Latest / The Action Catalyst / Win Some, Learn Some, Never Lose, with Joel Green (Sports, Basketball, Improvement, Success)
Transcript
- 0:00Intro: Today's guest is Joel Green, chief Executive Officer of Pro-Level Training, the National Director of Nike Sports Camps, a former professional basketball player and a renowned motivational speaker, a thought leader in the motivational category.
- 0:15Joel has a BA in psychology from Ryder University and brings his wisdom to business owners, entrepreneurs, and young.
- 0:23A.
- 0:24Joel's book Filtering the Way to Extract Strength from the Struggle is out now.
- 0:30We hope you enjoy.
- 0:33Dan Moore: Joel Green, welcome to the Action Catalyst.
- 0:35Uh, thank
- 0:36Joel Green: for having you.
- 0:36I appreciate it.
- 0:37It's
- 0:37Dan Moore: gonna be a lot of fun to learn more about your new book that's out now called Filtering.
- 0:41I really curious about that concept, but I wonder if you could take us back in a little bit of a mini biography of your life and, and share some of those major pivot points where things were going in a certain direction and some that happened to make you move in a different direct.
- 0:53And over time it culminated in the position of influence that you're in today.
- 0:56Joel Green: I mean, I've had quite a few of those, you know, so many pivotal moments, moments to where I detect to suddenly shift unexpectedly, you know, shift as towards my mindset, not just a physical shift.
- 1:07Emotionally.
- 1:08Um, you know, growing up I went through a number of things early on that helped me develop, I dare say, a callus to different hardships, a callus to different difficulties in life.
- 1:18And many of those difficulties has helped me comparatively.
- 1:21Today when I'm going through a difficulty, I say, you know what?
- 1:24Don't sweat it too much because of what you've gone through even at a young age.
- 1:27You know, growing up I grew up in, in Philadelphia, north Philadelphia.
- 1:30Uh, I grew up in an abandoned home.
- 1:32Sounds pretty crazy, but, you know, we literally had graffiti on our, on some of our walls, holes in the staircase that maybe my siblings used to play games on, like hopscotch, just hop around the hole to say, you don't get stuck.
- 1:43Things like that, you know, it sound like it was fun and games, but in hindsight, as I began to get older, I'm like, That was a difficult time, you know, to not have hot water sometimes, and my older siblings had to go next door with pots and pans from our parents to get hot water and we have to come back and sit 'em on top of the heater.
- 1:59So we had hot water, you know, different things like that helped me to really grow up and say, you know what?
- 2:05I know where I came from.
- 2:07I know what tough feels.
- 2:09I, I witnessed violence early on, being close to a shooting when I was six years old, things like that.
- 2:14I don't sweat too much nowadays, and people will see me in a positive light.
- 2:18Call me an optimist.
- 2:20I'm just really grateful.
- 2:21It's not being optimistic.
- 2:23I'm just grateful to be here and I'm grateful to have opportunity to succeed at
- 2:26Dan Moore: something.
- 2:27I think that's an incredible story because not everybody chooses to respond in the way you did.
- 2:31Can you share maybe why you feel like you had that inner ability to, to respond to this in a grateful way?
- 2:37Not a harsh way.
- 2:38Not in a giving up way.
- 2:39Joel Green: You know what?
- 2:40In my household, my parents literally, Told us we're not allowed to say cat.
- 2:45And it may sound cliche, it may sound a little corny, but we, we got in trouble.
- 2:49I, I got in trouble.
- 2:50I remember when I was eight years old for saying, cat and I didn't eat that night.
- 2:53I'll, I'll put it that way.
- 2:54That type of belief system helped develop that I can attitude to where despite what was going on in life, no matter what was going on internally or externally, I could still do something.
- 3:07Beyond what occurred.
- 3:09You know, what I began writing about and what I began speaking on to different audiences over the years was this, this method of filtering that I came up with just to distract myself, to be honest, difficult things would be going on, and I would distract myself by setting a goal to not think on the difficulty.
- 3:24I just began extracting some good stuff from the bad stuff, and they became my driving.
