33. Thomas Dimitroff on Navigating a New Path

SPEAKERS

Greg McKeown, Thomas Dimitroff

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Greg McKeown  

Thomas, how are you?

Thomas Dimitroff  

You know what I’m doing well. It seems like last time we talked, I had a job in the NFL for many, many years. And now can you imagine I don’t, it’s a little surreal.

Greg McKeown    

Yes, that happened fast. We just spoke, I don’t know, it feels like it just a month ago, maybe?

Thomas Dimitroff 

Exactly.

Greg McKeown  

And at that time, you weren’t expecting this.

Thomas Dimitroff    

I was not expecting it. Interestingly enough, in the NFL, I would say it’s not necessarily unprecedented, but very close to it that a general manager gets fired in the first quarter of the season with the head coach. Sometimes it’s the head coach, a general manager will last for the rest of the season, you’ll reevaluate everything. In the end, Arthur blank, our owner, fantastic businessman, as you know, co-founder of Home Depot, very adept at what he does decided that where ultimately and appropriately his loyalty is to the fan base that he thought it was in the best interest of everyone, that he would not only just fire the head coach, but also fire the general manager at the same time in order to show to the fan base, that he was very serious about winning back their loyalty as well. And that’s ultimately what happened.

Greg McKeown 

Well, and you’re speaking quite matter of factly about that, you know, not emotionally about it. You don’t even sound bitter about it. But that feels like a very surface telling of what’s happened. Underneath that the story is what you lead with, which is like it’s never happened before. So there was no seeing it coming, you know, you saw there were potential changes you knew there would need to be something different in order to get to a winning streak. But this was pretty unimaginable to you. Is that right?

Thomas Dimitroff    

Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. I would say I’ve had my ups and downs, they haven’t been great. They haven’t been like high ups and low downs. I was trying to summarize it the other day, and I thought, my highs have been probably just short of euphoria. And I say that back to what you and I have talked about and what you are about being with my kids now a lot more, being with my fiancé, mind, body and soul focus for me, which is so incredibly important, which it’s pretty tough to do that when you’re a general manager in the National Football League. Right? My lows have been not much lower than solid. I to be honest. I mean, I hit my moments every once in a while, because, you know, I’ve been in this almost 30 years, 27 years. This isn’t a backpack. I’ve never been fired before. So, it’s a long time. I mean, I literally have been in football since I was seven years old. So, it’s it again, it is surreal for me, trying to figure out why it happened. I have a good relationship, very respectful relationship with Arthur Blank, our owner, and we had a good conversation recently about it. And in the end, 13 years is a long time for general manager to be in place in one spot in our league and in sport in general. And you know, we weren’t winning in the very end. We had some really good seasons, we got to the Super Bowl in 16 came up very short, unfortunately in that, and then since then we’ve had some ups and downs. And ultimately, again, Mr. Blank wanted new eyes, focusing on the organization. And obviously it’s his prerogative.

Greg McKeown    

There is two things that really interesting what you just said, the first is to do with how long you’ve been in this game. So your father was a coach over a Canadian team, remind me the team. 

Thomas Dimitroff    

Yeah, he was with the Ottawa Rough Riders. He was a Canadian Football League coach. He was a longtime college coach, as well, Greg, he was a longtime scout in the NFL. So I had ideas about being involved with football. And I was involved since the day I literally was born. I was born into this sport. And I don’t say that flippantly. I literally have been around it since the day I was born, wasn’t like I went to school for it. I was an economics history major. It wasn’t it wasn’t like I even had sports, you know, my background. But from the day I was born, literally I have worked every level of this game, whether it was picking up dirty clothes, as in the equipment room, or whether it was working on the tech technology side or whether it was working in scouting. I mean, I’ve done quite a bit in this and I loved what I was doing. But ultimately, you know that many years in a sport and in a situation. I’m trying to find the positive side of all of this and trying to say I need to focus on some other things where I’m really excited and keyed up about. I don’t know what’s next. I still have a couple years left on a contract. So that is, you know, thank, you know, thankfully to Arthur, you know, that puts me in a spot where I don’t have to rush into anything, quite honestly. And I’ve used this, I’ve talked on a number of other podcasts about this where I want to start focusing on some areas of study and one has to be jump back full force into essentialism, effortless, which you can segue into that, of course. There’s just areas that I literally have not been able to focus on, and spend too much time on, given this job. You remember, when we had that talk the other day, and you were like, Thomas, all due respect, man, slow down for a minute. And I was trying to fit everything into our conversation. But literally, that is the life of a general manager.

