Brian Hurtak Transcript

​More Elephant Intro

[00:00:05] Jason Rudman: In this latest conversation on More Elephant, I'm joined by Brian Hurtak. Brian is a Fortune 100 business executive. He has ties to football institutions at St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale. Currently resides in Texas with his wife and two kids, and has been named 40 under 40 by the San Antonio Business Journal.

Co-chair, the 45th class of Leadership San Antonio, which I have no doubt we're gonna get into and serves on numerous nonprofit boards, including San Antonio Sports. The reason he's here today, is he's adding author to that on January the seventh, he released his first book. A simple resource for overloaded professionals where he attempts to give us some hacks in this Tetris playing life where we try to manage professional life, home life

our kids, if we have them, everything around us, where if I'm a person to talk about, I often feel overloaded trying to figure out how I make all of this work in a 24 hour period. And I wish there were 26 hours in the day. So Brian is here to bring forward a very, very simple analogy, which is from September to January,

every year in professional football. And then throughout the year in college football, high school, football, even flag football. Every single coach has a play sheet and that simple hack might help us unburden. And there you go. He is showing it on the screen that may unburden and actually deload and de-stress our lives.

So Brian, welcome to the More Elephant podcast.

[00:01:48] Brian Hurtak: Thank you, Jason. It's an absolute pleasure to be here and to see you again.

[00:01:52] Jason Rudman: It is, it's great. Yeah. We should let everybody know that this is not the first time that we've met. We had the pleasure of working with each other when we were at USAA and I have no doubt we might even get into what that taught us about how to try to manage overload. But that might be a part two podcast.

I'm not sure, Brian. we'll see. So can we start with a simple premise of what the book is and we'll get into how the book came about as well. But let's just start with what the book attempts to provide for anybody that picks it up and cares to read it.

[00:02:23] Brian Hurtak: Yeah, Jason, happy to share. I'll tell a little bit of the story of when we started just 'cause it ties into the book as well, if you don't mind. But I was sitting on my couch like most people, and it was a Sunday afternoon. my kids were running about kind of crate and ruckus. Their toys were all over our living room, and I was preparing for my work week ahead. Had my Outlook calendar, trying to organize my calendar, kind of a game of tetris, as we all do to move it around. And I already felt overloaded, overwhelmed, and stressed. And the work week had not even started. And no matter how many books I read, podcasts I listened to, I just could never find a way to effectively apply all the things I spent countless hours learning in my personal or my professional day. And in the corner of my eye the TV was on and I saw a football game, American football and I saw something the screen that I'd seen hundreds of time being an avid sports fan, and it was a coach on the sideline, very intensely glancing at his eight by 11 laminated sheet of paper. And it hit me that, as you said, every single coach on every sideline at all levels uses one of these. And I just simply asked the question, why don't I use one in my personal or professional life? And so the concept of the book about the framework that coaches use to distill lots of information. So they can effectively apply the right play based on the situation or opponent they face each and every week. I feel as I studied these coaches, that it can really help people in their personal professional lives actually effectively apply what they're learning so they can secure more personal professional wins in their own life.

[00:04:17] Jason Rudman: I love it. So we should clarify 'cause you're talking to a Britt that you were very clear that you qualified football with American, which I appreciate this for me, if nobody else is listening in Britain, that's good. And it's also very unique. Brian, we should also say. If you watch the Premier League, you actually don't see the manager running up and down the sideline. So there I think it's a very, very unique phenomenon to American football. And so let's break down the four parts to the book. If you could break down those parts at a high level, and then we're gonna go deeper on a couple of parts so that again, you can explain or start guiding people as to what they need to put into practice.

[00:04:56] Brian Hurtak: Yeah, and it wasn't as I was crafting this book and as I felt overwhelmed, I created my own play sheet. One day it started to work. And so what I did for context is I went across the country. And I studied football coaches at every single level, pro, college, high school and what I learned unintentionally is that they all follow the same process or framework, week in and week out.

They're truly creatures of habit. Like I've said this several times in other platforms, if you ask a football coach where they're gonna be a random Tuesday in September at like two o'clock in the afternoon. They're all probably gonna be doing the same thing no matter what team they play for.

They may have different components of how they do it, but the actual process the same. And I found that to be very refreshing and actually really simple for us to follow. And so the four steps that every coach has, and those are the four quarters of the book is ethos, who are you and who do you want to be? Every coach defines their culture and their ethos for their team each and every year. The second is the playbook. Every team has one. In the professional world, this is you putting everything in one central place or in your personal world. It's creating one repository so that you don't have to hunt and peck for all the great pieces of information you've learned over the year. Then coaches go from playbook to sheet. And what's the difference? The play sheet is actually more relevant to what's ahead of you right now, 30, 60, maybe 90 days based on the situation, or in their case, the opponent at hand. So what plays are you gonna run based on the situation you're facing now? Well, that's different than a playbook, which is really everything you've ever learned. And then what all coaches do is, whether it's in game, in season or over the course of their career, is how do you make adjustments? So those are the four chapters of the book, ethos, playbook, play sheet, and adjustments.

