Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Leadership Insights Podcast with Co-Financial Group. I'm your host, Chad Coe. Success in leadership isn't just about the decisions we make today, it's about the legacy we build for tomorrow. On this show, we talk to the leaders from around the country who are open to sharing their wisdom and insights to help us be better. Today we have Dr. Jack Grappel. In the episode that we're going to talk about, we dive into the deeply moving journey of the mountains within, a life of achievement and a quest for meaning, the mountain that changed everything. Plus, he has such an incredible history as well as being a Hall of Famer. Joining us is transformational coach and just really great guy, Jack Grappel. So today we're going to get and dig deep into this as both of us are tennis players and have the mindset that we want to win, but we want to make it a win-win. We don't want to just make it where we win. How are you, Doctor?

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Great, Chad. Thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

I am

College Tennis And Learning To Compete

SPEAKER_01 1:03

too as well. Can you share? We just we just kind of had a nice little dialogue. Let's go back to even the fact that you were playing college tennis. If we could take that as our starting point to your level of mindset, attitude, and achievement.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah, I think college tennis was a really great spawning ground for me to learn how to compete. Not necessarily win. It was learn how to compete. And the sport of tennis is perfect because you're kind of by yourself and you've got to figure out how to. I mean, there are mountains constantly in a tennis match. There's swings of momentum, and and how what can you take advantage of? The court becomes geometry. How do you solve problems? I mean, I've always said when I coach that tennis is a game of emergencies, and the job is to create a greater emergency for your opponent than your opponent creates for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Right. I think also what you said, and I want to take this for a minute is when you're in college, I believe that you figure this out maybe college or soon after, but most people in life and in tennis lose points by making errors instead of just hitting the ball down the middle of the court and deep.

SPEAKER_00 2:10

Yeah, at the top levels of the game, even most of the points are won on errors by the by the opponent. I mean, it's just fascinating when you start to think about it because the thing that but the problem is that we all feel good when we hit a winner, when we hit the ball really, really hard. It's it's a feedback mechanism that we feed on that and we're energized by it. But it's true, it's actually truth that most matches, especially at lower levels of tennis, are won on errors.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

So, so when we deal with this in life, whether you're an executive in a corporation or whether you're on the tennis court, I think it's really a great idea to have a coach or a mentor or a guide who could share with us, hit it down the middle. Like, so as an example, if you're in the corporate world, we don't have to be a micromanager and we don't have to have attitude or outbursts. I think the key is to mentor and teach people that if you just get the ball back, if you could just keep the engagement going, that you're gonna possibly have a much better outcome.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

No question. I mean, I and in fact, I talk about mentoring in the book because of in my book, Mountains Within, my memoir, because mentor mentorship played a huge role in my life. But you know, I think what we want to think about is can to control the controllables. Sometimes we get into leadership and we try to control things that are outside our control. Or, you know, again, the micromanager where you want to try to control everything when in fact that's not healthy, it's not a healthy way to lead.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

So, so when you're playing, right, and you and you went on and you played so much more, maybe just share with us a little bit about your tennis career because I believe that your tennis career allowed you to become the man that you are, and that you are on the are in the hall of fame. I think you might be in multiple hall of fames based upon the work you've done.

SPEAKER_00 3:54

Yeah, it was fascinating. I think because I actually taught myself to play. I had introductory lessons when I was 11 years old, and that was the last formal lesson I ever had. My best friend, Bill Wicks, he lives in Miami. We taught ourselves to play. I walked on at the University of Illinois, Bill walked on at the University of Miami, and we both played, but then that but I learned how to compete. And then the coaches that I had at Illinois were just tremendous to feed into my soul, not necessarily to change my game, but to teach me how to fight, to teach me how to compete. And remember, I'm not saying teach me how to win. They taught me how to fight and how to compete.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

And the the idea, and I do believe that that helped me become the person that I did in in business and science and professional speaking and so on later

Why Most Points Come From Errors

SPEAKER_00 4:40

on.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

So we talked a little bit earlier about top performers, right? And I've heard this from other speakers is that when you go to the gym, you don't have to bench press 300 pounds every time. As a matter of fact, if you could bench press 80 pounds 20 times, that might be better for you than 300. And I think I think that we try to achieve the highest levels we could achieve because we're comparing in many cases to the people next to us or around us. And I think for a sense of happiness and purpose in life and in sports, I think it's really, as you talk about, something don't compete with others, compete with what's inside of you.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Yeah, it's all about being your best self, it's not about being comparing to others, but how what do you need to do to be your best self? So it might not be a lot of weight you're lifting, it might be just one percent more each week, and then suddenly you're strong as anything because you've taken the right steps that work for you.

