feet at sea level? versus something that is at sea level where the air is different? Do you get there weeks before five days before and say, Okay, I need to acclimate my body to make sure I'm at the same equilibrium as I do in a regular tournament?
• 12:12
  Jason Belmonte: No, no. So in for me, through my career, it's all been time sensitive. It's how late can I actually leave Australia to get to this tournament? And how early can I get back home? Now, obviously, early into my career, it wasn't so dramatic about, you know, leaving family, kids wife, you know, responsibilities, it was more about cost as a kid, it's like, right, where every day earlier, I'm there, I'm in a hotel, and that costs x amount of dollars, and the tournament fees and the airline fees, and then all of the food and everything else that you're spending while you're there. So you're trying to mitigate that expenditure. So you can come home with more profit. The only way that I've I've come to, to kind of realize how to recreate certain environments is you can, you can never recreate exactly what it is ever. But you can you can recreate the part of the lane in which you need to work on. So a lane is 39 boards wide, and we there about just under an inch, each board is just under an inch wide. And so you look at this lane as your as your road.
• 13:34
  Jason Belmonte: And there are parts of the road in which you just naturally feel really comfortable playing. And for the most part, most people like to play the middle part of the lane, right, it's, it's the furthest part away from the edges where the gutters are. And so most people get really comfortable playing in the middle. But there are some oil patterns and some Bowling Centers in which the middle of the lane is just not conducive to scoring well, you have to play closer to the gutter, and then your risk of throwing a gutter ball becomes a lot higher. And so you have to get very comfortable doing that. And so when you travel to different parts of the world and ball in different oil patterns, you're essentially playing a different part of the road, a different part of the lane. And so you can come back home and say wow, I'm really not comfortable playing this portion of the lane, I need to work on that. And so it feels comfortable that I don't have that hesitation that I'm going to throw the gutter ball at some point. So you can do that you can build your game around the confidence on playing different parts of the lane. But there is zero. And I'm to this day there is zero. There's nothing that can compare to experience, and just leaving it bowling on it.
• 14:54
  Jason Belmonte: And then going back to that place and saying, Oh, I remember you I remember this play. I remember this oil pattern. Like I remember what I did that didn't work the last time and so you, you build these strategies over experience. And sometimes it can be really challenging because you know, it is it's a puzzle that we're trying to solve. You know, it's like, Where do I stand? Why do I target out? How fast do I want to throw the ball? How much rotation do I want to put on it?
• 15:24
  Jason Belmonte: What bowling ball do I want to choose to use? When do I change that bowling ball in the middle of the tournament? And so you're putting together this puzzle and you've got these strategies and ideas and then they don't work.
• 15:37
  Jason Belmonte: So then you go back the next time and you're like alright, check all that out. You create these new ones that doesn't work and can get really frustrating because you're like, there is a solve to this puzzle. The reason I know there's a solve is someone wins and someone by pulls really well. So it's like they figured it out. Why haven't you figured it out? And that's where for me the frustration gets to is I hate not knowing what I'm doing that isn't successful, and so that, it almost becomes exciting for me to figure it out. It's like, Oh, my God, I just that light bulb moment comes off or comes on and, and then you get to implement that new strategy that you've kind of come up with, and it works. And then you win. And then there's a very satisfying moment where people watching on TV, they see you win the championship. And there's this like, oh, well done, he did really great. But in your own mind, you're like, this was a long road. This was five years of me coming to this part of the world, or this bowling center.
• 16:38
  Jason Belmonte: And I've really struggled, or I haven't won. And I haven't been able to figure it out. And now I have. And so for me, that satisfaction moment is like amplified, because it's not just this week that I've done well, it's the fact that I've been able to overcome a series of attempts in which I haven't done well. And probably, for me that the most obvious one of that is my, my time in Japan, Japan, the Bowling Centers, they're a little bit older. And so we have a type of wood on the lane, that's a little older, as well.
• 17:17
  Jason Belmonte: And so every time I would go to Japan, I would really struggle.
• 17:21
  Jason Belmonte: And it was like a 12 year, beat your head against the wall type of experience, like every year for 12 years, come in with these high expectations, new strategies, thinking everything's gonna be great. And it just kept kicking me down, kept kicking me down. And it was getting to the point where my competitors were, were saying, it's like the only place he can't, he can't win, like we should go to Japan more often.