[00:07:02] Jason Rudman: So we're in the second season of the More Elephant podcast. We talked in the first season about what I like to call the four quadrants of life and how you make the four quadrants work. So there's self, there's relationship, whether you're married or relationship with your community even there's parenting, for those of us that are parenting.

And then there's that thing that you called work like your professional life. So you've just talked about four quarters of the book.

I have no doubt that they can apply to the four quadrants of how we think about life. And as we continue talking, I wanna get to habit. Let's start with ethos. You said ethos is about who you are and what you're like instilling. That I think for human beings can be daunting. Do you mean it to be as daunting as you really, trying to find the source of who you are and what you stand for and how that impacts what it is that you're trying to achieve.

[00:07:56] Brian Hurtak: Jason, I'm gonna answer ethos, but let me take one quick step back is that what I love about your podcast and I love about the content on the first season and why I'm so thankful to be part of the second season as this book? Every list or every guest that you have on from this point forward or that you've already had, has a ton of great insights, has a lot of great information, and so what this book enables you to do and this framework enables you to do regardless of that content, you need a framework to actually apply it in

your day day. So the place you can really help take all the great content from all of your podcasts to date, take those snippets from each one, make them relevant to you, and then you can apply 'em so it's agnostic to whatever is that you're doing.

[00:08:41] Jason Rudman: I love that. That's look on some level that I love that encapsulation of what we're trying to achieve on this podcast, which is about ultimately listen, because we have two ears and one mouth, and we often use in mouth more than we actually using our ears. So it's about listen, learn, live better.

So I love the connection again. We'll say it again that I'm thrilled that you're here 'cause you're going to be teaching me and lots of people that are listening how to distill all of those moments, those more elephant moments into a very clear plan forward. So I'm gonna stop gassing you up though, man, because I think this is really, really important.

So, ethos, again, I felt like as I was reading the byline, and then you talked about it. You're like, well, who are you? That's a daunting question. Do you mean it to be as big as kind of like, who are you and kind like what are aiming for? And if so, how do you get your arms around that?

[00:09:30] Brian Hurtak: And the reason we start with ethos is that the big problem statement that I talk about in the book is cognitive load or information overload. And so what coaches do and what I think we need to do is get focused. And so, it can be whatever it is that you want it to be. The challenge though, I'll tell you, and what coaches spend a lot of time thinking about, so they can be very intentional what they bring to their teams each year or from the culture they're trying to stand up the ethos they're trying to build is who do they want to be and that helps minimize too much information, irrelevant information, or them trying to be somebody that they're just not gonna be.

And we often are trying to learn way too many things. There's so many books on this right? There's Good To Great. That's a great book if you can't be great at everything or you'll just be good at a lot of things. And so there's a lot of books out there that really help us get focused on who we want to be, and who we are is a big part of us getting to where we want to be as a person as well.

So Jason you asked about ethos and the problem statement that the book is really trying to solve is cognitive load and information overload. The coaches are really trying to get focused on who they want their team to be. There's a lot of books out there that try to minimize having too much information or irrelevant information. Actually David Allen said it probably the best, you can be good at anything, but not everything.

And so what coaches do is keep it simple by really creating what is the character or the ethos of their team. What is ethos? Ethos is from probably one of the greatest pieces of writing that has ever been, in my opinion, which is the rhetoric from Aristotle, and it's all about the art of persuasion. And Ethos is really about the character that you want to be in order for you to actually persuade something to buy or do something you want them to do.

So you really have to define that character. So when I was researching coaches and they talked about their ethos, there were so many great examples they have. Let me give you a few. One, here in San Antonio, there's a coach for the University of Texas, San Antonio Roadrunners, his name is Jeff Trailer. He has the triangle of toughness. If you're in the 210, everybody has heard about the triangle toughness. It's on their sleeves. It's in the stadium, it's in the locker rooms. It is literally the culture of that team. The 210 is so important that they actually give the best players or the players that define their character so well, either the two, one or zero on their jerseys. Another coach, coach Andres here in Jordan 10 high school here in South Texas, he talked about 212 degrees, 211 degrees to 212. That one extra degree is what turns from water to steam. He has that culture stickers everywhere in his locker room. Same thing, you'll see 2 1 2. A story he tells that I tell in the book is his quarterback fumbled in a really important game and the defensive lineman starts to run all the way down to score a touchdown and a wide receiver all the way in the other side of the field, sprinted after him with everything he had and strip the ball from the opposing defensive player just before that player got into the end zone. Saving a touchdown. It came into a touchback and they went on to win the game because of it. And the entire sideline chanted 2 1 2 2 1 2. And so there's examples like this all

throughout football of how the culture really defines who they are and helps the coach ultimately create their playbook, their play sheet, and the style of football that they're gonna ultimately play weekend in, week out.