Greg McKeown     

Well, well, that’s exactly it. Someone listening to this could say, well, of course, you’re going to say, well, I’m spending time with my family and I’m doing these other things that we’d like that’s, that’s like a line that people say when things don’t work out how they expected. But the thing that’s seems clear to me is that you have been running in a certain direction for literally your whole life. And I don’t mean, you’ve never stopped and paused and reflected, like, ever. But it does seem like it’s just been in front of you. So you’ve just kept on doing within this one game and all of a sudden, you’re stepping out of that game. Maybe you got pushed out of the nest fine, but you’re now going, okay, it’s like involuntary essentialism where, where you suddenly say, okay, I’ve been wanting to do this genuinely, already. But now the opportunity is there. And in fact, I’m required to do it, which I think a lot of people can relate to. Having just gone through COVID and everything where suddenly everybody is being you know, faced with circumstances that were not of their choosing, not what they were expecting, not what they saw coming. This is where you’re at.

Thomas Dimitroff    

Well, you hit the nail on the head. I mean, I think first of all, we all would love to come to this decision of our own volition, and you know, and in this sport, it just rarely or if ever happens of course.

Greg McKeown 

Something that’s interesting to me is that you have a network mentoring group of other sports leaders that you’ve met with before all of this has happened. Tell me about that.

Thomas Dimitroff    

Yeah, so I’m really involved and have created develop some really good friendships with a lot of people in the international sports scene. So it could be from other sports. Of course, I have some really good friends and connections in NFL, but you know, RC Buford with the with San Antonio Spurs, who was who was an historic General Manager and executive. David Brailsford, as I mentioned, from Team INEOS was Team Sky forever now team INEOS to Brian Cashman with the New York Yankees, to a number of other international people from, you know, McLaren racing to the Premier League, a lot of probably people that, you know. There’s just, it’s a really strong group of people who share, we have a group that we call the P8, and we get together, probably two or three times a year. No media in it, and we just vent, we share, we uplift, we educate, it’s a really, really good group to be able to you know, discuss things that might not be discussed with anyone else. Sometimes it’s good to be able to have, you know, consistencies and synchronicity with people. And I don’t get that often. And sometimes you don’t get it within your own league, right, Greg? Because people aren’t sharing, necessarily that way. So to get there with people outside of my sport, that’s really, really vital. And I think very educational.

Greg McKeown    

What kind of education have you gained from that group?

Thomas Dimitroff    

Well, I think one of the things that is seems again, very, very much synonymous with your approach, a lot of it has to do with coming back to, again, lucid communication, and that’s a big picture discussion of many, many layers of course, as you know. We continue to talk about that, we continue to talk about how important it is to make sure that what you’re communicating is the right thing to be communicating and how you communicate it. You have to navigate properly when you are communicating. It’s important for me, I mean, people are wildly important to me, and you’re not going to thrive as an organization If you’re not.

Greg McKeown    

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And, and tell me this like now in your life, here you are, you know, it’s a bit unthinkable. It’s a bit unimaginable. And yet, at the same time, it’s always possible. So that’s sort of the background. But you’re here where you are now, what is essential to you now that you think you might be under investing in? I mean, right now, not a month ago, a year ago, right now, first thought.

Thomas Dimitroff  

Look at Greg, I, I think you and I might have talked about this before, but one of the things that I realized when people asked me what was the most complicated thing about being a general manager? Well, one is on game day, you have no say about what goes on in the field, right.  That is very complicated. You’re, you’re in the proverbial tunnel, or watching from the press box, you can’t say throw deep to Julio Jones or screen pass or Blitz. You can’t. That’s complicated. That is very complicated, frustrating, frustrating, beyond. But even more frustrating than that. And even more difficult than that, is this incessant tug on my time. And, and I thought that I was going to figure it out, I thought in the first two or three years it was going to get it was going to get better, and just kept building and building and where I thought it was going to be easier as I had more experience, getting into my 10, 11, 12, 13 years, it became even more complicated at times. And that that was something that was quite unnerving, because I realized more and more now, the importance of solitude, the importance of being able to think, the importance to be in being able to, to you no game plan without, again, the incessant knock on the door tug on my time, which was really complicated. I have often thought; I’ve never been an add person at all. But I’ve often thought, there’s this NFL GM sort of precipitated ADHD thing that goes on because you get to a point where you’re flying through everything, everything is a skim read, everything becomes much, you just don’t have an opportunity to read the books and study as you want, or study the drafts the way you want or study the acquisitions or the finances. You rely on a lot of people which is great, but you get you get like snapshots of everything. We know that that’s today’s world. It’s something that really bothers me back to time and being able to invest in something that’s going to help me grow mind, body, and soul. And that is where I have under invested and that’s where it will change whether I get another job in the NFL or I venture off into the business of sport in some other way. Believe me, I will make a massive effort to change that. After having gone through what I’ve gone through and been able to sort of reconsider.