• 17:47
  Jason Belmonte: Like, we've got to go there more often. And everywhere else he beats us. And so that alone, the fact that they had this one place hanging over my head, bothered me. And so I was like, There's got to be another way to do this. And so I ended up being incredibly creative and, and doing something that I would not normally ever really do the ball choice that I use my hand position that I use the speed that I used, it felt super uncomfortable, because it was really different to how I like to normally play, play the game.
• 18:19
  Jason Belmonte: But it worked. And then I won.
• 18:24
  Jason Belmonte: And that was a really satisfying, really satisfying moment.
• 18:27
  Randall Kaplan: This episode of In Search of Excellence is brought to you by sandy.com. s a n d e.com. We are a Yelp for beaches and have created the world's most comprehensive beach resource by cataloging more than 100 categories of information for every beach in the world, more than 100,000 beaches and 212 countries. sandy.com provides beach goers around the world with detailed comprehensive and easy to use information to help them plan their perfect beach getaway at home and abroad. And to make sure you're never disappointed by a beach visit again, plan the perfect beach trip today by visiting sandy.com. That's www.sand.com. The link is in our show notes. Stay Sandy my friends. In American us football, which is the most popular sport in the US, there's a standard football, it's the same size, it's pumped up to the same air pressure in baseball, there's one ball. And in football also there's natural grass, and then what we call fake turf, and they used to play on a very center for people would really get hurt because there was no cushion when people would fall. Is all the wood the same? In a professional bowling tour. What is the wood? Is there one particular wood? And as well, you mentioned you can change your ball? Are there various bowling balls? Are there rules in terms of the pound?
• 19:54
  Randall Kaplan: It's one size, but what are the limitations on the ball? What's the variance? And what ball do you use? Or do you change up your ball for each tournament depending on some of the factors you just mentioned?
• 20:07
  Jason Belmonte: Yeah, really good question. So we'll touch on the first one. First, every bowling center I've ever been in has been different. Over the course of the game's evolution, we have developed new lane surfaces. So the original versions if you can imagine the old wood lanes where it was it was a type of wood. It's probably the most true sound a ball can make going down the lane like it's that real deep kind of rolling on the wood.
• 20:45
  Jason Belmonte: It's a beautiful sound. But the problem with wood lanes is you What is the material that can damage you've got these heavy bowling balls that crash onto the lane causing dentin split in. And so the maintenance of a woodland was often and it was expensive and it was annoying.
• 21:08
  Jason Belmonte: And so the industry developed a synthetic lane, a lane that was made of this incredibly durable and tough plastic. They made it look like wood lanes as best as they could. But the synthetic Lane had a lot of differences to the wood lane. When you put oil on a wood lane, especially an oldest surface would lane, there would be cracks that would open up in the lane I Bolden some lanes in some parts of the world where there are like actual like potholes and holes in the lanes.
• 21:39
  Jason Belmonte: And so you're trying to navigate through those holes in the lanes as well. Where synthetic, you never get that you don't get the hole in the lane, you don't get the board splitting open. And so it made for a more consistently smooth surface. And from the proprietors perspective, you didn't have to maintain them like you did with woodlands, you didn't have to have the fear that a bowling ball was going to denote them or crack them open or whatever. And so it was a huge advancement into the lane surface. But as soon as you put down a plastic Lane instead of a traditional woodland, the way the oil sits on top of that land and the way that that correlates with the ball going down, it changes the ball motion dramatically. And so now you bowlers had to learn how to ball on synthetic and wood. And that was an interesting time, I think for a lot of players who had been so great on traditional wood lanes and now having to redefine their game a little bit to play on a synthetic line. So that was that advancement with bowling balls is very similar to golf very, very similar. There are so many similarities. It's It's pretty wild. But you know, we have bowling balls that are designed to do specific things as a golf club is designed in a golfers bag sandwich is great for the sand or when you need to chip at high and short distances. And then your driver is meant to go just straight and long. As far as I can. We have bowling balls are designed to hook a lot, some don't hook at all, some hook early, some hook late summer shiny summer doll.
• 23:23
  Jason Belmonte: And did this I can't say there's an infinite amount of combinations because obviously there's not but there is a lot of combinations to a bowling ball. So choosing your arsenal, choosing your equipment has become incredibly important in today's game back in the 50s 60s and 70s. We didn't have that, that evolution in technology. In the bowling ball. Most people carried one bowling ball. This was it. This was my one. And this is what everyone used. And so the game was very simple.