[00:13:29] Jason Rudman: Brian, I appreciate that so much in a you know, we're both raising kids. I do think, I was reflecting on this the other day with a parent. They were reflecting on, and I know we're gonna get into, generational parenting, which is different. We've got the advent of social media and which is very, very different than how you and I grew up.

It just is. Although I like to say I have accumulated youth and I'm a little older than you but I don't use the old anymore. It's accumulated youth. What you're suggesting is practicing the odd of essentialism. So what I've learned is early in my career was exactly what you said, doing lots and lots of that.

Like believing that the longer the list, the better the outcome.

[00:14:11] Brian Hurtak: Yeah.

[00:14:12] Jason Rudman: And you and I are in leadership positions now. We lead teams and I have no doubt. Like me, you have figured out how to whittle it down to the three things that really matter, and then breaking it down to what can you accomplish 30 days, 60 days, 90 days, 360 days from now?

That takes work. You have to learn that through trial and error, right? Very few people come into the world understanding that essentialism and focus is what actually wins the day.

[00:14:40] Brian Hurtak: But a lot of coaches have figured out that that's probably their number one priority. So there's a lot of tactical and, and they're fortunate, right? They have coordinators or special coaches at each position, but a head coach really focuses on that team's ethos and culture because it is setting the foundation. Or it ultimately comes the filter for everything else downstream. So it's really one of those. And the reason in many interviews, and even in the book, the reason I start with it is it's a slow down to speed up moment because information overload and cognitive load are real. And if you try to be everything share too much information, there's a law of diminishing return on your effectiveness once you reach a certain amount of information. So by really setting that filter, and I say this, once you set your ethos and it does take time. In the book I said put the book down, go off, maybe it takes 30 days. Write it. Then you're gonna use it as a filter to say, am I gonna read that book? Am I gonna go to that class? Am I gonna do this thing with my family next month? Or am I gonna get focused on who I want to be and where I want to go? And that just sets that filter for every decision that you'll make when you build your playbook, your play sheet, and the adjustments you make. So it really is one of those slow down and speed up moments that can help you minimize that overwhelming feeling.

[00:16:06] Jason Rudman: I love the articulation that it takes work. This is not like overnight oats. You've gotta work through it, strip away some of the calcification kind of what got you here in order to really, really focus on whatever, in my world, whatever quadrant of your life or whatever aspect of your life in your book that you're trying to impact.

No, no pun intended. Let's talk adjustments. So life is never a straight line. I think I've got a keen sense of what adjustments is, right? I watch American football. I'm a bit of more of a fan of the Premier League, to be honest with you, but that's for another day. You see adjustments happening, you see the depending on what down it is, how many yards there are, where they are on the field, you know how far in front, how far behind.

The art of adjustments. And then I think you shared with me one of the adjustments that you've had to make in the recent past with your chairing leadership San Antonio. Could you talk about then adjustments in the broad sense and how you reflected on what you had to adjust in a particular time in life in the middle of the pandemic?

[00:17:11] Brian Hurtak: Absolutely. So adjustments, the play sheet is really important. There's a lot of work, and we can go back to that, but getting the right information based on the opponent at hand on your play sheet takes coaches an entire week. So they have tons of plays in their playbook, but based on the situation they're facing or their opponent they're facing, they are gonna distill it down. A coach in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, coach Lincoln Riley, he cuts his play sheet to 28 plays. It takes a lot of work to get to 28 plays, but he's very intentional. Now, when you get in the game, you always hear about making adjustments. Sometimes they're in game adjustments, sometimes they're halftime adjustments, and sometimes they're after adjustments. What I learned with the coaches, especially in high school, is they don't make a lot of adjustments because when they make adjustments, they actually, for those younger players, it can be extremely detrimental 'cause they've worked all week on a game plan, all week on how they're gonna execute. if they kind of shift that too much, they actually can overwhelm those younger minds. Those younger minds can start to lose confidence in themselves, get confused, not be on the same page, and it actually can really set a terrible tone, not only for the rest of that game, but for the season. So most high school coaches actually won't make adjustments until between games. They'll say, you know, we didn't do this well, we didn't do that well. And then they'll work on the adjustments in practice each week. Now as you get to more sophisticated levels of football, you'll start to see coaches do make adjustments, but the adjustments are usually already predetermined on their play sheet. And so they'll have an entire section of kind of plan B they script the plays that they're wanting to make. So they'll think scenario A is what we're going in. That's our main game plan. But maybe the opposing team is really savvy and they do something different. And they're gonna try to think game theory, and they're gonna try to figure out what scenarios they're gonna run.