Greg McKeown    

What you just told me is that the nature of the job Is ADHD inducing. That even if that’s not who you are, not your temperament, the temperament of the job is so strong that it makes remakes you in its image.

Thomas Dimitroff    

No, that’s exactly right. Keep going. Because in today in today’s world, everything is so fast paced. Greg, if you don’t do something, now, you may have no chance to get there. It’s one of the reasons that I believe in never sitting on, on my hands, I’ve been a very aggressive person, whether it’s trades, if you look into my history, I trade a lot, I’m a mover, I don’t I don’t sit back and wait for things to come to us and me as an executive. And that is fast paced. And I don’t know how long you can do that for in one fell swoop. And you know, it was, again, 13 years is a long time to do it. And taking a deep breath and being able to sort of figure how I would approach it is something that is going to be a big focus of mine.

Greg McKeown    

So you want now is to correct the balance, where you’ve spent 13 years without deep thinking time, without deep reflective time. You want to take that now. You want to read you want to

Thomas Dimitroff    

Yeah, no question I want to read I want to study versus just picking up one book, skimming it, you know, our former commissioner Paul Tagliabue who said, in these big jobs, you get a chance to read a lot of really good summaries to a lot of really good books. And to me, I’m thinking, that’s exactly right, I have, I have been given so many gifts as books, books as gifts over the years that I now have in a box, and I looked at them the other day, as I’m out unpacking my stuff that is brought been brought from the office, and I’m thinking, Oh, my God, like I have a lot of work to do. So it’s not just the reading, but it’s, it’s getting up on my whiteboard, my proverbial whiteboard as well, not just whiteboard in my, in my house, but in my mind, and start thinking about what is important, start thinking about other opportunities, start thinking about how I would adjust my approach, my leadership approach, my even more important, my approach to my kids and my family and my fiancé, like that is massively important to me.  And when you’re in this rat race, at times, of wins, and performance, you lose track of that at times, not fully, but you lose track. And there are times when you take a deep breath. And you can feel the lump in your throat with a little bit of sadness, like my God, that five years just flew by. And you know, my son is now 13 years old. And you know, you think about that, it’s not just that, of course, it’s, I am a big believer and I this comes back to what you mentioned in the most latter half or part of your, of essentialism. I it’s it runs so true for me, talking about the time we have left in our life, it’s not a negative. You want to talk about hitting the nail on the head with me. I mean, unfortunately, I lost my father when he was 60 years old. I don’t think about that. Now my mother is at strong, she could pick up a kettlebell and throw it around. And she tough. Yeah, I appreciate that. But my dad was a football man. He was a football coach all my life. And he was I was raised, going through that. And I look at that. And I and I think it is, you know, in the scope of it all God willing, we all live to 100 years old. But that’s still a blip, as you said, and you’re very strongly articulate how important that is. So I want to make sure that I’m controlling my time. I hate the fact that someone else is controlling my time.

Greg McKeown    

You’re wanting not just to make sure that the space to think yourself, to think and plan you want to think you’re trying to redesign you. Like you’re saying, okay, I’m at 2.0 I want to get to 3.0 and 3.0 looks like more time with my son. Like I just can’t miss the next five years. It probably does mean reinvention in the career, okay, there’s still there’s still things you want to do, and opportunities are bound to come up. So it’s about what how will I lead differently, but also how will I live differently to maintain a balance and an equilibrium between these areas of contribution, that work. You’re trying to work out how would you do that in the next act?