- 3:30Dan Moore: Hmm.
- 3:30Well, let's, let's dig into that.
- 3:31Your book is called Filtering the Way It Extracts Strength From the Struggle.
- 3:35Can you expand on some of those principles of filtering and first, how you used it and then how everybody can use it?
- 3:40Joel Green: Well, absolutely.
- 3:40So filtering it itself, it is a method that I, I've used just to, like I said, to really, you know, break my situations down so that I'm not overwhelmed by it.
- 3:49You know, so much of what we go through shuts us down and stops us and make us quit at different things, merge ventures and goals, cuz we're overwhelmed.
- 3:57It's too big of a.
- 3:58By filtering the experience, whatever the circumstance is, you know, you're able to break things down.
- 4:04You lean into it as opposed to try to ignore it and run from it, and you, you literally will say, okay, what can I take from this situation to actually propel me further as opposed to just living on the surface of our situations?
- 4:17The surface generally is always as.
- 4:20But when you dig into it and you lean into it a little bit more, you find that seed of positivity within it, some type of driving force.
- 4:26And that comes by way of filtering and just breaking down the situations and learning how to properly make adjustments.
- 4:33And as we do these, these things, We'll start to see so many opportunities that exist within things that seems non opportunistic.
- 4:42I'll, I'll put it that way, camouflage opportunities.
- 4:45That's something that I'm big on.
- 4:46There's so much in front of our eyes that we don't even see and if, if we dare to lean into them by way of filtering.
- 4:54What we have going on, we'll actually gain foresight into what's taking place as opposed to going through something and having to wait on hindsight to reveal the answer to us.
- 5:02Dan Moore: Man, I love that approach.
- 5:04Joel Green: Honestly, it's a game for me now, and that's one thing I've been telling people.
- 5:07I said, life will become fun.
- 5:10With the difficult isn't even a difficult thing for you anymore because now you even take those things on as a challenge to improve you.
- 5:17You always see an opportunity to improve.
- 5:20I tell people now I'm undefeated.
- 5:21I wing some and I learn some.
- 5:22I don't lose.
- 5:23I'm undefeated
- 5:25, Dan Moore: I win some and I learn.
- 5:26So , that's a great way to put it.
- 5:28Now, no.
- 5:29Along the way you've hit numerous brick walls.
- 5:31What can you share with us on some ways to figure out what to do when our progress is completely stopped?
- 5:37Joel Green: Well, number one, be trans.
- 5:39Be transparent with yourself to begin with, not just with other people.
- 5:43You know, we always talk about transparency with, you know, with other people, and being open and honest.
- 5:48You have to do that with yourself first.
- 5:50And if you don't start there, even once you talk to someone else, it won't fully come out.
- 5:55So when we hit a brick wall, realize, okay, something got me, I, I'm stuck and I understand that.
- 6:01I notice it now.
- 6:03It's the proper, the perfect time to try and make an adjustment and, and not allow for.
- 6:08That difficulty, that out school, that failure to to be an end point, it has to be a midpoint, and realizing that you're just literally in a process right now.
- 6:18That's how I look at every failure.
- 6:19I, I literally see it as a, as a midpoint from you.
- 6:21It's never an end point.
- 6:22Dan Moore: That is so great because that forces you to realize there's gonna be a sun coming up tomorrow.
- 6:26There is something after this thing.
- 6:28It's not an hand, it's a midpoint.
- 6:29That's a great mindset to take to it.
- 6:31I
- 6:32Joel Green: try to remind myself as fast as I possibly can.
- 6:34That's the thing too, and I speak on that often.
- 6:36We have to remind ourselves as quick as we possibly can.
- 6:40It is a process.
- 6:40It's a process.
- 6:41It's a process.
- 6:42As opposed to this was it.
- 6:43As soon as I'm able to remind myself of that, I take one more step forward and that's all I need half
- 6:48Dan Moore: the time.
- 6:48Well, that's true.
- 6:49That one more step can often be the difference.
- 6:52Joel, how do, how do you keep growing personally?
- 6:54I mean, you've had career as a professional basketball player.