And they're gonna have them scripted. The coaches may have other play sheets in the locker room that they'll bring in in-game as well. And then as the course of the season goes on, what every coach does is they score how effective they are at the key things that they're trying to execute. Using kind of an objectives and key results, and they figure out, are we getting better week in and week out? And they're making those minor adjustments by coaching, through practice, through watching film, by having the players watch what mistakes they're making. Maybe they grade them on how they're performing, and those minor adjustments, week in and week out help them get better. Now, quickly, how does that apply to the professional world as you use your play sheet? What I tell people is that they gotta dedicate time review or watch the tape on how they perform. So if I'm running plays based on a certain situation, I'll set time on a Friday afternoon or Sunday morning drinking coffee, and I'll review how did I run that play? Was it good? Was it not good? And then I'll kind of think through it in my mind and say, you know what next time I run that play, here's how I'm going to iteratively adjust it to get better. So it's kind of an inspect and adapt in your own life each week. So how you can incrementally or iteratively get better and better at the plays that you're working on.

[00:20:47] Jason Rudman: Yeah, I love that. In the recent past, probably the last six months, I'd like to think that I had a classic and a sand in the gears moment where I was running a play and I think it's a play that I've run a few times and generally, it's worked out well, right?

That there is some go-to plays like that works. And I have one of those classic, like it would've been a fumble return for a touchdown on the field. Brian. It was a sand in the gears moment and I so appreciate about what you said, where it was a moment for me to actually it wasn't, well how did they not receive the information?

It was much more. What fumble did I cause on the play and how do I adjust given the situation? So appreciate the taking time to review and recalibrate. You have shared with me that there's a perfect adjustment story in your work as the chair of Leadership San Antonio in the pandemic.

So could you describe Leadership San Antonio in some context, and then take us through the, you had a ethos, a playbook, a play sheet, and then I'm sure the pandemic caused a lot of adjustments, so could you take us to that example and how connects to what you've written.

[00:22:04] Brian Hurtak: Jason, I really appreciate that question 'cause I haven't thought about it, but we definitely had one. So, leadership San Antonio, many big cities across the United States had these, so the chambers of Commerce, and we had the greater Chamber of Commerce and the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, they're on their 49th year.

I did Leadership San Antonio in their 41st year, but then I was asked humbly to come back and chair or co-chair the class of 45. So we get roughly about 40 to 50 up and coming leaders throughout the city in all different types of work, whether it be nonprofit, corporate, small business, et cetera academia.

And they look at these 40 or 50 leaders and they really help give them a one year journey of everything happening in the city. And each team has to put on a day. So I co-chaired that. I built a steering committee of leaders across the city to help me and my co-chair lead that. And we definitely did. We had an ethos.

It was lead through service and action. LSA. We kind of did an acronym there. We had a playbook. I had done Leadership San Antonio. I had a play sheet of how we wanted to run each and every week, or each and every class. We had to put on eight classes through the course of the year. Bu then like everybody in February and March of 2020, the pandemic hit. And for the first time we had to figure out, these were all in person, very social gatherings and that caused a complete shift and we could basically throw out the playbook that we had. And so we had to make some major adjustments. And with those adjustments, kind of like a coach, we had to get the right players in the room. We got the chambers, their boards, some past chairs to get their advice. And what we did is we said, how do we keep going? And so we made a conscious decision to create the same experience, but virtually, but we were hoping that we could still do it. So we asked and built a business plan to do this for two years so that we could do one year virtual and a second year in person. And I'm happy to say for two reasons. One, the chambers. Gave us the funds to do it 'cause it was pretty tough to raise money during that time. And two, the pandemic settled down, but we still had to move forward with extreme caution. But we were able to serve a second year, so it was 668 days of chairing that.

But I wouldn't give it away for anything because just like in life, just like in coaching or in corporate America. Sometimes major curve balls occur, and I talk about that. Sometimes you have to drastically adjust your play sheet. Maybe a new parent, maybe you go through a major reorganization, maybe you get a new boss, maybe you get fired. Many different things can happen that really will shift what your focus is over the next 30, 60, 90 days. And so your play sheet needs to adjust accordingly.

[00:25:10] Jason Rudman: Yeah, we should acknowledge that not only did you do the pandemic leadership San Antonio adjustment while you and I were adjusting to a new normal. Trying to improve the financial security of the military and the spouses and everybody that serves in the middle of a pandemic. And you were relatively new parent.

In the pandemic as well. So we should acknowledge for the audience that you were living, walking, and breathing with not just one, but a multitude of adjustments that needed to go on while you were delivering the great outcome on behalf of leadership San Antonio. You mentioned habit earlier in this conversation.

I wanna pick a thread on habit. Can we all make New Year? Well, maybe we don't. I don't make New Year's resolutions anymore, Brian. Maybe because I break them too soon, but you know, I think the playbook to the play sheet is a version of somehow Alvin and I make this household work and I get to work and we get to enjoy life.

So I think we've got a version of your play sheet playbook that probably needs tweaking. So that's why the book will come in handy. Habit is hard though, right? Whether it be financial wellbeing, health. On some level coaches are narrow focused. And is that the reason why the habit forming that they do and that they encourage in their teams is relatively successful compared to the general population where habits are sometimes hard to build and seemingly easy to break.