Thomas Dimitroff    

Yes, exactly. And I sit there and I think often to, to your point, again, my father being post war gen, you know, a lot of really interesting axioms or directives over the years that made me who I am. But they’re also elements that aren’t they don’t hold true today. And that’s another part of where I really want to dig in and find out what do I in fact jettison, all due respect, and God bless his soul. You know, that said, there are things that I need to put aside now because they don’t fit with my sort of quest to have balance in with my, my son, and my daughter, and my fiancé, and my life moving forward. Because, you know, again, life being fleeting, there just there is so much more that we can accomplish. And if we’re not able to spend that time and really think through it, I think before you know it, you know, we are sitting on a rocking chairs, I hate to say that because I’m not a rocking chair, person, but line by Thoreau, paraphrasing when I come to die, find out that I have not yet lived. And that is a scary sort of analogy or thought for me.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah, I want to build on a couple of things you just said. But I want to also pull up the Thoreau quote, “I went to the woods, because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach. And not when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.” What I hear in you, is this great respect for your father, and a pain point in this sudden absence. 60 years old, you’re expecting time left with him. And he was expecting time left. And then suddenly, it’s not there. And you want to make sure underneath all of this noise and current activities in your life, to not repeat the regret. And to say, I want to thrive in my career, I want to, I’ve got something else left to do. But I don’t want to do that in such a way that I miss this essential moment and these essential relationships, and it’s so easy to do it, you want to use this time to really try to figure out how to how to get that right.

Thomas Dimitroff    

That’s exactly right. It’s so easy in our sport, as it is in many businesses, as you know, through all your relationships, to say, I’ll get to that in a year. Before you know it four years go by five years, eight years, 13 years go by and back to you know, again, Thoreau quote. I mean, again, I sit there, and I think I do, I don’t want to have regrets. I have no regrets. But for you know, some of how I balanced and where my time was, of course, you know, I have a great relationship with both of my children. And that is so incredibly important to me as I do with my family. But it can always be better. And it can be exponentially better in my mind now where I am because I feel like I know so much more. I and I say that humbly. I was I could lead back into professionally, right? in those first three or four years. You know, I feel like I was thriving early. I had a little bit of swagger about me in my early years because you know, you’re just you’re in a different mode. You’re not you don’t have golden handcuffs on. That’s a whole other topic. And all of a sudden, you know, years start going by and you start you start realizing that it becomes a little more complicated. There’s a lot more involved. And do you really, you know, do you want this? How many more years do you really want this? Me I got the general manager job when I was 40 just 40 and a half years old. All of a sudden, it’s I’m 54. That is a massive revelation for me, though I had some great times, you know, there was some great highs, some tough lows, of course, that’s life.

Greg McKeown    

This is back to the to the a ADD inducing culture, where busyness is celebrated as a bogus badge of honor. Where if you aren’t doing everything, all of the time, someone can judge you. Someone can say, well, you’re not doing enough. And in what you’re trying to do, in this pause, now that you have is pushed back on those assumptions, to invest differently, yourself. But also, I think I still sense in you a, how could I construct a future that would help me to perform even better, as a general manager in whatever role but also really protect space to think, to pause, to reflect, to prioritize, and to build not just good relationships, but great relationships with the people that matter most? That’s the conundrum. That seems to be the question that you’re grappling with now.

Thomas Dimitroff    

And that’s the question. And I realized deep in my soul that that is and would be the best for me and I would perform and function. Again, I really believe it exponentially better than I would if I’m fragmented and pulled in many different directions and sort of there with my son and daughter, but not sort of there with my fiancé, but not mean, I understand. I know at the core, what is going to make me happy and focused. And I think that’s a lot of people in this business. And everyone wants to push it aside, not discuss it, because it’s, you know, maybe not tough and gritty enough. But you and I both know, that’s not the case. In no way should anyone be evaluated or, you know, gauged of their grittiness and their mental toughness, because they want to be around their family and their loved ones and get better and grow all the time. Because that’s ultimately what our organization should want of us. Right?

Greg McKeown    

Yes, and what I think you just raised, though, is, is can it be done? Not could it be done in a vacuum, like you say, of course, it’s got to be true that if I focus on what’s most important, personally, and protect that, and focus on what’s most important, professionally, and protect, that, I could make a bigger contribution personally and professionally, all of that makes sense to you. But what do you do in a culture that isn’t buying into those assumptions, in a culture within the NFL, within whatever franchise you’re part of, but also within the culture outside of the NFL, where, where everything you’re doing appears in social media, where everybody’s got an opinion, where you’re getting real time feedback constantly in every game, this is not what it used to be. And so the challenge, I think, here is how can you do it? You know, how can you be an essentialist in a non-essentialist culture?