SPEAKER_01 5:42

Yeah, which which also goes align with if you you got to show up. Whether you have a gym in your house, you know, they talk about the treadmill doesn't walk itself. That someone has to turn on the equipment and then you have to show up. You have to go to the gym, you have to go outside the doors and walk. And even if you walk or start with five minutes, it's better than doing nothing.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

This is a big thing that I talk about all the time that we're not in, we're not designed to be on the sidelines. We're designed to be involved in the game. And whether that means turning on the machine, that's definitely showing up and being a part of what's happening, not just watching from the outside.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

So I have a question for you. So as we sit here today, a lot of people are fighting mental health, they're fighting issues, they're fighting anxiety, they're fighting weight, obesity. A lot of people just are having a lot of struggles. Now, because you were a professional tennis player, slash expert and leader, you've learned how to overcome a lot of this.

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Well, yes and no. I mean, I just like everybody else has that same. I mean, again, it's common knowledge that a few years ago I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. And as I was telling you before we started, I mean, on day two, the clouds cleared. We were at about 12,500 feet, so we're already kind of gassed. And the clouds cleared and we saw the peak, and it was like, and then in my human brain just goes, You gotta be kidding me, yeah, because I've got artificial knees. There's no way. My son's only 12 years old, he can't make this. See, we we we suddenly, this is this is the human side of us. But I looked at my son, and I'll never forget this conversation that night. I said, Do you see that, buddy? I said, It really looks far away, but I know we can I know we can take the next step. And after that, I know we can take the next step. And I tell you what, and it wasn't again, it wasn't about winning, it was about if we keep taking steps, we're gonna give ourselves the best chance to make it to the top.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Can you show

Mentorship And Control The Controllables

SPEAKER_01 7:38

the picture behind you just when you did earlier, just so we can see that?

SPEAKER_00 7:41

Yeah, that's that was everybody signed it. It was on my retirement from Johnson and Johnson, they acquired our company. But this is my son and I, he was 12 years old, and we this is us at the summit. And and by the way, since you brought up tennis, I also took a racket and ball and hit the highest volley on planet earth.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Oh, up there.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Wow. So yeah, when you talk about taking the next step, what was it like for you and your son where you had to create the goals around being able to climb and make that happen, right? Yeah, because there's people that are now running 100 miles, even 150. They're they're they're not sleeping, they're doing, they're moving. There's a world out there of people that are going to levels that that are hard for people to even imagine. But it starts with a goal. It starts with waking up and saying, I'm gonna do this.

SPEAKER_00 8:31

And it's and it starts with action. I mean, it it's it's one thing to look at that mountain and say, I want to climb that mountain, whatever that mountain is in someone's life, but then it's understanding the structure that you need in your life to be able to fulfill that dream. What kind of structure do you need step by step to make it there? Because we are creatures of habit. See, we're not people, we we just don't say, Well, I want to do that, so I'm gonna, I'm just gonna start running. No, nobody does that. There's structure to what the running looks like and what recovery looks like, and and and how am I gonna pull this off? How am I gonna do it?

SPEAKER_01 9:03

So, with that, let's talk for a minute on the screen. We have what are your favorite laws of motion? And then what's important about these principles to you?

SPEAKER_00 9:11

Well, I mean, the first Newton's first law of motion is the law of inertia. And it I think it's it plays in everything, not just sport, but it says that a body will stay at rest or stay in motion until acted upon by an outside force. And I think that's true psychologically. Unless we do something, we're gonna stay where we are. So if you want to lose weight, for example, you mentioned that earlier. I mean, if you do, if you don't make the appointments, set up the the the your life around losing, you're not gonna do it because the law of inertia says you won't do it, you know, and then I mean that you can just keep going. I mean, but the but the idea that's probably one of my favorite ones is the law of inertia.

SPEAKER_01 9:47

Yeah, and and I even talked to my wife, like, you know, we go to a country club, let's say, and we go and we play golf, tennis, pickle, we live, we eat.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

It's so easy to fall out of habit that once you stop going or you skip a week or you skip two weeks, it's easy to skip three week three, four, and five.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Yeah, because you see what happens is your habit becomes not going. And then we then we suddenly get sucked into that habit.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

So we inertia and we talk about these different laws of motions and the different principles that are involved with that. And I really do like something as simple as just framing it where this is a real law, and that it's not just you, it's everybody. That if you stop doing something, it may stop permanently. You need to have it in your calendar, you need to plan for it, and you need to be focused about the outcomes that you want.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

Yeah, there's I mean, there was a study done many, many years ago that people who are sedentary, they actually become there's a training effect to being sedentary. So the idea that if you're sedentary, suddenly it gets so bad that I mean going out for a walk is too much stress, yeah, because you haven't built it into you. So your habit structure has become being a couch potato. So a lot of people think, well, I've got to do so, yeah, you've

Show Up And Build Better Habits

SPEAKER_00 11:05

got to create structure to get off the couch and make a plan to get off the couch. If you're because if you don't, you're just gonna stay on the couch. That's the law of inertia.

SPEAKER_01 11:16

If we're gonna talk about leadership without losing yourself and performance energy, you've coached and trained people that were in the top 10 in the world in tennis, yeah, top five or ten in the world in golf, top five or ten in the world at hockey, plus so much more. What are we talking about here when it says don't lose yourself when you're dealing with performance energy?

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Well, it's always being able to ask yourself what matters most right now? And the greatest performers can answer that question in an instant. Like it might be recovery, it might not be the intensity of training, or it might be the quality of the training, or it might be, it might not be have anything to do with your sport. What matters most right now might be to connect with my partner, connect with my loved ones, and get real recovery away from the sport. Because you see, what we know is that stress is the stimulus for growth, recovery is when growth occurs, and if there is no recovery, there is no growth. And that's probably one of the important leadership lessons.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

So, so talk more about that because that's just crazy. So I'm out pushing myself as hard as I could push, four, five, six hours a day. I'm exhausted, I wake up the next day and I go do it again.

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah, and again, one of the worst things you could do because what you become, you become remember when we were kids, we tried to find the flattest rock we could and we wanted to skip it across the water. Well, that's why we start living our life. We start skimming across the surface of life, just like that rock. And what we have to understand is that rock won't sink into the water until what? Until it slows down. And then the same with us. If we slow down, if we slow down intentionally, see, this is this is about having boundaries and holding sacred what you hold sacred and being intentional, because understanding that by getting recovery, I'm going to get stronger. That's when growth occurs.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

So, what are you thinking about like all these people? They're taking protein, they're taking all these supplements and all these things for growth. But yet back in the day when you were a professional, we didn't have all these things. We we we worked out, we rested,

Kilimanjaro And Taking The Next Step

SPEAKER_01 13:20

and we took care of our body, and we were the one of the best in the country.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yeah, I would definitely surround yourself with what with wisdom. Be careful because there's a lot out there right now, and I'm not I'm not gonna poo-poo anything, but it's just there's a lot out there right now, and we need to surround ourselves with wisdom. Like when something new comes out, I want to understand the research around it. Some I had a friend approach me the other day about some device, and he's going, Yeah, but there's double blind studies that have been done on this. I'm going, yeah, but they've all been done internal to the company. Nobody's done, there's not one peer-reviewed journal article on this technology. And I'm sorry if if it's not if it's not peer-reviewed and really studied. And now, by the way, on the other side of the coin, I understand that to keep the technology and to stay, you know, to keep your brand, sometimes you don't want it out in the public domain. So there's a way that you've had to combine testimonials of use along with the research, but just to start throwing out research and making claims, you got to be really careful about that, about what's out there.

SPEAKER_01 14:24

So, like, let's talk about this. Great science asks better questions, and we don't always have the answers. And then I want to talk about even like, you know, the matches currently, where people are pushing themselves for five-hour matches, or even last night, there's a basketball game on, uh, a massive lead, and psychologically, what's between the ears? They I don't want to say they stopped trying, but they stop seeing the net. Like, maybe talk to us a little bit about science and asking better questions.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yeah, so really great the idea of what's called scientific inquiry is understanding that the most important part of any research is the question you're trying to solve. So when I when I used to have doctoral students, and I would actually have them, I mean, they would have to spend weeks and months sometimes understanding what is the question. What is the question? Not because once you understand a real question, then the data and the analysis and then the the discussion is actually quite simple. And then if you've asked the right question, what that's going to do is yield a better question. Yeah, it's not going to give you necessarily the finality of results. So that's where that's where I always come up with that. That great science really asks better questions.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