- 6:56You're highly successful entrepreneur with, uh, pro-level training, expanding into many different states, all parts of the world.
- 7:02Eventually, you're very recognizable as a product spokesperson and model.
- 7:07You're a speaker.
- 7:07What do you do to, to avoid that sense of getting complacent and just kind of on the coast a bit?
- 7:12Joel Green: I don't know how this really sounds, but I celebrate less, right?
- 7:15I enjoy my moments, believe me, so I internally I celebrate.
- 7:20But externally, I don't allow for the celebration to make me stagnant.
- 7:23I enjoy all that I do.
- 7:24I'm grateful for all that I'm able to achieve.
- 7:27I thank God for it and that I keep moving forward.
- 7:29I know what it feels like to become complacent.
- 7:31I felt that as an athlete before, and I saw the resulting factor was I played a little worse the following season when I became complacent after victory.
- 7:41And I said, okay.
- 7:42I did great and I celebrated during the off season, and I come back as a lesser athlete the next year.
- 7:48I said, okay, I'm not doing this again.
- 7:51I'm gonna celebrate for, you know, a day or a moment.
- 7:54And I'm gonna move on to the next goal.
- 7:56And that's one of the main things for me to where, when I achieve something, you know, I, I, I try my best to achieve, you know, to have a, a, a mindset of humility.
- 8:06You know, you've done this great job, don't be high on yourself.
- 8:09Another thing that also helps me out is having a heart of expectancy.
- 8:13So, I'm big on when I set a goal for myself, I visualized this goal to a t.
- 8:18I'm talking about to the, to the points where I feel like as if I already have it before I even scrape the surface of touching it.
- 8:24There's an exercise that I do, I take myself through and I feel what I'm about to go after, so that once I'm already pursuing it, I feel like I already have it.
- 8:32I expect it to occur.
- 8:33So once I finally get it, I'm not celebrating so high as if it was something I've never done before.
- 8:39In my mind, in my heart, I've already done it, and so once I get it done, I'm already working on it.
- 8:43The next.
- 8:44Dan Moore: Can you share a little bit about the role of other people that keep us on
- 8:46Joel Green: track?
- 8:48Absolutely.
- 8:48I mean, there, there's a number of people, my parents to be begin with.
- 8:50You know, my parents are amazing.
- 8:52They're, you know, two of the most intelligent people I know, you know, I dare say they are the two most intelligent people I know.
- 8:58They've taught me so much and still are.
- 9:00I reach out to them if I'm going through a difficulty of challenge.
- 9:03I figured they have some type.
- 9:05They don't have the answer.
- 9:07They have something that can lead me to the answer.
- 9:10Uh, they're two pastors.
- 9:11They're, they're preachers, so you know, they're, they're well read.
- 9:14They, they, they know a lot about life.
- 9:16They help guide other people.
- 9:18Those are two of my guides, and I have some other mentors as well.
- 9:21Former coaches.
- 9:22One of my high school coaches, he's become like an uncle to me, to where I can reach out to him for anything.
- 9:28Uh, just a bit of advice.
- 9:29He will be very open and honest with me, and that's exactly what I need.
- 9:33And that's why I will hope that when someone's going through something, don't reach out to that yes friend all the time.
- 9:39Don't reach out to the Yes mentor all the time.
- 9:42Reach out to that person that may strike you deep, you know, with some of their.
- 9:47But what you have to realize is a lot of times they'll be striking gold.
- 9:50You know, a lot of people aren't willing to strike deep.
- 9:53Those aren't the ones you always need to reach out to.
- 9:54For me, I reach out to those people like my brothers, my sister, my parents that can literally tell me what it is and what I need to do and not try to butter me up.
- 10:03The
- 10:03Dan Moore: ones that'll speak truth to you cuz they love you enough to do that.
- 10:06Joel Green: Absolutely.
- 10:07I mean, that's, that's really what it's all about.
- 10:09Dan Moore: Yeah.
- 10:10Now you work some really long days, you, you take a lot of pride in your work ethic.
- 10:14Do you have a, a morning routine that just starts every day in very much similar manner?