Thomas Dimitroff    

Very, very good. Very good question. I mean, look, I sit there, and I think about everything that you’re talking about right now. And if you recall, you are talking about perceptions and every time you’re turning around, there’s some social opinion about one thing or another. And if you recall, we were talking about potentially doing this podcast, but I returned a message to your assistant and said, not the right time we are oh and three at the time, I believe. And it would not be perceived well by the fan base, they would think why in the heck is, you know, Thomas Dimitroff on a podcast. The reality is that people aren’t spending every second of their day immersed in their job, right? So it’s, again, it’s perception, it’s unfortunate. I will say along these same lines, what I am proud of, as much as it’s complicated still, there is an evolution and I love seeing it, I feel like people and perceptions were evolving. And we understand we’re much more open to talk about this. Most people are now whether they follow through or not, this may be a generation away, I don’t know, I’m praying it’s not. But there is so much more discussion about this, I’d say 30 years ago in this business, or 30, or 50, or whatever it was, the discussion about these kinds of things. And that would be perceived as an element of softness or misguided misdirected, you know, there needs to be acute focus and myopic approaches to this game, or you won’t be a champion. You and I both know that that’s nonsense.

Greg McKeown    

What you just said is that there’s a window of opportunity, within, there seems to be an opening opportunity for a new conversation to take place. And you when you talk to other coaches, other managers, players, there are people who want to have the conversation. And that was sort of unthinkable a generation ago, but you think there might be way a way to do something about this? The you don’t just have to do it on your own, maybe there’s a way to expand the conversation inside the organization broadly?

Thomas Dimitroff    

Well, that’s right. I think, again, you know, as a leader, you set the tone. Right. And I think people believed I know. And I say it again, humbly within our organization, and within other organizations, and people that know me, I think it’s, it’s important to be real. I mean, I’m a big believer in authenticity. And you know, some people think, well, I wouldn’t mention that, tuck it away, don’t ever show that side to you, whatever that is. And again, I am everyday amaze more and more in our league and my interaction with people at all levels, some of the entry level people all the way through the mid-level, all the way to the top. We had an incredible conversation about social justice, a few months ago within our organization. Hands down, Greg, one of the very best meetings that I have ever shared or ever had with our with a group ever. And in a nutshell, what it was is, we created a forum to bring all of our scouting group together and all of the personnel in football ops department for the most part, and we started talking about social justice. We started talking about, you know, what was going on up in Minneapolis and what was going on around in South Georgia and everything that was going on. And it was the most emotional meeting amongst a number of hardcore hard-nosed football people with tears and emotions flowing. And I was unbelievably moved by it, as well as everyone, it was a game changer in my mind for the back to trust and appreciation within that organization. And it’s only I got a text the other day from one of our scouts who was sitting in on it, and was reflecting on it and just say, Man, I just one of those things that we’ve never touched on before. And I think it’s opened up opportunities that we are so much more appreciative of being able to do this moving forward. So thank you, and I, it was heartwarming for me.

Greg McKeown    

Well, it’s such a powerful example. And it really reminds me of the definition of culture that I like, which is that culture is what you can and can’t talk about. So when we talk about when we talk about there being a new conversation, and how powerful that was in the room for people to be able to say things that they already feel, already know, but they’re not allowed to talk about it just by norm and how and how fruitful and useful that was. In a similar way there are other conversations that can be had. And where I see essentialism being brought into a team or a culture, a whole organization successfully is where people don’t just try to be essentialist on their own. They don’t just try to figure out what matters for themselves and then go execute it. Actually, that’s quite a painful way to go. It’s like the hard way to do it. Because people won’t know what’s happened to you. You know, why is he suddenly saying no to things you say yes to and what, you know, they just won’t get it. In fact, I just had somebody else on the podcast Banks Benitez, and he’s the CEO of Uncharted and he brought his whole company got to read Essentialism. And they said, Well, what are we going to do about it? And what they came up with it was an experiment. Could we have a four-day workweek? And they went through this whole experimentation, and in the end concluded they would, and they did, and they are now that’s official policy. But what made me want to cheer, why I’m talking about it now was to hear him describe the conversations they had inside of their organization. He said one time when they were reading the book, somebody came in. And they almost they said, I sometimes I want to throw this book across the room. And as soon as he said that, I thought, yeah, they they’re really reading it. They’re wrestling with it, they’re going is this, how on earth would I do this? And what would the tradeoffs have to be and, and that means they’re really talking and really reading and not just going through the motions. And hearing you describe this window of opportunity for essentialism, and then how this has been done recently, with something really important, makes me think that there could be a role for you to be a leader over time to bring this conversation into the NFL. To be able to be a voice in in creating space where other people read and discuss and talk. And people will come to different conclusions in different applications. But they can’t do any of that, until they have the language in the space to have a new conversation, your thoughts?

