0:00:00 - (Brad Arnett): Foreign.

0:00:14 - (Toby Brooks): Hey, it's a great day to get better. Welcome to another episode of Becoming Undone, the podcast for those who dare bravely risk mightily and grow relentlessly. I'm Toby Brooks. I'll be your host and your tour guide as we invite new guests each each week to examine how high achievers can transform from falling apart to falling into place. Today's guest is a mentor and a friend, certainly someone I've looked up to for a long time.

0:00:38 - (Toby Brooks): Brad Arnett is co founder and owner of Next Level Sports Performance, an athletic development center in Wisconsin. Our paths first crossed when Brad came to the University of Arizona from the University of Minnesota where he took his second Power 5 NCAA Division 1 job before the age of 30. He served as assistant athletics director and head strength cond coach at U of A for four and a half years before he finally decided to pull up stakes and head back to Wisconsin where he started a new business.

0:01:08 - (Toby Brooks): I frequently say that I've got the mind of an entrepreneur but the heart of a coward. And today actually marks my 13 year anniversary of my current position at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. And there's certainly been plenty of times in that 13 years where I felt like I had an idea or a purpose or some other sort of business pursuit that would allow me to leave my day job and switch over into full time entrepreneurship.

0:01:34 - (Toby Brooks): However, I never had the courage to do it. Brad is a shining example because it's hard to get the type of job that he had, let alone type of jobs he had as a strength and conditioning coach in the collegiate setting. To leave it almost assuredly means you're probably not going to get back in. So when he pulled up stakes and headed to Wisconsin to start a new center of his own, it was a bold and brave move.

0:02:01 - (Toby Brooks): And quite honestly, one, I've always been a little bit jealous of someone who shows that kind of courage and that kind of belief in themselves, to me is inspirational. So I hope you'll enjoy episode four Strength with Brad Arnett. Brad, great to have you.

0:02:17 - (Brad Arnett): Toby. It's awesome. I mean, you know, it's. This is great. I look forward to this.

0:02:21 - (Toby Brooks): Fantastic. So you're joining us from sunny Wisconsin today.

0:02:26 - (Brad Arnett): Yes, yes. So everyone that's listening, Wisconsin is not in the sun belt. We just got last yesterday. We got about three, three and a half inches of snow. So we got our first kind of accumulation of the year. And as I was out here on the floor looking out, seeing the big white blizzard, right, Everyone laughed because I always look at everybody. I'm Like, God, you think we lived in Wisconsin or something? What's going on out here? But.

0:02:53 - (Toby Brooks): Right.

0:02:53 - (Brad Arnett): Yeah, born and raised here. So it's. It's kind of. It is what it is and I'm used to it, so.

0:02:58 - (Toby Brooks): Awesome. Well, Brad and I first crossed paths at the University of Arizona. I was a know nothing graduate assistant, and Brad came in as our new director of strength and conditioning. But obviously you don't get to that point just by showing up one day and saying, give me the job. There's a story behind that. So start at the beginning. What. Wherever that was for you.

0:03:21 - (Brad Arnett): Well, I was born and raised in a little town in southeastern Wisconsin here, it's about 45 minutes from right now, it's called Fort Atkinson. And went to high school there and then went on to play collegiately at UW Whitewater, which is probably 20 minutes a little bit further south east of where I grew up. So that was where my beginning started.

0:03:47 - (Toby Brooks): So you played sports all through high school and went to UW Whitewater?

0:03:52 - (Brad Arnett): Yes. So in high school, you know, I find this when you talk to guys that are in my field, whether it be, you know, private sector, college, whatever, there was always, you know, you always ask them what got you into this. Right. And I think a lot of times there was something that happened to you individually that you either went through rehab, you went through an injury, and you're like, you know what? This really sparks my interest.

0:04:17 - (Brad Arnett): Like, I could see myself getting involved in this process or helping people. So I tore my ACL. And that was back in 1987. I know I'm dating myself there, but of course, back then, surgery is. It's obviously your surgical procedures and things have come a long ways. But at that time, I was one of the first ones when they first started doing the patellar graft. So I had my ACL surgery, but I lost my entire junior year of high school rehabbing my knee and getting things back. And so I came back as a senior.

0:04:52 - (Brad Arnett): But going through that process, I worked with two different physical therapists that were great guys and just got to know them and got really interested in the rehab process, the training process. So during the time I couldn't play sports, I really kind of threw myself at the weight room and just really spent a lot of time, as they say, under the bar. And my high school had a process, I shouldn't say a process, but they would allow locals, local guys to come in and use the facility later on at night.

0:05:27 - (Brad Arnett): So I used to go in there at night with these guys. That were ex power lifters or still powerlifting and. And been doing all this stuff for years, right. And just started hanging out with them and asking questions and picking their brains and just kind of started this whole, I don't know, process of learning my way around the weight room. And then I end up at Whitewater. And ironically, my strength coach, my first year at Whitewater is the exact strength coach that I replaced when I went to Arizona in Dan Worth. And Dan to this day is my mentor.

0:06:00 - (Brad Arnett): And him and I kind of hit it off right away. He was a big hunter. He bow hunted. And so we'd always talk about stuff like that, but I really started picking his brain about training and the process and the thought process that goes into it and how you progress things and all the different aspects that you look at when you kind of look at this world of developing training protocol. So I would literally, at night, six, seven o' clock at night, I'd show up with some food, sit in his office.

0:06:29 - (Brad Arnett): We'd sit there and eat. And literally before you know it, it'd be 10 o' clock at night. And I'd just be sitting there listening to him go through, you know, smearboard talks and looking at the computer. And then he started giving me books to read. And I was like, there's. There's no way. I don't want to do this.

0:06:45 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah.

0:06:45 - (Brad Arnett): So I had him for about a year and a half and then he left and at the time took the head assistance job at Arizona. And he was working under Meg Ritchie, who at the time was the first, I think, head female strength coach in college athletics. He did that for about a year or so. And then she actually ended up leaving and went to Texas Tech with Spike Dykes. And Danny took over. And during my whole time at Whitewater, I stayed in contact with Dan, talked to him all the time. He would send me programs and I would feedback back and forth to him and go through that process.

0:07:19 - (Brad Arnett): And then originally, when I graduated, coming into the process of graduating, you start looking at opportunities, right? I want to be a graduate assistant strength coach, kind of go through that, that whole same process of what am I going to do? So of course, Danny wanted me to come down there and he wanted me to ga with him and work with him. And that's pretty much what I was set on. So I graduated in 95, and coming into that, I was already engaged to my wife. Now we've been married for 27 years this July.

0:07:47 - (Brad Arnett): So she was a teacher. And so she had sent out resumes and stuff to schools in the area around Tucson. She had some interviews lined up and everything was ready to go. And then you always get the other opportunity.

0:07:59 - (Toby Brooks): Right, right.

0:08:00 - (Brad Arnett): So I get a phone call from my current strength coach, actually, that was at Whitewater. His name was John Hiefsky, and he had a relationship with some of the strength coaches at the University of Minnesota. And they were in the process of hiring gas. And so I took, I took the opportunity and I went up and interviewed him. And I guess at the end of the day, it really wasn't a situation of one being better than the other.

0:08:24 - (Brad Arnett): I knew I was going to be getting married. My wife wasn't exactly 100% sold on as soon as I get married, you're going to take me halfway across the country. So I went up and interviewed and it went well. I ended up actually staying an extra day and they offered me the position. And at that time I would get school paid for, plus I got a stipend, I got health insurance. It was a great situation for me.

0:08:52 - (Brad Arnett): Four and a half, five hours from home and it was in the Big ten, which was kind of what I wanted to be in. You know, I'm a Midwest guy. I wanted to kind of stay in the Midwest. So at the time they had separate athletic departments. So you had a female, you had the male male, and you had female. And everything was duplicated from athletic director, assistant AD to Sid, you name it. Everything was split down the middle. And so me coming in and as you learn that, I'm thinking this is, this is different, but we'll work our way through this process.

