Welcome to the Circuit of Success podcast! In this episode, host Brett Gilliland chats with Drew Maddux about “The Power of Planning and Preparation for Success.” Learn why planning is crucial for success and get insights from Maddux’s own life planning routine, where he revisits his goals annually. Discover the benefits of breaking down life into practical areas and making declarations to stay organized and motivated. Maddux encourages overcoming fears, staying motivated during tough times, and emphasizes the importance of a supportive circle. Explore the impact of positive habits and rituals on personal growth, including simple practices like morning routines. Don’t miss Maddux’s recommendations for productivity apps, YouTube videos, and his best college basketball moment. Join us on this journey to success and subscribe for more valuable insights on the Circuit of Success podcast! 🚀🎧
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Brett Gilliland: Welcome to the Circuit of Success. I’m your host, Brett Gilliland, and today I’ve got Drew Maddux with me, Drew. How you doing? Speaker Drew Maddux: Brett, I’m doing great. It’s an honor to be with you this morning. Thanks for having me on your show. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Absolutely. You were in, Nashville, Tennessee. Right? Speaker Drew Maddux: That is correct. I’m I’m a native, which is one of the few these days with with all the, the move ins, you know, from from all over the country, but yeah, I’m a generationally tied here. Our family’s been here for many, many years and never left, the city. My wife’s from here as well, So, yeah, this is this is home and always been home for us. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Well, you’ve seen some, significant growth, man. It’s a it’s an awesome city. And, obviously, you know that. There your whole life, but we love going down there. I’m only about four hours from there. I’m from Saint Louis, so we’re, we’re pretty close. Speaker Drew Maddux: Yeah. It it is. It’s it’s really good because I still think it’s at the intersection of of what Nashville was and what it’s becoming, and which is exciting of both senses, like the honoring of the past this innovation, this progression of all the newness. And so Yeah. We’ve certainly been the benefactors of a lot of new restaurants and new opportunities and new new ways to do life. And so we’re very, very thankful for the the visionary leadership of our city. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Absolutely. Well, you were a, successful college basketball player there in Vanderbilt as well. So that’s, that’s awesome. I’m sure we’ll talk some about that. And, you you’ve been in the business world, the coaching world, been in the TV world doing some sports commentating. You’ve done all sorts of stuff, and you’ve also wrote a book called Elevated, which is a motivational book on being the best version of you. But before we get started though, Drew, can you, what I always like to do with people is kinda what’s the backstory? What’s made you the man you are today? You don’t just wake up and do all the stuff you’ve done. So if you can share some of that, that would be great. Speaker Drew Maddux: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks, Brett, for allowing me to do that. It’s it really does begin with, I have incredible parents. I was a son first. I’m the middle of three. My parents were incredible. They were life giving. They were supportive. They were encouraging. Gilliland they were great facilitators for us to dream big and and help support us in the pursuing of what those dreams were. One of the things that I wanted to do when I was little, when I was five years old, my kindergarten teacher asked, what do you wanna be when you grow Gilliland I drew myself in a Vanderbilt basketball uniform, and that picture set my mirror my entire life. And the reason why I was so specific and so intentional as it relates to playing basketball, Vanderbilt was, my father and my grandfather both played basketball at Vanderbilt, and, it was just Other people told stories at bedtime of of other legendary full heroes. My dad told stories of these legendary Vanderbilt basketball players. And so it just was so real in our family, that that’s just what I wanted to do. And so I worked like crazy my entire life in the pursuing of that dream. So it helps shape everything in terms of, my disciplines, my behaviors in the classroom, decisions I made, how I treated my body, and then just, the diligence of what it means to chase after a dream with everything that you had. I was blessed to be able to do that. I grew up here in high school. Had a great high school career, committed to Vanderbelt as a freshman in high school. And so I knew that’s what I wanted to do. So when Eddie Fogler offered that scholarship, I was like, yes. I know that’s what I wanna do. And so was blessed to be able to do that, played here in Nashville, my my entire life. My whole family lives here. So it became a big family reunion every single night we played. It was just a great, great connector of a shared experience for our Gilliland our friends. Met my wife, myself, more year. At Vanderbilt. We got engaged by senior year. We just celebrated twenty five years of marriage, and