Why Discipline Falls Apart Without Structure (And How to Rebuild It) - Dre Baldwin

What happens when the structure that once kept you disciplined… disappears?

For a lot of veterans, athletes, and high performers, the real challenge isn’t discipline—it’s what happens when no one is there to enforce it. When the schedule is gone, the expectations are gone, and suddenly… it’s all on you.

In this episode of Your Thoughts, Your Reality, Mike Cole sits down with Dre Baldwin—former professional basketball player and creator of the “Work On Your Game” philosophy.

Dre shares how he went from walking on at a Division III college to building a 9-year professional basketball career overseas, and how that same mindset translated into building a global brand. This conversation goes beyond motivation and into what actually creates consistency: structure, systems, and self-leadership.

Together, they break down why so many people struggle after leaving structured environments, how discipline falls apart without intentional systems, and what it really takes to rebuild it from the inside out.

This episode connects directly to three of The 10 Silent Wars:

Direction – What do you do when no one is telling you what to do anymore?
 Control – Why does life feel chaotic without structure, and how do you take it back?
 Identity – Who are you when you’re no longer operating inside a system that defined you?

If you’ve ever felt like you had discipline before—but can’t seem to find it now—this conversation will challenge the way you think about consistency, performance, and what it actually takes to operate at a high level long-term.

Follow and subscribe to Your Thoughts, Your Reality for more conversations focused on reintegration, performance, and winning the battles most people never talk about.

Share this with someone who’s navigating their next chapter and trying to rebuild structure in their life.

LINKS:

Website: https://yourthoughtsyourreality.com

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@YourThoughtsYourReality

Host (Mike Cole): https://empowerperformancestrategies.com

HASHTAGS:

#YourThoughtsYourReality #10SilentWars #Discipline #MentalToughness #VeteranTransition #HighPerformance #Consistency #SelfLeadership #MindsetShift #StructureCreatesFreedom #Reintegration #PersonalGrowth

Explore more episodes, resources, and updates from Mike Cole at:

https://YourThoughtsYourReality.com

If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss future conversations on leadership, mindset, and navigating life after service.

Transcript

Welcome And Mission

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to Your Thoughts, Your Reality with Michael Cole, the podcast that shines the compassionate light on the journey of veterans battling through life's challenges. Michael is a dual elite certified neuroencoding specialist in coaching and keynote training presentations, dedicated to guiding military veterans as they navigate the intricate pathways of post-deployment life. Join him as we delve into the profound realm of neuroencoding science, empowering these brave individuals to conquer universal battles, procrastination, self-doubt, fear, and more. Together, let's uncover the strength within you to re-engage with families and society, forging a new path forward.

SPEAKER_02 0:46

Hello, hello, hello, everybody. Today we have a super special guest. I am absolutely excited about having Dre on. Dre Baldwin is a former professional basketball player who played overseas for nine years after walking on at Division III College. He's the creator of Work on Your Gang. We're obviously going to talk about that. It's a philosophy focused on discipline, mental toughness, and consistent performance, which is super important, obviously, for our audience, which is veterans and high achievers. Dre has built a global brand helping athletes, entrepreneurs, and professionals perform at the highest levels. He specializes in teaching people how to create structure, confidence, and especially results without relying on external pressure, which I can't even tell you how important that is, because it's a total different feel when it's not pressure and it's something you're pulled to. So I'm absolutely gonna love talking about that. And his work does apply, obviously, to veterans and high achievers navigating life after a structured environment like he was in. So Jerry, why don't you just tell us just a little bit more about yourself, if you will?