0:09:21 - (Brad Arnett): So it was a two year commitment. And so you would spend a year with football and then you would spend a year with your Olympic sports. So coming out, you came out with a lot of exposure to a lot of different athletes and training protocols and demands and all the things that go into that. And so I started with the Olympic sports. So I started that in June and then that November. The head strength coach for football, his name was Kevin Yoxall, who left and took the head job at ucla. And then from there Yox went to Auburn and he won a national title. And Yox is one of the best strength coaches and he's been in the business forever. So anyways, he left and that leaves me sitting there as a ga and what's the next move? What's going to happen?

0:10:08 - (Brad Arnett): So the strength coach that I was with laterally moved over, took over football and I was kind of on my own for a little bit. No one could really tell me what's going to happen. You know, are you going to be here? You're not going to be here, you're going to go to football? What's the whole process? So I just stuck my nose to the grindstone and went to work and just continued doing what I was doing and get the phone call from the athletic director, hey, Brad, this is Mark. I want you to come in and see me. So right away, you know, young guy, you're thinking, oh, what did I do wrong? So I get pulled in, I go into the meeting and he basically said, hey listen, the coaches love you. They love what you're doing, they love your interaction, they love your desire to learn. Because I had gone through this process of sitting with all these different coaches going, okay, I wrestled in high school, I played baseball, I played collegiate football.

0:10:51 - (Brad Arnett): I don't know shit about hockey, I don't know anything about swimming, I don't know anything about these other sports. I mean, you understand the sports, but I don't understand their demands. So I just started taking time and having meetings with these coaches and saying, listen, teach me your sport. What do you need your kids to do to be successful? And that's where it started. And then over time you kind of know who you can talk to from an athlete standpoint, where you're not going to, you're not going to question their validity. Meaning, hey, how are things going? How are you responding? And you know that you know which guys you can ask or just that are going to give you great feedback and not tell you something's not working because they don't like it or they don't want to do it.

0:11:29 - (Brad Arnett): So that was kind of how I approached it and just kind of self taught myself. The demands of these sports and talking to the kids and going and watching practice and just kind of taking it all in.

0:11:40 - (Toby Brooks): That's definitely something that I recall in, in working with you is just the teachable spirit and just the fact that, you know, I always heard horror stories about the relationships between the medical staff and the strength staff. But I've been blessed that every person I've worked with on the strength side of things recognize that the medical side influences what you do in a weight room. And I would like to think that likewise me doing my job means that I recognize what can be done in, in your neck of the woods. So loved that.

0:12:10 - (Toby Brooks): Never adversarial. It was always this team approach before that was cool to talk about, you know, before the exosis of the world, we were doing things along Those lines. And everybody realized it wasn't territorial at all.

0:12:23 - (Brad Arnett): Well, it's. I couldn't agree with you more. And I, I don't. I'm sure you'd remember this, but just that whole concept of doing that, of having the student trainers come in and spend time in the weight room and wanting them to understand, this is what we're doing, this is why we're doing it. Here's the progressions. So when you look at a program, you know, if it's a four day a week, three day a week, it's in season, it's off season, whatever we're doing, I want you to have a good understanding of what we're doing. And there's. I always looked at it from different aspects that went into that. From the standpoint that we're in an off season cycle and all of a sudden you guys are seeing a rash of hamstrings or low back or something's going on.

0:13:00 - (Brad Arnett): I want to know that, like, am I pushing something too soon? Am I missing something? Like, what's going on with this? Because when you don't have that relationship, unfortunately, the one component that we're all supposed to be there for suffers, and that's the athletes.

0:13:14 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah, for sure.

0:13:15 - (Brad Arnett): So I always just thought that it was just a. And I've carried that with me to what I'm doing now. I took so many things that I liked and I paid attention to the things I didn't like. And when I got into this opportun, going to make sure that I'm on board with everything that we're doing.

0:13:30 - (Toby Brooks): Sure. So you're a young, inexperienced guy at this point in your career and offered an opportunity to dive in head first, feet first, I don't know what the term is. But given an opportunity to make your dreams come true, when you're standing on the edge of that possibility, what. What does success look like in the next few years for Brad?

0:13:51 - (Brad Arnett): At that point, you know, as I look back, you know, I was 24 years old. I'm the head Olympic strength coach at University of Minnesota. It put me in a temporary no post till I finished my master's, can apply for the job, wink, wink, and the rest is history. So my path was so different than what most guys that go through. Right. You go through a GA period and it's a year, two years, sometimes two and a half years.

0:14:15 - (Brad Arnett): And you're learning from who you're working with and you're basically regurgitating what they want you to do. So you're not Always put in a situation where you can kind of go with your gut instincts and do things that you think is right. And that was the amazing opportunity for me being there was that, yeah, I started doing that, but then in a short period of time, because of just logistics of things that happened, I was able to do a lot of what I felt was right and grow on that. So I guess I'm using that to preface the standpoint that I had had success at a young age. You're right. So I'm standing there and I'm going, okay, well what's next?

0:14:51 - (Brad Arnett): Well, there was times that you kind of lean out over the Titanic and you feel like, hey, I can rule the world, right? Like I'm. My next step is I'm going to be the head guy and I'm going to run everything and then I'm going to go here and there and I'm going to do this and life's going to be peaches. And so I guess my thing was, is that I wanted to continue to work my way up, I guess the food chain, right, and be a director and oversee things and have a full staff. And I guess at the time, do it for me, right, because it was at that time it was all about mining, like what I'm doing and it's about me and, you know, I'm going to, I'm going to go out and do all this and it's going to be great.

0:15:26 - (Brad Arnett): And it started out that way and things were good. You know, we, some of our teams at Minnesota that had never really competed at a national level started winning Big Ten championships. And then we had a couple teams win some national titles. And it was. Things were going great. And I get the phone call from Dan that says, hey, I'm getting out. I'm going to go into private sector, more of a health club type setting. But. And I gave them your name. They'll probably call you and what you do with it, it's going to be up to you. Right?

0:15:57 - (Toby Brooks): The phone call Brad's referring to was from University of Arizona head strength and conditioning coach Dan Worth, Brad's mentor, who had previously tried to hire him to Tucson years before. Dan had decided to branch off and start a new website called Fitrex, which was an early exercise prescription service. And he wanted Brad to come take his old job at Arizona.

0:16:18 - (Brad Arnett): And so that set up kind of the ball rolling. And they called and talked on the phone, did two or three phone interviews and then I went down and interviewed and they ended up offering me the job And I took the job. And there again, you think, okay, I'm going to go down there and I'm just going to set the world on fire, and all these teams are going to start winning titles, and they're going to do this and do that, and I guess in a short time, what it taught me was strength, conditioning can make a big difference in the success of a team. From the standpoint of consistency and accountability and keeping things the same. There's not a Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. We're just kids know that there's got to be an ebb and flow when we work. There's time to laugh, there's a time to, you know, kind of talk.

0:17:00 - (Brad Arnett): But when we got to work, we got to work. But the flip side of that is a lot of that success is still going to come from your athletes. So I could have the best program in the world thinking in my mind, I got the best program, but it still ultimately comes down to you. You got to have some thoroughbreds in the stables. And I think in a short time, that was one of the biggest things that I learned, was that, yes, you are a part. You're important to this.

0:17:24 - (Brad Arnett): If there's a message that the coach is trying to get to the kids, and you can do that because we, you know, just like you, we spend a ton of time with these kids. But realizing that I'm sitting here, all of a sudden, I start browbeat myself because I'm like, well, what's happening here? Why aren't we this? Why aren't we that? I mean, I'm doing all these things that have, you know, should be getting a success. And it's like at some point you kind of have that aha moment, and it kind of punches you in the face, and you sit down, you're like, whoa, you know what? You're right. This isn't all about me.