[00:26:50] Brian Hurtak: You know one of the greatest things about studying these coaches is really getting to see behind the scenes. These coaches, what I loved most about them is that they are leaders not only in their locker rooms and on their teams, but in their communities, in their cities, and obviously they have to be in their families as well. So they're doing the same thing you just gave me credit for. They're trying to balance family. They're trying to be a great representation of their school within their broader district or their broader county, or maybe if it's a university, their broader city or state. So have a lot of responsibility, and their passion really focused on developing young people. And I really, really love. Yes, their focus on week in and week out is more simplistic in nature, but if we narrow our play sheet to each area of life, I don't it's that much different. So in the book and I think we'll talk about in a few moments is that I have a parenting play sheet. I have a play sheet for my day to day. It does adjust, but for my professional life, day to day I should say, so there's different play sheets that I actually have based on different arenas or fields or setting that I'm in as well. And then in regards to habit, I'm gonna look at my play sheet 'cause this is one. That there are a lot of great books on and, and when I learned what the coaches do, it's a simple, repeatable routine. And that's what we try to teach in the book is that the more you practice this, the better you're going to get at the process and the actual plays will get better. Week in and week out and if you watch a team, run a play on week one versus if you just watch the Philadelphia Eagles probably run the same play in the Super Bowl. You saw the trajectory and the maturation of that team over the course of, in their case, 20 weeks. That's what we need to do over the case of a quarter or season of our life. If we practice this over and over, these plays ultimately can become habits. And there's three phases of skill acquisition, and this is very much one of the most popular books, atomic Habits, but I studied this as well and I studied a lot of habit forming and it's three phases. One is the cognitive phase where we're just intellectualizing the task or we're discovering new strategies and we're implementing it, but we are failing all the time in the cognitive phase. So when you get your play sheet and you run that, play the sand in the gears moment, that's a good thing because you tried it, it didn't work. But next time get better at it and better at it and better at it. Then there's the associate of phase when we're making fewer errors, but we actually can see ourselves getting better. That gives us motivation, and it's where the coaches really come in. They almost get out of their way and they're showing them the film and the players themselves can see themselves getting and it brings instills confidence in them. So the associated phase where we can actually see the curve of learning start to take. And there's the autonomous phase. And the autonomous phase is when we turn it on autopilot and that skill actually becomes a habit. And so you reach that phase, that's when I say sometimes you may wanna leave those plays on your play sheet for confidence boosting purposes, but an actual signal where that play in that category may be ready to go off your play sheet. And now you're ready to add another play or another category of plays to the play sheet.

[00:30:28] Jason Rudman: So look, this is a Steelers household. I just wanna point out, so this comment about how beautiful the Philadelphia Eagles game was in the Super Bowl is with a pang of regret that it wasn't the Steelers. But I think to your point, looking at that arc over like 20, it was remarkable actually to see the adage, the practice makes perfect. And it's interesting when I'm talking to younger professionals that I'm mentoring and we talk about I don't know that I like this term, but I'll go with like executive presence. I actually don't know what that means. I think it's an old trope.

But when you talk about presence, and I often say, record yourself in the mirror or listen to the cadence of how you talk on teams, right? The beauty of teams and copilot now is you can get a transcript, you can get a summary, you can see how much you talk in the stream. And I, even today, as accumulate as much accumulated youth as I have, still use those tools to your point, to finesse, and to adjust and to always seek to improve. So there's a lot of goodness in what you just outlined. You mentioned we were gonna talk about kids. We both have them. I think the ethos to the, we all want to be great parents.

We are the sum of the environment that's around us. What few nuggets have you learned as a parent by applying the outline of the play sheet to the way you and Erica seek to parent your two kids?

[00:32:04] Brian Hurtak: Yeah, you know, I use the same concept of ethos and then playbook, play sheet and adjustments to parenting. So the ethos for me is be a great father. And that's on the top of my play sheet. It just reminds me, and it's hard to do that. The playbook is like any topic in life. When I first became a parent, and I still do this to this day, whether it's talking to a friend, listening to a podcast, audible a book, reading a LinkedIn article, going to a webinar, I am voraciously aggregating tons of information on being a parent, and it's overwhelming. So I create a playbook and I categorize it. And actually in parenting, categorizing it's pretty important because maybe there's categories like getting them to eat right, maybe sibling rivalries, maybe it's screen time. So different categories. Potty training, right? I could keep going. You have different categories and then there are certain plays for each category.

Now, play sheet. My kids are six and seven. My play sheet today is very different from when they were two and three during pandemic. So, you know the play sheet now is focused on six and seven year olds. Very much on getting them not eat anything but mac and cheese and french fries on minimizing screen time, on being polite on doing their homework. These certain skills.