So are you hearing a lot then with this world of AI, that we're not asking the right questions, that that people are using AI and just saying, how do I do blank? But the better you could ask the questions, the better results you're going to get. And that this is where we're going to see the results

Newton’s Inertia And Staying Stuck

SPEAKER_01 15:55

and the benefit from the AI world.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

Voila. I mean, because you're exactly right. What happens very often, at least what I've witnessed, you know, because before I moved to Florida, after I retired from Johnson and Johnson for four years, I was a professor and students were starting to use AI. And what they were just doing is getting a paper written. I mean, it was it was so, and you could tell that this, dude, you didn't write this paper. This is not your way of writing. I mean, no way you wrote this. But in today's world, right now, with where AI is, think about this. If you ask the right questions, you can get incredible detail from AI. AI can be very constructive if you ask the right questions and ask deeper questions. My son called me and he said, Dad, did you know there's an AI component to a search on you? And I went, No, I didn't know that. And he made me do it while he was on the phone. And then I started, I wanted to test it. You know what? And you know what I did? I I it was really interesting because I said, I went to AI. I said, All right, did Jack Grapple and Shen Grappel really climb Mount Kilimanjaro? Did he and I, you know, me, did did we really do it? And it goes, not only did they do it, here's how they did it, here's how they trained. Then it goes, Do you want to know what they did? Did you know what what because there's been so much written about it, and I've spoken about it and everything. So it's in the public domain, but I was I printed out 25 pages of material on my son and I climbing Mount Kilimanjaro.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

I mean, well, not necessarily fantastic, but the idea that if you ask questions, AI can help get can give you a lot more information about what can help you learn and grow.

SPEAKER_01 17:28

Right. So I used uh AI just as a kind like I just put out there, write an article about how Chad Cohen Co-Fancial Group is the best financial planner in the state. There you have it, and a beautiful, a beautiful essay of words that we could start to incorporate in our verbiage that we might have never thought of. Correct. My wife are auctioneers, and I did the same thing for our auctioneer site, and it laid it out just so beautifully about the role that my wife plays in the auctions and what I do, that we could pick up and use some of the verbiage that is just really clean, enlightened uh words, because words make a difference, and and then we could take it from there. Not that we wouldn't have come up with it on our own or not been less authentic, but

Recovery Creates Growth In Performance

SPEAKER_01 18:15

you know, you look at it, I think, and you just see how does it play into your world.

SPEAKER_00 18:19

Yeah, the creativity comes in not getting the answer, the creativity comes in asking the right question, coming back to what we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 18:25

So I want to ask you this question. So when you're training, like you're a professional hockey, golf, tennis player, what does a day look like for them mentally, right? So I was talking to Kevin Anderson, he was sharing with me, I vision, I visualize my matches, I visualize where I'm going and what I'm doing. Share with us, if you will, what does a day look like for a professional athlete? And and also, do you have any science or any thoughts of your own around how they get there? Because they all grow up putting on one pair of paint, you know, one leg at a time. Yeah. And yet, and yet they're elite at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00 19:04

Yeah, I mean, and and I mean the idea, I mean, we could spend hours on this conversation because the idea that you're predisposed to a certain sport is a huge idea. I mean, for example, swimmers may not be very good tennis players, you know, and the idea in tennis players may not be very good swimmers. And what is it about that that yields elite performance? But to answer your question about what does a day look like, it's incredible structure, incredible structure on what I need to work on. Then the answers to that question. Now, it's not just intensity of training, it might be I need to work on some things in the gym, my shoulder strength I need to work on, I need to work on technique. This is the specific technique I need to work on. It might be competitive. I I want to learn, I need to compete better at this what in this when this kind of thing happens in a match. So there might be some video analysis, and this is where someone like Kevin is using visualization. I see myself competing. I see myself, I mean, I've done this with players, I'll never forget one year I was, I won't say the grand slam, but I was working with a player from another country playing in a grand slam, and and and the person that he was playing was from that country. And I said, dude, there's gonna be like 20,000 people in this arena, and six are gonna be rooting for you. You know, they're gonna be you're gonna be have everybody screaming against you. So we mentally rehearsed what that was gonna look like and how he was gonna, and if the crowd got toxic, I mean, how was he gonna handle that? And how was he gonna prepare mentally for that? But he visualized all that and he actually won the match. But I'm not saying that that did it, but those kinds of that's that's what a day looks like.