0:17:52 - (Brad Arnett): It was ultimately, it's about these kids. And all these kids come in at different levels. And that's why, you know, you. You assess them and you find out where they're at, you get their background, but then ultimately you get to know them. And those are the things I think that ultimately, in the long run, make the biggest differences.

0:18:09 - (Toby Brooks): Sure. So I want to back up a little bit. You went straight into coaching from undergraduate, between the end of your high school athletic career and the sports you played there, and then the end of your collegiate career. Did you ever really process what the end of that meant? Or did you just pour yourself straight into coaching? Was it like you Never left, You know, it was.

0:18:29 - (Brad Arnett): So when I was going through undergrad, I had a class that was sports facility and design, believe it or not. And the facility that I'm sitting in right now in design was very similar to what I had done as an undergrad project. But. Right. I mean, my. I had had goals that I wanted to be a Division 1 strength coach. And I was a guy that coming out of high school, you're not. You're not big enough to play college, you know, you're not big enough to play college football.

0:18:56 - (Brad Arnett): Don't go to a four year school. You should go to a tech school and do this and do that. It was kind of this uphill, I don't want to say battle, but I mean, a lot of it was left to perception because of who I was. I was an athletic kid, I was a good guy. I got along with everybody. I could talk myself out of stuff, right. But was never really a guy that showed commitment across the board to everything that I needed to.

0:19:17 - (Brad Arnett): So, yeah, you get to the point where you're like, yeah, I want to be a D1 strength coach. And all these people are like, yeah, you know what's going to happen? It may not happen. You got to know somebody and you got to go through this whole process, which I think kind of fueled me to say, you know what, I'm going to. I'm going to prove you wrong. And this is what I want to do. And I'm going to look at my opportunities and do the best I can.

0:19:39 - (Brad Arnett): And I was in a great situation at Whitewater in that when I was done playing, my head coach, Bob Brezewitz did at the time, did a lot of high school seminars and he would go in and talk about X's and O's. Right. Or management of football teams and this, and different concepts and so on and so forth. Well, he pulled me in one day and he goes, brad, you still want to be that strength coach, right? Yes, coach, I do. So my last year of undergrad, I was an assistant strength coach. I was an assistant D line coach. So I'm kind of starting this process.

0:20:07 - (Brad Arnett): He goes, well, you need to learn how to speak. He goes, so I've listened to you speak before. You've got a long ways to go, so ands and ums need to be done away with. So he took me under his wing and would start taking me to these high school seminars and I started working on putting presentations together, talking to these coaches about strength, conditioning and the concepts that go into it. And Basically putting a weight chart on certain things that you should focus in on at this age and what's important and what's not.

0:20:33 - (Brad Arnett): And that's kind of where everything started for me. And I thought, you know what? I can do this. This is going to happen. But I want to share this with you. Prior after my sophomore year, I got kicked out of college. I was academically booted, and there's not a lot of people that know that, and that's okay. But that turned my life because that's what woke me up to kind of the concept of me saying, hey, I can hang out over the Titanic, can rule the world. I just thought that I could talk myself out of anything and I can get all this stuff going and it'll all be good, it'll all work out. Well, that's not reality. And unfortunately, it does take sometimes getting punched in the face to realize that, hey, you're at a crossroads here. What's it going to be?

0:21:10 - (Toby Brooks): Absolutely. I was beginning to wonder if Brad's story was really a becoming undone story or not. After all, 24 years old, head strength coach, everything went according to plan. But then he drops this bombshell. He was actually kicked out of college. Never would have known it by talking to him. It's certainly not something he brags about, but I love the fact that he's not ashamed either. This was truly an undone moment for him. He could have packed it in and called it quits, but he didn't. He chose to buckle down and to do the things he had to do in order to be successful, and that set him up for future success.

0:21:44 - (Brad Arnett): So my head coach and my D coordinator helped me petition to get back into school and did summer school and got myself back where I was and ended up graduating with honors and went on to get my master's with honors. But just going through that process, I knew it kind of resolidified to me what I wanted to do. And I realized then it was going to take work and it's going to take commitment and it's going to be based on consistency.

0:22:08 - (Brad Arnett): I guess it's kind of the same thing. I tell athletes, I'm like, you know, everybody works hard, right? They do at some point. They work hard, but how long do they do that? How long is that process going to be? And it woke me up and it changed my career. It changed my life. I ended up finishing with a great career. I was honored to go into the hall of Fame at Whitewater in 2013. But that process and being an athlete and Going through that and the exposures of my coach and Dan and doing all these different things really kind of helped shape and mold where my. Kind of my launching pad and where I was going to go.

0:22:39 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah, well, the. The whole title of this podcast is right along those lines. It occurred to me as I was going through a process myself, that lots of times when it falls apart, I come undone. I come unglued. I'm. I'm falling apart at the seams, and I'm undone. But where the real strength lies is when you're able to grieve a little bit. What? You know, take your time, whatever. Nobody goes straight to work after they get devastating news, but you pick yourself up and you recognize that I'm not finished yet. I'm undone. And you actually blew a hole in my next question, because I see you as being this guy who's fast tracked to success. You're on your second power 5D. One job before the age of 30. You got your master's degree, you've got a happy family life, and you move south to sunny Tucson.

0:23:24 - (Toby Brooks): But like I said, you had already shown that you could encounter and overcome adversity. So I guess my question there is, once you got to Arizona, how ready were you for the resistance or the adversity maybe that you faced there in that new position, in that new job?

0:23:43 - (Brad Arnett): From a training standpoint, having so much exposure to different athletes, and at my time at Minnesota, I actually kind of bucked the system and I started pulling in female athletes to work with me. So I started working with the female track athletes, particularly the throwers, which I was kind of looked at like I had three heads, like, what are you doing? And it's, you know, it finally just got to the point I'm like, listen, this is dumb. They want to work with me. They come in with the guys, they practice together, they train together.

0:24:08 - (Brad Arnett): We're supposed to be here for athletes. So from an athletic standpoint and that knowledge and exposure and dealing with different coaches and dealing with different athletes, I felt very prepared. But the biggest difference between a Midwest school and a Southwest school is mentality. And, you know, Minnesota, when I was coming from Minnesota, wasn't necessarily blessed with these blue chip recruits coming in.

0:24:34 - (Brad Arnett): They were athletic, good, great kids, but they had to be developed. And that's where I really fell in love with the process. Then I get to Arizona, and you've got athletes coming in there in all these different sports that they're not just coming there to go to school and compete a little bit. I Mean, they're coming there to contribute to winning a national title and fast tracking a process to get to that next level. And so that process can be that pushback that you get. Took me a while to acclimate to in that I had to change my approach.

0:25:03 - (Brad Arnett): And I accepted the fact even more so. I mean, I had always been good with it, but it took me to the point where I actually encouraged it to allow kids to ask the question, why? Why are we doing this? What is it going to do for me? Like, what is the process? And just taking the time and I guess looking at it from, I need to make this a teachable moment, right? I want my kids to understand why we're doing what we're doing. Here's where we're starting, this is where we want to end.

0:25:29 - (Brad Arnett): We've got to make adjustments in between. Nothing's ever set in stone. But I guess getting them to understand the process more, help them buy in a little bit more and alleviate, I guess, some of that pushback a little bit. I mean, because I'll be honest with you, when I first got there, it was overwhelming for me in the fact that basketball was what it was. You got a Hall of Fame coach, you've got the number one team in the country. I mean, shit, my first year there, we lose to Duke in the finals, right? And it's like. Well, it's kind of like the little kid that goes out the first time deer hunting with dad, right? He shoots the 80 point buck and he thinks every time he goes out that's going to happen, right?

0:26:04 - (Brad Arnett): So. And then, you know, the swimming program, I mean, former Olympians, current Olympians across the board, I mean, he's just got these amazing athletes. And it was overwhelming because it is, it gets to a point where it is about your approach and it is about how you present things. And it's not always about being the plate head, as I like to say, and just rough, gruff, and, you know, shut your pie hole and do what you're told. No, that only goes so far.