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Sure, Mike. Well, thank you for having me on. First of all, and as you said in the introduction, background in playing sports, always played sports growing up, got into basketball in my mid-teens around age 14. Only played one year in high school, walked on to play college at the division three level, played in college, but uh didn't set the world on fire. And even so, at the division three level, it's not like pros are coming knocking down your door. So I had to hustle my way into getting into the pros, built out nearly a decade-long career playing pro. At the same time, while I was playing, I started playing in 2005 to give people a timeline. I started publishing videos of my training, my workouts to this new website called YouTube. That's where I started to get known. That's where I started to get noticed on the internet was through YouTube. Not because I was trying to get noticed on the internet, I was just putting the workouts up there just to so I could look at myself, just to see if I looked the way I thought that I looked. People found the video, they started asking questions. I realized, okay, there are people who want this. I train every day anyway, so I'll just bring my little camera and record it. That's what started me, what we now call building a brand online, or now I guess is influence or content, influencing or content. Those were not terms back then, but I leaned into it, kept doing that, built an audience while I was playing. Around 2009, 2010, about halfway through my career. I started with creating courses, products, writing books, all the things that became my post-basketball business. I started that about five years before I stopped playing. So I already had that stuff kind of going before I got out of basketball. Stopped playing in 2015 and for the last 10 years plus have been running this company called Work on Your Game, which started with the basketball stuff. Because in basketball, you got to work on your game, and it applies really universally, is not limited to just sports. And I took the mental side of what was working in sports, and I started giving that to the athletes because they asked for it. It started with the physical stuff, how to dribble, how to shoot, how to jump. But they started asking for the mindset. And when I gave that to them, people who didn't play ball started hearing it and saying, hey, that applies to us as well. So that's my how I knew this stuff, the mindset stuff that athletes need is also what people who don't play sports needs. And that is how I knew what my transition would be from the sports world to the rest of the world, and that's what I've been doing for the last 10 years.

Creating Structure Without A Team

SPEAKER_02 4:05

Absolutely love it, man. So that's that's a journey. And what you're doing, what you learned then and what you're doing now is so important for the world today, right? Because especially again, veterans and high achievers for so many reasons. Because if you if you don't have a plan, you don't have the grid, you don't have those things that we're gonna talk about, you spin and you don't get anywhere, right? And life happens to you instead of instead of for you. So so if we can, let's talk, like take us back, Dre, if you will, when you're transitioning out of you know structured basketball environments, and what was the biggest adjustment that you had mentally? And let's let's talk about maybe what you struggled with a little bit and then how you how you persevered.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

As far as career-wise, personal or anything in the world.

SPEAKER_02 4:48

Personally, yeah. So personally coming out of a structured environment. So you know, basket sports obviously is very structured. You're told how to practice, how to do this, how to do that to some extent, and then all of a sudden you were out of that, and then you you know you were looking for the the next thing you were doing, which I think you already started to some extent, as you just explained. But what was the the biggest adjustment mentally that you had?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

It's an interesting question, Mike, because for me, my background in sports was even with what I told you, a little bit different than a lot of athletes. Because first thing is when you play overseas, it's not like are you a basketball fan?

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

You okay, who's your favorite team player?

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Well, I'm just gonna go with the Kings because I'm in the Sacramento area, but let's let's just move on.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Who's your favorite player?