• 24:00
  Jason Belmonte: Then when technology gets involved, it complicates it a little bit. And when you complicate it a little bit and then you've got to, you've got to be a little smarter, you have to learn that part of the game, why do I use Ball A instead of Ball B. And at any given time on the Pro Tool, I'll have maybe 20 bowling balls, for me to be ready to use sometimes more. And that can also be really overwhelming, because you're looking at 20 bowling balls on the ground going well, which is the one that I want to use right now. And and you know the winner, the winner of the tournament is going to choose the right one for him or her. So you have to get it right. And it's it's pretty daunting, especially when you throw it and it's wrong. You're like crap, that didn't work. Now I've got to make that up somewhere I have to choose the right ball. But not only do I have to choose the right ball now I have to execute at an even higher percentage for the rest of the day. Because I started using the wrong ball.
• 25:02
  Jason Belmonte: And that's, that's a really tricky part of the game.
• 25:06
  Randall Kaplan: But is there a specific weight that a ball has to be and is the composite of a ball the same in baseball, you need to have a wood bat. Because if you have a metal bat, you're gonna have 20 home runs per game. And when you're using the wrong ball during a game, can you change your ball during the middle of the game? Are you stuck with that ball for the rest of the game?
• 25:29
  Jason Belmonte: Yeah, I was gonna answer those two questions, but I forgot them after I did my rant so I'm glad you brought them back. He brought them back up. So a ball in bowl cannot weigh any more than 16 pounds. That's the most that a bowling ball can weigh.
• 25:43
  Jason Belmonte: As technology has evolved. You actually don't want to use the 16 pound bowling balls most of the none In the high 90 percents of competitors on tour, or using 15 pounds, you drop that extra pound, because you're looking for just a little bit of deflection to create better pin action. Inside the bowling ball, though, and even the surface of the bowling ball, what that material is made of does vary, we have a white block inside that white block is either symmetrical or asymmetrical. And the reason why these designs of a white block are created is to generate a type of ball motion.
• 26:32
  Jason Belmonte: You know, if you want a bowling ball to hook a lot, then you need this white block on the inside to be able to pull the ball a certain way again, think of it like a golf ball. And that if you know title is is looking for extra spin. It's it's investing in its r&d on right how do I get a golf ball to spin more? Or how do I get it to fly further into the air? What are the the aerodynamics of the dimples on the ball? What do I got to do to make this ball go that little bit further on the course and bowling is no different. It's how do we get a bowling ball to strike more? But how do I get a bowling ball that hooks a lot to strike more? How do I get a bowling ball that hooks a little bit strike more.
• 27:12
  Jason Belmonte: And so the technology in that is it's it blows your mind. But it also becomes very overwhelming when you're a competitor.
• 27:21
  Jason Belmonte: Because now you're you're trying to understand what it all means.
• 27:24
  Jason Belmonte: Because like a golfer using the wrong club at the wrong time can be incredibly detrimental to your entire tournament. It's the same with bowling, if I'm using the wrong ball, I'm just not going to win. Doesn't matter how well I execute if it's the wrong ball for the oil pattern and the part of the line that I'm trying to play. I'm just not going to get the maximum amount of strikes that someone with the right ball playing the right part of the land is going to get and so yeah, you you typically you have to work with your sponsors on understanding those technological advancements better. So you can choose the right board at the right times.
• 28:07
  Jason Belmonte: And it's complicated.
• 28:09
  Randall Kaplan: Let's go back to the very beginning of your life.
• 28:11
  Randall Kaplan: When you were 18 months old, your mom Marissa and dad Eldo bought a bowling alley called the orange 10 pin bowl, you are taller, you're still in diapers, you're still having poopies every now and then. And at some point picked up a ball. And you couldn't roll it with one hand because it's clearly too heavy cue tell us about a technique you learned at that age because you had to learn it. And how you did something different than almost every bowler before you had done. And what was that like?
• 28:41
  Jason Belmonte: Yeah, well, mum and dad actually built the bowling center a couple of weeks after I was born. It was this this business idea that was born from a question when family from Sydney came to this small little country town called Orange. It was pouring down rain and someone had said, Hey, is nothing to do. It's raining.