0:26:28 - (Brad Arnett): Are. And it gets to the point where you just, you got to take the time to get to know these kids and you got to learn them and what makes them tick. And some kids are going to learn different than others and the process is going to be different. And their perception of what they think they need is so different. Because there again, like I said, you've got an incoming freshman that's doing something. Standing next to someone that was just in the last Olympics, it's like, well, how do you navigate that.

0:26:50 - (Brad Arnett): And so there was a lot of learning processes there and there was a lot of. There was mistakes you learned from and you go back and you move forward. So I guess it's not always how you. It's not what always happens to you, it's how you react to it. For sure, you learn from it.

0:27:03 - (Toby Brooks): Yeah. So you arrive in Tucson in July of 2000, quickly get up to speed, like you said, not. You're not just working with football, but certainly that's, that's a big part of what you do. Excited to be in a new environment, new city, new part of the country. From that point until January 2005 when it ended. What occurred within you during that four years and seven months that changed maybe how you viewed that position?

0:27:30 - (Brad Arnett): I guess the biggest thing was I learned that I needed to spend as much time with my staff as I did with the kids I was training. And so what I mean by that is that when football was on the floor, because it was obviously the most numbers, my whole staff would work with football. And so you would have your developmental group, you'd have some, some rehab type group that was in conjunction with the training room. And then you had your travel team going through. So it was in seat or off season.

0:27:57 - (Brad Arnett): So when you have all these things that you want to do specific to certain situations, you can't spend minimal time on that with your staff and expect it to be done the way you want it to be done. And so having staff meetings and going through things and educating and handing out articles and just leaving lines of communication open that, hey, we're all in this together. I'm not going to go out. And if we're out, I'm not going to introduce you and say, okay, hey, this is Toby. He works for me at the University of Arizona. No, this is Toby. He works with me at the University of Arizona. We're all in this together.

0:28:30 - (Toby Brooks): Quick aside, I was once at a conference. I'd had my PhD. I was an associate professor, but my boss introduced me as, this is Toby Brooks. He's one of my minions. I really wish I would have worked for Brad instead of that person.

0:28:45 - (Brad Arnett): And I guess just looking at it from the perception of, yeah, you're the guy, you've got the title. They're expecting you to manage and take care of this stuff, but at the same token, you're not going to do it alone. So I always say, if you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. And I guess that was one of the Biggest things that I learned from, it's not just from your staff, but all the other areas that you work with. And I guess it takes me back to that CATCH program, right? Commitment to an athlete's total success.

0:29:10 - (Brad Arnett): And it was the training room, it was the weight room, it was academic counseling, it was the team docs, Doc Porter and those guys in that, you're going to. You're going to get into different situations with these kids that have different things going on. And so I guess the biggest thing too, for me, that really got bigger, more so than when I was at Minnesota, was when you're in Minnesota, a lot of your kids are.

0:29:33 - (Brad Arnett): You didn't get the vast recruiting map than what you had at Arizona. So you got kids coming in from all over. So I guess even today, people always ask me, like, what was the hardest thing when you're in your job? Okay, so you finished at Arizona. I mean, what took the most time for you? Was it the programming and running the workouts and doing all that stuff? And I, you know, I. The first time that was asked to me, I said, you know, I'm going to come back to you on that. I got to think about that for a little bit. But, you know, it wasn't.

0:30:02 - (Brad Arnett): What I found spending my most time was why I've always had a couch in my office. Kids come in and you spend a lot of time with them. And when you make those teachable moments prominent, you get to know these kids and you understand the fact that it's their first time away from home. You got all these things going on, right, other than football. You look at the kids that are coming in from a mentality to my world, they're not there because they're weight room rats.

0:30:29 - (Brad Arnett): They're there because they're field rats. I mean, they're there on their laurels alone. They're really, really good at what they do in their sport. But now they have to physically and mentally get better to contribute at that high level. And going through that process, they're going to have ups and downs. And so those kids coming in and sitting down in my office and saying, hey, Coach, can I stop in and talk to you? Sure, come on in. Close the door, whatever, sit down. They sit down on the couch and they kind of look at you and instantly lose it. So you let them lose it, get it out, and then, okay, what's going on? You know, it went from that to the flip side. Kids that would come in and say, coach, I can't do this anymore.

0:31:05 - (Brad Arnett): I'm done. Okay, Well, I never tried to talk them out of it because I didn't feel it was my place. Something happened. There's things that have kind of built up to this point to get them to that point, but I always made it a point of let them lose their stuff, get it out and talk. Okay, so if you could go back in time and do something different that you wouldn't end up at this point, what would that be? And these are the things that I'm. Maybe it's roundabout, but these are the things that kind of what you're asking me. I learned of being. My time being in Tucson was every single one of them male, female, like all said, I would have done more for me.

0:31:38 - (Brad Arnett): And I sat there for a second and I said, okay, I get that. But what does that really mean? Well, when you look at where all these kids come from, it's all about exposure, right? So you're on club teams and you're on travel teams, and you're doing all this stuff nonstop. And then your high school team and the time demands and everything that goes into that just eats these kids up. And then all of a sudden, you get to a college and they think they're working hard, they think they've done a lot, and all of a sudden they step on campus and within an hour they're redlined, and it's nonstop. So now their demands have automatically, instantly doubled.

0:32:11 - (Brad Arnett): And so the comments like, you know, when my parents wanted to go on a family vacation, I would have done it. I would have just said, you know what? I'm not going to make this tournament. My family wants to go on a vacation. They all felt like they lost out on kind of growing up, so to speak, right? That time of just, I want to be a kid. So that really hit me hard in the standpoint that, you know what, you're right.

0:32:31 - (Brad Arnett): And it took me to what I talk to kids about today in my own kids. I mean, I take so much that I learned from that when I started having kids, I should say I had kids when I was there, but now coming back here, they started to grow up, right? Is that talking to kids about having that coping mechanism that at some point, whether it's once a week, every other week, once a month, whatever it might be, find something that you can do for you and just get away from everything, whether it's go for a walk, go find a lake and put a line in the water, whatever it might be, but you need to do something to get away and just let all of this go and unread line and kind of refocus and bring yourself back and take the time to reassure that this is what I want and I'm in the right spot and kind of re. Re.

0:33:15 - (Brad Arnett): Re. Refocusing in on your goals and what you want to accomplish really made a big difference in me in the way that I approach these kids. Because you do. You lose track of. Yeah, they're athletes and they're. They're there for a reason. Right. It's a job. Let's just be honest. It's a job. And we forget that they're kids and you know, they're going to have troubles with a boyfriend or a girlfriend or they're going to have a trouble with a class.

0:33:38 - (Brad Arnett): And I guess as I, as these kids started to come in and talk to me as I'm standing out at practice, you could tell when that kid steps over that practice line onto the field, you can tell whether that kid's underwater or not. And so just cueing in on that. And I used to make it a point to kind of, when we had staff meetings and stuff, talk to coaches about that, that guys, listen, you can all think you're the greatest coach in the world and you've got the progressions and you've got all the answers, but at the end of the day, if the kids you're coaching, if their life away from the sport is a mess, they're never going to learn or internalize anything you're giving. And so just taking the time to get to know your kids and understand that everyone's different and you don't have to do things to the point where you feel like you're being held prisoner, but at least get to know these kids and help them become a man, become a woman. It's all, it's all this learning process.

0:34:30 - (Brad Arnett): And I think that's what I ended up spending more time with on that than it is. Than it was per se, writing programs and doing all that stuff. I mean, that's, let's be honest, after a while, it's kind of second nature and you kind of know what you're doing and you're going to go with it and you know how to make the adjustments and you teach all that. But it's the aspect away from that that I think helps kids get that more.