SPEAKER_02 5:36

I I'm gonna go back from when I when they were we're better, I'm gonna go with like Pesha, you know, pitch, like all right, Pedro Sloyakovitz son. You know, those kinds of days.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah, Weber and those guys, uh Sloyakovic son is playing now in in college. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, so those guys, let's say Chris Weber, he had a a contract for maybe six or seven seasons. And when you're under contract for that many years, the team you have an obligation to the team, the team also has an obligation to you. So they're checking on you in the offseason, they give you a workout program if you ask for it, they give you all the things that you need so that you can stay in your best possible shape to be as good as you can for the team the following year, assuming that they don't trade you, assuming that you're still on the roster. When you play overseas, the contracts are usually not that long, they're usually not even multiple years. Most overseas players, and in my career personally, it was year by year, and even a year by year contract could be broken. It's not like the NBA where it's a guaranteed deal. If you had a bad couple games in a row, you could be off the team. It happens like that. And the longest contracts I've seen overseas are guys might get a two-year contract, so it players jump very quickly. I say that to say this in that the structured environment is not provided for you in the same way when you're playing internationally, the way it is if you're signed to a long-term contract in a United States professional sport, especially the big name guys. Now, even some of the smaller name guys, guys who are on the Kings, like you mentioned, who were at the end of the bench whose names you don't remember, they might have been year-by-year contracts. So, in between seasons, there's nobody from any team in the league checking on them to make sure they're staying in shape. They're just saying they may call their agent and say, Hey, we might want to sign your guy. Is he ready to go? But you are responsible for keeping yourself in shape because if that phone rings or when it rings, you had to be ready to go. So I'm a person who always I had to create my own structure just to get my opportunity. Because remember, as I told you, Mike, I barely played in high school. I walked on to play in college and I played at the division three level. So this is not some big program with a bunch of resources to throw around. They're not checking on you. Like if you play at the division one level at Alabama football, University of Kentucky basketball, they have an entire staff that is dedicated just to the sports team. There's an entire staff at big colleges that are dedicated to making sure everybody goes to class, making sure people are passing their classes so they can be academically eligible, making sure that you're you have your meal plan cards so you can go eat, making sure you have a place to live, making sure you're in your apartment. They check on all of this stuff, and it's their full-time job to make sure. We had one guy who was a compliance officer at our school for the athletic department, and his job was to just make sure athletes were they had their proper grades in order to be eligible. And if you didn't, you couldn't play because we didn't prioritize the athletic department, and at a division three school, they don't have the resources to prioritize the athletic department. And this is before this thing, name, image, and likeness, which I'm sure many sports fans know about. This is now athletes can make money off of who they are, whereas back then you could not make money off of who you were, therefore there weren't there was no extra money from the outside going to the department. I say all that, Mike, to say the structure had to be created by me in order for me to even get a chance to play in college, let alone in the pros, I had to create my own structure. So the loss of the team structure from playing overseas wasn't really a downgrade for me, it was kind of like more of the same way I was already living because I had to do it myself in order to even get to that position.

Parents And The Unseen Reps

SPEAKER_02 9:05

So even better, I love that. I just got chills even brother. All right. So so with that said, like I've always been a driven person. And don't get me wrong, in my teens and 20s, I was a moron. I still did stupid stuff, but I've always been driven, you know, I've always had passion for things. So let's let's go that route, then if we will. Where when did you first start seeing that where you created your own structure and you realized, you know what, this is what I need to do. Let's start there and then we'll continue, if we will.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

Excellent question. So that comes from at home. So I come from a two-parent household. My parents are not athletes. Uh, just for reference, I'm six feet four inches tall. My mom is about five seven, my dad's about five's eight. They are biological. We did the tests and everything. And my my parents were not athletes, and they were not trying to raise athletes. I have one sister, she doesn't play sports. Their whole thing was we want you to go to school, get good grades, go to college, you know, hopefully do all that, then you can get a better job than what we have and do a little bit better than your parents. That was their frame and their boomers born in the 60s. This is their mindset. And they were fine with me playing a sport, but they weren't like pushing me to play at all. I never had a trainer, I never played for one of those AAU travel teams. Excuse me, any of that. It was all about just show up and go to school every day. And the reason why I had destruction myself is because I saw my parents go to work every day, even though they didn't do sexy jobs, they didn't do fun stuff like what we're doing right here, Mike. They, my dad worked with his hands pretty much as a machinist, he was a musician by night. That was his passion. My mom is an educator, so they I know I seen both of them at their jobs. They didn't do glamorous work, and I'm sure there were days they didn't feel like going to their jobs, but my parents got up and went to their jobs every day without complaint and without fanfare and without any type of celebration. They never said to my sister or I, hey, do you see us going to work every day? But they went to work every day. So when it was my time to choose something for myself other than school, which was mandated, sports is not mandated.