Thomas Dimitroff    

Wow, look, I that idea of if you’re approaching essentialism alone. So I recall, this very thing happened with me. So I was so excited about it. And I got up on the whiteboard with my at the time, my pseudo Chief of Staff, there’s only one chief of staff or one person in our organization that could be chief of staff. And that was not me. I’m not being facetious. I’m saying our owner can have a chief of staff. But he basically was my assistant, and was really, really good in a lot of ways. And we went up and I literally went across the entire board, which I had the span of my entire office, and I created what I called my essentialism masterpiece, and it went from prioritizing what was essentially it without getting into too much detail on it, we can talk about it another time. Basically 10 different phases, the number 10 worked for me well. And it went from the very beginning, you know, with a lot of the the ideas of you know who I was, you know, my commitment to mind, body and soul, my commitment to my own faith, my family, of course, being number one where my priorities were if I read through it now I realized, I really, I feel really strongly about it, I want to revisit it again. But I spent a lot of time on that. I showed it to people who I actually hired, I hired a relatively new EA. And the first thing she needed to do was sit down and spend time with me on a Greg and understand it clearly, so that she knew where I was coming from. One thing, though, that I will add is what you touched on in your book and what you just touched on there. I where I went awry is I spent all this time thinking about me and how it was how I was going to function on this and affect everyone versus opening this up to a lot of the people in the organization, especially back to that mid man group that I was talking about, right where they knew they knew that I was adjusting, and again, good relationships, but some did some struggled with it. Some wanted more and more time. And they were struggling with the fact that they were no longer feeling like they were valued as much. If I were to have communicated clearer about my goal of essentialism. I did and I told people to read it, but really sat down. You know, who knows, maybe have maybe have a handful of seminars about it, and discussions about it. So, it’s a great point that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately. How I would have done it differently.

Greg McKeown    

That’s exactly the idea that is that is that. It’s about trying to introduce the language of essentialism, and the space to talk about it and permission to debate it and to and to wrestle with it. And that role of leader as teacher is something I’ve really seen be necessary. So that you take on the teaching role, the facilitating role around these ideas. And it’s an informal certification where you say, I’m going to really keep coming back to these ideas so that other people can come and talk about the with me. And it’s not just me sort of dictating a focused agenda, it’s together figuring out what we think is the priority, this year, this quarter, today, this training session, and allowing that to happen. And I think, I think you could be poised to do something special with this. Not even now, as if this is Plan B, but just now that this, in fact, is Plan A, that you’re on Plan A, you just didn’t know it. But this is Plan A and part of that plan, part of this new identity, this 3.0 is for you to be able to be that teacher  and bring these ideas back into the culture and be I think, a more significant leader than you would have been without this experience, I think your greatest contribution lies ahead of you, as you put this into this new evolved vision.

Thomas Dimitroff  

I love it. 3.0, I’m gonna be focusing on that. And that that is how I have been feeling as I continue to talk about, you know, that solitude in those times to really think through, and this will be a really, really important part of it. And I’ve, to that point, recently, you know, I have, I have thoughts about reaching out, you know, even in the interim, it’s not about the money, the interim, being able to help people being able to help the league, where they are with their young hires, being able to mentor I just started getting to that spot in my early 50s, where I started thinking more about legacy and mentoring, wasn’t thinking about it that much, I didn’t get a chance to really immerse myself in it, maybe this is the time again, until next opportunities come to be able to reach out to the league and offer my assistance, or, or other people, I mean, I have a number of other people in other sports businesses that it may be maybe worth my while, and it will continue to help me grow. As you mentioned, the more I’m articulating it, and involved with it.

Greg McKeown    

Well, I think there’s a profound conversation here beyond, you know, to continue, I was just talking to somebody works in the Olympics, and they were talking about the problems they have there with, with athletes, now that it’s so professional. And so it’s so singular, the only thing in your life is to do this thing. It’s like, essential isn’t gone bad. It’s just so singular, that it means that whether someone wins or loses, they’re going to have a crash afterwards. And, and almost certainly will, because there’s no balance, there’s no sense of, of, of wholeness, as there once was. And so they they’re really excited to lean into how you might train. And again, adapt and change the culture. And so I think across sports, that there’s a conversation to be had. It has been a pleasure to talk to you today. Thank you for, for coming on. Thank you for sharing openly about your story about your journey about where you are. That alone will be helpful to lots of people listening to this. And also, I think we stumbled here. I think we got to something at the end here that could crescendo into something even more meaningful. Thank you so much for your time.

Thomas Dimitroff     

My extreme pleasure. Thank you, Greg.