so she is my best friend. She is my my inspiration. And she is my biggest cheerleader biggest, encouragement in my life. And so, we have an incredible love story. That I’m so thankful for for the way she’s impacted my life. So I’m a husband next. And then thirdly, I’m a dad. So I have a, five children. We have three daughters biologically. And in two thousand ten, December fifteenth, which were coming up on an anniversary of what that means. We adopted two little boys from Uganda. They’re not little anymore. They’re now big sixteen year old boys, and, they completed our family. And so we have five children. So I was a son as a husband, and now, you know, being able to be a father as well. And so really through those three lens, that’s the paradigm by which you know, life works for me and life flows. And then everything else just kind of flows out of that. But, really, those are the three aspects of my life that I’m the most focused on. And I believe if I’m pursuing everything that I have within those three constructs, that, you know, the byproduct will be the opportunity to be excellent as a coach, to be excellent as a speaker, to be excellent as a broadcaster. To be excellent as a business person entrepreneur. All the other things will flow out of that and we’ll be icing on the cake if I’m pursuing the the three loves of my life the most of of of being a son, of being a husband, and being a father. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Love it. That’s a great explanation, man. I think I appreciate you sharing that, Drew. So let let’s talk about that. You’re five years old. You’re talking about dreams and aspirations. And you said I wanna be a Vandy basketball player, and it comes true. So I’m curious on what you think about now as you’ve gone through Gilliland you’ve taught your Gilliland you also coaching Gilliland you’re speaking, how important is it to dream and think big? And what I heard in that story was you didn’t just write it down and put it in your top drawer of of your desk. You put it on your mirror. Right? So how important is that when we’re when we’re giving some advice to people today, listen to this? Speaker Drew Maddux: Yeah. I I I think it’s crucial. It really does begin there. It’s it’s what do you see? You you will become what you see. And, you know, without vision, there’s nothing that’s ever been created, invented, or accomplish without first the site to see it. And so I believe it does start with, you know, if you wanna be excellent at anything, that you wanna accomplish or do or see fulfillment or even joy, you gotta see it first. And I can give you so many examples of that, but certainly in my life, I’m a speaking walking testimony of what that means to see at first. Really then it moves into second phase of it. So as you see it, as you visualize it, it really does move into the preparation. You know, how are you preparing? Does your preparation align with the result that you hope for because so many times where, you know, you’ll you’ll when it gets to game time or you get into the arena, Oh, okay. I’m gonna flick on the switch. I’m gonna turn it on in that moment, but the habits have not been consistent enough in a direct alignment with the result that you hope for. So as you see it, it moves into the planning and the preparation of it. So in order that, you can then step in and do it. You know, so it’s plan for it, and then you gotta go do it, and you gotta deliver it when greatness is required. And then the last piece of that is you gotta finish you gotta finish. And, you know, so many times we’ll step in and you’ll start to execute or you’ll start to do something, but you can’t finish. You can’t complete it. You can’t you see it all the way through. And so it really does begin with the sight to see it first. Are you preparing and planning and practicing in your process and the fulfillment of that site. Do you go and do you step into it and can you do it? And then lastly, do you complete it? Can you finish it all the way through? And I believe that’s the stages of everything, but it does begin with what do you see first? Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. It’s it’s, so it’s funny when I was twenty two, twenty three years old starting in my business. I’m in a well management space. I had all my goals, you know, framed, like, literally in a nice picture frame right next to the phone because what did I have to do as a young financial advisor? I had to pick up phone forty, fifty, sixty, hundred times a day to try to get clients. Right? And I knew when when people would tell me no or they would dodge my calls, all the stuff when I could read what was important to me and why I was doing it, it made it easier. Right? So my question there is now, you know, we’re both I think you’re close to my age. We’re in our mid to late forties. And, you know, you probably don’t have the the little picture frame on your mirror anymore, playing basketball. So how does that go now as we’re older? You’ve experienced success in your life. How do those, quote unquote, dreams or those goals play out in your life? Now. Speaker Drew Maddux: Yeah. I I I think it starts with the end in mind. First of all, it’s, you know, your legacy, your next assignment, your next thought, your next habit, your next words spoken, should be in direct alignment with the legacy that you wanna leave behind. And legacy to me is not just what I leave behind, but what do others do because of the investment I made in them? So it really does start with legacy. And so what I do every single year, Brett, is, and and I work with people all the time as we walk through this, But we walk through the framework of legacy. And what does that mean? And then how do you start to really get intentional and practical practical around what legacy means in the different ask of your life. So you start to break that down. Then, you know, we’re about forty days away from when we’re taping this right now, but we’re about forty days away from the end year. So another year is about to start again. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Right. Speaker Drew Maddux: And so every year around December, I go through a life planning process. And so I revisit my legacy. I look at my core values. I start to look at my mission and my vision statement of my life and make sure that it’s in direct alignment with my legacy. And then I break down my life in twenty twenty four into six practical areas. And I make three declarations in each of those areas of my life. So I have eighteen declarations broken into six segments of my life that should speak and run through the paradigm of my mission, vision, and core value set that is in direct alignment with my legacy. And so I’m very, very practical about what I go after, but it really does start with senior legacy and then making sure that the paradigm of your life that everything flows through is in direct alignment with that through the core value set through the mission and vision of your life. And then as you start to grab hold of and make a stated claim with what you want the year to look like, not just in terms of success, not just in terms of achievement, but really going after fulfillment aspects of your life, are all of those things working in unison together to make sure it’s speaking into the elements of my eulogy rather than just my resume? You know, really speaking towards the process, not just the outcome, really looking at the story of my life and the unwritten aspects of my life more than the finished product and the outcome of my life. And so all of that is always working day by day, and I visit that stuff, like, literally every single day. I’m pretty, pretty focused. Yeah. I’m pretty disciplined guy. And so I visit that stuff every single morning and make sure I’m speaking into breathing life into those aspects in my life. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Love that, man. So it’s, I was smiling big time there as you get your six. I’ve got I’ve got my six here that I talk about all the time is your faith, your family, your fitness. I call it firm because that’s what we have for work. Right? So faith family fitness firm, fun and finances. Speaker Drew Maddux: I love it. Speaker Brett Gilliland: And That’s awesome. Yeah. So So walk me through if you can. Let’s let’s kind of open that, envelope a little bit if we can and and share some stuff. When you when you talk about legacy, I can already tell that’s really, really important to you. So when you say the word legacy, do you mind sharing that? Like, what is that legacy? And what do you think about? Speaker Drew Maddux: Yeah. So so my my legacy, you know, really does start with, you know, how do you wanna be not only how do you wanna be remembered. But what lives on beyond me in the lives of those that I’ve care taken for as well, you know, and made an event in and so I break, legacy into four segments, and and really being very intentional on that. So looking at your spouse, your parents, your kids and then your friends community, you know, colleagues. And I’m a I’m a spiritual person as well. And so kinda the the canopy of all of it it it really does flow, downward because of my, my faith. My faith, Speaker Brett Gilliland: you Speaker Drew Maddux: know, generates, the, the way that I view life and all the aspects of that to be tapping into the faith that I have. And so those are really the four segments. And so it really does start with my my mission and vision statement of my life is is to pick up the trash. Well, what do those four words mean? It means to leave people places and things better than the way that you found them. Well, how do you do that? Drew, what does that look like? That sounds pretty grandiose, and that sounds great. But what do you what do you how do you strip it all away? And how does the neck thing yet, you do really fulfill the legacy you hope to leave behind. Well, it comes down to two things. And I stay focused on this. Number one, love the next one in front of me, the best way I can that our stories are better because they’ve collided together. And then number two, do the next right thing right. If I just focus on those two things, love the next person in front of me, do the next right thing right. I believe that ultimately people will be better for it. Situations will be better for it. Circumstances, experiences, moments, environments, will be better for it. And ultimately, the people that my story collide with, hopefully, will walk away better because of the investment that I made in Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. So when I hear I love the next person right, it makes me think about, you know, with, you know, writing the book and and being in business and coaching and being again, the child, your spouse, the parent, how do you stay in the moment and enjoy the moment every day? Speaker Drew Maddux: Poster of gratitude is where it starts. I mean, it it really does for me. So once again, I I if you if you don’t mind me sharing, I’m I’m sure people will think is he just so robotic lucky. But I’m I’m very disciplined when it comes to this because I believe it this is, you know, really where it starts. And so you know, the first thing I do every single day is is, starting my gratitude journal. And as a byproduct in my gratitude journal, I send ten notes whether it sometimes they’re handwritten, sometimes they’re emails, sometimes they’re just texts or voice texts, but I just literally ten people that I began to meditate and pray about I share just, how much I appreciate them. So it really does start with gratitude and appreciation. That’s where it starts. And then everything flows out of that. And so as I seek to love the next one in front of me, and I’d try to do the next right thing right, because I’m so thankful for the gift of today. I’m so thankful for the opportunities that are before me. It allows me to be fully It allows me to stay grounded in the moment to not allow that my next to rob my now, to not allow what just happened to take away the joy of what’s becoming. And to really to really stay, at the intersection of, of what is happening next with what is happening now. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. So, so I love that. I think and then one of the questions I was gonna ask is your habits and rituals, and I would say that That happens probably almost every day, doesn’t it? That Every Speaker Drew Maddux: day. There’s not a day that that that does not that’s not how the day starts. Speaker Brett Gilliland: That’s amazing. Yeah. Even on Christmas morning. It didn’t matter. That’s a Speaker Drew Maddux: He said on even on Thanksgiving morning, you know, even even on those days, because here’s here’s here’s the way I think too, like even on those days. So I’m not interested, in being average. I’m not interested in being good. I’m not interested in, just getting by or doing what everybody else does. And the human conditioner on those days we would take off from those elements of our life. And so the ones that I’ve been around that are great or excellent or elite and who they are as people and what they do, even on those days, even on vacation, even on the weekend, even when you don’t want to, Those are the days you have to. You know, and so I I that’s just what I believe in. And so, yeah, even on the holidays, even on the weekend, even on the vacation, you still lean into what you wanna, what you have declared is important in your life. Yeah. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Well, think about the message you have for your kids. Right? I mean, what a great legacy to leave on to the next one. Right? The the now they’re our age, and they’re in their mid forties, and they’ve got a family. And now they wake up and share gratitude and send messages to people because it it just it it just goes right because now how do those ten people feel when they get a message? Now they’re gonna go out and uplift people more often and stuff. Speaker Drew Maddux: And so Speaker Brett Gilliland: so, yeah, this is all phenomenal, but what about the days that it’s not going well? Right? Not every day is just perfect. So so how do you kinda, you know, put your work boots on, lift yourself up and keep going? Speaker Drew Maddux: Yep. It it’s it’s who you surround yourself with. You know, you That’s that’s where it’s it’s it’s two things, when it comes to this, because like you said, even on the days, you don’t, you don’t have the juice. You still gotta lean into the day. And so I I believe, you know, it’s two things. One is who you surrounded by? Who are those people that breathe life into you in those days when you don’t have what it takes or when you’re it’s not going well or it’s a struggle or it’s a challenge or hardship, life is lived in relationship and community. So I Yeah. Will I will become who I surround myself with. And so those are the days I’ve got to have great community. That care deeply for me that is not conditional. Like, even on those hard moments, on those hard days, those are when I need them the most not when things are going great, and I’m living out of a highlight reel. That’s easy, you know, to hook your way into that. And but number two is, you know, So it’s back to the gratitude piece of this is what are those things that, that you fight for every day that are beyond you or bigger you. What are those calls is that that are are far without of your reach and how does that start to pull you up out of those moments of when you feel low. And so I I believe it’s a Gilliland it’s a real and it’s being it’s living life in a relationship with others. I think those two things are when I am not at my best. I try to reposition. I reach out to others that I know care deeply for me. I’m vulnerable enough I’m authentic enough to be my truest self and ask for help when I need it. And