0:34:51 - (Brad Arnett): That much more out of their experience. Yeah.

0:34:54 - (Toby Brooks): So you go from a Power 5, your second Power 5, Division 1 school, and that comes to a close and eventually you make your way into that private setting. For a lot of people, that's I mean, Dan maybe blazed the trail for you because that's precisely what your mentor did. But at the time, that was somewhat taboo. Like, if. If you jump out of that stream of Division 1 athletics, it's hard to get back in. If you decided maybe I didn't make the right decision.

0:35:22 - (Toby Brooks): Decision. So what led to you ultimately deciding to leave Arizona?

0:35:26 - (Brad Arnett): I guess, as they say, as you get older and mature. Right. Your priorities change. It wasn't like I was that old, but they did. And I guess that's one of the things that I always share with people that want to go into college strength conditioning or college coaching as a general. Right. Is that you got to go in with a plan, and you have to go in with knowing your mission statement and your priorities, what's important to you.

0:35:47 - (Brad Arnett): And I'm not going to let an opportunity or a job or things that I'm doing overstep and dictate or change who I am and what's important to me. And so as I got to know more strength coaches in the pack. Well, at the time, it was a PAC 10, so it's, you know, it was kind of normal practice. You come in on a Friday, you go through your walkthrough, you meet up with the strength coach, you kind of hang out in the weight room, or he'll come grab you at the hotel. You go and have a couple beers, you talk shop, you get to know each other a little bit, and then you play the game well, as you get to know guys more and more. I was going into offices, and we'd sit there and talk, and I just kind of start looking around the office.

0:36:26 - (Brad Arnett): You know, as I sit here and look around mine, my whole wall is just peppered with pictures of my kids. So I started looking around and I started asking these guys, like, where's your family? I mean, do you have pictures of your family, your wife? Because it's all the same stuff. Maybe the waiting room was renovating. They got pictures of that, or pictures of them and players at a bowl or whatever it might be.

0:36:44 - (Brad Arnett): Like, oh, you know, I'm, you know, Mary and I divorced four or five years ago. The kids are all gone. And then you kind of, as you get to know them, they're on, like, their sixth or seventh job. And that started becoming more and more norm. And after a while, I'm sitting there going, is this where I'm headed? Like, is this what this is about? Like, after a while, it's a job, and it's hard for people to understand that. Have that haven't been in it. Yes, you got to.

0:37:07 - (Brad Arnett): You got to work your way up, and you got to create opportunities to get those jobs. But once you have that job and you get going in it, it is. It's just another job. And you still have things outside that job that if they're important to you, you still have to keep an eye on it. So it got to the point where I saw my kids on a Sunday, and that was it. I mean, you travel with football or in. Part of it was me. I made it a point of every recruiting weekend when these teams would have kids coming in. I felt it was important for me to be there and meet these parents and meet the kids.

0:37:36 - (Brad Arnett): And being a parent, I wanted the parent to understand that, you know what. What I'm telling you, we do. We do. I don't want to blow smoke. I want you to feel comfortable and know that we truly do care about your child. And you're, you know, you're giving us the best thing you've got, and it's our job to help develop that and grow them and do that. So I would see my kids. I mean, I would leave in the morning during bed. I get home, they're in bed once in a while. Stace would bring them down during the week for lunch or something. And that was hard because I'm working recruiting weekends, or I had to do community outreach stuff, or I'm off doing some things for Nike with talks and different stuff. And so we would go to church on a Sunday.

0:38:12 - (Brad Arnett): We'd spend the day together and then start the week over. And it just got to the point where, you know, my wife said, I'm not telling you. You can't do what you love to do, but you. I need to be by family. Like, I can't be mom. I can't be dad. I can't be caregiver. I can't be all of these things to you. And there was two incidences that really kind of hit me hard. So I came home one night from. From work, got home a little earlier.

0:38:37 - (Brad Arnett): Kids were still out there running around. And I walk in, and my wife is standing in the kitchen, and she just has this drained look on her face. She's just done, and she was telling the boys, you know, not to do something. And they're, you know, I'm trying to talk to her, and they're doing it. I turn and looked at them, and I said, you know, basically, stop. Go do this, this and this. And boom, they stop, and they go do it. She Looks at me and she goes, this is where I'm at. I can tell these kids, these boys, that 2 and 2 is 4. I can tell them to do something until I'm blue in the face, but until dad tells them, it's not going to happen. You got to be here to do this.

0:39:07 - (Brad Arnett): And then the other one was, I was home on a weekend, and I'm making lunch. I don't. I don't even remember what I was eating, but I was making lunch. My wife's in the other room. So I make it and I put it out, and they're all kind of sitting there staring at it, kind of picking at it and everything. And I'm looking at them going, basically, what the hell's going on here? So I go in the other room, and I'm like, stacey, why aren't the kids eating? Did they eat already? And she was like, well, what did you make them? And I told him. I told her, and she's like, brad, they don't eat that. They haven't eaten that in probably a year. Like, I didn't even know what my kids ate anymore. So when I looked at it from a priority standpoint and where am I headed with this and what's important to me?

0:39:42 - (Brad Arnett): And yeah, you're right. It was a big step of faith. It was a big step of, you know what? I move my family down here for me. My next move needs to be for my family, and that's what drove me to do what I did.

0:39:56 - (Toby Brooks): Sure. I appreciate your transparency and sharing that. When it finally ended, was there any part of you that was frustrated? Did you feel like you had failed, or did you really just feel in your soul that this is the right next step for Brad?

0:40:09 - (Brad Arnett): You know, when I was probably halfway driving back to Wisconsin, I think I had thoughts of, shit, why didn't you do this before? You know, you should have done this early. Right? But then the flip side of it was when teams you're working with don't have success and you get a coaching change, and you go through that process. You know, you get coach gets fired midstream, and then you have an interim, and then you have a new guy coming in. You know, you go through the process of an athletic director telling you, hey, you're still going to have a job. You're good. Well, when you hear that from an ad, just dust off your resume, because you know what's coming.

0:40:39 - (Brad Arnett): But I guess, you know, you start hearing all the back chatter, right? Like, oh, the kids weren't strong enough. They Weren't fast enough. It wasn't this, it wasn't that. And you know, all those things that go into it, that. Yeah, you know what, you get to a point where you feel like you're a failure, like, what did I do wrong? And you start to question yourself, well, maybe I should have done more of this, or maybe I should have done that, or maybe it was this.

0:41:02 - (Brad Arnett): And I probably spent a good. I would say probably a year battling those demons of thinking that I could have done more, I should have done more, or the outcome should have been different. You know, you think you're going to come in there and football is going to, you know, take off, go to a bowl game again, and you're going to bring all this stuff back. And, you know, when some of those things don't happen and then you get caught up in, I guess, listening to the back chatter, it gets hard on you because it's, you know, you sit there and you're like, well, listen, I. I gave up five years of my family life to do this job, and I had a great staff.

0:41:34 - (Brad Arnett): I. We all worked hard. There was. I can honestly say there was probably not a rock unturned to do the right thing and make sure that we had the things in place, that these kids got what they needed and were trained correctly. But it's hard. And, yeah, so part of me was, yeah, I failed. And it took me a while to get over that. That. No. And part of that, me getting over that was my staff. And, you know, I sit back and I look at where my staff is now.

0:41:59 - (Brad Arnett): They're doing amazing things in the field. I mean, one's a head athletic trainer for the Dodgers. The other one's a head strength coach for the Braves. Another one's a head strength coach for the San Jose Sharks. Another one's a head at a college out East. Another one is the Olympic guy at Arizona. Now, Jimmy, you know, I just had so many great guys. You know, Brandon is. He's the head guy at Wake Forest. So I look at the tree that I had as I went through there, and just the interactions that we had and the good times that we had.