SPEAKER_02 11:18

Right.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

I took the same pattern that I saw at home and I applied it to basketball. That's how I was able to get good. Because as I told you, I started playing at 14, barely played in high school. So, how was I able to get good enough to play in college? Because most high school players don't play in college, most college players don't play in the probes. It was because good thing is, I chose a sport where you can practice by yourself, basketball. And I just kept going to the park and practicing, and I could feel myself improving, even though I didn't have any tangible proof. The first time I had tangible proof that I was getting better was really in college, because in high school, the one year I played, I barely played. I sat on the bench, so I was on the team, that's something, but I didn't do anything. It wasn't until I was in college playing that somebody could say, okay, this guy has done something in basketball. I started playing at 14. College was 18, so four or five years of just the diligent work, the structured work that I did with no results, at least publicly, until somebody could look at me and say, Okay, obviously this guy's been doing some work on his game. But before that, there was no proof. So that the answer to your question, the answer to your question, Mike, is that I got that from home. I saw that from my parents, and I just applied it in a different place, and that's how we ended up there.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

I absolutely that's that's one of the best answers ever, right? Is your parents were the leaders, they showed you you know, they showed you that process and they that gave you that drive to do that stuff. So let me ask you, when did structure really become important to you compared to I'm not gonna say discipline, but structure compared to drive. Let's go that route. Or or are they just absolutely intermingled? I mean, I know my answer, but I want to hear yours.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

No, they are not intermingled. And when did that happen? Is probably around that same time, about after, so around the end of my high school basketball season, which ended around March of that year, and before I started college, college starts around August. So it was that spring and summer, and I graduated high school in the year 2000. So it was around that time where I could start to feel like, hey, I'm confident that I could play with pretty much anybody at that point. That's when I started to feel confident. I had the confidence from high school of just making a team, and then knowing I was going to go to college, I would have a clean slate with people who didn't know me from before. So I could come in as whatever they saw when they first saw me, they would assume that's who I've been, even though that wasn't true. So when did I realize that? Is when I saw that, okay, with basketball, and this probably applies to all sports, but basketball is the one that I played. I could come up with my own structure for how to practice on my own, and I could see, okay, this gets me better. If I want to get better at running and jumping, I can do these exercises. I want to get better at dribbling, I can take this series of dribbling drills that I do, and I just do them every time I come to the basketball court, and I could feel myself getting better at dribbling the ball. I want to get better at shooting or something I saw some other player who's better than me, I saw him do it. Let me practice that myself, and I can get better at doing that. A lot of in sports, actually, in a lot of things in life, Mike, it's repetition. Absolutely. Proper repetition. You find out the proper way to do it, and then you just do it over and over and over again. So that's what I did in basketball, and I could see myself getting better, and that's when I realized okay, this applies on the court. And I when I got to college, people would see me. Because I was just starting to boom as a player, what you call a late bloomer. Right. But I just started playing at 14. So this is the first time people looked at me and assumed that I was good at that point, and they thought, oh, this guy was just born with talent. And it was like talent. Are you do you know where I was last year? I was a senior in high school sitting on the bench. Right. Sophomores are playing. I'm a senior sitting on the bench. So they assumed that it was talent. It was not talent, it looked like talent. What it was was structure over an extended period of time that looked natural and fluid because I've been practicing so much. So that's when I realized that the structure was a thing. The drive that didn't really start mattering to me until kind of after college, but I'm sure we'll get there.