- 10:19Joel Green: Yeah.
- 10:20So, you know, preferably, you know, I wake up at 5:00 AM and I'll, I'll, I'll pray to begin the day for a good 20 minutes or so.
- 10:27Pray form of meditation beyond that point by just sitting, still thinking about whatever.
- 10:32Comes to mind, to be honest with you, as I prep for my day, I go ahead and I work out, do a physical workout for the day, for about an hour or so.
- 10:39Usually wake my son up by the time we work out together, and he prefers to work out in the morning.
- 10:44He's nine years old, but he is already, you know, a little version of me.
- 10:47So we work out and then I get to work after that point, you know, do business and, uh, start to prep the emails and calls and things that I.
- 10:55For me, it is so important to, to maximize for my end, to maximize on the hours of the day.
- 11:02Uh, and I realized that the earlier I began, I got it from being an athlete.
- 11:05I'll be honest with you, I picked up that characteristic, you know, from the athletic side of things, as I would start my day at that time around four 30 and be out on the track and, you know, get my early workout.
- 11:17And I used to tell myself the earlier I began, the more training I can get in throughout the day, the more training equates to.
- 11:24Me improving.
- 11:25I carry literally the same mentality in business now, uh, that I carry as an athlete.
- 11:31Dan Moore: You know, part of your interesting background is the fact that you played professional sports in Europe.
- 11:35You played in Ireland, a couple of other countries.
- 11:37What are some of the insights you got from coaching styles that people in other countries might practice that, that maybe people in America just don't listen to that much or know
- 11:46Joel Green: much?
- 11:47I saw a bro that they're very, very regimen like.
- 11:51We would do something a thousand times and I loved it.
- 11:54That's the way I train.
- 11:55Now, I'll be honest, a lot of the ways that I run my business and the way I train different athletes is I picked up a number of those characteristics from Europe.
- 12:04We would literally go into practice and some of our training sessions and work on two things here in America.
- 12:10We may work on about four to five things that work out over there.
- 12:14We worked on about two.
- 12:15They wanted us to get it down that day, so we would do it hundreds of times that one workout, just to make sure we were comfortable enough by the end of that workout to properly execute whatever we were taught.
- 12:26That mentality over there of perfection rapidly, you know, versus over here to where it's a bit more gradual, a little more intense, I feel like over here.
- 12:35As far as the athletic side, but I saw the, the regiment side over there was just a little different and, uh, it, it added to me because I was able to bring the attributes from here in America and also pick up on things over there.
- 12:49So it, it helped me to become a melting pot of, of, you know, some great tools.
- 12:53That's
- 12:54Dan Moore: good.
- 12:54And probably those people in Ireland that never met a guy from North Philly.
- 12:57Never.
- 12:58No,
- 12:58Joel Green: never.
- 13:00That was the funny thing, man.
- 13:01Just, just relating to one another.
- 13:03It was, it was a challenge at first, I'll admit.
- 13:05Um, but I mean, we, we loved each.
- 13:07After.
- 13:08While it was a huge culture shock for me, it was my first time in being over there and number one, the environment was a culture shock.
- 13:15It rained every, my first four months there.
- 13:17It rained every day and uh, I mean literally not in, I'm not exaggerating, it rained at some point every single day.
- 13:25I said, okay, now wonder's.
- 13:26So green over here.
- 13:27It's just everything they water
- 13:30. Dan Moore: Well, a couple things I wanted to ask you about.
- 13:32You have a philosophy that the fund doesn't come first.
- 13:35We need to stop looking at the struggle as something that's a negative.
- 13:38Could you expand on that for us?
- 13:40Joel Green: Absolutely.
- 13:40You know, for me the struggle is truly that's where the fruit is.
- 13:44You know, we, we don't always realize it cuz it hurts.
- 13:47The struggle is usually painful.
- 13:49The strength, the struggle is difficult.
- 13:51There's always something on the other side, and usually on the other side of a struggle, it's something good because it can't go any worse, you know?