0:42:26 - (Brad Arnett): And I grew up as much as they did. I mean, I took the job when I was 28. I mean, I was. I turned 29. Well, actually, no, I just turned 29 before I took the job. So as I'm going through that process, we all grew up. But use, you know, going back and talking to them and say, guys, listen, this. I'm struggling. Did we do this did we do that? Is this stuff really real? I mean, is this how I should take this? And, you know, it's just going back and kind of going through everything that we did. It took me a while to get over that, but it took them to help me say, brad, you know, you. We were all in it together. We busted our ass, and we learned from each other, and we all grew up and. But taking those experiences, I think, is what has helped everything that I'm doing today, for sure. Why are you doing it?

0:43:07 - (Toby Brooks): I think that's a great segue into what you're doing today. So you really didn't have time to lick those wounds for long because you jumped both feet into being an entrepreneur, opening your own business and starting from ground zero. And as much as we like to think that our experiences prepare us, there's nothing quite like being an entrepreneur. You go from having a boss to having every customer that walks through the door. Being a boss, Right.

0:43:30 - (Toby Brooks): So tell me about that decision. Had that been percolating in your mind before you decided to leave, or was that something you decided to do later?

0:43:40 - (Brad Arnett): It had been percolating with me for a while, and I had some conversations with the gentleman that I actually originally did open next level with. His name is Joe Panos. He played with John Fina, who was an Arizona alum. They played together in Buffalo. And John used to come back and train with me in his off season. And every Wednesday, for whatever reason, him and I used to go to this. It was a deli. I think it was a German or Italian deli. He's. John's in all his cooking and food and stuff, right? So he used to. We used to always go there and eat. And for whatever reason, this Wednesday, I had something going on. He's like, hey. He'd stop in and he'd.

0:44:14 - (Brad Arnett): We did some. Some active recovery and stuff. And he's like, hey, let's go grab lunch. I'm like, johnny, I just. I can't. I got too much going on. Oh, come on. It'll be there when we get back. And finally I'm like, you know what? Let's go. I'll go with it. And that was the first time he had talked to me that, hey, Joe's really thinking about doing this. And I told him as a favor for me that you would talk to him. Thanks, Johnny. That's great.

0:44:33 - (Brad Arnett): But anyways, he ended up calling me that night. And, you know, we lived up in Rancho Vistoso up in Oro Valley, and there's no bypasses, right? So to get from school up to there was like a 45 minute, 50 minute drive with half mile stoplights and traffic galore. And so I was on the phone with him the whole time and we were just, you know, talking about the process and things for him to look at. And that's kind of where it really started for me to say, you know what, I can do this. And then I started calling buddies of mine that I played with, that I knew were still in the state. They were high school coaches, they were local and just asking them their opinion. Hey, if I was to come back and do something like this, what do you think? Oh my God.

0:45:07 - (Toby Brooks): God.

0:45:07 - (Brad Arnett): Yeah, it'd be this, it'd be that. So it really kind of opened up a lot of doors and thought process and kind of getting preliminary type things together before I came back and to kind of set the stage to get it going.

0:45:18 - (Toby Brooks): This is truly a tough spot. You find yourself between the known of a job that you have but maybe isn't as fulfilling as you thought it would be, and the unknown and the possibility of starting something new. I've certainly known this feeling and it's one of excitement and fear laced together. Question is, which do you want more, the excitement or the fear? For Brad, he chose the excitement. So what do your days look like today? It's in some ways probably similar to your college days from a programming side, but on the business side of things, you're your own athletic director now, right? You're the CEO.

0:45:53 - (Brad Arnett): Yeah, I'm the guy. I know when the stuff hits the fan, right. I'm kind of looking around to see, you know, who do I talk to to. And then you realize, you know, they're coming to talk to you. Right. You know, I just, it, it re going through this process. You know, I think initially the biggest thing for me was getting used to doing a tour with a parent that had a 14 year old kid and trying to explain them or feel like I need to explain to them how I can help their 14 year old. So coming from where I was coming to that, you know, initially you're like, are you kidding me? I could do it. You know, I can do all this stuff with your kid. And it's like, well, okay, wait a second. Just like you said, every person that walks through the door is a boss. And it is people service.

0:46:29 - (Brad Arnett): And it's not about, it isn't, you know, you're not making cables. Like, it's not like you can call up somebody and say, hey, oh, I understand you're looking for cables, I got 150 different kind. What do you need? No, it's about the process, and it's about people skills and being a service to them. And really hit me that the concept of humility before honor, or the concept that in order to be a good leader, you need to be comfortable or transparent enough to be a servant, hit me hard. And I realized that, that, you know, what? If I want this to grow and I want people to be here, and I don't want people to think that this is just going to be a flash in the pan. I need to change who I am and I need to change my approach again.

0:47:09 - (Brad Arnett): And that's okay.

0:47:11 - (Toby Brooks): Two things here. First, I love that quote, humility before honor. Such a great way to conceptualize servant leadership. And certainly on board brand with everything I've known about Brad, even from his days before becoming an entrepreneur. But secondly, the thing I love about this is even though Brad's highly accomplished at this point in his career, he's still learning. He still recognizes that to be successful, he has to grow and morph and change.

0:47:36 - (Brad Arnett): Because I think it ultimately has made me a better person, a better coach, a better everything. And like, I always tell people, I'm like, well, why did you walk away from college athletics? You know, And I kind of share with them what I shared with you, but they still don't always get it because they look at you're standing on the sideline and you're traveling, you're doing this and you're doing all this other stuff. But I can always tell them, I'm like, you know, just make where you're at the big time.

0:48:00 - (Toby Brooks): Such powerful wisdom. Make where you're at the big time. Just be where your feet are, be invested wherever you find yourself. And eventually, where you find yourself is where you're supposed to be.

0:48:12 - (Brad Arnett): Your goal is to be the best you every day. And so it's been May of this year was 17 years. So it's been 17 and a half years now that I've been running next level.

0:48:22 - (Toby Brooks): That's fantastic.

0:48:23 - (Brad Arnett): And people always call, right? So people ask different people around, will call and say, you know, what's the secret ingredient? Well, I don't really have a secret ingredient, but I always tell them that my model has always been, it's not about the income, it's about the outcome.

0:48:39 - (Toby Brooks): Yet another knowledge bomb. It's not about the income, it's about the outcome. But the beauty is, if the outcome is good enough, then the income will usually take care of itself.

0:48:49 - (Brad Arnett): And when you look at it from the standpoint of being a servant and helping others and knowing that you're going to always give more than what you're going to get, it's okay. And when you take that approach, if income is important to you, it'll always take care of itself. And that's really kind of helped me survive, I think, in our ever changing world.

0:49:08 - (Toby Brooks): Sure. I don't think it's a coincidence that probably the athlete you're most known for training, like you're J.J. watts trainer, you're the strength coach that worked with him and the type of service that he is known for, you had a role in that. And that's what a good strength coach, that's what a good anyone that works in the support services and athletics. I mean, the reason we do that is so that we can exert an influence and help shape a person.

0:49:32 - (Toby Brooks): So talk a little bit about some of the high profile athletes that you continue to work with now and what that does for you as a coach and as a man.

0:49:41 - (Brad Arnett): Guys like me in these, in these facilities that I guess gain some notoriety. It takes that one guy, right, to make it big. And people always ask, you know, well, what did you see early on? What about this and what about that? Well, nobody has a crystal, right? But as a coach, if you're in it long enough, you kind of have a wait list that you check as you look at kids and you get to know them and you kind of see the trajectory of where they're going. And he started hitting all those.

0:50:08 - (Brad Arnett): And so I was very, very thankful when, yeah, went to Central Michigan, came back trained, walked on to Wisconsin and of course the rest is history. He was always very, very gracious of, you know, I guess remembering where he came from and remembering a lot of the conversations that him and I had about a lot of stuff that kids go through. There's ups, there's downs, there's difficulties. You know, the summer before is his big recruiting year. The kid comes down with model, right? He can't go to these camps and he can't get his exposure. You know, not sitting there letting a kid going like go down the rabbit hole, keeping them up.