So I'm learning from experts in the field, distilling it down, picking the categories most relevant, and then I have parenting play sheets all across my house so that I can run those plays each and every moment that I'm working with them. Now, the reason the play sheets are important is because my instinct on how to parent is from my unconscious bias.

It's from what I knew from my parents. Well, my parents parented me in a very different age. There wasn't as much screen time, there wasn't much information out there, there wasn't YouTube. There's a lot more things to eat these days and access to information, and so it's a very different time. So if I just try to apply what they did to me as a parent without being intentional of what I'm trying to do, may not work.

[00:34:21] Jason Rudman: Right. Middle school is coming my friend. For those of you that are listening, that was a dog in the background and Brian was remarkable about keeping focused and adjusting in the moment. And we're not gonna edit it out. That's called life. So middle school is coming. So as you know, Roman is 11, Eden's nine. I feel like you're in the purple period, six and seven, been there. I can empathize, but I also know there's a lot of joy in that, just kind of like in the discovery and the adjustments that you make and you see how the kids respond to that in a way that I think is a proof and a marker that adjustments that you're making are having the right effect. You mentioned within the child play sheet, blue towel or red towel. So explain that to the uninitiated.

[00:35:08] Brian Hurtak: Yeah, there's a webinar called The Parenting Solutions that I listen to, and then author has a ton of content that I devour each week. And she is obviously a well-trained parenting expert, has done a ton of psychology research on how to parent, and that psychology research is really important because my initial reaction most likely not the most effective way to parent in those stressful moments.

That's very much similar to the coach, right? It's easy to call a play in practice, but when the clock is ticking, there's 80,000 fans screaming. It's a tie game with 30 seconds left in the game. Your ability to call an effect a play is a lot harder. Same in parenting. When your kid's throwing a tantrum, you've worked an entire day, you're exhausted. You know, how you react in that one moment is very, very difficult. So, blue towel versus red towel. I don't know how many parents have said it's time for bath. And the child's like, no, or they delay, or they stall or they run around naked, around the house, whatever they may do. The concept here, which is what I do on the play sheet, the play sheet, I just write very short, succinct trigger reminders of what play I wanna run based on what I learned months ago. And in this case, the play was ask them a question, let them be empowered to make the decision. Versus me telling them to do. And it's based because kids are told what to do 90% of their day. And as human beings, our natural reaction is not to want to be told what to do. But because they're 4, 5, 6, 7 years old, we just think that they're willing to accept that, they don't. And so the psychology behind it is, hey Seiler do you want to use the blue towel or the red towel for bath tonight? I'm not telling him he needs to do bath.

[00:37:09] Jason Rudman: All Right.

[00:37:09] Brian Hurtak: I'm giving him and empowering him to make a decision. And when he says red towel, he made the decision. And we go to bath. Now, it doesn't work every time, but it works a lot better than me saying Seiler get in the bath.

[00:37:21] Jason Rudman: Right. Or literally picking Seiler up and putting him in the bath.

[00:37:25] Brian Hurtak: Which I've done. Yes.

[00:37:27] Jason Rudman: Which we've all done. Which we've all done.

[00:37:29] Brian Hurtak: But Jason, one last thing there that I probably had read that, and it was in my playbook. When I first became a parent, but it wasn't relevant until 5, 6, 7 years later, and the play sheet, the whole point of this whole book and concept is that same thing the coaches face in that pressure moment, they could quickly add a glance, see the play, recall it, and apply it in a critical moment.

[00:37:58] Jason Rudman: Can you break down for anybody that's listening how writing this book and being very purposeful, and I'm gonna go in three different places. How it's changed you as a parent, a husband, and a leader.

[00:38:17] Brian Hurtak: For all three. The book has hopefully made it simple and made me more intentional. Now it takes practice. can't stress that enough. It doesn't happen overnight, but I've been using a play sheet for, in my own life now, almost a decade. But I've been really using it day in and day out since I started writing the book 'cause I wanted to practice what I was preaching. So it's a simple framework for me. All I gotta do is read it and put it on here, and then for me, it's being intentional in the moment. So as a parent, I just told you, as I look at my parenting play sheet, one of the big things is don't raise your voice, questions, right?

So I have constant reminders where I'm being intentional, mindful versus reactive to the chaos ensuing in household around dinnertime, bath time, or getting ready to get him out of the house for school. I. And so I'm very much more intentional about those plays. As a husband, I think it's easy to be busy, but what are we busy about is another quote I love and I can probably be better, but some plays on my play sheet are around the love languages.

My wife is very different than me, and so the way I ask her something or the way I try to influence a decision or, you know, any of those types of conversations how we parent, the way I approach it is a different love language. So, you know, using different love languages is, versus the way I like to hear things or the way I like to do things isn't gonna be effective when I try to run that play against my wife.

[00:40:05] Jason Rudman: Right.