• 29:02
  Jason Belmonte: Let's go bowling. And my parents were like, Oh, we don't have a place here to do that. And so the very next day, they said why don't we build one, you know, the town would use it and sounds like you know, our family really enjoy it. And so the very next day, they started researching what the game was and how much to invest in it and and they decided to do it which was incredibly brave, because yeah, they knew nothing about the game never bowled a ball in their life. And yet they invested all of their money. They asked my dad's parents to invest all of their money to go into this business that they knew nothing about. And so looking back, the fact they knew nothing about the game was a blessing in disguise for me, because that meant they weren't coaches, they weren't bowlers, they didn't know the correct or traditional way of playing the game. They just it was business to them. And so the earliest photo we have of me bowling is when I was 18 months old, and my mother would tell me that I was very stubborn. I had to do it by myself, no one was allowed to help me. I got to pick the bowl up. And just as you alluded to, before, it was just too heavy to bowl traditionally like like everybody else who was older than me. And so I would hold his ball with two hands and waddle to the foul line and draw it out into the land and then turn around and do it all day long every day while my parents worked. And then as I was getting older, the ball was still a little too heavy for me to throw it with a traditional style, but I could do it a little better my way like I could actually create a bit more speed now and the one thing that I could do as a little boy that no one else in this small town Have bowlers could do is I could hook the ball, everyone else bowled super straight. And I was hooking the ball. And to me, that was the coolest thing in the world. It made me different.
• 31:01
  Jason Belmonte: And I loved it. And so nothing was going to stop me from doing that. As you get a little bit older, and now you're you're strong enough to hold the ball with one hand, and you've got, you know, boys and girls your own age, who are traditionally bowling and you get older kids who are bowling. That's kind of when it started with the pressures, I guess, which I really don't understand why, but the pressure of it's time to conform, it's time to change what you have been doing and bowl like everybody else. And, and I just wouldn't do it. for two main reasons, I loved the way that I did it. But more importantly, I would look at the scoreboards, and I would be beating everybody. And so I couldn't understand why I would change. And that mentality of if, if I'm enjoying it, and it's serving me, well, why why am I conforming to what everybody else is doing it. And that's kind of how I've lived my life really since since then in every aspect. But I just had this ability to do something a little bit different. And that little bit different gave me an advantage. It gave me more strikes, it gave me more hook.
• 32:25
  Jason Belmonte: It allowed me to do things to a bowling ball that no one else in my town could do, which again, that's the advantage that I had.
• 32:32
  Jason Belmonte: And you know, winning against kids that were 567 years older than I was as a 10 year old or, you know, as a 13 year old beating all the adults in town.
• 32:41
  Jason Belmonte: It made no sense to me why I would ever, ever change and luckily, I didn't because it's it's served me well through my career.
• 32:53
  Randall Kaplan: Also about norm Duke in the beast.
• 32:57
  Jason Belmonte: Norm do. He is a Hall of Famer, one of my favorite bowlers of all time, probably consider him an idol of mine. I saw norm Duke bowl for the very first time on a VHS tape. VCR sorry, VHS is a VHS, VHS, VCR, VCR. That's how that's how old it is. I can't even remember the three letters. The tapes were called that VCR tape was actually sent to us by two Americans that came to live in my small town. The husband was in the in the mining industry.
• 33:35
  Jason Belmonte: And we had a goldmine outside of where I lived. And so he would, he would tell us all about the PBA tour. And we had never heard of it before. You know, there was no internet. We didn't have it on TV. And so we're, I'm listening to him tell the stories of all of these bowlers.
• 33:55
  Jason Belmonte: And, you know, anytime the name norm Duke was was mentioned, it seemed to be a really engaging story. And so they went back home to the US. And they would periodically send these tapes over from the PBA tour that they had recorded, and allowed us to view. And so we ended up having to, we had to buy a new VCR player because the the versions of the US and Australia were slightly different. So we had to buy an American VCR player. And then we put the first tape and in the very first show that was on there was norm Duke. And he was using this bowling ball called the beast. It was his purple ball with pink riding.
• 34:46
  Jason Belmonte: And he was just hooking the whole lane with his purple bass and my eyes as I think I was like 13 or 14 at the time. Like my eyes were just glued to norm.
• 34:54
  Jason Belmonte: And he won the tournament using his ball. And I remember just turning to my to my parents saying I need a I need a beast.