Work On Your Game Defined

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I just want people to really really hear what you just said is the work that no one sees and no one knows about is where you get the success. It's the repetition. The repetition is mother of all skill, in my opinion. You know, you don't you don't you don't go out and automatically, very rarely, let me rephrase that, very rarely does someone just go out and they're just automatically amazing, right? So you know, you don't go to the gym and one one time and walk out like Arnold Sportsmaker. You know, it's it's repetition, it's building the muscles, building the skills. So I I love that you just said that. Let's talk about if we can work on the game, right? I think I think there's so much so many different elements of this. So you know, how how does someone actually build a system? Let me go back one step, Dre. Sorry. Explain work on the game first, and then let's go into how they build a system that you know they've never had before, for example.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Sure. So work on your game came around this is about 2008-2009. I just come home to, I'm in Miami where I live. I just come home from playing in Germany, and I didn't know where my next playing opportunity would be, but as usual, I would be in the gym training. I had my camera with me as usual, because at this point, YouTube exists. And I was just thinking about at the end of my workout the questions that I had been getting on YouTube to that point. It was players usually just asking for some type of help or tips or advice. And I recorded this little video when I was stretching after the workout, it's about two minutes long. Then in the video, I said to the players who I knew would watch the video, many of you are asking me for help, but I'm gonna tell you the crux of your issue. The issue is look at you. You're watching this video on YouTube, and look at me. I'm in the gym, I just finished training. And what all of you need to do is stop watching YouTube videos, even mine, stop playing Xbox, stop standing outside on a corner with your friends and go work on your game. I said that's the first time I used the phrase, work on your game. And I put some colorful language in there with it, but that's the part that they they got. And people started repeating that phrase back, and it was about a year later I realized like this phrase is perfect, let me just start branding this and using it all the time. That's when I started saying work on your game. So that's where the phrase came from. Then over time, over around the next year or two, as the players started asking me about the mindset that happened usually about right after that, Mike. So after I said work on your game, over the next year or two, players started asking me about mindset because up to that point, I didn't really talk that much in my videos. I would just make videos showing myself doing the drills. So they obviously knew I could play, but I wasn't talking a lot, I didn't do a lot of commentary videos. So that was one of the first times I really just talked mindset, just straight mindset, not answering a question, not giving a story, just straight mindset. And they liked my delivery, so they asked more about mindset. So that's when discipline, confidence, mental toughness, personal initiative, the foundational pieces of work on your game, that's when those showed up. Now, to answer your other question was how do you develop a system? Well, let's first be clear what a system is. System is just a clear set of steps designed to achieve a specific, clearly defined outcome. That's all a system is.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Say that one more time, for me.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

It's a set of steps designed to define to obtain a clearly defined outcome.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Love it.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

That's what a system is. Now, when people hear the word system, especially when you hear business people and entrepreneurs throw the word around, they make it sound so complicated that it has to be this big, complex thing that fits into a textbook. And it can be. I remember working at McDonald's when I was a senior in high school, and my manager was walking around with this big, thick binder, and she was going through the pages and she had on a polo shirt, white polo shirt, and the logo on it said hamburger university. Now, I thought that it just that was just a cute thing that they gave you when you're a manager at McDonald's, like a hamburger university, right? You're the manager. What I came to find out, Mike, and a lot of people don't know this, is hamburger university is a real place.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:39

It's in Chicago where McDonald's is based. And I'm bringing all that up to say, I'm still answering your question here. Bringing it all up to say is that when you are a manager of a McDonald's or a franchisee, you actually have to attend Hamburger University where McDonald's tells you this is the system and this is how it's run. You can't buy a McDonald's, just do what you want to do. They tell you what to do and how to do it, also what you can and cannot do. The point being, McDonald's has a system that is as thick as a binder because it's McDonald's. But a system can be something as simple as put the key in the car, in the ignition, and turn the key that starts the vehicle. That is also a system. So a system is just the set of steps necessary to obtain an outcome. So, how do you develop a system? First of all, let's get clear on what the outcome is. What is the goal? What do we want to achieve? That's the first thing. Secondly, where are you at right now? Now that's the second question. Third, what steps need to be taken? We can work backwards if necessary from the out for obtained outcome to where you stand today. And as you deconstruct the process, that's where you put, then you flip it around the other way. Now you have your system. Now, the challenge for some people, Mike, is that they may not know how to deconstruct the process. So you find someone who does know how to do it and then find out what their system is. Or you can try different things like I was doing in basketball until you find something that works, the trial and error process, which tends to take more time, but sometimes it's necessary. And as you figure it out, once you find something that works, now the key is you have to notice, okay, I figured out something that worked. How did I get there? Now let me log that so now I can use that one again. Now let me see if this same frame applies over here. Let's see if this works over here. That's the part that a lot of people miss because some people might will stumble into a successful system, not realize that they stumbled into a successful system. Therefore, they cannot duplicate their success because they don't realize what they even did. They can't do the same thing again, nor can they apply that frame in another place. So that's a long answer to your two questions, but hopefully I answered them.

SPEAKER_02 21:43

No, it's a fantastic answer, man. And I love the story. Do not do not hold back on stories, man. So yeah, I I did I did find that that about McDonald's University a while ago, and I thought that was super interesting, but it's so smart, right? Because otherwise, you're just asking past.