0:50:41 - (Brad Arnett): But as time goes on, that rolls into the more adult conversations that you have talking about making a difference in leaving a legacy beyond football. Because let's be honest, as soon as you're done in a very short time, you're forgotten. But the things that you can do that make a difference in people's lives and kind of change the trajectory is the stuff that you remember? And that's what a legacy is all about.

0:51:06 - (Brad Arnett): And so all of these guys that come in, and it's from guys that are regulars to guys that are, you know, referrals, they'll come in for a while, they leave, they come back. Just taking the time to talk to them about all of that. And when they do come back, I'll have a group of college guys in here that are getting ready for their pro day. And they've all been very, very gracious about sitting down and talking to those kids about the process that they went through, thinking that it's never going to happen, and then it's going to happen, and that it's never going to happen. And just the concept of being consistent in everything that you do and sitting down with these guys and saying, okay, if you were to give me a list of things that someone would tell you that you needed to focus on to be a good person, what would those things be?

0:51:47 - (Brad Arnett): And inherently, it's always things that don't require talent. Right. It's beyond time. It's body language, it's work ethic, it's attitude. You know, it's all the things that don't require any talent. And as I explained to them, I'm like, okay, so if you were in a regular job and you didn't show up on time and you had horrible body language and you couldn't get along with coworkers, and you had questionable work ethic, your outcome and all output and all this other stuff was subpar. How long are you going to have a job? Like, well, probably not long. Okay, so you understand that this doesn't require talent? Yes.

0:52:19 - (Brad Arnett): Okay, so now, if I was going to ask you, give me a list of things that you needed to focus on to be a good athlete, what would that be? And they kind of look up at the board and they're like, it's the same thing. I wouldn't change anything. So what you're telling me is that it doesn't take a lot of talent to be a good guy, and it doesn't take a lot of talent to focus to become a better athlete. No, guys, that's life. That's it right there in a nutshell. You can be a good person, you can make a difference in people's lives, and you can be a testament. Doesn't mean you got to get on social media and preach every day. But what you do, how you do it, how you react, just know you're in. You're in a fishbowl, Right? And whether you like it or not, that's the life you've chosen. That's where you're at right now. People are watching you. And so going through that process of getting them to understand that and really learn, that only made our relationship so much better.

0:53:04 - (Toby Brooks): Sure.

0:53:05 - (Brad Arnett): So, you know, I've got. So there's, you know, currently I've got guys with the Eagles, the Ravens, the Cardinals, the Steelers, the Giants, the Dolphins, Cowboys. I got kind of got guys all over and. But they're. They're great people. They communicate. They'll shoot me a text. I'll shoot them a text after the game. How you feeling? How's this going? How's that going? You know, they. They follow my kids. I still have two that are competing in college athletics. So they'll, you know, they always text and say, hey, you know, I saw them on TV or whatever, just checking in on them. How they doing? You know, we get done with the training cycle, they're getting ready to leave. I have them all over the house. We do a big cookout.

0:53:42 - (Brad Arnett): So, I mean, those are all the things that I really enjoy and look forward to. But, you know, seeing those guys take. Take that in and really go with it and understand it, and sitting back and watching them make a difference off the field, it's been really, really rewarding.

0:53:57 - (Toby Brooks): That's awesome. So thinking back to that college freshman at Whitewater with big dreams of being a strength Coach and Division 1 athletics, to where you are today, how are you different as a result of all the experiences you've been through? How do you think your journey shaped you the most?

0:54:13 - (Brad Arnett): Well, everyone hears about the. Where they talk about success, right? And you've got the big iceberg and you got what's floating above the water, and that's what everybody looks at in the emulate, and they're like, oh, that's what I want. That's it. But what they don't get taught and what they don't see is the rest of the iceberg that's underwater. And what it took to build that, and I guess from there till now is really helped me understand that if you don't fail, you. We're not learning and you're going to make mistakes and we have to learn from them, and it's how we respond to it. And so I always talk to kids about fail is first attempt in learning. And that's even when I coached. This was the first year that I haven't coached high school football.

0:54:51 - (Brad Arnett): And I used to tell kids that all the time. I'm like, guys, listen. Reps are plural for a reason.

0:54:54 - (Toby Brooks): I'm just going to jump in right there. Brad is just overflowing with coaches wisdom and phrases like that. Reps are plural for a reason. They absolutely resonate with me and they speak to who we need to be as people who are committed to growth.

0:55:09 - (Brad Arnett): If you didn't make ever make mistakes, I wouldn't have to be here. Yeah, it's okay. And I think just in getting kids to understand that, like little things. For example, I had a. I had a linebacker that came in and he made it to the last cut with the Falcons and he played at a school in Minnesota. And he came in and the second day I kind of honed in on it. I don't know why, but I just did. And so we're going through the. We were going through some movement progressions and I'm sitting back and I'm watching and he was that close to what I wanted. Now was he still getting benefit?

0:55:43 - (Brad Arnett): Absolutely. Was it exactly what I wanted? No. So I just give them little constant reminders. Hey, hey, remember this? Remember that? No big deal. He's like, oh, yeah, I got it, I got it. I'm okay, I'm okay. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. We get done with a workout and I pull him in my office and we're sitting there. I said, hey, can I ask you a question? He's like, sure. I said, how did you get along with your coaches at school?

0:56:02 - (Brad Arnett): Coach, I hated. Well, hate is a. Hate's a pretty. That's a pretty big word. I mean, that's. That's deep. Well, he goes, yeah, you're right. But he goes, I dislike. I said, well, can I tell you what I noticed today? He said, yeah. I said, did you ever notice, like if you guys were going through like in say, individual and you're going through different drills and you. I said, was it common for you to constantly get rode because you weren't doing something? Exactly right. He goes all the time. It was non stop because I just, I felt like I could never do anything right. And I guess that was a teachable moment for me to understand that, you know what it. Those kids.

0:56:38 - (Brad Arnett): It's not like he's doing it on purpose. It's not like he's. I'm gonna, I'm gonna screw with him. Right? So I'm just gonna. Just get that close and then I'm gonna shut it. No, it's just who he is. So he's getting the benefit of it. It's just not quite where you want it. But is it to the point where you need to undress the kid and lose your, you know, lose your, your marbles every time you're working with a kid? No, absolutely not. It's just a soft reminder. Say, you know, you can say something to him when he's walking by. Just hey, I want you to remember this. Yep, I got you, coach. I'm good.

0:57:05 - (Brad Arnett): So I guess those, those things like that of me going through that process in this environment has really changed my approach. And I guess being more observant and even simple things like, you know, they always use the word, you can get paralysis by over analysis. And I get, you know, it's been 29 years now, Toby, if you can believe that. But as I look at kids and they come in and even the NFL guys, even college guys, as we do certain things, not having to, not just getting to the point where you're not over coaching them, that they're inherently good athletes and they're going to do things pretty close to being pretty damn good, right? So when you do drills with them, show them the drill and just let them go, give them little reminders, but in a certain, in a short time, they're going to figure it out and they'll get it there. And there's some things that they naturally do and there's other things that some people may home in on. That to me, I think is natural. But.

0:57:58 - (Brad Arnett): But I guess what I'm saying is that letting athletes have ownership of what they're doing and part of that ownership is teachable moments and constantly talking to them about not X's and O's and sets and reps and yelling and screaming and all that. It's just, it's about life. And you get done with the workout or they come in and you kind of see their demeanor is a little different and kind of how you approach things and you know, I guess I look back more as a, when I was an athlete is that the last thing I wanted to hear was a coach constantly harping on.