then number two, what are those elements of calls is that I’m fighting for well beyond me? And how does that play out so it can shift and pivot my mindset or my heart set in that Speaker Brett Gilliland: moment? Well, I think it’s used what you just shared there, the the being vulnerable. Is, I think, especially as guys. Man, I think it’s when we’re having tough times, it it’s hard to reach out. Right? It’s hard to be quote unquote weak is what some people would think, but I found it as well is when when I can share what’s going on and rally the troops and having that good circle of people around you is is critically important. You know, my dad used to say when I was a kid, he used to drive me nuts, piss me off. I didn’t think you liked my kid or my friends, but he’d say the people you surround yourself with in the books you read. Right? And and he could’ve been more right. So for me, bad times. I go to my journal. I go right here to my journal. I write down stuff, and I’m surrounded by great people, and I read good stuff. Right? Garbage in, garbage out. And so put good stuff in your body, great things come out as well. So, what other things besides the legacy and and some of the things you talked about in the morning, your gratitude, what are some habits and rituals that if I followed you around every day that I would see or no mis items for you? Speaker Drew Maddux: Yeah. I’m a avid reader. First of all, I love that you said that. So, I’m always reading anywhere from five to six books at a time. I try to read over fifty books a year, which would be, you know, an average of one a week. So that’s what I’m trying to do. You know, I’m sending out at least ten, connects every single day, of gratitude appreciation. And and some of those people are repeats, you know, throughout the week. It may be the same person that resurfaces back up, but Hey, you were prayed for today. I thought about you today. I’m thankful for you today. Thank you for making an investment in me today. I I I think those those two elements are very, very important. I think, you’re gonna see, somebody that that is, focused on making sure his physical wellness is good as well. So like this morning, we after twenty years, we play basketball full court three days a week still, group of guys at 05:30AM. We’re still gonna get up. We’re gonna exercise even on the off days. So our physical, you know, well-being is is very important. My diet’s very important, especially as I’m getting close to fifty. So I’ve changed my diet, very gotten very, driven in terms of making sure I’m taking care of my body physically. My spiritual well-being, you know, I’m I’m My faith, once again, informs a lot of who I am. So, I’m reading back through the Bible again every day. So I’m reading back through that. So every day I’m in the word. I’m doing that as well. And then just trying to do other things from a mental emotional wellness standpoint to make sure that my spirits cleanse, that if my heart is good, and and just making sure that that mentally, you know, I’m ready for whatever the day presents And so I would say those areas of mental, emotional, spiritual, relational, physical well-being are so important. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Love it. Love it, man. Basketball three times a week. I like it. Speaker Drew Maddux: Yeah. We, you know, it’s a game that started at Vanderbilt with the, the coaching staff. They used to call it lunch bunch, and they would play at noon on Tuesday, Fridays. And then when I got done playing at Vanderbilt, I started to play in that game. And then when I left the world of health care to come to Christ Press Academy to be a vast football coach. We moved that game to, to the morning on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So it has just continued. It’s like the the secret fraternity in Nashville. So We have a lot of former Tennessee titans, national predators, former Vanderbilt basketball players, football players. It’s it’s a it’s a great group of guys that once again, A call connects us, but it shares this experience and it’s built this incredible community together. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Love that. Love it, man. So talk about your book elevated, a motivational book on being the best version of you. Let’s talk about that for a minute. What what was the reasoning behind writing it? And then, what would our our our listeners get out of reading that book. Speaker Drew Maddux: Yes. You know, we’ve we’ve written two books, by the way, so we wrote elevated and excavated. So elevated was, really, I’ve always wanted to write a book. So I’m a journaler. I write every day. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Speaker Drew Maddux: And so for Just even if nobody read it, I wanted to go through the personal discipline of what it meant to have to try to put something like that together. What does that really look like to work on my own growth and development. I got a virtual hearing who’s become a dear dear friend. He’s probably one of the leading golf performance coaches in the world. Coached many PGA tour professionals. He and I got together, because of a a podcast I did with him, And we started to understand that we had a lot of like minded thoughts around excellence and leadership and what makes great people great. And so we got in a room and whiteboarded out. What makes great people great? We just started listing attributes of what makes great people great teams CEO coaches, performers, great at what they do. We came up with, like, I think, like, a hundred and fifty to a hundred and sixty words that we thought just as we brainstorm We cut that down to fifty that we could agree to. And so what we did was, for fifty straight days, Brett, we journaled about that one word. So the first word in the book’s perseverance. So you would write about perseverance or or virgil would write about perseverance, and I would write about perseverance. And we would share that journal entry together. And then day two, you know, whatever the word was, resilience, day three. And we just literally for fifty straight days did that practice, and we would share the journal injury with one another. And so what we wanted it to become was our book became your book. And so back to it, we’re both journalers and writers. So we would if you open up the book perseverance, Drew’s entry, Virgil’s entry, and the empty page. So the reader could therefore write whatever their journal entry would be about that word. And so that that is how, our book transfers to ownership to becoming your book. And so that was the idea. It went on to have great success. Who would have thought? Became like, number one on Amazon and coaching and leadership, and and we had great success with that book. So we followed it up during COVID, with excavated, and we wrote about fifty words that would have almost like a negative connotation because of what we were going through as a world But sometimes it may be setting you up for the biggest blessing of your life. So how do you dig deeper to go even further beyond what you would hope for? So then we had a hundred words between those books and we signed, we did our podcast. We did a hundred episodes, in partnership with cumulus media. And we did, a podcast around each of those words. And we did a hundred episodes. So there’s a lot of content out there for anybody that would love to about leadership performance, you know, greatness, excellence, those kind of things. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Awesome. We’ll put that in the show notes for sure. There’s no doubt about that. That’s awesome. We’ll do that. And then, talk about the risks. See, what what risk are you happy that you’ve taken throughout your life? Speaker Drew Maddux: So I’ve I’ve taken too big risk, as it relates to my career. So I would start there. Number one, I was involved in the world of health care. I was in health care technology with a company that was hugely successful. When I left Vanderbilt, I moved quickly up to be president of a region at age twenty six. And, was had the world by the by the tail, by the way you would define six success. Yeah. But as much as I was winning in the world of my professional since I was losing personally at home, I would leave every single Sunday or Monday and and go out of town and come back Friday. And, I I just was not interested in that being the rhythm of life for our family. So I took a risk and, a school took a risk on me because I had no coaching experience, but I left the world of technology health care and moved into basketball coaching at Christ Press Academy. We’d went on to have a lot of fun. Had more success than we deserved. Was there for fifteen years. Once again, had the world by the tail in terms of the way that you would define success and, retire from coaching to step back into the corporate world and joined the Defrain Spencer group, my friend, Chad Spencer, our CEO, founder of our organization, as Executive Vice President of of people in leadership development. And just, that was a a major risk as well to leave everything I knew. And people thought I was absolutely crazy. What do you mean you’re gonna leave basketball coaching to go in and do this this other thing. And so those two risks have each taken me to a different level in my journey and I’m so thankful for it. And then I think the the bigger risk of of all risk was adoption was foreign concept to our family. We didn’t really know much about adoption. We didn’t know many families that had adopted. But, you know, we we fell in love with, just the people of Uganda, that part of the world we were involved in several positions. And, we knew we couldn’t affect the orphan and, crisis across the world, but we could affect the lives of at least one or two, and it ended up being two in our life. And that risk has had exponential return, in our life for for what we did by saying yes to them. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Well, that’s two lucky sixteen year old boys right there coming to that house, man. That’s, that’s awesome. Very cool. And so talk about that from the leadership development. I think you said just what you’re doing for the company that you’re involved with now. What what are you seeing that the everyday person, right, driving down the road? What are we seeing that that you think people really need to focus on and need help the most right now? Speaker Drew Maddux: Yeah. Well, specifically in our world, the world of retail, you know, we’re in the home furnishings world. And Yeah. You know, obviously, if you look at a macro level economically around the country right now, you’re in this space. I mean, you so you understand you study it you know, because of of the way the world is at this moment, you know, home buys have slowed. So, therefore, home furnishings has slowed. And so, the thing that we’re trying to get our people in a down economic environment retail wise for us is you know, really, how how do you elevate your mindset and not allow the the the external circumstances of the world really dictate who you are and the life that you’re meant to live. Because so many times those external circumstances really do affect who we are as husbands and wives and fathers and mothers and all those things. And so, really, that’s the challenge that I have the most right now, Brett, is trying to encourage our people to not be taken out of the fight because of the external circumstances that they’re living in right now and the effect professionally what they’re living and how that affects their personal lives and their marriage in the way that they parent their communities. And so just really trying to separate the two that what you do is not who you are. And I think sometimes we hook our wagons into that that monetary success or performance or titles all of those things really dictate who you are. And in a down economic environment, it’s just what the world is How do you still seek to find fulfillment and joy in all the other aspects of your life and how do you stay intrinsically motivated to continue to pursue all that you were created to be. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. And going back to where we were at to start, really, is and I’m the exact same way you I mean, I’m in my journal here and I write down my goals every single day what my goals are for the next ninety days that then go into my year, which go into my three, five, and ten year goals. Right? And so don’t you think the importance of that of doing this daily? I mean, every single day without fail, because you you talked about a robot I feel that way sometimes too. I I know exactly what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna drop my bag off. I grab the book. I’m reading. I grab my journal. I go grab my water. I mean, I do the exact same thing every single morning when I walk into the office. So how important is that for somebody listening to this right now that may not have that that we have to do something the same old stuff day in and day out. Speaker Drew Maddux: Well, I I I believe, you know, routine is so critical because routine and habits will set the table for you to experience fulfillment and success. And I I just believe if you’re not Like, I’m I’m probably over. I’m OCDs. So by nature, like, I want everything to be orderly. I want everything to be just right, but that allows me to be at my optimum level. And and that allows me to maximize all that I can be. And if anything’s out of sorts or I’m not stepping into those habits or those routines, I felt out of sorts And then I’m not bringing my true self to the table. And so what I would say to anybody, to your point, Brett, is start somewhere. Even if if you’re not that kind of person, you can still start with one. And and we learned in atomic habits from James Clear, like, start with one, then stack number two on top of it. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. And Speaker Drew Maddux: then the stack number three and then the compounding effect of all of those things together you’ll start to see the massive effect that that can have to the one percent, two percent incremental improvement that you desire. But it really does start with the next right decision, the next habit, the next word, the next thought, the next mindset, and how do you start to add that and start to understand the effect that all of that has, that there are no big things or small things. They’re just things. And you have a way that you do it. And the way that you approach it. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Trust the process, man. Great, man. Last few questions here. I this is one of my favorite questions. I’ve asked them pretty much almost every, episode for three hundred and eighty something people at the pleasure of interviewing, which has been phenomenal. But, fears. How many of the fears that you’ve put in your mind have ever blown up to the magnitude you put them in your mind to be? Speaker Drew Maddux: Yeah. I I would say not many. You know, it it’s it’s a majority of what we’re fearful of never comes to be a reality. You know, and so, you know, you’re you’re actually only only born with two fears when you come into the world. You know, so that means if we learn from Mark Badterson, one of my of writers. Speaker Brett Gilliland: It’s all your Speaker Drew Maddux: all your fears are learned. And, you know, his thought is and what he’s what he’s taught me through his readings and and listening into sermon’s is, if your fears can be learned, then therefore your fears can be unlearned. And so how do you start to, unlearn some of those fears that have had a gripping effect in your life because what you start to see is you look back over the course of your life, the things you were most fearful of, like you said, Brett didn’t come true. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Speaker Drew Maddux: And so just really starting to understand that. So, yeah, to your to to answer the question, I can’t think of many if one of something that I built up as a monumental fear in my life, that let reach the level of of anxiety or even panic actually happened in my life. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Yeah. Yep. And that’s why I asked the question. I mean, right? We all have those same thoughts, those same feelings that go into our mind. I heard somebody say the other day too is from a from getting things done and taking action. It was it was great. It said make decisions based on your knowledge. Not on your emotion. Speaker Drew Maddux: Right? Yeah. Speaker Brett Gilliland: So just take the gym, for example. Right? You talk about physical fitness. And and that’s really helped me is sometimes my emotion is, I don’t wanna go do that. I don’t wanna do this at all. So if I’m making the decision on emotions, I’m not gonna go. Right? But if I base it on my knowledge, I know I need to go because of a, b, c, and d. It’s an easier decision to go make. So when you hear me say that, make a decision based on your knowledge, not on your emotion, what comes to mind for you? Speaker Drew Maddux: Yeah. Well, I started to think about when I when I think about that, I think about if we tied to fear, know, so you if you analyze the past overcoming a fear, if you did have to overcome a fear, did it come to be a reality or not? So analyze past fears, anchor a thought beyond the fear to your point, the knowledge of of what you hoped for. So anchor a thought beyond it. And then you gotta act. You gotta move. You gotta go. So as you analyze and as you anchor a thought beyond, you gotta act and you gotta go and you gotta move. Speaker Brett Gilliland: So let’s, talk about cell phones here. Anything on your phone. If I stole your cell phone from you, besides, you know, your normal email and calendar stuff to help run your life, is there an app or anything that you use for productivity or just, you know, something that you love to use or you pretty much not too much technology in your life? Speaker Drew Maddux: No. I I I mean, I just use the the calendar. So I I I literally, invite myself to different calendar invites. So even, scheduling, sleeping. I mean, I I even like down to that, like, I wanna make sure I own my calendar. My calendar doesn’t own me. There’s no reaction to what the day presents. Like, I have taken control of that. And so I use my calendar app as inviting myself to make sure I’m I’m fully to your point present and what I wanna make sure that that my day looks like Speaker Brett Gilliland: Love it. Love it. Where do our listeners find more of Drew Maddox? Speaker Drew Maddux: So across all social media, you know, so Twitter at Drew Maddux, Facebook, Instagram, dramatic forty five, LinkedIn, any anywhere you can find any of that stuff, I post daily content, You can go to Amazon and you can look up elevated and excavated. You can go to podcast iTunes Spotify to grab our our podcast. And also, you know, something that people, have become fun to kind of follow is, you know, we’ve done a lot of trick shots we’re at over the years because of our basketball can’t. So we have eight world records. I’ve been pictured on ESPN Ellen Ellen Show. Good morning America. All over the world that those those videos have several hundred million views. And so people may enjoy getting those as well. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Where we find those? Speaker Drew Maddux: On YouTube or just Speaker Brett Gilliland: And what’s is it under your name or where’s it at? Speaker Drew Maddux: Yeah. Just any I mean, just any news source. Yeah. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Okay. Speaker Drew Maddux: Into Google Jurmatics, and you can see a lot of those trick shots. Speaker Brett Gilliland: Well, you’ll probably get some, four new subscribers being my four boys that, Like, people wanna watch YouTube more than they wanna watch TV these techs, Speaker Drew Maddux: you know, though. And that’s the truth. So, yeah, we, the trick shots have become, like, of all the things that’s probably you know, what what people wanna talk about the most. Speaker Brett Gilliland: That’s funny. That’s really funny. So, one last question I was gonna ask, best college basketball moment that you can remember that you played in. What was, one of those best moments that will you’ll never forget. Speaker Drew Maddux: When very first time, our name was announced for the NC of Lake tournament. You know, it’s just when your name got popped up that you had made March Maddux, I think was that that was special. First time I ever ran on Memorial Jim’s floor as a player fulfilling that dream. And then the third piece was beating number one ranked UCLA was probably our best win we ever had in my career. Speaker Brett Gilliland: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, Drew, thanks so much for being with me, man. It’s been awesome having you on the circle of success, sharing your stories and your passion and your legacy. And, we really appreciate your time, man. Speaker Drew Maddux: I appreciate it, Brett. Thanks so much. I look forward to, following the success of the show.