SPEAKER_00 22:00

Right. They couldn't expand the way that they have. They didn't have hamburger university. You have to have a solid system that everybody's following.

Consume Less Apply More

SPEAKER_02 22:06

Absolutely. And it's so important. So, you know, a couple of things I do want to uh talk about. You talked about, you know, stop watching YouTube videos and get on the get on the porch, right?

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 22:15

It's so true. In today's world, and everybody please listen to this. Exactly what he said. You you we watch so many things. Now, watch watch Dre's YouTube, watch your thoughts, your reality YouTube, but then apply the things, right? So if you learn something, like those people that were watching you, get out and actually apply it. And that's what we're we're really failing a lot to do as a society nowadays. We're so overwhelmed because of so much content. We don't just stop, get the information, actually apply it so you can build your system, right? Do you agree with that?

SPEAKER_00 22:52

Oh, absolutely. And uh the content keeps people distracted, it does, it keeps their eyeballs and attention on a certain thing, which is good for the recipient of the attention, but is not so good for the person giving their attention. And the tricky thing is, it's kind of what you just said there, Mike. It's when people like you or me, we say things like that, we're kind of shooting ourselves in the foot because we're telling our own audiences to stop watching us, right? We're telling them don't consume more of our content, which would actually benefit us personally, but it's in the long term, it's not going to help the person who is listening. So, uh like you just said, the same thing I still say to my audience to this day, yes, I put material out there, read it, watch it, listen to it. But the whole point of me putting out this material is not for you to be entertained by watching me. The point is for you to take this and go apply it and do something, become a success story. I benefit more if you become a success story not watching me than if you become an audience member who only watches me. Because that means I create a bunch of what they call them on social media, followers. I'd rather create a bunch of leaders who went and did their own thing to where you don't need to listen to me anymore. Now you have people listening to you.

SPEAKER_02 24:07

Absolutely love that. And and here's what I'm gonna say, and I'm I'm gonna speak for both of us, and correct me if I'm not right here. We would rather you not watch as much of us and have as much of the followers and the hearts and all the good, all the stuff, right? And see the success because we do this because we help. That we want to help, that's our fulfillment. We want to move people forward. That's our drive, right? That's mine for sure, right? How about you?

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Absolutely. I mean, if I'm not creating success stories of people producing positive outcomes, then I'm not who I say that I am. So I'm not in the the following business.

SPEAKER_02 24:43

Absolutely, absolutely. So the the other thing I want to touch base real quick is when when you talk about doing it yourself or modeling, right? Finding somebody else. Here's what I'm gonna I've learned is when you find someone else, look for somebody else that's super successful or successful at what you want to do, right? You're gonna have your why, but you need to figure out what you want. When you find that, if most people, whether they be Dre, me, or or other successful people in their industries, when they see somebody that has potential and drive and really wants to make a difference and change their lives and the lives of other people, we help. So model those people and ask for help because most of the time, I don't think there's ever been a time that I haven't asked for somebody for help and they then say, Oh, hell yeah, let's do it, you know, kind of thing. So I think modeling just gets you so much further faster. Do you agree with that, as well?

SPEAKER_00 25:42

Absolutely. You pick the right person to model, and good thing about the world we're living in today, Mike, is you can find a lot of potential models out there. Whereas, you know, 20, 30 years ago, you might not find one even if you try.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Yeah, it's somebody you're working for at best.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Right, exactly.

Break Stuck Patterns With Opposites

SPEAKER_02 25:57

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So uh we've got about four minutes left. So if we can, let's let's talk about this, and then we're gonna get your three tips to get veterans and high achievers further faster. So what what would you say is one of the most important things if somebody feels stuck? Let's let's call it stuck in the suck, right? You just feel stuck, you feel it, you know you're stuck. What are one of the first things you would say to somebody to to change that out of the spin cycle and get them taking one step forward and taking action?

