Dre Baldwin’s Biography

Dre Baldwin is a graduate of Penn State University and had a nine-year career as a professional basketball player. He’s a noted expert in discipline, confidence, mental toughness and personal initiative. He authored 27 book and holds a YouTube Silver Play Button (100,000+ downloads). Today, he makes it easy for entrepreneurs to have consistent mental toughness and confidence to deliver their best, mentally and physically, even when they least feel like it. Learn more at www.workonyourgame.com and www.dreallday.com.

Ron’s Questions: Segment One

Welcome to The Soul of Enterprise: Business in the Knowledge Economy, sponsored by Sage, transforming the way people think and work so their organizations can thrive. I’m Ron Baker, along with my good friend and VeraSage Institute colleague, Ed Kless. On today's show, folks, we've got the pleasure of interviewing Dre Baldwin. Hey, Ed, how's it going?

Ed Kless

Ron, it's going great, baseball season is back upon us. That makes me happy, of course. Unfortunately, my New York Mets have been COVID’d out because the Nationals ended up with the Rona again. So I have to wait until Monday. But other than that everything is great.

Ron Baker

I’m looking forward to today we this. Dre Baldwin is a graduate of Penn State University and had a nine year career as a professional basketball player. He's a noted expert in discipline, confidence, mental toughness and personal initiative. He's authored 27 books, I feel like a piker Ed, and holds the YouTube silver play button, which means he's got over 100,000 downloads. Today, he makes it easy for entrepreneurs to have consistent mental toughness and confidence to deliver their best mentally and physically, even when they least feel like it. You can learn more about Dre at www.workonyour game.com Dre Baldwin, or Dre all day, welcome to The Soul of Enterprise.

You shot a three minute video to both me and Ed, as a way to get on the show. I have to tell you, it was one of the most innovative ways we've ever been asked to have a guest come on the show. So we had to have you on. So it's an honor that you're here.

I've been dying to talk about your story, there's so much to talk about. But one of the things I gleaned from browsing your website this morning is you've always been athletic. You finally make the high school varsity team, basketball team, as a senior but you sat on the bench all year. You didn't make the NCAA team, but then you succeeded at the professional level. Dre, how did you not get discouraged?

That's why you should feel right at home here because we're contrarians as well.

So you had a nine-year professional basketball career, you played in eight countries. Which league was that?

You name some of the countries, Lithuania and Germany, Mexico, did you have a country that you liked best or saw things that you wanted to go back to?

Dre, what were the fans like, compared, to say, the USA?

Even before you started to play pro, you started building your personal brand, blogging and going on YouTube, and now you're involved with marketing campaigns with Nike and Wendy's and a whole bunch of others. You did this all with no advertising. What was your motivation to share so much knowledge, because you have a ton of great content on your website—that’s free?

That's phenomenal, because as I was going through all of your content, you share the same philosophy that Ed and I have, which is we give away our knowledge. And the philosophy is if you give it away, then you have to replenish it. So you're always at the contrarian edge, or the cutting edge. You seem to share that philosophy.

You're an accomplished speaker, I give you credit because you stand and when you present, you command the audience, and I'm really interested in what you have to say. In 2009, you formed the Work On Your Game, Inc. You've got over 400 products. Again, you've written 27 books. Tell us about that journey. I know we've only got a couple minutes, so it's a little bit unfair, but tell us about the journey, of starting this enterprise.

That's awesome. Well, Dre, this is flying by. We're already at our first break.

Ed’s Questions: Segment Two

And we are back on The Soul of Enterprise with Dre Baldwin, #workonyourgame. Dre, I wanted to ask you about mental toughness. You said earlier that you were a little bit of a late bloomer with regard to basketball. When did you become aware of your mental toughness, and how were you able to use it better than other people to your advantage?

That’s one of the things that continues to amaze me about professional athletes at any level, but especially those that get to play professionally. We see the games, right? We see the games that are starting at eight o'clock at night or whatever. But what we don't see is the sweat out there on the practice court for hours and hours every single day. Is that where the mental toughness really comes in? I mean, you’ve got to be mentally tough in the game. The mental toughness to just continue to work at the, in football they call it the block and tackle stuff, the very basics over and over and over again. Talk a little bit about that.

Did you see the ESPN documentary on Michael Jordan, Last Dance? Have you had a chance to see that? The basketball story is obviously well known and the mental toughness that Michael Jordan had but the thing that I really got from that was—it wasn't a surprise to me—how focused he was when he played baseball. Like how intense he was, he was just as intense trying to play baseball as he was playing basketball. And that just blew me away, the incredible tenacity that it takes to do that.

And we saw that with Tim Tebow, too, with my Mets for the last couple of seasons that he was able to just even make his way through the minor leagues to where he got was amazing. Let's bring it to business now, what are the things that you take away from the mental toughness that you brought to your basketball playing career, and how do you apply them in the business setting now?

How about the application to teamwork? I mean, there is a great video, I have to see if I can dig it up. It was Peter Drucker and, I think, Magic Johnson, going back and forth about basketball versus teams in business. And they're talking about the same thing. What did you learn from the application of playing a team sport to the business world, because I know you have a team because we've interacted with a couple of folks on your team who have been sending us emails and stuff. So talk about that aspect of the team part of business.