SPEAKER_01 20:45

And so, you know, we're watching it, doesn't matter what year it is because this is gonna be up on YouTube and Apple for years, but like now it's the fifth set or the first, no, call it the fifth set. It's five five in the tiebreaker of the fifth set. Six, six, seven, seven. What's going on in the mind of an athlete when a million dollars is on the line and they're tired, it's been a long day, and they want to win, but so does the other guy. So, what do you think is going on there that you could maybe share?

SPEAKER_00 21:18

Well, first of all, they're not afraid to lose. They're not afraid to lose. I think a lot of us when we get in that situation, we're we're we're we're nervous. They're nervous, but they're not afraid to lose. And if they can develop that one trait, they are a very dangerous athlete. An athlete who a very skilled person who's not afraid to lose is a very dangerous person to compete against because they're the ones that are hitting that screamer down the line with pressure on with all the pressure on the game because they're not afraid to hit it. And and and that's really a that's for me, that's one of the big deals. Now, the fitter the athlete, the better they are mentally. I'll never forget in the early 80s, the number one tennis player in the world came. I was with Tim Gullickson at Wimbledon, and the number one player in the world came in. And Timmy says, You're looking really fit. And he goes, There's nobody in the game that's as fit as I am. That was his answer. And I'm going, Whoo, that's cocky. But then you step back and you go, even if it's not true, the fact that he thinks that if it gets to five all in the fifth, that's a huge mental edge.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

That nobody's as fit as I am.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Right.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

So the idea that you're training your mind for those moments is what separates them.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

I think that's uh I like again, I probably have heard years ago, don't be afraid to lose. But I used to get angry and have frustration because I was I thought that you had to win every time. Nobody ever said to me it's okay to lose. As a matter of fact, uh, I used to go to Tampa where Harry Hopman had his tennis academy.

SPEAKER_00 22:50

I was their director of player development.

SPEAKER_01 22:51

And you you you were there?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

Yeah, I was there from 87 to 92. I was the director of player development for Hoppman.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

Fantastic. And just it was just the discipline of them hitting the drop shot and learning that you could actually get the ball, even though you had to sprint to be able to do it. That's exactly right. So, so fast forward and give me analogies then where we go off the tennis court or the basketball court or hockey, but go into the corporate world now where you're a leader, you're doing hundreds of millions or billions in sales, and you're the decision maker on the next project that we're working on and what we're doing.

Elite Pressure Mindset And Fearless Focus

SPEAKER_00 23:28

Well, you're that's why I developed in 1983, I trademarked the term the corporate athlete. And you're we're gonna take everything from sport and we're gonna apply it to your life in business. So you're gonna learn to stay in the moment and you're gonna learn to understand the process, and that's what you're gonna focus on is the process. You're not gonna focus on the result because the great athlete, if he or she is focusing, like the point that you mentioned earlier, match point against you at five, you know, five, six in the third in the fifth. If you're thinking about winning, you don't have a chance. But if you could stay in the process and stay in the moment, you're gonna keep be clear of thought, you're gonna be able to answer questions, you'll be able to stand on your feet, and you'll be unbelievable if you can stay in the process. Let winning take care of itself.

Breathing To Reset Between Meetings

SPEAKER_01 24:10

And then with that, there's a lot of stress, there's a lot of moving parts, right? Even earlier in this video, there was a power outage. But what about breathing, right? So I hear a lot about breathing and how important. What's your thoughts around that? And what's your favorite breathing technique if you love it?

SPEAKER_00 24:28

Well, yeah, for sure. It's it's it's deep diaphragmatic breathing, is absolutely where you you exhale twice as long as you inhale. I think that's key. And I think the idea of breathing, for example, Jim Lehrer wrote he did the 16-second cure in the mid-80s, and they've just redone it a few years ago. And it's it's one of the most significant contributions to all of sport. And that was when he studied what great tennis players did in between points. And one of the stage two was take, you know, two deep diaphragmatic breaths, where you bring, and when you do that properly, you bring your heart rate down rapidly. I mean, you teach your body how to recover quickly, and that's what's key. The wisdom and that's you yeah, from from corporate word, you go from meeting to meeting to meeting to meeting. If between those meetings you can do two or three deep diaphragmatic breaths and bring your heart rate down and then focus on what you've got to do next, I mean it's an amazing approach.