• 35:03
  Jason Belmonte: If there's anything that I can do for you to make me get this best. I will do it whatever it is. And yeah, I think it was for Christmas that year under the tree was was a beast. And I tell. So the funny part of all this is when I went to go ball on tour norm was still competing. And it was incredibly surreal for me to be competing next to my idol to be competing next to someone who I saw a glimpse of on a tape in Australia for the first time years ago. And I remember telling him that story. He actually beat me in the competition. And I shook his hand and I said you know it's actually for some reason I don't feel so bad today losing to you Uh, let me tell you why. And I told him the story and you know, normas he's such a, he's a beautiful human being, you know, he had a tear in his eye, and he gave me a big hug. And he told me how how much of an honor it was to have that story related to him. And you know, we've been very good friends ever since.
• 36:12
  Jason Belmonte: And He's now retired, which is sad, because I miss seeing him compete, but I'm happy he's retired because he was so bloody good. It's nice to not have to try to beat the guy anymore.
• 36:27
  Randall Kaplan: When I was younger, 567 Actually, it wasn't five or six when I was younger, 10 to 12, maybe 13. I liked the ball. There were a few bowling leagues in Detroit, suburbs of Detroit where I was from, and I wasn't very good. But bowling was on TV from time to time. And Earl Anthony was the best bowler in the world at that time. And I remember while I was in this league, just watching him on TV, and he would spin the ball, he was a right hander, the right leg would kick out beneath his left leg. And I remember that ball, just spinning one ad. And just cranking through these pins. And I thought, wow, that's super cool. And when I thought back in the time, I said, What are all these funny shirts people are wearing? These are kind of nerdy, and they're very different. And we had our own shirts in that league as well.
• 37:22
  Randall Kaplan: And it was, these are really kind of fin shirts. They're not what I would call a sport shirt.
• 37:29
  Randall Kaplan: And the interesting thing about the shirts is they became a fashion trend. And people are now buying expensive bowling shirts that some of the finest cool clothing stores in the world.
• 37:39
  Jason Belmonte: Yeah, we've definitely seen a lot of those trends through through a bowling was in fact that there was a period of time where even even bowling shoes were inspired, in lines of shoes, it to the point where you know, where I live in a small little town, right? So you kind of get that feeling like you almost know everyone.
• 38:00
  Jason Belmonte: And a few times, you know, I'd go to the pub, and I'd look around and I would see my bowling center shoes, they stole them, like people would go bowling, and not bring the shoes back just to wear them to the pub. And you know, I'd say them.
• 38:17
  Jason Belmonte: And I'd be like Dave Frick to bring my shoes back to the bowl.
• 38:23
  Jason Belmonte: Like don't, don't steal my shoes, and wear them to the pub.
• 38:27
  Jason Belmonte: So there was like some pretty funny times in which the fashion of bowling has definitely come in and out. And you're right, like the concept of that kind of retro bowling outfit is definitely making its way, way back again. It's weird. I mean, bowling is probably it's probably one of the hardest things we've been at trying trying to do in bowling is to break the stereotype of what a bowler is. You know, that idea of the 70s and 80s, burger eating beer drinking type of athlete, that doesn't exist anymore. You know, when when I go out and play on tour, it's a very young tour, it's a very fit tour, and you have to be the way that the tournaments are played now. It's brutally taxing on your body. And I think what we have seen in this generation of Pro Bowlers is we've looked to the past and we've seen careers cut short due to that stereotype, that heavier set gentleman that that bowler that just didn't didn't think about stretching even right, as simple as stretching, they just wouldn't even do that. It was it was just a very different time to be alive. And so the tour today is just not that at all.
• 39:52
  Jason Belmonte: And when I do you know when I do meet people, and they say, Oh, do you get a ticket to have a beer in between frames? And I'm like, no, no, it's it's against our rules to start with. But no, it's it's very fit our tour. You have to be and so you try to educate that but that stereotype that Homer Simpson, even the Fred Flintstone type stereotype is so difficult to break because it has been ingrained into the culture of Bowling for so long.
• 40:25
  Jason Belmonte: Now, don't don't get me wrong.
• 40:25
  Jason Belmonte: If you and I want to go and have a casual role on a Friday night with our mates. Yeah, get the burgers going and get the beer flowing but on the pro tour it is it is very very different.
• 40:39
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• 41:02
  Randall Kaplan: Get your next amazing gift and order a copy of bliss beaches by clicking the link in our show notes. Where to get back to the physical demands of the pro tours and professional bowling, which I think most people do not know what that's like, let's go back to when you were a kid and what were you like you played rugby league? You played rugby, you tried a whole bunch of different sports. And at some point you said yourself, alright, I can't play rugby, because I'm going to get hurt or I could get hurt. And you realize you were a good bowler?