SPEAKER_00 26:32

Uh first of all, finding out why they consider themselves to be stuck, and from there I'd say, What have you been doing that's gotten you to the point that you feel stuck? Then I would ask them, what if you took everything you've been doing did the exact opposite? What do you think would happen? And even if they don't actually do it, just the thought exercise, if they're willing to engage, will open their minds to a different way of thinking. Because oftentimes when we're stuck, it's not that it's impossible to achieve the outcome, it's just that we get ourselves into a certain groove, a certain pattern of thinking, to where every time we revisit the problem, we see the same dead end. We see the same wall that we keep walking into because of our thought pattern. So you got to shake up their thought pattern, get them thinking in a different way, whether that's physical movement, whether it's talking, whether it's let's do a thought experiment, let's see if it works this way, let's see if we take everything you're doing, do the opposite of it. Those will shake their mind up. And when you shake your mind up, then you start to notice different possibilities of what you could do. So really you just got to get people out of their, you got to get people out of their patterns when they feel stuck. So that's the number one thing.

Three Tips Plus Where To Connect

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Absolutely love that. We we get comfortable, and that's why people generally stay in patterns. And this is the neuroencoding science geek in me, right? I can't help myself. So we get stuck in those patterns and and we have to have a pattern interrupt, and that's a beautiful way to do it because it does start the process of you thinking in a different way. I love that you said that, man. That is absolutely fantastic. So, with that said, can you let's go, let's go ahead and do the uh how people reach out to you. If they want if they want change in their life, how do people reach out to you? They've been they've they've been the definition of insanity, right? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, right? So if you want change, how do people reach out to you?

SPEAKER_00 28:19

Well, I'm on all the social networks, social platforms. So whichever one you like, just look up my name, Dre Baldwin. I'm pretty easy to find. And you can also go to my home site, which is workonyourgame.com. Workonyourgame.com.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

Fantastic. Absolutely love it. And then let's close out with three tips to get veterans and high achievers further faster.

SPEAKER_00 28:40

Three tips to get further faster. First of all, come up with a structure and a process for yourself, whether that's in your everyday life, whether it's in your fitness, your business, or all of the above. But come up with a structure that you will follow yourself, number one. Number two, understand that discipline and confidence are not personality traits. They are byproducts. When you follow a structure, then discipline comes out of it. And when you are structured, you get disciplined, discipline behavior, and discipline behavior leads to confidence, which is a belief in your ability to perform. That's the second thing. And the third thing, and tell me again, what's the the outcome we're looking for? These three tips.

SPEAKER_02 29:20

Anything to get veterans and high achievers further faster.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

To get further faster, to get further faster is you need to collapse your activities and collapse your identity. Meaning the world that we're in today, Mike, people have too many things to do, too many options, too many avenues, and those avenues become hedges when you have something that you are locked into. So choose what you're you want to focus on. If you want to achieve highly in one specific area of your life, what is it going to be? Keeping in mind that every vehicle, though there may be maybe many seats, there is only one steering wheel, there's only one driver's seat. So, what is sitting in the driver's seat of your life, your career, your business, your family, what is it? That thing in the driver's seat should be reflected in your schedule, in your attention, and in your energy. And if it's not, well, then you're hedging. And this is the reason why you cannot get full results from what you're doing because you're not putting your full effort into it.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Absolutely love it. And can I just add on because you just led me right into that? I understand that your thoughts are your reality, right? I think it fits pretty well there. Awesome, Dre. So thank you very much. You know, time is the most precious resource we have as human beings. We don't get it back. Thank you so much for you know spending this half an hour with us and really just dropping some amazing information and thoughts to help people get further faster. Really appreciate your time and you're spending a minute, you know, a couple minutes of your life with us. Really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

Oh my god, I appreciate you sharing your platform. Thank you for the opportunity.

SPEAKER_02 30:50

Absolutely, my friend. Okay, everybody, we are out of here.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Thank you for joining us on another insightful journey of your thoughts, your reality podcast with your host, Michael Cole. We hope the conversation sparks some thoughts that resonate with you. To dive deeper into empowering your thoughts and enhancing your reality, visit Empower Performance Strategies.com. Remember, your thoughts shape your reality to make them count. Until next time, stay inspired and keep creating the reality you desire. Catch you on the next episode.