Mountains Within And The Drive To Please

SPEAKER_01 25:20

A plus, I just absolutely think that's awesome. As we transition, you're the author of multiple books. This is the one that we're currently talking about today is the mountains within. Right. A life of achievement, a quest for meaning, and the mountain that changed everything. With with, by the way, a great hat.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

Thank you. Yeah, that's what I wore on Kilimanjaro was that hat.

SPEAKER_01 25:43

So share with us, if you will, right? Everyone could go out and get in on Amazon, but what's one or two lessons inside this book that you want people to be able to read and deeply understand?

SPEAKER_00 25:53

Yeah, I dedicated the book to anybody that ever felt they had to please someone in their life, or anyone that ever felt they weren't good enough, because I had this wound with my dad, and and I was driven. And it's like one lesson around performance is this, and then there's a lesson around life. The lesson around performance is the within what you'll learn in this book is within your God-given talent and how you train yourself, you can do almost anything you want. Now, that's within your God-given talent. You know, for example, the word picture, Shaquille O'Neal, seven foot two and 300 pounds, couldn't be a jockey in the Kentucky Derby. That's it, it just doesn't work that way. So that's the God-given talent. Now that's the performance edge. The life edge is always calibrate each day, maybe even several times a day, with the question, what matters most right now? Because very often we end up like that rock skimming across the surface of the water. So those are the lessons that I teach in the book through my own story, my and my own memoir.

SPEAKER_01 26:51

I just, I just love it. I love that, I love the idea around it because you're digging into your very best day and the and the day that works for you. And I think, like for me, I had an issue with my dad understanding who I am and what I do. I didn't share with you earlier, but I grew up in special ed and I overcame and then graduated the UIC business school. And even after school, working for a family business, my dad's like, What are you going to do for a living? And and how when are you going to grow up and become the mature person that I think you have within you?

SPEAKER_00 27:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:24

And it wasn't until recent, not recently, but a few years before he passed, he he signed a book that I wrote, my third book, The Auctioner's Apprentice, and just said jaw dropping. Like I think he finally got it. And I think then our relationship became so much more connected.

SPEAKER_00 27:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:40

But I didn't have to work hard at getting him to understand anymore.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Yeah, my dad is both the hero and the villain of my story. And so he's both. So it's it's like all this huge success, but at what cost? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:53

So this is just really great

Being A Parent Not The Coach

SPEAKER_01 27:55

stuff. I want everyone to be able to go out and get the book. I want everyone to be able to reach out to you if they want to. What are the best ways to be able to reach you and communicate if they so be it?

SPEAKER_00 28:04

Well, there's there's my website. You can you can get to Amazon with the book on my website. Feel free to write to me. LinkedIn is probably the social media that where I'm most active. I'm on Instagram, Jack Grappel1, but I'm on LinkedIn as Jack Grapple. So connect with me on LinkedIn. That would probably be the best place.

SPEAKER_01 28:21

And before I get to the disclosure that I show at the end of every video, because I'm in the financial service business, right? Sure, I became a disciplined advisor helping people to focus on the retirement, focus on a plan. And I think you talk about this as well. What are your values? What are your goals? And then what is the plan to achieve your goals? And the bottom line is, right, all these parents want these kids to be great and grow up to be, quote unquote, these great leaders. But if it's not how you're wired, then I say don't go down that train track. I say find a different path that works for you.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

So the personal story that I'll tell that aligns with that is when I adopted my son from China, and that's him, it's he and I again. I went to China by myself to adopt him. This is all in my memoir as well. And he was starting to get involved in sport. Now, here you've made you mentioned I've been three different tennis coaching halls of fame. I said, buddy, if you want to play tennis, I will hire a tennis coach to coach you. I am not going to be your tennis coach. And and and then he goes on to become really good in karate, and he won the 14 and under AAU team kumite national title. But he didn't, I didn't force him to be a tennis player. And even if he wanted to play tennis, I was going to have someone else teach him. So the idea that I what mattered most to me was being his dad.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Yes. That's the role that we should be. And again, I think we could talk for another hour about what our role is in life. I think so. And how we need to just be a dad and not be the coach and not be the mentor and not be the manager, but just be there when they need us.

SPEAKER_00 29:59

100%.

How To Connect And Closing

SPEAKER_01 30:00

I absolutely love it. Let's close on that. Thank you so much for being here. And I look forward to talking with you more and getting to know you more down the road. I do as well. Thanks, Jeff. Thank you.