• 41:31
  Randall Kaplan: So take us through that as a kid. And was there some moment in your life where you said yourself? I think I can do this professionally. And as part of that. Talk about what you did, where you worked, and how your dad fired you one day.
• 41:49
  Jason Belmonte: Yeah. So growing up, Australian culture is very sport orientated. And I love my sport. I just love it. If I can catch it, throw it ticket, hit it, I enjoy doing it. And so growing up, bowling was something that I did because my parents owned the bowling center and I loved it. But outside of the bowling center, there was rugby and cricket and soccer and squash and tennis, there was a lot of different games that I was playing. And I ended up becoming quite good at rugby and quite good at cricket. And sew those two sports along with bowling were always the three sports kind of jockeying for position on what I wanted to do that day. And so as I was getting older, there was a realization that I was really good at all three, but I was not great at any one. And if I was going to become great at any one, the time that I would have to dedicate it to it would mean that I would have to give up something to do that. And I didn't really know which one it was going to be I really did not I think I had the ability to do all three at a very high level if I dedicated myself to it. So it wasn't until I was 16. And I traveled to Malaysia, for the very first time was my first overseas trip as a bowler. And I bought a perfect game in Malaysia and I won the equivalent at the time, I think it was 30,000 Australian dollars. And so I became overnight rich in my mind like and I felt like I could have bought a Ferrari with $30,000 That's how I fell. And I came home. And that was this realization of wow, I've got so much money because of bowling like rugby and cricket and or any other game that I wanted to play. I didn't see that I didn't see at that time at that age that I could I could make that kind of money. And so I decided to focus on my on my bowling career. Furthermore, like you said, like, if you dedicate yourself to one, but you still want to do the other ones like rugby is a pretty dangerous game. And so if I was going to, if I was going to really become as good as I could be as a bowler, it's like, well, you also have to factor in the idea of you know, getting hit in the head a few times, you know, or something like that. And that's something that I didn't want to have to deal with. So I did I just cancelled everything else focused on my bowling after that trip as well actually, I had two jobs to work in jobs. I used to work for blockbuster, which younger listeners may not remember either. It's it was the original place. So one of the original places to watch movies where you would you would hire and rent a movie or hard physical tape or, or a disk. And I used to work for my dad at the bowling center. And so I came home $30,000 richer, quit my job at Blockbuster thought I don't need that anymore. I'm rich. And then it wasn't that much longer that all of my international traveling was causing stress on the family business because I was missing no shifts. I'm supposed to be working there.
• 45:05
  Jason Belmonte: And Mum and Dad had to cover my shifts. And so I got the I came into work one day, and my dad called me into the office and he always used to call me into the office and we would talk nonsense. So we would talk business, I would talk something but he would never close the door. The door would always be open to the office until this one fateful morning I walked into the office and he said, Can you close the door behind you? I was like, No, you're he's never wanted to close the door for and so he sat me down and he you know you said how proud he was of me trying to compete as a bowler and doing all this travel but he's gonna have to let me go because I'm gonna have to let you go son. You're just You're killing me. You're killing me with all this time you're taken away, I gotta do your shifts, Mom's gonna do shifts. We're already working, working a lot, you know, we need to hire somebody that can fill those shoes and say you're, you're done was the weirdest, because I had the same for lunch. My guy, I had lunch with him as well. So he fired me. And Mum was like, Oh, how'd it go today? I'm like, well, that fight me. How do you think it went. And it was quite a funny moment looking back at it. But I was annoyed because like, working at the ball was part of how I was funding my international career. And early on in my international career, I was really struggling, bowling in different parts of the world, different oil patterns, different lanes surfaces, I had no experience. And so like, working for me was a way that I can continue to fund it. And when that was cut off, it meant if anything now that I think about it, and look back, it was like, You're jumping into the deep end, it was like you cut the rope, the safety net, it's gone. You have to make this successful, or you can't do it anymore. And so I think I I really kind of went up a game or two in my preparation for these these tournaments overseas and, and it paid off because of work that preparation made me a better player.
