Coach Michael Burt
Appearances
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And you can get all my books there. And then we know who bought the books. And I actually call almost every person that buys my books. No way. Yep. It's just something I like doing. That's cool. Because they're indicating interest. I do not think the book changes your life. I think the book opens your mind. I think being coached and mentored by me would change your life. Absolutely.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
So, you know, the words I wrote in that book is called Opportunity Confusion. Mm hmm. Opportunity confusion affects very talented people because they could do so many things. So you had these skills from being a baseball coach and really knowing how to do that. It's like you could do a lot of things and you could go be a great salesperson. You could do this. You could do this.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Eugene Peterson was a pastor that wrote a book called Long Obedience in the Same Direction. Long Obedience in the Same Direction.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
So no shortage of opportunity. But but but seeing it and going, that's what I want to do. And that happened to me early. I can't remember when I first started speaking. I wrote my first book at 25 years old because I was starting to win games. People were always asking me what I was doing. They'd be like, what are you doing with these kids, man? They're so disciplined. They have such chemistry.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
They play so hard for you. And I was really going over to the business world, studying business. I was deconstructing it and bringing it to my players. And I would tell people that. They're like, I don't understand. Like, how do you do it? And I finally said, forget it. I'm going to write a book. The book's called Changing Lives Through Coaching. Because I think a good coach can change your life.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Oh, 1,000%. And I wrote that book. And people said, I was like, well, I got to go do something with it. Like, what am I going to do? And so I was like getting it out to people. And people said, well, come speak. And I remember, like, I enjoyed the preparation. What am I going to talk about? I enjoyed preparation.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
going and doing it okay so i speak at this banquet elementary basketball banquet right they paid me 250 bucks and there was a little dude like little dude like five foot and he came to me and he goes you could go on the circuit and i didn't know what he was talking about you know what's the circuit i go what what what circuit he's like you know go around the world and speak and then he said something that was game changing for me he said like lou holtz
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And Lou Holtz at that time was the head coach at Notre Dame. So I go home and I'm like, Google Lou Holtz. And he was writing books. And he was coaching Notre Dame. And he was speaking. And down the corner it said speaking fee, $100,000 for one hour. Back then. Back then. And I go, I could do this. Yeah, I'm in. But see, this is to your point, though. I didn't go, well, I'm not Lou Holtz. Yeah.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
I'm a high school basketball coach. Here's what I want the listener to take away. I go, if he's writing books, I need to be writing books. Yes. If he's speaking, I need to be speaking. If he's doing this, I can do it. And so one turned into two and two turned into three and three turned into four. But my point is a lot of people live in mental creation. So when I draw it up,
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
It's A's here and B's here, and I'm trying to get to B, but most people couldn't even tell me what B is. Right, right, of course. Okay, then they live over here. They think and stall. They think and stall. They think and stall. I don't know how to do it. And the brain says, you don't know how to do it, therefore you must not be able to do it. Yeah. Versus go, who could help me do this?
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Keeping you safe, man. Yeah, so it's like, so then it's like a mental, I've got mental creation. I want to do this. I want to travel around the world and speak. I'm going to write best-selling books. I'm going to build a greatness factor, whatever.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
the next thing for me to do is what's the next logical action that i could take absolutely i want for i want a greatness factory in virginia beach i go to virginia beach i tell mike little go find me go find me a space that could do this right come to my greatness factory and see it and go to right go to fort myers and see what's what's a good place for greatest factor go physically get into action yeah that starts the manifestation talk about it speak it into existence and move toward it
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Yeah, absolutely.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Yeah, man, I'm open. I'm open to anything closed off to nothing. Dude, it's, yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. Well, you mentioned, it's like, I'm doing work now with a guy named Price Pritchett, Dr. Price Pritchett. He's an 82-year-old psychologist. He wrote You Squared, Quantum Leap Strategy, sold 14 million copies of that book. No funnels, no landing pages, no real marketing. Think about that.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
A dog has a prey drive, and that's the animal's ability to stalk, capture, and kill prey. Humans have this drive. I went to a guy who had like world-class hunting dogs. And I said, tell me when the dog is most motivated. He said, when he knows he gets to go hunting.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
I mean, Jeff Colvin wrote a book many years ago called Talent is Overrated. Mm-hmm. And the argument in the book, which I subscribe to, is that when you see people who are really good at something, the tendency is to believe they were just naturally more gifted. Mm-hmm. OK, of course, the truth is the book goes into people that were great that started. They found their voice early in life.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Just by people buying it and telling people. And he wrote a book called The Quantum. He wrote a book called U Squared. And in U Squared, it's how do you experience a quantum leap? Okay. Which is a significant jump. Massive. With ease. There's no real rhyme or reason on how it happens. And one of the chapters of that book is focused on the ends versus the means.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
To experience a quantum leap, you can't map it out because you've never done it before. Okay. So it's like when I say I'm going to have 100 greatness factories, people go crazy. You know, he's got one. No, you don't get to 100. You don't know how you're going to do it. Now, I could raise capital and give up a percentage of the concept like WeWork did. I could strategically partner.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
I could go to the bank and say, will you guys be my partner? I could raise private funds. Right. I could license it. I could say, hey, if you want it in Naples, you're my guy in Naples. OK. And so my point is, I'm not we don't need to get caught up in all that. What we need to get caught up in is let's move toward that. We may we're going to fail our way to a quantum leap.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
OK, and the analytical person really struggles with this because they want it to be seen. So when I say write it down and make it plain, it's like I'm at a I got one greatness factory. I want 100. OK, now in the middle is just who can help me do this? Is it someone who's in charge of acquisition? Is it one guy to raise money? Just by me talking about that, saying that to you.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
I've got a guy who could raise the capital. See, and then I go straight. So I go straight to my notes and I would go call Justin F. Okay. And then I go raise Justin. X capital, build three greatness factories. Everybody see that? Now, what I'm really doing, you're seeing me in a lot of time. Yeah. Three greatness factories.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Because the truth is, this is why Who Not How was such a good book by Sullivan, because I was coached through Strategic Coach, and he was a genius with ideas. And Who Not How, it's like, who can help me do it? Okay, I got a guy who loves raising capital. I go to him and I say, look, raise $10 million and let's build three of these. Yeah. That's how fast it could happen. Yeah. Okay.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
For the person out there watching it, I'm going for mental creation. That's a physical action. Absolutely. Calling him is a physical action. The note is a physical action. So don't get caught up in, I don't know how to do something. Get caught up in, see it, write it down, program it in the subconscious mind, move. Boom, boom, boom.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Mozart was playing music at two. You know, so and so went to work with their dad at 11. I mean, I could show you when I was in Nashville and I saw Taylor Swift at 13 years old singing to fifty five thousand people. Beautiful. OK. By the time she's 33, that's 20 years old. of long obedience. I started coaching when I was 15. I was a head coach at 22, right?
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Yeah. Yeah. And it's like you don't always say you don't need more money. You need more people. Yep. The people have the money. Yep. So, you know, when people say, can you come do this or can you come do that? Yeah, man, I can do that. What else would I do? I mean, what what's the alternative? I sit at the hotel and I call people versus getting from 100 people. Right.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And what's going to happen because of that is who knows what's going to happen? You don't know. Who knows? Yeah. But but so I always have all these sayings when I wrote Flip the Switch. It's like, well, how do you think when in doubt? I take an action when I don't know what to do. I do something.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Right. I go to bed tired and I wake up hungry. It all goes to zero midnight. See, these are the right. We go where we feel celebrated, not tolerated. Yeah. It's like just move. And that's why the word motivate means to move. So if you're out there, it's like so many people. You mentioned stagnation earlier. And stagnation is the opposite of expansion.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Inertia. So if you feel stagnated and you're watching this and there's periods of our life, we all stagnate. You first have to have a realization that I have stagnated. I am getting incremental results and I'm sick of incremental results. I'm getting 7% year over year. I'm growing, but it's not at a rapid pace. I'm not experiencing a quantum leap. I'm working hard.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
So the realization is I've stagnated. Yeah. Energy is dynamic, static, or entropic. Three states of energy, right? When I bought that plane, Reggie Jackson's pilot was my pilot. That's cool. And he flew a great baseball player, Reggie Jackson, around him. I said, tell me about the cockpit. He said, man, what you would like, coach, is there's something up there called the attitude indicator.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And the attitude indicator tells you is the plane ascending, plateaued, or descending. And that attitude indicator, you always want it. You never want it going down. Never. So the attitude indicator, and I thought, now, that's a great analogy. In life, people are ascending. They have stagnated. Or they're descending. And the attitude indicator tells me, right?
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
I'm walking my two kids in church on Sunday. Mama stayed home because she just flew in from California. I'm a two-year-old. I'm a four-year-old son. And I'm like, get your head up. Right. Everybody get your head up. My two year old girl's like, I'm like, no, no, I mean, get your head up. And you got to show her. That's what it means. Get your head up. Yeah.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Make eye contact with people and say, good morning, people. And my little girl's like, good morning, people. Good morning. You know, as we're walking into church because so many people head down, attitude indicator says I'm static. Get your head up.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
smile and meet and greet people it's amazing dude yeah what a great lesson for your kids right yeah and we always say look look people in the eye yeah nice to meet you shake their hands right right we're not going to walk you're not going to walk in a room and not acknowledge somebody right you know and if people could just get that i know that that that bad attitudes make for hard lives number one but but the attitude indicator says i'm open for business man yeah i'm here to help you yeah and by me talking about follow-up today i'm really saying i'm interested in you man
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
I'm following up with you. I'm interested. Let's do something. Absolutely. Yeah.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
You see, so it's like, I'd really been coaching. So when I started at 15, by the time I retired at 31, I'd really been in that business for 16 years. So that is a long obedience of just, and in my life, I've been coaching, really literally coaching people for 33 years.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
That's impressive.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
You know, it's just, to me, it's just the way. Well, we're so trained to think win, lose, you know, and, and, Starts very early in life, survival mechanisms. And the truth is, that's why I'm saying when it's like, I don't know what to do, I do something, I strategically partner with somebody.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Because if you really study quantum leaps, when I started doing this work with Pritchett, I'm like, okay, when did I experience a quantum leap? How did it happen? It happened because I was introduced to someone who brought a new paradigm to me, changed my way of thinking. Or someone introduced me to a whole network of people. Yeah. And that's when my business jumped.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
So the strategic partnership was when the business showed a significant jump. I learned something new. I met somebody new. And that showed a significant quantum leap. Absolutely. You could go so much further with people.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Well, and, you know, you doing the podcast gets me thinking, I mean, I do a podcast, but I've never taken it as seriously. as I should. It's like, I interview successful people. It's good. You know what I mean? But I've never really dug in and said like, I'm doing it. Yeah. Committed to it. Right. It's like, you know, so it's like when you're around other people that it activates the prey drive.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Okay. So think of prey drive in phases. It must be activated for a lot of people. It's latent and undeveloped. Yep. Then there must be a persistence to the prey drive. That's that long obedience. Then there needs to be an intensity to the prey drive. Right. It's like, I'm locked in. Yeah. I was watching Maverick on the plane over here, you know, go back and watching Tom Cruise in it. Wow.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And it was just. That's a great movie, dude. Well, it every time I watch it, it gets me thinking that's the kind of people I want to work with.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
The best people who have a desire to be top gun, man. It's like they're out there and like gravitate toward like association breeds assimilation. Absolutely. So it's like, OK, let's let's go there. Let's go work with these people who are here. who want to go there. And the prey drive may be activated, but just because the prey drive is activated doesn't mean you can't lose it.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
At 31 years old, I was completely burned out. I had coached for 16 straight years. I'd worked 80 hours a week. I coached all through college. So when most people were in college, I was coaching. And I didn't have a life. I didn't have any friends. I wasn't married. I didn't have any kids. I was totally married to winning. Which I don't regret at all. Of course you shouldn't.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
But at 31, I'm like, I'm done. Yeah, I'm ready for the next move. Good. And I and I knew so. So energy is rejuvenated, alive, vibrant. It is mechanical or it is burned out, which is loss of all joy or passion. And I lost all joy or passion for it. Now, I go back to a game every now and then and they want me to sit down on the court side. And I go, I mean, something about it. I do love.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
But yeah, but I don't want to go back and do it.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
I'm like, oh, yeah, I was a good season. And that's what I was saying earlier in the interview is that how many people. you know, have dreams of something bigger, but they're so afraid. I was scared to death to leave high school coaching. I bet I've done it. Like, I remember like, what am I going to do? It's like, this is all I've ever known. This is my way of life. This is right.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And so, so when I did, I'm like, okay, then I just moved on to the next play. What's the next play in your life that you need to move toward? What's the seat at a bigger table? And don't judge it. And don't, yeah, absolutely. Don't, don't like just be fluid. Yeah. Be open to it.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Right? That's awesome. So don't judge. Yeah. Don't judge. Well, and you know, it's so crazy because Person of Interest is the smallest book that I've ever written. But it's been one of the most impactful books. Because I think everybody's searching for the way to get people's attention, right? It kind of starts with... We have a desire to be known.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
It's like my two-year-old, my four-year-old, look at me. And if I'm looking at him and I'm not looking at her, she's like, look at me, daddy. It is hardwired into us to be known, to be recognized, to be somebody. And when I wrote that book, it's like, how do you become known for something? Right. And I go through the skills that kind of eight things that I think.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And I was really writing it from an aspirational perspective. At the time, I did not consider myself to be a person of interest. I consider myself to be a student of people of interest. And I go one day when I grow up, I want to be like the big boys and the big girls. Yeah, man. And that's how I wrote that book. So many years later.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
It's crazy because I could combo the habits of the top 1% of performers with the ingredients that I wrote about in that book. It's amazing. But that little book has sold more copies for me, person of interest. And it's really the kind of people I coach who have a desire. What Mike Little really came to me for was to be a person of interest.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Impressed with this and your dedication and your long obedience. Yes. In the same direction. Yes. You know, and you're going to keep doing bigger things and it's going to keep getting bigger and bigger and keep on, man. You got an advocate in me.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Well, the world... Typically rewards skill. So I always like to say, and I wrote about this in a book called Eight Figure Skills Stuck in Six Figure Vehicles. Okay. And it was because I saw so many people that were level 10 people stuck in level four opportunities. Okay. That was me. I had a big engine.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Not when he captures it. The retirement was made up by the government. And they're not very good at making up concepts. Clearly. The word retire means to be taken out of use. That's what it means.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
I was relatively skilled at building competitive intelligence in people, activating the prey drive in people. Right. And but I was in this vehicle where I could only make fifty thousand dollars a year or sixty thousand, no matter how many games I won, no matter how hard I worked. OK, so I was a level 10 dude stuck in a level four vehicle. Nothing wrong with the vehicle.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Wasn't like there was a problem with the vehicle. But I started going at it. I'm looking for a bigger table. I'm looking for a seat at a bigger table. First, it was just speaking. I'm going to get out and speak because I'm a coach and I can coach people. And that led to big companies saying, well, you coach our people. And that led to this.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And then I generated enough profit in the coaching business that I started buying real estate. And I started going, what if I could coach at the real estate that I own? So I bought a big lodge in Tennessee. I built an $8 million building in downtown Nashville called the Greatness Factory. And I call that intentional congruence. So I love coaching. I love activating the prey driving people.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
I love building competitive intelligence and teams. I also love cool real estate. How do I combine it? And so we started taking the money from the coaching business and buying real estate. And that's really what jumped our net worth up. But it's because we're kind of feeding. Everything feeds everything. There's an intentional congruence to that. I love it, man.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
But how many people are out there that feel like they're level 10 people that have the skill set. And that's really where I was going with that last answer is that the world rewards skills. The people who are the most skilled make the most money. Okay. But the skill has to be packaged. It has to be marketed. Then it is monetized.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And I think somewhere in that cycle of finding the X factor, packaging the X factor, marketing the X factor, monetization of the X factors where people struggle.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Well, I think I think when you're looking at these these things, it's like, what do you love doing? What could you be the best in the world at doing?
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Where is the economic engine? And one of my skill sets is monetization of concepts, right? Creating concepts that can be monetized. The Greatness Factory, I always tell people it's like a, you know, right now it's a $10 million idea. That could be a $100 million idea. So it's like it all started in the brain. You go there in the mind before you go there in the body.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And so it's like, in the end, what is my conscience telling me? I should be doing, you know? And when you kind of combine all of that, you're like, this is really what I'm supposed to be doing.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Well, it's like you... In your mind, you think you're going to win a championship and thousands of people are going to be celebrating with you. And, you know, there's about 10,000 people at the game. And that was cool when we won that championship. but then you do interviews and then you see your family and then you, you do all these things.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And so by the time we, we got finished that night, it's like, it's midnight. Yeah. It's on a Saturday night. I got this big gold basketball. I'm like, let's go celebrate. Right. And then I'm like, where are we going to go? There's nothing that's open. Yeah. So I ended up, uh, I was starving. I mean, literally because of the game was like at four. And then by the time I do all that stuff.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And, and so by the time I got to the end of the night, man, there was nothing to do. I was starving at those days. I wasn't married in those days. I was I was a single dude and I didn't have any. So like one of my buddies went with me and I'm like, man, we got to go eat. And we ended up going to Steak and Shake. Oh, my God. There's the only thing that was open.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And and I'm like, I just walk in with the gold basketball, sit it down because you can imagine what these people are thinking at Steak and Shake. And they're like, I'm like, I'm really hungry. I'd like it like a double steak burger. And that was my that was my celebration. I took it back, took it home with me.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
I took it back on Monday morning to my boss who hired me when I was 22 years old as a young assistant to be a head coach. And I said, put it in the trophy case, man. And I said, what's next? I love that. And that's how big time people celebrate. The prey drive is not activated by capturing something.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
If you study animals, like when I wrote the book, Flip the Switch, it was kind of based on these two words, prey drive. And I trademarked those two words in humans, okay? Because it's an animal. A dog has a prey drive. And that's the animal's ability to stalk, capture, and kill prey. All right. And I go, I think humans have this drive. But it's not to stalk, capture, and kill.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
It's to see something with the eyes, optically. Or in the mind. Because I've spoken to blind business owners before and they couldn't see it with the eyes, but they saw it in their mind. Okay. And then to pursue it. And when I was studying the animal, I missed something the first time, but then I went back and researched it. The dog...
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
is most motivated not by capturing the prey, but by the mere pursuit by its ability. And I went to a guy who had like world-class hunting dogs. And I said, tell me when the dog is most motivated. He said, when it knows it gets to go hunting.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Not when he captures it. So when you capture something, a championship, you make a million dollars, you buy a nice car, you whatever, whatever it is that you do, you give away money to charity. Like that's, That may have a fleeting moment of a celebration. Like, this is good. It's like when I'm flying on my plane. I bought a plane in 2017 because I was away from my kids all the time.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And everybody tells you how expensive owning a private jet is. And it is expensive. And it's only gotten more expensive. But... but people who tell you I've never bought one. Yeah. And they don't know what they're talking about. You can, you can partner on them. It's like real estate. So I rent, rent mine when I'm not using it.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
But, but, but if you're on that plane by yourself, which is you and the pilots, um,
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Not that they're bad people, but the word retire, if you notice when I speak, I really break down words. Like I take a word and I go, what is it? The word retire means to be taken out of use. Oh, that's what it means. It's your retirement. You're taking something out of use. Okay. My grandfather was an entrepreneur and I loved him and I would go see my granddad and he was so skilled.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
He could build houses. He could build cabinets. He had a farm. You know, he's like a Tennessee country boy. That was just... Like a blue collar millionaire, you know, it worked hard and figured out how to make money. And and I used to go see him and he would say, you know, it's out there, son. You just got to reach for it. Or if you got to want to, you can find a how to.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
He would give me all these little things. Well, he got up and worked every day, worked farm, worked this. You come home at lunch. My grandmother would make him lunch. Then you go back out to work. Yeah. OK. And he was vibrant. And then he retired. And my mother, who's a nurse, said to me one day, it's almost as if everything in your grandfather's life went downhill when he retired.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
His mind went downhill. His body went downhill. And so when you really think about this, you retire. This is what the government tells you or people tell you, work your whole life so you can retire. You can be taken out of use. But there's no purpose there. Yeah. What you really run out of is purpose. Joe Paterno, when they fired him at Penn State, he was 82. He was dead in less than six months.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Yeah. OK. What happened? He ran out of purpose. They took away his passion, his purpose. So prey drive is like I need to get up and pursue something. So my talk tomorrow is going to be all based around one verse. And I was sitting in church last week, and Martin Luther King Jr. 's niece was the guest. Now, listen to this. Her uncle was killed, Martin Luther King Jr.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
His brother, her father, was killed. Hmm. Someone walked into a church and killed his his her mom when she was singing church. And she was she her her ability to forgive was so powerful. And she would tell these stories, like my granddad taught me this, and one of the things her granddad taught her was to write it down and make it plain, and that's a verse in the Bible.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And so I started studying that verse and different interpretations of that verse. And it's like, write it down, make it plain, and then it says run toward it. Well, I thought it meant so you could run fast toward it, but it actually means make it clear so other people can take it and run with it.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
And I didn't know that until I was like, okay, because if you look at all the interpretations. So the talk I'm going to give tomorrow, because I wrote a book called From A to B. Mm-hmm. Simple. The most simple book I've ever written. Yeah. It's 15 questions. But but guess what problem it solves? What do you want to do? Where do you want to go? What is your big opportunity? And it's 15 questions.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
Thank you. Honored to be here, man. Proud of you and your work ethic. And just tell me about your cadence and your rhythm and just like you chose a naming point. You stuck with it. And that's why I say long obedience in the same direction. I love that. You said that out there. I'm like, dang. That's actually a book title.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
It forces you to get clear. OK, because because it's opportunity confusion. So I'm going to give that talk tomorrow. And I was inspired to give it because I was sitting in church. I'm like, I know what I'm talking about. It might conference determine your destiny. Yeah. Write it down. make it plain, make it clear so that you and other people can take it and go, man.
The Determined Society with Shawn French
Insights from Coach Michael Burt on Pursuing Greatness and Activating Your Prey Drive
That's what I'm gonna talk about.