Welcome to Invest in Yourself, the The Entrepreneur Podcast. Join the podcast mogul Phil Better as he interviews successful entrepreneurs that make their living in the digital world. Now Better join your host, Phil Better, and his special guest today on Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur Podcast.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to Invest in Yourself, the Digital Entrepreneur podcast. I am excited to have you here. I am, of course, your host with the most feel Better, and our guest is an amazing guest. They are a dedicated performance coach who empowers business leaders to transform behaviors with over 15 years refining the elite, including NBA stars like Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, and, of course, the mamba himself, Kobe Bryant. He now enhances individual individuals and organizational excellence. He's a vibrant storyteller offering instant, actionable insight. He imparts proven strategies to streamline success, aligning business with elite athlete methods for world class performance. Please welcome our guest, Alan Stein Junior.

Alan, thank you so much for being here.

Oh, it's my pleasure. It's great to be with you, Phil. I'm I'm looking forward to a fun conversation, my friend.

Oh, I am too. I have so many questions, but the first one I wanna ask is, why did you start to become an entrepreneur?

The of my most important north stars is freedom. And I know we can we can define freedom in a variety of different ways, but I always know that the the operating system that I work best in and that I thrive in is the ability to call my own shots and the ability to bet on myself. That's a bet that I'll take every day of the week and and twice on Sundays. And and I've always figured out that that being an entrepreneur, being a freelancer, being someone that can kind of control his own destiny, is what best suits me and my my personality and my ambitions and my goals. So, I I have worked for others in a variety of different jobs in my teenage years and found out very quickly that I wanted to be my own boss and to call my own shot. So it's all I've ever done since I've graduated college, in the late nineties, is to kind of run my own show. And that's taken a few different iterations, but that one same you know, that one central point has always stayed true.

The freedom. I love that. And freedom is one of my central pillars because being controlled for a decade in the business world of, finance was not fun. A lot of great opportunities, but it was just too constricting, I find. So I love that we share that, central point.

Well, if I can bring up one other point. You know, I've spent a lot of my career, in the in the basketball space, a sport that I've always loved and been attracted to. I do wanna say that, you know, there there were some coaches that were meant to be head coaches, and then there were some coaches that actually are meant to be assistant coaches, and they thrive in that role. So, I wanna make sure that the takeaway from this is having the self awareness to know how you operate best and what works best for you. Because I'm certainly by no means saying that working in a corporate structure or working for someone else or being a part of a team is a bad thing. Any you know, nothing could be further from the truth. I mean, most of the organizations that I work with, you know, have found amazing teammates and amazing members of their team and their organization that can play a very specific role. And then collectively, the entire group is able to achieve some pretty remarkable results.

So, I'm a I'm a huge fan of folks figuring out what works best for them and then going down that path. And I I say with a huge smile, I don't think being an entrepreneur is for everyone. You know, I think it's for a select few, and it's important that you figure out, you know, which group you feel most aligned with. So I I certainly don't ever wanna imply that if you're not your own boss, you're doing something wrong or that you're less than because that is you know, like I said, nothing could be further from the truth.

No. And I have to agree with you. It takes all kinds to build a successful team. Look. Kobe Bryant couldn't win the championships he won by himself. Even though he did some amazing, incredible things, he still needed, you know, Shaq. He still needed his teammates there to help him out to hit those numbers. So, yeah, you need your team.

You have to build a team. And just like an entrepreneur, you build a team, be it other freelancers working with you, other VAs. So it takes a whole team to build it up. It's not just a one man shop, and learning that is a very important lesson, I think, in entrepreneurialism.

Absolutely. Well said.