That's a great point. One of my favorite stories and this was, I think, about seven or eight years ago, there was a major league baseball game. One of the guys on the bench, who’d been riding the bench most of the year, noticed that a runner missed second base. And he was the only one other than him and the umpire who noticed it. They actually called an appeal play, and they got the guy out at second, but only because the guy on the bench was paying attention to what was going on on the field. I just see that as such an important role, being part of the team even on the bench. I coach my son's team. And one of the things that I would tell the kids because I was a bench coach was, “I'm going to teach you how to be on the bench.” We would go through that process.

That's great. I think my coaching days are done. My son is now in his freshman year in high school, and he's beyond me from a skill standpoint, which I'm pretty happy about. This is, as Ron said, flying by. We're up against our second break.

Ron’s Questions: Segment Three

Welcome back, everybody. We're talking with Dre Baldwin from WorkOnYourGame.com. Dre, I was listening to some of your talks this morning, and you said something I thought was incredibly profound that I want you to explain. You said, “To be the Best You, it's the permission you give yourself to not conform to who you've already been up to this point.” Explain that.

And along those same lines, it might have been the same talk or a different one, but you asked the audience, “How many times have you been too confident, too arrogant, too cocky? And compare that to how many times you didn't go far enough, you stopped short.” It's like we place our own limitations. And then you say, “If you're going to make a mistake, which one do you want to make?”

Then you said, “The difference between the amateur and the professional is changing the word If to Until. I thought that was brilliant, too.

Do you think, Dre, we learn more from success or failure?

One of your podcast episodes I listened to this morning was “mental errors are unacceptable.” We love to quote Yogi Berra’s, “We made the wrong mistakes.” Why are physical errors okay, but mental errors are unacceptable?

You've got a new product coming soon, called Raise Your Value. And Ed and I are pricing consultants, so we spend a lot of time on value pricing. You say it's time to up your worth and time to start demanding and getting it from the marketplace. Can you share anything about that product? Or at least your philosophy behind it?

That's so true. And it's part of your contrarian philosophy too, because the last thing we want is our dumbest competitors setting our price.

Dre, I have to ask you this, should NCAA players be paid?

Excellent. That's one of the best explanations I've heard, thank you for that. Unfortunately, we're up against our next break.

Ed’s Questions: Segment Four

We are back with Dre Baldwin. The website is www.dreallday.com where you can look at an unbelievable amount of free content. Plus, take a look at some of his Master Classes and what he's got coming up with for you in the next couple of months. We look forward to looking at that as well. Dre, I wanted to just jump back quickly, since Ron stole my question about the NCAA. I wanted to jump back quickly and ask you about the whole confidence thing, and contrast confidence with arrogance. Because, like you, I think there's a missing element of confidence for a lot of people. And I think it's because people are afraid to be perceived as arrogant. That's what they're worried about. Arrogance is a whole other level. And it's not confidence. And I try to explain that those two things are not the same. But unfortunately, they're perceived as the same by a lot of people.

I believe it was Pete Rose, who's not the best role model admittedly, but he said something like, “It ain't bragging if it's true.”

Well, I always say he bet on his own team. It wasn't like he was betting against his team, he bet on his team to win. That’s confidence.

You're talking a lot here about what I see is a lot of folks are envious of others. We hear a lot talked about inequality in the world today. And there certainly is. But Ron and I are big believers what we absolutely need is equality of opportunity. It doesn't guarantee equality of outcome. And if you're looking for equality of outcome, that's not really a world that I want to live in. What are your thoughts on that?

Yeah, I've heard it put this way: At the Olympics, the bronze medalist hates the silver medalist and the gold medalists. The silver medalist hates the gold medalist, but the person who finishes 15th is just happy to be there.

I absolutely love the phrase “Ethical, unfair advantage.” I think that is a great phrase because you're making a connection here of something you said earlier when you were talking about the hedgehog principle, right? The Venn diagram, it's almost the same question, isn't it? That's what you're looking for in the intersection of that Venn diagram.

All right. Well, we've got only got about a minute left. I know you can't talk about it officially. But what what's coming up for Dre?

All right, @Dreaallday and #workonyourgame on Twitter, Dreallday.com is the website, any place else somebody should go to try to find your, Dre?

Outstanding. Dre Baldwin this has been such a pleasure. Really happy to have you on the show today. Ron, what do we have coming up next week.

Ron Baker

Next week, we're going to be talking to Alex Nowrasteh from the Cato Institute about immigration.

Ed Kless

I look forward to that. He's a really brilliant mind. Well, I'll see you in 167 hours.

Bonus Content is Available As Well

Did you know that each week after our live show, Ron and Ed take to the microphone for a bonus show? Typically, this bonus show is an extension of the live show topic (sometimes even with the same guest) and a few other pieces of news, current events, or things that have caught our attention.

This week’s is bonus episode 334 - Warren Newsom Buckley and Rothbard

Here are some links discussed in the bonus episode: