A-Rod Opens Up on the Highs & Lows of his Career to Becoming a Business Mogul | The Pivot Podcast

foreign one two three [Music] [Music] [Music] knowing me hey man we back on the pivot listen we thank you guys for all the support remember to subscribe and like every single episode and maybe watch it even more than once that would be great uh we got a very special guest today uh Fred's kind of giving it away he got a little a little Yankee fit on my dog Shannon is excited because he says he finally gets to talk to another male dime uh but it's 14 time All-Star MVP World Series champ now great in his business life and also analyzing the game Alex Rodriguez man thank you for being here this is huge for us we actually we exploited we had him on all right bro like we need some of your help now like who do you think we need to get on the show and you were one of the first names that he mentioned so to be sitting here with you with the World Series trophy behind you man it's a surreal experience for all of us just tell us a little bit about life man what's going on well first of all it's my pleasure thank you for having me and Floyd is uh is a good brother of mine and uh nothing makes me happier than to support Three Brothers doing great things uh really conveying the right message to our communities and I think what you guys are doing is really God's work because we need to feed our next Generation with positivity good information uh whether that's investing taking care of themselves Health and Wellness uh in sports right and sports and music uh has a tendency to bring people together uh in a world that's so divided today so I'm just vibing running my business having a great time I have my two daughters that you know go to school right down the street here in Coconut Grove Miami kind of my hood uh yeah your hood yeah and it's a great place so you are so you are an honorary Alum of um and when you are that age you get to commit to one of the more prestigious especially baseball universities you know in the country what was that experience like for you playing high school ball and then realizing you know what maybe I don't have to go to college and can go right to the league you know let me bring you back a little bit to right here when I grew up right here in the hood you know I grew up in a neighborhood called uh Kendall it was probably like 99 Latinos uh Cuban Dominican Puerto Rican Colombians we're all the same right we're all Latinos but I came from very modest beginnings and uh my mother had two jobs right she she was a secretary in the morning she served tables at night single mother with my two siblings Joe and Susie and uh that's how we survived and I was the boy Boys and Girls Club every morning every day after school and what was interesting is right down the street you have the University of Miami and bringing you back growing up we didn't have the Marlins we didn't have a professional baseball team so growing up in Miami Ron Frazier and the Hurricanes was everything it was like our version of the New York Yankees and I remember as a kid you know they had these really old ushers and they were kind of white and slow and they were like in their 80s and 90s and I'm like I can get these guys in so my friends would distract a couple of them we would jump the fence and then I would distract a couple and then they would jump the fence so I kind of kind of build up all this debt at the University of Miami so finally when I made some coin uh I built the baseball field called Alex Rodriguez baseball park now wow yes and and Alex Rodriguez but I was actually there for the Florida armagators I was there for the Florida um series we went in you know Florida 2-1 sorry about that but I want to ask you because like RC was talking about man you got you had an opportunity to have you had scholarships College scholarships and baseball and football yeah QB but you decided to go to the league you got drafted by the Mariners yeah 93 90 93 and then you got a million dollar signing bonus and it made me connect with you because I got a 600 588 000 signed the most after tax so my signing books were like 780. okay and I got like 600 you probably got 700 I was 21 and I [ __ ] it all off yeah yeah yeah yeah you got million dollars at 17 years old how is that did your parents manage it like how was it to be 17 years old you couldn't even like you just started driving and they gave you a million dollars how was it coming out and being that young well actually a million three fives counting and Channing the reason why I say that the reason why I say that is my bro my my sister and my mom my mom and my sister or my agent at the time you couldn't have an agent because if you officially hired an agent you lose your NCAA eligibility correct so my sister is a bull she's tough she's Nick's mom and I was 17 years old and they were offering me a million dollars and I'm like I'm good with that Mom we're broke like I need to go get this bread and go start my career my mom's like hell no if they don't give you 1.5 you're going to the University of Miami and I said Mom are you sure my sister's like yeah I've never met people that are broke that are so damn tough all right like usually you get tougher when you have leverage we had no leverage that that early on kind of gave me an idea of the backbone that my mother had and and the conviction and the confidence in me and uh I'll never forget that it was in this building before this building which is a new building there was a hotel right here and I negotiated the contract in the wee hours of the night with the Mariners we landed at 1 0.35 and we did it at two in the morning because the next morning I was about to walk into the University of Miami and if I did back in those days you had to stay for three years so it was one of the most exciting most nerve-wracking experiences of my life and I think my mom and my sister for having my back your inspiration what inspired you to get into the game of baseball well it's interesting you know I'm Dominican right I was born in New York raised in Miami but both of my parents are Dominican and we take a lot of pride in being Dominican and uh in my uh in in in Dominican Republic uh it was really about you know Merengue uh baseball and president beer right and there are some Staples and baseball's one of them and I remember this um Fred you'll like this I um my mom she wasn't around much because from the time she woke up she had to make bread and every month that rent came and it felt like 30 days came in three days yeah and I remember as a young man I I went down in one knee on two knees and I prayed to God I said dear Lord please slow down time for my mom because I see the stress and I see the pain and we had to pay 600 and that was a lot of [ __ ] money right and we had to move every 18 months because they kept raising the rents and then I said prayer number two I said dear God if I ever have an opportunity to change places with the landlord I'm gonna do that and sure enough about 12 years later I'm now 22 and I have an opportunity right down by the Miami Heat arena I'm Biscayne to buy my first duplex and I bought that duplex and that kind of started my investing career my entrepreneurial career and it was all because I was I was wounded from a little kid watching my mother um yeah and that's that's my mom it's crazy that you jump right to it because that was one of my questions I know you have these crazy real estate portfolio your Real Estate Mogul I wanted to ask you when did you buy your first property because I've gotten into real estate investing it's amazing but I wanted to know when you bought your first property was it when you came out or 22. so my first property you know I ended up buying it in my early days in Seattle and it was a small duplex it was probably around I was 22 years old and a couple years later I sold it for double and I said oh okay this is this is good and then I bought a four Plex and then I bought an apex and my biggest and investment I bought 60 units and I'll never forget this I had to write a million dollar Trek down payment it was a three million dollar property now I had two million dollars in my bank account and I mean we can understand that I took half of it and wrote it as a down payment and I said dear Lord I don't know what the hell I'm doing here but here we go anything is a lot half of anything's a lot right half of five dollars it sounds like a marriage but in this case it was just an apartment building right so I I buy the apartment now I'm off to Arizona for spring training and I am now more concerned about my 60 tenants paying my rent so that I can pay my mortgage of two million dollars because it was a three million dollar building I put a million I got a two million dollar loan and I need these tenants to pay the rent so that I can you know cover my mortgage right and sure enough that went well and and you know we ended up growing that portfolio to about 15 000 apartment units in 14 States jeez and but that was the start of I always tell people don't look at the headlines you know I didn't get 697 96 home runs overnight I started with one I started with a bun a hit and run I started with a duplex and then you build this Empire one step at a time focused with great people great alignment and great protection it wasn't 93 when you bought your first real estate right so you got that one point I'm sorry one point three five that's right that's right what was that like though like because we all y'all jumped to being big time real estate and you know we all do real estate but like you came from what you said you came with your mom and and your siblings and then you got 1.35 million like that first contract before before you were A-Rod you know Channing I I I've always been wired For Better or Worse different and and if we all make a million dollars today I mean we can all react differently right I mean we can go say hey let's go on a vacation you can say hey let me go buy a Rolls-Royce let's go buy a boat my whole thing is I would be like all right guys what can we do with this million to make it grow I want to take this million and buy assets I don't want to buy any liabilities because ultimately you're going to get an elevator either one is going to go up or it's going to go down nothing's going to stay the same you got to pay Uncle Sam and then I believe in buying assets and part of the world out there that we have to educate our community is what is the difference between an asset and a liability when people look at their homes they say this is an asset well they're wrong your home is a liability my multi-family your multi-family is an asset now you ask why number one very simple if something takes money out of your pocket every month that's a liability if something puts money if an asset puts money in your pocket that's an asset and is as simple as that and the more assets we can have and the less liability we can have we're going to be better off right but you're 17 18. when did that when did that all click because if you look at the statistics at least in our sport 87 percent of the guys when they retire are either broke you know they're filing bankrupt or divorce so we don't we don't come from backgrounds that allow us no financial literacy we don't know these things but you're speaking that you bought your first property at 22 which is four years removed from your draft day when did it all click though you know I ended up fear fear was the reason why I started so early you guys remember when broke came out yeah and it was a big Sports illustrator story and then 30 for 30 did their thing so I started thinking like man I was so scared that I was going to be one of those 87 percent that I said what can I do today to get ahead of that and I started looking at some data and baseball average career five and a half years you make 90 of your money from age 20 to 30. and less than five percent of the league has an undergrad college degree so if you take those three data points I would short and meaning that I would bet that most players would end up Bank of Hell most people would end up bankrupt forget a sports player right or an athlete because we've been so myopically thinking about this kind of we got to do one thing we got to play football we got to play baseball so how the hell can we be good at this too right so I just basically started one I said if I played for five and a half years that's the average and I buy one asset every year for five and a half years when I'm done playing and I'm 39 and or whenever it is I'm gonna have five and a half assets with very little debt because over that time I'm gonna pay that down and that's going to be my insurance for not going broke right and it was out of fear it wasn't out of like I was smarter than anybody or I was always thinking about defense and offense and the one thing I will say is this I've said this and look you take someone like Frank Gore Frank Gore is my little brother he's my neighbor that's my that's my dog right and Frank came out of the boys and girls club with guyo here and in Miami and Frank Gore came to us years ago in the middle of his career and said hey I see you're doing some good things I want to invest with you and Frank started investing with us and Frank's made a small fortune with us and it makes me so happy to this day every month we send Frank checks right every month and he's going to get that for the rest of his life right but remember this so many people Warren Buffett comes to you Fred or Ryan or Channing says I have a great deal for you the three partners are going to be A-Rod uh Jeff Bezos and Warren Buffett and Ryan you're going to be the fourth and then you take that deal to your business manager and guess what he's gonna say is not for you and that's a problem right because when you look at your business manager look at him as your uh defensive coordinator but who the hell is playing offense for you guys right you don't have one right and what you guys have what we all have as athletes is we have tremendous access while we're playing right because when we're done playing that that shuts down a little bit so while you're playing and all of you you guys have a personality on TV and that helps but when the players they can reach out to Magic they can reach out to Buffett they can reach out to and they're going to get a good you know recall people are going to call them back and I think athletes need to they already got the defense with their business manager but what are they doing like if I'm gonna say I need to be a running back I'm going to you and I'm going to to Frank right because I don't know anything about being a running back but in business for whatever reason we don't do that we feel like it's got to be my idea but really green doesn't have the green is green right yeah it doesn't have to be your idea if it's a good one let's roll did you have to sacrifice to have that thought it's a great thought the defensive keep your money hold your money I was a hold my money guy yeah yeah I can get seven percent if you can't get seven percent something's wrong with you I can set my money up somewhere get seven percent and be good the rest of my life but the offensive side of it do you have to be strategic and do you have to sacrifice to say I'm going to spend a million dollars out of my two million to try to be offensive and work this money and make this money work for me yeah a lot of it is is strategy right like if you look at inflation today it's going to be seven or eight percent so if you're making six percent you're in the water right so you have to be really intelligent one of the things when you own uh real estate uh is a hedge against inflation number one number two whatever real estate you have today you probably couldn't build it for what you paid for it so so again I always say let's start small okay Ryan if you have ten dollars I will say hey give nine to your business manager let us do one together I'm gonna put up five you put up one I like that because your first question is how much are you putting in yes if the answer is none then you know what they say you're gonna end up with experience I'm gonna end up with the money so so number one what do you putting in we have to be aligned and and watch how that one reacts to the nine if you're crushing it with the one then you say okay you know what I'm gonna do two if you're crushing it with the two okay what are you doing over here maybe you're the wrong person right right but you create a little check and balance but I will say start small I always tell people in my office everybody that you see here is invested in the company and if they don't have money I'll lend it to them because I want everybody aligned when we win a championship everybody's got to taste the same champagne we can't have Alex and and the partners drinking champagne and then neck drinking you know uh you know Presidente beer even though it's great right but so it's creating that alignment but starting small yeah if if your investment this whole thing really gets me going right because what happens and I always think about my mom right why can't my mom invest with Warren Buffett it doesn't make sense that all the rich people get all the right deals by the time it gets to all of us we're seeing the crap that everybody passed on so if we think about how can we put ten thousand dollars with Warren Buffett how can we put ten thousand dollars with Blackstone how do we put ten thousand dollars with Awad Corp and let's just see what happens put enough money that if you lose it your life's not going to change maybe it's two thousand dollars it doesn't matter but Nick is investing and he started investing he invests ten thousand ten thousand and you watch and what happens is you're all of a sudden you're connected you're paying attention because once your money's in now you're gonna pay attention so that that's what I encourage our generation to start thinking about how do I put my money to work you know sitting here has been an education for us already and listening to you talk about the way you were brought up the different things that you uh your mother and your siblings had to endure it seemed that that really shaped who you were once you did get money and once you did get an opportunity uh to get to the league and become you know the landlord and not not the tenant but you teach a class at Stanford Business School called strategic pivoting and you're also big into mentoring what are the things you are trying to pass down other than just the the money the the heart of what you're trying to get to yeah it's a good question Ryan you know now with direct messaging we get all these cats and I get dozens and dozens of message direct messages where players are looking to invest with us they want advice and I can't do anything with NBA players because I'm an owner but football and baseball I help a lot of guys and now we have a lot of guys investing with us but number one is knowledge we've heard it from little kid knowledge is power but today you could find knowledge in so many different ways back in the day you had to go to a library today you sit on YouTube and say you know how to invest in real estate who are the best real estate investor in the world what are the best markets to invest if I have five thousand dollars where can I put it to work so I I tell them about really creating a great ecosystem because you're an average of the first five people you surround yourself with right so we're looking for great mentor years saying hey ale Alex and I come spend a couple days I just want to be a fly in the wall I want to get educated I want to know how you do things right because that's the way we did it in sports I think athletes could be some of the best business people in the world because they're tenacious they're hard working they understand failure they keep getting back up I think athletes are some of the best potential business people out there if they can just Channel some of that energy but listening to you say that about athletes makes me think about some of the names you've mentioned though the the besos and the the Warren buffetts you know but also in sports we've had opportunities to see people like you grow into a mogul of some sort they're Magic Johnson's the Michael Jordan's and the different players who were able to take their success whether it be on the field or the court and now build something away from their sport that truly gives them generational wealth for you who are some of the guys you may be talked to uh you have conversations with or you sit with that did the same thing for a young Alex Rodriguez even even you now that you're doing for some of these young players yeah and you guys should try this right because you'll be surprised how many yeses you get you mentioned two of them Warren Buffett has been my mentor for over 20 years and over five or six years I would go down to Omaha and spend the entire day with him and we would spend four or five hours in his office he would go over all my books tell me yay name different like give me all Craig great feedback and then we'll go grab a nice dinner and we usually have a steak dinner and then at the end he would always make me have a little ice cream that was his favorite um Magic Johnson over 20 years ago sat down with me what was supposed to be a 30 minute coffee and it ended up being a three and a half hour dinner and we did that in La uh with his guy Lon and Magic gave me the blueprint and I asked them why did you spend so much time with me I said he said Alex you had like 10 pages of notes I knew you were locked in and I saw a young me and you so I wanted to give you my blueprint and to this day A-Rod Corp was billed around the advice that magic gave me that dinner so I encourage you know your listeners and all of us to continue to elevate by finding people that we trust and respect and say hey I got a couple questions a couple of them may be dumb and what you'll find is there's no dumb questions and great people at high levels one of their biggest passion in life is to Mentor people that are hungry for information and you just gotta have a little humility and say hey you know what I need a little help I got ten thousand dollars I have no idea what to do with them they're getting zero percent of the bank and and by the way or like my mom who put the money under the mattress right like there's a lot of people out there that are scared of banks Corporate America so you have to be able to go with someone that you trust and respect and see if you can put a few dollars next to theirs so dig my dig my grocery bag up in the backyard because I don't trust none of them but you brought it up with the Timberwolves and the links as well correct yes sir why basketball you're bro you're one of the best best baseball players ever ever to live ever to walk the earth and you bought two basketball teams like when I like when I saw come out I was like my baseball team why not well let me tell you something you know what I say game knows game right right yeah and and when I look at a young Anthony Edwards or cat or or Dilo I know what I know what a champion looks like and and you guys do too right because you looked at another athlete in the eye and it transcends Sports is really about this it's about this about this right and that's really important then then I looked at the landscape of you know it's funny um my one of my heroes magic NBA legend ends up with a baseball team with the Dodgers yeah and here I am I played 25 years of baseball and I end up with an NBA team but when you look at the NBA there's so many things that they're doing right no no number one thing they're doing is all they care about is growing The Pie as big as possible and then they split it right down the middle so there's no labor issues now in the future or ever so all we're trying to do is look I mean as simple as four of us let's grow this freaking Pie as big as possible I'm gonna take a quarter you take a quarter you take and then we're all aligned and when that phone rings we're all going to be helping each other right and we have this good energy it's not so the NBA has a great business plan yeah number two it has great leadership Adam Silver uh Mark Tatum they just do an incredible job when they're faced with challenges they face them head on they take a negative into a positive you see how um Adam Silver handled the Donald Sterling situation boom Steve bomber ends up with a team anytime there's a situation BLM you name it they're always out in front right message they're not afraid it's a global sport look I I gotta bribe my girls to come to a baseball game these days which breaks my heart my first love is baseball and but they don't want to sit there for four hours right basketball game were there for two hours and 15 minutes we're having having dinner and a cocktail at 9 30. a lot of action right right so so there's a lot of Tailwinds in the NBA I actually think that if you look at the landscape of the NBA and the NFL you won't be able to acquire an NFL or an NBA team for less than five billion dollars in the next 15 to 20 years oh yeah because when I look at the Investments that you've spoke about you talk about real estate you talk about basketball essentially a basketball team is not necessarily real estate but it's like real estate right there's a real estate component right what what you'll find in what I try to invest in is things that have Tailwinds that have a baked ham meaning it has a huge market right real estate NBA um and they all generate a lot of cash right and it's really very little speculation like honestly like if you can't explain it to me in the back of the envelope in less than two minutes then then I ain't that freaking smart you lost me break it down to me easily right break it down to me basic and you look at the NBA as growing 50 to 17 a year there's young audience all over the world is a global sport it's fun right and and we got to keep things fun in this world with TV contracts are going if you keep it fun and entertaining and my daughter's gonna walk in if I can't keep her attention for more than six seconds right so you think about your two hour game it's a challenge you look at you know you're talking about a four-hour game um also the incredibly long Seasons you guys being on the road a ton of time you know what what did you learn from the adversities of baseball whether it be individually on a team understanding the losses because we sit here and if you read through Alex Rodriguez's bio it looks like a ton of wins right I'm sure if we got an opportunity look at your portfolio it would be a ton of wins but there had to be some things that taught you lessons along the way what are some of those situations that you said okay you know what Alex this is something I can learn from be better about and help somebody going forward yeah I mean look I have a huge portfolio of losses right a huge um I'm fifth all the time in the history of the game fifth in the history of strikeouts right so that means four Peak Channing I know you're good at math so so Eddie was going to different directions I wasn't I wasn't so if I'm fifth that means that only four cats in the history four cats in the history of mankind that struck out more than me right so I got a PhD in failing funds I know how to fail better than anybody but I always tell my daughters you know I have a massive in getting back up and the thing about failing it's not about failing it's how you handle failure and how do you learn from those lessons and how do you dust off and get back to the box and say you know what this time I'm gonna do it but do it where you feel like you're still gonna get it done because doing it to doing it that ain't doing it you've got to come out with the mentality you kicked my ass but I'm coming back up and I always think about the movie Rocky and I'll never forget the scene where Apollo Apollo feels like he's got him knocked out knocked out knocked out and he's kind of over there celebrating and he thinks he has them knocked out and when he looks back at Rocky he's still coming and you saw his face where Apollo says oh [ __ ] yeah this must be different and I always want to be like Rocky right like you can punch me you can knock me you can count me out but man that's fuel to my soul and uh my first my first year I said my freshman my first year I got demoted five times the fifth time I called my mom I was 18 years old I said Mom what and I'm I remember I had a little Beamer 525 I thought it was a baller right they took my ass down to 25. yeah 525. tiny one it was the middle one the 325 was Tiny But I went middle middle but it was used it was used and I got a good deal I negotiated the hell out of that but but I was they took my ass down to to Tacoma and lupanella said we're gonna send you guys down I said Lou for the fifth time he said yeah you know you got to adjust with your strikeouts and you got to make the plays so I'm going down Tacoma from Seattle to about 45 minute ride tears that was the time where you get that speakerphone in your car for the first time so I call Mom I wake her ass up and it's it's like three in the morning back home because I'm in Seattle she's in Miami and she I said Mom you know what this is what they talk about Plan B you know I still got that scholarship at the University of Miami I'm gonna go throw the Rock and be a quarterback and I can't play baseball because I burned that and she goes you've got to be out of your mind I said first of all you better toughen up and that's not the boy that I raised and I said number two if you bring come home I'm gonna change the lock on the door so I didn't have a choice to come home and and that kind of got me going and then of course I served the suspension in 2014 and that was the longest suspension of Major League Baseball history for pdus and that was that was that was the blow that I thought was going to take me out right that was like the blow that landed right and and it was such a such a humiliating uh part of my life because I let down so many people started with my mother and my two daughters first and foremost and that was a perfect example of of overreaching and surrounding myself with the wrong people and when I looked at that suspension and and the time off I was hoping that it would be a 50 game suspension like the other guys but ended up being a full season and what happened was that was a blessing in Disguise and the reason why is I was able to um you know sometimes you put you fix the windows in a house and you fix the roof and get the landscape I needed to tear the whole house down and start one brick at a time and because I needed that time it gave me the full year to go back and turn the lens Inward and go into deep therapy and uh Dr David out in Colorado who's no longer with us saved my life because I will go for four days intensive and it will be from nine in the morning to five in the afternoon with no break no lunch break he better bring a donut or something and uh I I had I really got an understanding of why I kept making the mistakes that I was making uh imploding right and I'm like I'm the only jackass I told him this is how I started my therapy I'm the only jackass that has pocket aces God gives me pocket aces and I end up losing the hand and I ended up beating up myself and I would wake up in the middle of the night like the [ __ ] have I done I just it hit me what what you know not all together but what went on in that session for you to say that like what went on there like what did what did you find out to go four days a week you said ten hours a day and basically like what were y'all talking about that long to get you where you are now yeah I mean I I remember early on Dr David said if if you're not willing to finish this intensive then don't start it because you're going to be worse if you quit in the middle and and we as athletes we know commitments we know a long season so I'm like [ __ ] if I start something I'm gonna finish I know how to finish and I know how to close and uh it was the toughest drill exercise that I've ever had to do but as a result I what I ended up learning as my father left when I was 10 and some of the things I had to deal with that I that there were unsettled business um all that stuff created a big blind spot and and the blind spot is scary right because as you start ascending in your career you don't hear a lot of no's you hear an awful lot of yeses right and and hanger honors and all of this creates a blind spot and one of the things that you know my mom taught me early on is you got to have these feet where you're at squarely in the ground and as you have success and you sign a big contract and then you send another huge contract for hundreds of millions of dollars you start losing your way and it's it's what I describe to my daughters as Alex Rodriguez became A-Rod and sure enough I came back to being Alex Rodriguez right right and that Journey has been interesting uh and painful at times but because of all of that I feel like all of it is a blessing in disguise and has made my life so much Fuller so you left the Rangers uh ended up in New York in 2004 I believe right yeah um a friend that we have in common Chad bowling yeah uh mental strengthening conditioning coach I know you uh the city of New York they're fans they demanded now especially with the type of contract you receive I think out the gate it wasn't necessarily as you guys had planned it to be but you visited with Chad and um the the story that I've heard is that your career there were some you know circumstances where you didn't think you know you were the same player you know it's some struggles here and then we all go through that as athletes but you bounce back and eventually in 2009 you guys won the World Series uh a lot of young guys including myself when I met Chad Trevor you know who's no longer here with us I was opposed to mental condition I'm like I'm good up here I don't need that but it made me a better player how did it make you yeah you know first of all Chad was um he was real relatable you know he would show up in his sometimes in uniforms like in his Yankee gear so it wasn't like you're going to go see a medical doctor where you know you kind of thought that was synonymous with going crazy so he was more like uh a performance coach right and and you can kind of you he had you at hello kind of you know good looking guy uh very unassuming and and I thought that was a big part of it for the trust part and then when you have an opportunity to talk and kind of let you know a lot of times as athletes we feel like they look at us as a like a piece of meat like we're not they don't they don't think we're smart they don't think we see things and you know that's one of the things that served me so well as an owner so far of a basketball team because I understand our players are so smart they have so much to offer and at the end of the day there are our partners and we have to lean on them to teach us what's going on in the clubhouse and what they need so one of the things that Chad and I worked on was a system called and I made this up and we use this now at a rod Corp is green yellow and red you should ask Chad about that but essentially Ryan if I'm meeting with you once a quarter I'm going to give you the green the yellow and the red I'm going to first start with um the green so here are the things you're doing well you know you're showing up on time your workout is great you're being a great leader blah blah blah I'll give you a three or four then I'm gonna say the yellows you know something for you to be careful for and watch right I see where you know you walk into this meeting right on time you're almost late you know you you didn't return a couple of those emails that coaches have sent you so you know watch that because you know people are they're not starting to talk but be careful and then red you've got to stop wearing them crazy ass shoes you know they're going to kill you right but so so what happened was you went in knowing exactly what to expect right The Good the Bad and the Ugly and then when we sandwiched it like that you were more receptive to the red and then what happened with me was I was now looking forward for the red more than anything because I'm like okay I'm good with the green I know I'm doing some good things the yellow that's really interesting I got to watch that but the red what are the things that I got to change today so it gave Chad a license to help me become a better player and a better person in that Clubhouse Yeah you mentioned the red and changing things and obviously when you go away after your suspension and you go through some of that intensive therapy I believe that has to change who you you are internally and externally you return and you start to play again what was the reception like because listening to you talk about how smart players are it it brings me back to the locker room and and understanding that when you get around guys they feel certain energies right they feel that they feel if you're confident in who and who you are now when you get back into into that atmosphere and let's be real you A-Rod like you ain't just like a regular cat like we used to follow you and be like were they gonna give them 375 they're gonna give them 300 you know what I mean and so when you walk back into into the the clubhouse what was the reception like from the rest of the players and are there any of those guys that you like you know what these are my favorite teammates and here's why yeah I think what they sensed Ryan was a a paradigm shift of who I was as a human being like we grew up around a bunch of bullshitters I mean when you grow up in the hood people lie to you all the time right you grow up with a bunch of perpetrators and it sounds funny they don't look in your eyes and as players we know that we know coaches like that we know players like that we know owners like that so we run the other way like we've got enough of that [ __ ] in our lives so when somebody comes to you and talks to you straight and they look in your eye and they're not going to tell you what you want to hear but they're going to tell you the truth you go oh that was that [ __ ] is different okay okay and you build credibility so when they saw me come back they saw more of that and it wasn't a sugar coat and I [ __ ] up and that's on me and and and and and in Period right not like hey the the commissioner had it against me none of that nonsense [ __ ] that I was doing I came back and the commissioner did what he had to do because I [ __ ] up and that's on me not on Rob Manford that's on me and and it just changes things and when I started doing that I started seeing some light at the end of the tunnel and then the last part was I started understanding bringing levity into my life and not taking myself so seriously and having a little bit of fun forever pre-suspension I was like a robot I was so [ __ ] uptight and I was like you know wins were home runs and contracts and championships and post I was like hey let's go have a pizza with my boys right and and let me go spend some time with my daughters and having people around here let them do well in winning just looked completely different I say pre-suspension and post suspension and I think those who have been around me I will tell you that is a big difference is that the thing too because reading about it because I I I I love you I don't love baseball I'll tell you what I know A-Rod but I'm not going I'm not gonna say like I can name you all your teammates bro but there was there was a narrative that you were a bad teammate was that media driven like was there something there I think uh I read Joe Torrey something in his book about you being this bad teammate or like when you got to a team like you were kind of staying Dolphins was that the the pre-suspension A-Rod well I I will say this I was a bad [ __ ] and I posted every single day yeah and when you think about star players the biggest asset is being available right and I was available every night to play no matter what the hell was happening so for me a good teammate starts with you got to be on that field whether you're hurt or you're not or you're not so from that standpoint I thought it was a great teammate because I helped you win night in and night out right and and that's the most important thing a leader can do um there were things that we talked about pre-suspension that I was my worst enemy right because I honestly I didn't know any better and it wasn't until I addressed it with therapy that I realized that I had a blind spot that I sounded like I was full of [ __ ] even when I wasn't I just sounded slippery and and I'm like you know I didn't see it I couldn't hear it I couldn't smell it when I got after suspension when I got done with my therapy which which I I been in therapy now for eight years right and my therapy hasn't stopped as a matter of fact I had an hour session today I think that I'm I'm circling second base so I still got a long ways to go and I don't think therapy is something that you know big tough boys like us should be embarrassed about because I think it's really important the bigger and tougher you are the more help you need right and the higher you are in the chain the lonelier loneliest it gets so I think what was happening Shannon is that I was doing things that didn't need to be slippery and I made them slippery so as a result when I come out of my suspension I just became more straight and if you answer me a question I'm going to give you a straight answer and that's it there's no sugar coating and I think that kind of made whether Joe toy or other people think of that I was My Own Worst Enemy Yeah you mentioned uh you know when you came out of therapy well it's continuing to do therapy now and I'd start thinking about young players uh we had Antonio Brown on the show recently and it was it was one good for me because he was someone I mentored when he was in the league but he's also someone I butted head with heads with since when you look at young players like that what is some advice uh that you'd want to give those type of players who can be seen as bad teammates or can be seen as doing things that affect the team negatively but also to the people around them because you mentioned a little bit about having the hanger owners and the perpetrators and those type of people there's always someone who who needs the the help so they have to accept it but also people around them that has to be a circle that allows them to ascend and trying to give them a mirror what advice could you give someone like an Antonio Brown and the people that want to help him well first of all I want to say that I personally love Antonio Brown I I love him so much because I see the goodness in this young man first of all he's a beautiful looking guy he's handsome as hell he grew up right here in Miami you have to sympathize with the way this young man grew up it's not like you know he grew up in Park Avenue right he's seen things that probably none of us have ever seen right and so I think as a leader we have to lead with compassion and empathy and I recently sat at a Miami Heat game with him in in the champ Mayweather and I was just so impressed by his way you know he's got a different way of communicating but why can't that be celebrated you know if he takes off for sure and he comes out that's an expression that's happening does it make him a bad guy there's a lot of bad [ __ ] going on in Russia and Ukraine and and covet like that is bad okay this young man is Artistic right he wants to wear glove he wants to wear a mask he's got way more flavor than me right right but I don't see that as a bad thing what I love about someone like Tom Brady who I love is a you know dear friend of mine we go back over 20 years I love how Tom embraced him because to me that's real leadership when a guy needs you and he's falling down and and maybe there's a little confusion when a guy like that Embraces you Ryan you probably the same thing when you played with him it you know and it comes with a little tough love it comes with a little is a lot of support but we can't turn our backs on young people that are going through challenging times because what are you going to go to the kids so the leagues should be there for you I'll answer that question right MLB in NFL NHL whoever it is the league should be there for that guy shouldn't yeah they should and also like we have to protect these young men remember when I was 20 [ __ ] when I was 30 I cringe at some of the [ __ ] I do the things that I used to think about so if a young man like brown who still has maybe five or six seven more years left if he takes care of himself is how do we take that young man and take him away from the spotlight give him a little protection give them some vitamins put them around a Chad bowling put them around a Jerry Rice or Ronnie Lotte these Legends right someone like Ryan Stephen A Smith brothers that he respects that he may not have look I didn't have a father right so I had to lean on the Warren buffetts the Lou Pinellas the Joe Torres the the Mariana Riveras talk about a great teammate Andy Pettit we can't turn our backs on young men that are making mistakes because look if somebody gave up on me I would not be here today and over and over I let people down but I got back up and and and I've learned from my mistakes and I'm here today so we can do the same thing for brown there's a quick pivot for me outside of maybe I I agree with everything you said about a b he's an amazing person and um you know that support is is always huge but I want to ask you a girl dad you know you're your amazing father we just recently had Jalen Ramsey he's a girl that he he he states that his kids his daughters changed his life and you also just mentioned you didn't have a father in your life does that make you double down with your daughters oh man that's you you're hitting a deep subject there because when my father left I had no idea why he left right I thought it was my fault you know when you're 10 your father leaves you're like it can't be pops you we do a great job of protecting our loved ones right because that's all we have we don't have much so when he left and I realized that he wasn't coming back whether it was 13 14 or 15 I did another one of my prayers and I said dear Lord if you ever give me the opportunity to be a father um I'm gonna promise you I'm not going to let you down could you pray for me because it seems like hey everybody I didn't see your call alone I need to talk to the man but but I made a promise to to the good man upstairs and I basically said I'm going to be a present father and that's going to be my number one Mission and having little girls uh it's so important for US male figures to be around our daughters uh last night at dinner put the phones away take the iPads No Electronic we're gonna have some old school conversations here and it's going to be one conversation and we're gonna listen and you know next my nephew and if he's on his phone I'll jump somebody's ass right because this is our time it's one hour we gonna have some old school conversations and I'm telling you that everyone's like this it's like they can't the crackberry and I'm like oh you're gonna wait and I take the phones and they hand them over and I put them next to me and nobody's gonna touch that and now we're gonna say what you learn at school right tell me what what are the boys talking about it and and it's so much fun but we have to like we said for Antonio Brown we have to be there for our kids we can depend they're going to learn those things at school we got to spend that time with our children in sports do they like sports did they enjoy your career or they just like ah older girls a little bit like that right um they they are into music drama um I recently took uh Natasha to to Michigan I took my ex-wife Cynthia who's a dear friend of mine and an amazing woman her husband Angel and we all went up there as a kind of a 2022 family we went on the plane and we watched Ohio State against Michigan she wants to go to Michigan mom went to Ohio State so I loved it I played referee and them two were going at it that's very that is very 20 22. very 2022. yeah yeah you took everybody yeah everybody everybody that's a mixed family but with the girl I need some advice man because you just smart dude I learned so much what the girls talk about boys like how do you because I don't want to tell my daughter don't talk to boys but also don't want to embrace that she likes a little boy named Jace and I hate case yeah because he's talking to my daughter like well how do you talk to your girls about about relationships it's interesting because like literally they're 13 and 17 and Natasha drives and Ella thinks she's like 17 too because she wanted to be like sister and every night I hear something that makes me cringe but I gotta act cool because I want to hear more so like this boy did that someone smoked this I was like what the heck yeah I'm like you know so I gotta act cool so they don't think that you know you know Nick always says Hey Dad jokes and Dad body and all this other stuff but I try to just you know flow with the flow but I think being there being open and again not having a knee-jerk reaction on things so they're gonna be like wait a minute that that's like he's an L7 I'm not gonna tell him well you want them to be able to feel that they can come to you too you never want your daughters you know I have two girls myself I never wanted them to feel like you couldn't tell that they're gonna talk to a man yeah I'm always like no matter what in the at the end of the day I'm your father and I love you and I will love you forever there is nothing that you can do that's going to make that change and you have to allow your girls to know that now listen I've had to listen to some stuff my daughter's 23 my oldest and I've had to hear some stuff and I'm just like oh Lord like I failed you know what I'm saying like I might not be good at this you know what I mean but it's those conversations that now when we talk and you know she tells she's working in San Francisco and she tells me how much she misses me I realize that because of those conversations we have that relationship right and Fred by the way talking about God is not all one way he'll pay back that's why I got two daughters that is very true he had to teach it this is one thing man you talked about your ex-wife and you know your your relationships are very open everybody knows about what you've been through and all I wanted to ask you you know kind of just for them pretty much because me and you were dimes it's hard to be a male dime you know it's like male dying what like fine you know he got the pretty eyes he clean cut like we're 10 it's hard to be a male 10. you were eight and a half Freddy y'all about eight nine but like what put yourself on the same level with him though Asia got you messed up you see what what side they put us on this is three teeth done that's all good that's all good I love it I love it I love it I love it I love it but but being a successful good looking rich as hell and that's me I'll be sitting in your goddamn office like what what challenges does that bring to look the way you look having some sex you have had the fame you have and now you're just trying to sit down and have a damn dinner at the Piccadilly yeah well you know Alex Rodriguez Piccadilly no more you wanna go to the Piccadilly take your dinner pick a dinner no I think it goes back to what Ryan asked earlier which I thought was the right question is like the whole thing when when you get into like the less fake [ __ ] uh perpetrating you start attracting people and my doctor told me this he said Alex if you get this right you're gonna see the ball better at Yankee Stadium you're going to go back and be more confident you're going to attract better people in your life you're going to attract those a beautiful lady in your life that that is beautiful uh in more ways than one right and and I think as you start changing the way you live your life I think you start attracting better people the attention you grab is that hard still like at 20 at 21 it was hard I'm 38 now so I'm yeah getting out of but the attention you grab when you walk into something can you walk down the street right now you know what I'm saying you're gonna grab so much attention even being you like is that hard to deal with have you accepted it it's not you know why because I've gone to rock bottom right and I remember sending out emails and people wouldn't return my emails and it was heartbreaking I've been A-Rod for [ __ ] 39 years and now I'm on Pariah and nobody wants to deal with me and that's because I did that to myself so that reality check I say has set up the back nine of my life with full of appreciation grateful humbled knocked on my ass and I and I never want my children or anyone that I love to go through what I went through but in a way it was the best medicine that I needed because my highs were so high that I needed a low to match it and I was at Ground Zero depressed sad that was probably too much of a narcissist to think about taking my life but that's just because I was so damn arrogant probably but it was it was the lowest point uh by far of my entire life the the suspension would that be your biggest pivot after that yeah and and coming off of that did you have to work twice as hard as you did to to you know before your you know your debut as a as a rookie yeah in the MLB yeah it was it was the hardest thing to ever come back from because for the first time I felt like I was an underdog again which I know how to be an underdog because I was my whole life growing up but ever since I became a profession I got that 1.35 I was a Goliath right and I was in this path with Ken Griffey Jr and Edgar Martinez and Randy Johnson and Jeter and I championship and this and that and then I went back to the bottom and I had to reconnect with that little boy that was 15 16 years old that had to grind his ass off right and but but it was the medicine that I needed at the time to get back up and and try to do it again and and I tell people this there's a lot of people out there that are listening to your show and watch watching this show that are going through some hard times and they wake up they go to sleep at night and they wake up and and don't know if they're going to be able to pay the rent don't know if they're going to have food to put on the table for their children and my message to them is you know visualize what you want your life to be in five years ten years and then work backwards you know pray connect work hard you know your attitude would determine your altitude and anything's possible but do not lose hope work your ass off get up smile and don't ever give up don't ever give up because if I would have given up I wouldn't be here with you guys and it's an honor to be here with you 100 for sure you just mentioned Jeter you know and to go from the Rangers to New York having to go from shortstop to Third Base you know was it an ego thing involved or you accepted that what was that like you know to me it was an easy decision right because when George Steinbrenner called me to say do you want to be a Yankee he was very clear and he said I have a four-time world champion shortstop he's the captain and he's not moving and I said well boss that's the only way I would have it he said if you want to come play Third Base game on I'm going to bring you to be a Yankee and that was the agreement from day one and and Jeter and I we never had an issue around that and that was the agreement and when you make an agreement that's the deal that is the deal and I was I as a matter of fact I think I told Joe Torre once if you put me a short I'll ask for a trade wow so my agreement to George Steinbrenner was I am the third baseman Jeter is an incredible shortstop and someone who was a very close friend and someone that I admired uh and uh five-time world champion Hall of Fame that was a great marriage yeah it reminds me of uh Lebron coming to Miami and sharing the stage with with D Wade you know you you're going to New York sharing the stage with Jeter just two uh Superstars you know above the atmosphere Stars whatever you want to call them you know sometimes people think you guys are just butt heads but you guys were there for one goal one one golden coming and we don't know that right I don't know if the media ever addressed it were there ever moments where there was friction because you are a as Shannon would like to say um you walk in the room you got to order to you like correct yeah yeah and I'm sure that was that's Ben Jeter's team yeah yeah was there ever but it has or friction or just you know happy friendly competition look at the end of the day there's no relationship that's always going to be 100 goody goody right I mean that's just not realistic no um you go back to my Seattle days and I had some friction at some point with with bunner or with Griff in Texas I have maybe some friction with Buckshot for a minute with Jeter with with Mariano it's called the Brotherhood and and when you play 200 games in 232 days if you don't have some friction then you're not competing you're not an alpha you're not a champion because we bring it every day and I've never met a player that wanted to win understood winning leadership the little things the big things the big moment I I was in awe of Derek Jeter and how he handled those big moments and the truth is I always felt like he can score 140 runs I can drive in 140 runs and together we were better and that's why we were World Champs oh hey what's up chat speaking of stars what up bro what's good how you doing big man you good yes sir looking good man you good bro hey good to see you brother miss me yeah yeah yeah yeah he said whatever you want [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Pivot Podcast

Views: 562,132

Keywords: the pivot, the pivot podcast, new podcast, football podcast, channing crowder, channing crowder podcast, fred taylor podcast, fred taylor, ryan clark, ryan clark podcast, nfl, nfl 2022, nfl 2021, football, super bowl, super bowl podcast, A-Rod Opens Up on the Highs & Lows of his Career to Becoming a Business Mogul | The Pivot Podcast, alex rodriguez podcast, alex rodriguez interview, alex rodriguez highlights, a rod, a rod podcast

Id: dk3qW5rBLdk

Length: 59min 48sec (3588 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 05 2022