0:58:26 - (Brad Arnett): Right. Just constantly talking about, you know, just. No, no, no, no. It gets to a point where like, God, I just wish the guy would shut up. Right? Like I need a break from him. And I guess I've learned that, that I can sit back and talk and just watch them explore. And you know, we read the articles about free play versus everything being dictated and all that other stuff. That's kind of what it comes to. Like, you got to let them figure it out because otherwise we're making robots, Right.

0:58:52 - (Brad Arnett): And I take that same thing to life, that everyone's going to be a little different. Everyone sees things different, everyone's going to approach things a little different. Is it going to be different than you? Sure. And some people may be the same and that's okay because it works for them and you got to let them get to that point where it does work and take ownership and go with it. So it's, I think a lot of it is I've grown a lot, I've grown a lot as a person, as a coach.

0:59:16 - (Brad Arnett): It's, you know, it's changed my perspective and a lot of things.

0:59:19 - (Toby Brooks): Absolutely. I think that's great perspective. I want to make it personal now. I love the visual that you say you have a couch in your office for a reason. Imagine 10 year old Brad comes in and plops down in today's Brad's office. What advice do you have for him? Speak to him directly. What would you tell him?

0:59:37 - (Brad Arnett): Never let anybody dictate what you want to do, what you want to accomplish. And you know, that may be hard for a 10 year old to understand, you know, so Brad, you may, you may have a little hard time understanding that. But as you continue to grow and your outlook will change, your perception of things are going to change, your goals are going to change. I want you to understand that there's one word in the King James English that equals 100%.

1:00:01 - (Brad Arnett): So if you took the Alphabet, you gave it a numerical value, A is 1, B is 2, all the way to Z. There's one word that actually equals 100% and it's attitude. So attitude is, it dictates everything. And when you keep that in check, it's going to help form habits. So I want you to understand, Brad, that you're not going to dictate your future. What's going to dictate your future are your habits and your attitude and the way that you respond to things.

1:00:27 - (Brad Arnett): So fall in love with the process. There's nothing guaranteed, there's nothing promised, but there's an entire book you can read on what you can earn or how you earn it. So expect to earn things, expect things, nothing. Don't expect ever anything to be given. And when you get, as you grow and mature and let's say you want to play sports or you just, you're going to go into a job, whatever you're going to do, I want you to understand that one of the biggest thieves of joy is comparison.

1:00:53 - (Brad Arnett): Like you are who you are, you are who you Are. So when you get to a point when you're on a team and you start comparing yourself to other people on the team, well, I should be getting this and I should be getting that. And while it's this and well, it's that, it goes along with the same thing as expectation. Two huge thieves of joy. So when you go into an expecting something and it doesn't happen, well, what does it do? It's going to make you bitter and it's going to shut you down. When you start comparing yourself to other two teammates and it's not going the way you want it to go, well, what happens? You become a horrible teammate. It affects you on a personal level.

1:01:28 - (Brad Arnett): Nobody wants to be around you and you're just this big huge energy drainer and it's all about negativity. So just know that your process is going to be different than other people. And I guess that's the same thing that I tell people that when I look at the path that I went through of being from, you know, getting to Minnesota and going through that. And then before you know what I'm at Arizona, my path was different. And I can sit here and say, well, you know, it was this, it was that, I did this, I did that. Sure we can, I can sit and talk about all that. But it still came down to the fact that I had to show up every day, I had to work and work my butt off. I had to do the right things, I had to have the proper body language, have a good attitude, work, work ethic, all the things that we talked previously, right. Doesn't require.

1:02:11 - (Brad Arnett): That's what you need to home in on and that needs to be the staple of your mission statement of what you're going to accomplish in life. And it's going to start with habits, it's going to start with your attitude and never forget that.

1:02:23 - (Toby Brooks): Coach, I'm ready to go in right now and put in some work. You got me ready to go. That's good stuff. 10 year old you is lucky to hear that that advice. Last question. We'll be done. What for you remains undone. What's left that, that maybe you realize that I'm not finished with that yet.

1:02:40 - (Brad Arnett): Well, I, I'm, I'm, I'll always be a dad till I'm six feet under, right. And I'll always be a husband. I'm a grandpa now. But there's, there's things that I want to do more with next level. I want to reach more people. I think I can still make things better. I'M not done yet. And, you know, I look at it from the standpoint, people always ask me, well, you know, why did you start next level? Part of it was priorities, family.

1:03:05 - (Brad Arnett): But I also remembered the kids that came in early or kids that came on campus right as freshmen, what they came in with. And it wasn't a whole lot of etiquette to my world. And so treating an opportunity for kids to get exposure to what they're going to have to go through when they get to college, talk not only physically doing it, but talking about it and what to expect and how it's going to work.

1:03:26 - (Brad Arnett): And I think those things, I'm not done doing that. And, you know, there's a lot of things that we've done to grow exposure for kids and college exposure, and, you know, we do different combines and stuff like that. But I think a lot of those things, I'm not done yet. And I want to continue to reach kids and make a difference in their lives. That when a parent comes back in and says, you know, Johnny's doing better in school and he's getting better grades and he doesn't fight with his sister as much and they don't have to get on him to get stuff done at home, that to me, gets me more excited than a kid going up 2 inches on his vertical. Because ultimately, I know that if the kid is here consistently and trains, he. He'll physically get better. But is that going to make that much of a difference in his life?

1:04:08 - (Brad Arnett): And that's what I want to do, is continue to make a difference in them.

1:04:10 - (Toby Brooks): That's awesome. Well, Coach, I want to thank you personally, because there was a time in my life where I was looking out at what was ahead and didn't know, and you expressed belief in me, and that made a difference in my life. I didn't end up staying at Arizona, but just knowing that someone of your caliber, your character, your ability, your knowledge believed in me, it made a difference. I don't know if you even remember the conversation, but I sure do. And it made a difference in my life, and I wanted to thank you personally for that.

1:04:37 - (Brad Arnett): You know, remind me of that conversation.

1:04:39 - (Toby Brooks): We were in the midst of some turmoil at the time. You came in right at the tail end of Coach Tomi's tenure at Arizona, and our staff was kind of up in the air, and I was finishing my third year as a. Then I was a graduate associate, and my boss was kind of thinking of maybe doing some other things. And you actually encouraged me to apply or to stick my head in. And it hadn't even crossed my mind I wasn't ready. But you knew from your own experience that you don't always have to be 100% ready to be able to take on new challenges. Challenges. And that changed my perspective on myself.

1:05:13 - (Brad Arnett): Well, I, I appreciate that. I, I try to make it a point to tell people you don't have to be great to start. You just have to start. And yeah, you're gonna, at some point, you're gonna have to dig deep and you're gonna question yourself and you're gonna question where you're going. But that's all normal. And you know, it's easy, it's easier to say it once you've been through it, right. And you get older and you look back and, and that. But it, it truly is.

1:05:35 - (Brad Arnett): And I, you know, as I look back at my time at Arizona, you know, with you and everybody that was there, I, like I said before, I, I learned as much from the people around me as I guess they did for me. And I can, I can keep my head up and, and say that I did truly have the kids best interest in heart as I do today. And there's a lot of parts that I do miss and there's a lot of parts that I don't.

1:06:01 - (Toby Brooks): Right.

1:06:01 - (Brad Arnett): And I've been fortunate enough to be able to do what I love to do and dictate it a little bit and make a difference in people's lives. But I guess most importantly, it's made a difference in my life, my family's life. That's important.

1:06:15 - (Toby Brooks): Well, Coach, I can't thank you enough Again, Owner director of Next Level Sports Performance, Brad Arnett. Thank you for being on the show and maybe we'll do it again someday. We got stuff left Undone.

1:06:26 - (Brad Arnett): Thank you. This has been awesome.

1:06:30 - (Toby Brooks): Becoming Undone is a nitro hype creative production written and produced by me, Toby Brooks. If you or someone you know has a story of resilience and victory to share for Becoming Undone, please contact me@undonepodcast.com becoming undone can be heard on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, everybody. Keep getting better.