[00:40:06] Brian Hurtak: And then lastly, at work, one-on-ones is probably where it is. I think I was the same leader to everybody sometimes. I try to not enforce, but I almost try to project what I thought worked for me on others, especially in mentorship or coaching or managing or leading. And so, one example is in the one-on-ones, I reallynow who I'm talking to. With them, I actually take information about who they are, what their motivators are, de motivators are, how they like to be recognized, how many kids they have, are they introverted versus extroverted? And based on that information, the way I approach a coaching conversation with one direct report versus another, will be very different.

And I actually, on my play sheet, have different plays for different people. Because it's not my natural instinct to run that play. And this is the same thing as coaches. Some coaches will win 40 to nothing in a game where they're playing a defense that just fits exactly to the offenses that they've got. But when they play a very different defense, they've gotta get uncomfortable and try different things and leverage different pieces of advice from their other coaches and run different plays.

[00:41:22] Jason Rudman: There's so much to unpack in that. From me to you,

I appreciate, you and I talked about in the heat of the moment, I think it's really, really hard. You've had a long day, you get home, you've been dealing with adults.

[00:41:38] Brian Hurtak: Yeah.

[00:41:39] Jason Rudman: Let's just, adult human beings are quirky. Adults are even quirky in my mind. So you deal with entire diaspora of human emotion and feeling in the workday.

Then you come home and then you know your kids you've got, and I dunno about you, but what I've also learned is you've probably got 45 minutes to an hour. That's the other thing about time, as I become more seasoned, when you think about time spent with kids except weekends, like in the week, Brian, as working professionals. It's actually a small amount of time And I think what you're guiding us through is there is a reasonableness and an approach with adults in the professional workplace that very often you know, personally I lose that approach when it's the 45 minutes that are gonna interact with the kids. And I think what you're outlining is a balance that personally I want to take and work on making sure that there's more balance in the 45 minutes to an hour at the end of the day when I show much of that in the eight or nine hours a day when I'm interacting with human beings. To me, that's the priceless outcome for me, in this, the spirit of what you're saying is you've always gotta practice it. You've always gotta get better. The play sheet is the play sheet, but you've always gotta make the adjustments based on the situation that you find yourself in.

[00:42:58] Brian Hurtak: Well, Jason. Both of us been executives of several Fortune 100 companies. There's a lot of executives today that are divorced. Not present in their children's lives, have broken relationships with family members and friends and for many reasons. But this goes back to why we started with Ethos. The reason that's gotta be front and center for you is you have to define who you want to be. And Stephen Covey, you know, seven Habits, probably the best book ever, in my opinion. schedule your priorities, don't prioritize your schedule. So is, His executives were so focused and so intentional on how we're gonna run our organization or run our teams or lead our teams, but we're not spending the same energy or intentionality on our home life. There was a CEO that at a previous firm that I knew, and in his garage when he drove home every night and he drove into his garage, he had a big poster and it said, be here now. That was his play sheet. It was only three words, but it was a reminder, second he walked into that house that he had to be mindful that he was a dad, he was a husband, and he wasn't gonna be corporate Joe.

Right. Like he had to be a different person in this moment. Because if I try to apply my corporate lingo and all that to my household, it's of off putting by the way. And so us being intentional, and as I said, schedule your priorities, don't prioritize your schedule. And that's why the ethos, if I have the reminder of be a good father, be a good husband, or whatever those mantras are for me, that'll serve just as important of who I want to be at the end of the day. And I only may get those 45 minutes, but I'm gonna be just as intentional, as hard as it. It takes practice as I am in the 9, 10, 12, unfortunately, hours I may be at at the office.

[00:45:04] Jason Rudman: It's fascinating because I think in order to deliver relative success in the corporate world, you have to be here now.

[00:45:11] Brian Hurtak: Yep.

[00:45:11] Jason Rudman: And yet so often we lose sight of that, to your point, when we pull up into the garage or you walk through the door, that's a fantastic reminder making sure that you're present in all quadrants of your life or all quarters of your life, however you want to share it.

You only have

[00:45:26] Brian Hurtak: a couple seconds to make that decision that could really set the tone of how your child behaves, or the course of your marriage.

[00:45:34] Jason Rudman: Right.

[00:45:35] Brian Hurtak: And so coaches the same thing. They may only have 15

seconds to see the scenario, see the formation that comes on the field, look at their play sheet, and call the right play within 15 to 20 seconds.

[00:45:48] Jason Rudman: Yep.

[00:45:48] Brian Hurtak: You may only get that amount of time each and every day. But back to the skill and habit forming cognitive, you're gonna make some errors, makeup practice it. Get it to the associative phase, then get to the autonomous phase where it becomes habitual.

[00:46:03] Jason Rudman: I love it. I love it. What is the one thing you learned on this journey of writing the book that you didn't know about yourself at the beginning?

[00:46:13] Brian Hurtak: I'm a terrible writer.

[00:46:17] Jason Rudman: Well, you know, are you really, because you've written a book and it's by the way, came out on January 7th, is already an Amazon bestseller. So I don't know that that's the case. That's an easy answer, Brian Hurtak. And for anybody. I don't know. We're gonna show this clip, but you've also gone, you know, beat route red on that

So I'm not gonna let you pass on that one that I'm a terrible writer.

[00:46:38] Brian Hurtak: Writing is hard, by the way. I mean it, the editing is the hardest part. So you have a lot to say, you're passionate about it and getting it to where it was simple for me it's actually hard. But, you know, the biggest thing I learned in this is this, this was a slow down to speed up moment for my life. We are very busy and the days are long but the years are short and my kids are already six and seven. And for me, this goes back to what I want it to be at the end of the day is really important. What is the legacy? And legacy is a kind of, I don't mean to be an egotistical word, but you know, what imprint do I wanna leave on my life or after my life with my family, my friends, my coworkers, and maybe even broader in my community.

And so for me, this was a slow down, a speed up moment 'cause I think I was getting too busy. And kind of on the hamster wheel and doing this every day, really put things in perspective of what was the most important thing or things in my life. And it wasn't to be the best corporate executive. That's not what I wrote on my ethos statement. And for many years I was almost trained coming out of business school, trying to move up the ranks at a Fortune 100 company, that that was the aspirational goal. And I think with time to reflect and write my own ethos, I realized that wasn't it. And there's more important priorities in my life.

[00:48:07] Jason Rudman: I think we go through seasons, Brian. One of my most recent More Elephant moments was walking away from a job that I thought was for me, right? I had chief in the title. It was the right. This was post USAA, left usAA took the role because it was the right thing to do for a variety of reasons.

And then I walked away because it was not bringing me joy and it was clouding and impacting the other quadrants of my life. You talk, oh my goodness. You talked about love languages and how you and Erica communicate. Alvin and I are, we are different love languages for sure. So I get it. And for me it was truly a more elephant moment because it does connect to elephants. I just had the opportunity to go to a different part of the world for 17 days, I went to Southeast Asia. I actually spent time with elephants and sanctuary and Buddhist monks and everything like that. And it is so true that I came back that it was a recalibration, to your point, slow down to say, at this point in this season, what is it that

I'm trying to achieve, not from an egotistical perspective, but I do think and I know enough about you to know that you and Erica are trying to raise giants, right? That have a positive impact on the world. And I think not all parents, but I think as a parent to a parent, that is number one for me, right?

I like the, the legacy of what we do well as parents is that we put into the world. Wonderful, well-rounded, thoughtful, kind human beings. And so that slow down to speed, up to recalibrate and say, what is my ethos? Such an important part of, I think living a well-rounded, balanced, integrated life.

[00:49:55] Brian Hurtak: Yeah. My 7-year-old ran off the football field last year and came over to me and said, dad, you're on your phone.

[00:50:05] Jason Rudman: Hey.

[00:50:05] Brian Hurtak: You know, those are moments that you're busy, but what are

you busy about? And I wasn't present. I wasn't intentional. I wasn't a good parent. And I really want to hear more about your trip

'cause mindfulness is definitely one of the big categories on my play sheet. And it is very very hard. It is a skill to drive intentionality and it is hard 'cause you're trying to juggle, you're trying to be everything to everybody at times. And you can't be super human. And so you really gotta be focused,

gotta be intentional and it is just a hard journey. And look, this isn't the end all, be all solution, but I hope this is just a simple framework. What's your ethos?

Yeah. Put everything in one repository so you don't have to spend hours finding it. Build a play sheet so you can recall it moments that matter, and then react and make adjustments based on how it's working.

[00:51:01] Jason Rudman: This is excellent. So how do people find out more about the play sheet, about Brian Hurtak how they get in touch, all of those things. Let everybody know how to do that.

[00:51:13] Brian Hurtak: Yeah. Jason, thank you for allowing me a moment to promote it. The book is on every digital retailer. The audible book is coming out within the next month. I tell people usually go to Amazon. That's where you'll get the book easier. But you also can go to my play sheet.com. You can follow me at the play sheet on many of our social media channels that we all use. But let me say this, one of the things I learned from the coaches that I'd like to share in closing, I try to share when I get it, is the concept of pay it forward. Many of those coaches are really just trying to develop young men or women in these situations to be the best humans they can be off the field. And I feel like this book can help a lot of different people just be a little bit better. So my asks everybody is definitely get it for yourself, but share it with somebody that you think can really benefit from this resource.

[00:52:06] Jason Rudman: Brian what a great way to end, pay it forward to whom much has been given, much is expected. Excellent. Thanks Brian. I have no doubt people will respond wonderfully to the nuggets that you provided them. And for everybody who's listening to this podcast, the play sheet, a simple resource for overloaded professionals that I think extends to your personal and not only your professional, but also your personal life available now, wherever you get a book. Thanks, Brian.

[00:52:37] Brian Hurtak: Thanks Jason.

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