• 47:14
  Randall Kaplan: Most of us remember our first paycheck that we got in life I had 16 years old had a summer cold calling job where I sat in front of a phonebook and I dialed for a company called mural stone construction company. And I would say Hi, I'm Randy Kaplan, from mural stone consult. I'm Randy Kaplan from mural stone construction. Do you need home improvements like aluminum siding, big concrete work, et cetera, et cetera. And I remember one sale that entire summer. And I think I made something like $800, which is all the money in the world for me, you in this tournament, you get around $30,000 Tell us how you invested that money, and what it was there for. And you got to talk about your Jordans that you bought as well, and what exact model and color they were when you're 16 years old and buying those cool kicks?
• 48:03
  Jason Belmonte: Well, the very first thing I remember buying was a mobile phone, that was a very first thing that I bought.
• 48:12
  Jason Belmonte: And taking that phone to school was the ultimate flex that was he has his own phone. Like they were really expensive. Back in the day. It was a it was a Nokia 5110 was the actual model of the phone. And if you Google what a Nokia 5110 Looks like SEBRAE was big. The air there were a brick and they were they were tough.
• 48:38
  Jason Belmonte: You could throw it like a brick and it wouldn't break. Like they were really tough back then. It had this little screen, but you could play a couple of games on them that I thought were like revolutionary. So that was the very first thing that I remember buying. And it also allowed me the freedom to just the little things, you know, kind of I don't know, like, the flex of the money was, you know, your friend wanted a drink at the cafeteria, you know? And you're like, Yeah, I got a flame. I got that. Yeah, let me give you $1 Like I got that, you know, and you soon realize some of these people may not actually care about you, they just they want that drink or something. So you kind of started to pull back a little bit pretty quickly on that. But the real investment of that money was into my own career was that became a travel fund for me. Looking at tournaments through Asia and through Europe. I knew that well, the arrogance of me was I did it. The foot one of the foot was the first time I ever traveled overseas. So in my head, it was what every single time you're going to travel now you're going to bring home$30,000 Every single time. And it just wasn't like that. It was quite the opposite. I started traveling to new places, different places, the oil patterns were different. The line surfaces were different. I had no idea what I was doing. I was not making money, I was losing all of my money. I was losing the expense to get there, the entry fees, the hotels, the food, and the tourist stuff that I wanted to do as a kid when I'm over there. And these trips started to become super, super expensive. And I wasn't I wasn't generating income. And I remember thinking like what what am i What's going on? Like I've nearly run out of money. And I looked at my bank account. I had enough for one last trip. And I remember talking to my dad I think I was I was kind of hoping I was alluding to the idea of me coming back to work if if my final trip didn't do so well and dad really kindly said look, of course if you need a job when you get back from this one.
• 50:48
  Jason Belmonte: There's always going to be one here for you and you When I had that conversation with him to the time of the tournament, it was about a month in between.
• 50:55
  Jason Belmonte: And so I thought, right, I have a month, before I spend the last of my money. What do I need to do to be great? And I started to, for the very first time become incredibly analytical of my game, rather than emotional, rather than just complaining that I didn't do well. I started really asking the question, why.
• 51:16
  Jason Belmonte: And when I was honest with myself, I came up with a few answers. And I'm like, Yeah, you're really not good at that.
• 51:25
  Jason Belmonte: Maybe you need to like, check your ego a little bit, leave the arrogance at the door, be okay with the idea that you're not great at this, and become great at it. And so I spent that month doing what I thought was the right thing. And when I went back to the next tournament, after spending all that money, I ended up coming second in the tournament, and I think it was for, like, maybe $50,000. And so that was like, that was the true catalyst of understanding what it's going to take, how difficult it really was, but that I had that ability to overcome, you know, the worst of the worst experiences to still figure it all out. And, and I'm forever grateful for Ben on my last trip, that last dime, you know, and, and pouring everything I had into it for a month before going and then having that success as the reward. That's how I've gone into my career from from that day forth is anytime I've failed. I've taken a very analytical approach as to why and worked incredibly hard on fixing it. And it's it's done me really well over my career. I'm Jason Belmonte, and I was on In Search of Excellence hosted by Randall Kaplan. And in my experience of doing podcasts, it's always very critical when the host, you know, knows what they're talking about. And I thought, Randall did a great job in researching me researching my career as a tempting bowler. And so the conversation felt very natural. I didn't feel like I was trying to educate someone who had never heard of me or heard of the game that I'm involved in so very much a fan of Randall and his work and definitely knows what he's doing.
• 53:17
  Randall Kaplan: Thanks for listening to part one of my amazing conversation with Jason Belmonte, the greatest bowler in history. Be sure to tune in next week for part two of my incredible conversation with Jason