- 13:58So it's like when people could have had the proper, Perspective and vantage point and see a struggle as, okay, I'm going get, I'm not, when I'm in it, I'm gonna get through it, because on the other side, it has to be something better.
- 14:09You're already at the bottom.
- 14:10That's how I look at a struggle, like, okay, I'm in it.
- 14:13It's tough, it's difficult.
- 14:14It is.
- 14:14It's a challenge.
- 14:15But man, if I just continue to persist, If I just dare myself to keep moving forward in some form, in some fashion, it's a guarantee.
- 14:23I dare.
- 14:23It's a guarantee of something good coming up if I continue to move forward.
- 14:27If I don't move forward, I may be stuck in this bad place for a really long time.
- 14:31The fun not coming first.
- 14:33That's what it's about.
- 14:34I lean into the process of, I fully embraced the process of, of whatever it takes to get.
- 14:42The greater side of the greater good little things.
- 14:44You know, me waking up, perfect example.
- 14:46Me waking up at, you know, 5:00 AM to work out.
- 14:51That's not fun.
- 14:52You know, uh, that's not an enjoyable thing.
- 14:55I, I will be the first to say like, I enjoy, you know, I feel like I'm in pretty good shape.
- 14:59I enjoy the results of training and working out more than I do working out, and I want to enjoy the results of it.
- 15:06That side is fun for.
- 15:08But the fun doesn't come first.
- 15:09The fun comes through working hard, getting in the gym and doing X, Y, Z, so that you know, you can enjoy the, the fruitful and fun side after the fact.
- 15:19Dan Moore: Yeah.
- 15:20You know, one thing I'm really impressed with what you just said, Joel, is when you spoke about why not keep going in the struggle, cuz it can't get me worse.
- 15:26It can only get better, but if I stop, it may stay worse.
- 15:29Exactly.
- 15:30It's like the old saying, when you're going through, hell keep.
- 15:34Amazing.
- 15:35Joel Green: Exactly.
- 15:36Dan Moore: Funny, you also have a, a statement.
- 15:38You say, real life makes an impact.
- 15:40Stop living through false narratives.
- 15:42Joel Green: There's so many false narratives out there.
- 15:44We're, we're, we're in a day and age, you know, with social media, and I dare say so many false certs, you know, to where things appear perfect.
- 15:51You know, we, we wanna live the perfect life.
- 15:53We wanna be perfect individuals.
- 15:55Don't try to be perfect.
- 15:56You know what I mean?
- 15:57The real side of things includes imperfection.
- 16:00Embrace your imperfections, embrace your insec.
- 16:02And I can speak on this now cause I lived it.
- 16:05I've been very insecure.
- 16:07I have had anxieties as a result of my insecurity.
- 16:09So that's like just doubling up took me a while to finally say, you know what, dude, being imperfect, it's okay.
- 16:15You're human.
- 16:16And it didn't, I didn't realize that until I began finally expressing my imperfections.
- 16:22It's expressing my insecurities to other.
- 16:25And that was exactly the moment when I began to see, oh, other people are also imperfect in this area, also insecure in that area.
- 16:33And I began embracing my insecurities.
- 16:35I say, okay, I'm not perfect here.
- 16:36You know what?
- 16:37Now I, I start to realize every imperfection or every insecurity is nothing but grounds and the foundation for every improvement.
- 16:43So it was like every improvement starts somewhere.
- 16:46It usually starts with the insecurity of some sort, or starts with the imper.
- 16:50Embrace 'em and just build upon 'em if you actually have to or just accept those things.
- 16:56Dan Moore: You know, so many people, I think particularly young people are caught up in their image because they look at somebody else's social media posts where their image looks so glamorous, their life looks so much fun, and inevitably we make comparisons and we end up feeling a little bit short, which makes us feel worse, doesn't get any better.
- 17:11We're
- 17:11Joel Green: put here to be us.
- 17:12You know, you're put here just to be you.
- 17:14You know?
- 17:15I'm put here just to be me, and obviously us being.
- 17:18We're put here to help influence and impact other people.
- 17:21We're not just put here for ourselves, but we are put here to be ourselves.
- 17:25When we're trying to be everyone else or everything else, we can tell inside our, our heart, our, our conviction tells us we're not being truly who we are.
- 17:35I'll be honest.
- 17:35I, I have to remind myself of this date, you know, often no be.
- 17:40Say what you would say, do what you would do and uh, you know, I have the most comfort at that point,
- 17:46Dan Moore: which I guess is another benefit of staying busy.
- 17:48Cuz when you have a lot on you, there's just not enough energy to be somebody else and be yourself,
- 17:53Joel Green: That's, you're speaking the truth.
- 17:54I mean, that's, that's man, I mean, yeah, you don't have the time to, to fake it.
- 17:57You don't have time to be, you know, outside of who you naturally are.
- 18:01And that's, that's so.
- 18:02Yeah.
- 18:02Well,
- 18:03Dan Moore: I, I dig that, that makes a lot of sense.
- 18:05Sure.
- 18:05One other quick question.
- 18:06You, you talk about how you can train our brains to default to something instead of making excuses to default to some different pattern there.
- 18:13What, what do you mean by train our brain into different default mode?
- 18:17Joel Green: I mean that, that's the key thing.
- 18:18You know, that's something I've had to work on, I still work on as far as training myself to, to have my, my most ideal reaction by default, I've had talks with people to where it's like, you wanna respond instead of reacting, right?
- 18:30So you wanna have a greater response because a reaction is literally an action based off of what someone else made you do.
- 18:37Mm-hmm.
- 18:37. So that means they're in essence, controlling what you do.
- 18:40Mm-hmm.
- 18:40, and I don't like that.
- 18:41I don't like always reacting because now I'm not in full control of my actions.
- 18:46So I choose and prefer to respond cause I feel like that's coming from me and that comes by way of me training myself.
- 18:55You know, going through different situations to where I say, okay, take a quick second before you even have a response of any sort.
- 19:02That way won't come out as an impulsive reaction.
- 19:05Training your default is not easy.
- 19:06It's not an easy thing to do.
- 19:08It takes you taking a moment before even acting any way, just breathing, stopping and thinking for a.
- 19:15We can think over 30 thoughts every second.
- 19:17You know, every minute.
- 19:18Rather we can think up, you know, if we just take a minute, we can have so many thoughts, but we choose not to have to take a minute just to kind of process things to breathe.
- 19:27And for me that was one of the main ways I trained.
- 19:29My default response to my default thinking was, okay, when something happens, take a moment for yourself to just process it.
- 19:38Literally take a minute, take, you know, 30.
- 19:41and see what you can come up with before you get back to the other person, before you react.
- 19:46That way you'll have a better
- 19:46Dan Moore: response.
- 19:48Mm-hmm.
- 19:48, because that react is kind of a primitive reaction to, to whatever's going on the fight or flight triggers, and we just absolutely, later on usually regret when we
- 19:56Joel Green: when.
- 19:56Absolutely.
- 19:57And I know because I, you know, I, I've had plenty of regrets based off of, you know, negative reactions.
- 20:02So I said, man, I have to stop
- 20:04Dan Moore: that.
- 20:04Oh, I think that's f.
- 20:06Joel, one of the kind of big category things I hope you could touch on is some words of encouragement.
- 20:11You know, we, we've got listeners from all around the world, some of whom are just trucking through life.
- 20:15Things are just going brilliantly for them.
- 20:16They're happy with everything.
- 20:18On the other end of the spectrum, we got some people right now that are really struggling.
- 20:21They're just really down, really discouraged.
- 20:23What advice would you give to somebody that just doesn't know what to do?
- 20:26Joel Green: Next?
- 20:27Question.
- 20:28The situation, you know, as opposed to just questioning why me or why God, or if they're religious, you know, whatever the case.
- 20:36Question the situation, but when painful circumstances come my way, I don't always just question the surface of what's going on.
- 20:44I try, it's not always easy, but I try to, to ask myself, what can I get from this?
- 20:51I know this is, you know, Happening to me, but can I change my vantage point to see if it's happening for me?
- 20:57And that's a big thing because when we're emotional, where we're in our feelings for too long, we forget that there's another side to what we're going through or potentially another side if it doesn't seem that way.
- 21:10But when you begin to question the situation, As opposed to just questioning the surface of it, oh, why did they do that to me?
- 21:16Or why is this dawn?
- 21:17Or Why did my boss do the things like that?
- 21:19That's the surface.
- 21:20If you start to hold yourself accountable a little bit more and say, okay, what can I do to change right now that can help influence a change within what I'm going through?
- 21:30When we change the things around us change.
- 21:33So if you lean into the situation and question the situation and say, okay, how can I change right now to help potentially better this situation?
- 21:41I, I, I know you'll come up with great answers.
- 21:44You'll come up with different people to reach out to, you'll start to realize that you have help because you'll start to come up, you'll start to brainstorm.
- 21:52That's what truly what's taking place.
- 21:54That's what filtering is.
- 21:55Filtering is a creative brainstorming process to where you, again, you break the situation down, you question the situation so that you begin to really draw out.
- 22:04Their fruits from that situation, you start to have things revealed to you like, oh, wow, I didn't think about that.
- 22:08You know what?
- 22:09I met that person three months ago that I could actually, they gave me their card.
- 22:12I could reach out to them.
- 22:13Now they, they're a therapist or, okay, they're in that business.
- 22:16I'm struggling in my business right now on this facet, but they can help fill that void.
- 22:21But it takes us leaning into the situation and questioning how can we become better right then and there while everything feels.
- 22:28Dan Moore: Woo man, that is so great.
- 22:31Cuz what it's saying is if people to treat themselves like they're a victim of a circumstance, they're never gonna get past it Absolut.
- 22:37But if instead they ask the question, what can I change about me?
- 22:39Cause I think about how many times I personally have kind of shaken my fist at the world and said, this isn't fair.
- 22:44Was is this happening?
- 22:45Shouldn't be, but that doesn't get us anywhere.
- 22:47Joel Green: That's the main thing I never forget.
- 22:49And this.
- 22:51In my mind, awful.
- 22:52When I was 17 years old, I lost my, tragically lost one of my older brothers.
- 22:56I, I was mad at the world.
- 22:58I was mad at . Just life for a moment.
- 23:02I, I dare say I was mad at God, you know, and I'm a religious person and I never questioned God like that.
- 23:08I never questioned the world like that.
- 23:10I never questioned myself, like, why, why is this going on?
- 23:13But there were things that he used to tell me to.
- 23:16I wasn't doing them at the moment.
- 23:18Do better as fool.
- 23:19Do better at, you know, if you say you're serious and you want a scholarship to college, you have to do X, Y, and Z.
- 23:24He'd been around, he played basketball before me.
- 23:25He had a, he had a name for him, something and things like that, so he knew what he was talking about.
- 23:29But I took things easy.
- 23:31I was a teenager, but when he, when he passed away, I said, okay, after a while, this wasn't immediate, but what can I do, number one, to take my mind off of these things.
- 23:42Like I said, I used to set goals as distractions for.
- 23:44What can I do to help improve this, this situation that I'm going through that can help alleviate this pain a little bit in the moment?
- 23:52I questioned the situation and put myself in the forefront of the change.
- 23:58That's when things changed, and I began studying more, and I made the honor roll for the first time in my life.
- 24:03This is my senior year of high school.
- 24:04It took me 12 years to finally make the honor.
- 24:07And I made it two months after he passed away for the first time ever.
- 24:10And then I also earned multiple Division one scholarship offers two months later.
- 24:15So the moment I held myself accountable for the change that I wanted to see, that's when a change
- 24:19Dan Moore: came.
- 24:20Fantastic.
- 24:21Joel.
- 24:22Time with you.
- 24:22Flies my friend.
- 24:23This is just terrific conversation.
- 24:25I want to thank you for everything you've shared.
- 24:27It's inspired me.
- 24:28I know it's inspired our listen.
- 24:30Joel Green: Uh, thanks so much.
- 24:31I, I really, truly appreciate it.
- 24:33Thanks for having me on.