David Holloway

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In this episode of The Forging Excellence Show, Christine and Mark welcome David Holloway, a former pro athlete turned success coach, for an inspiring conversation that will equip you with the tools to excel in all aspects of life. 

David dives deep into his journey, sharing the importance of serving others and how prioritizing positive impact is the key to true greatness. He also unveils the power of words, teaching you how to master your inner dialogue and use language to shape your destiny. David doesn't shy away from the challenges we face, offering practical strategies to turn setbacks into fuel for success. He'll also guide you on how to awaken your inner strength and embrace stepping outside your comfort zone to unlock your full potential. 

The conversation is packed with inspirational stories, including Walter Payton's relentless pursuit of excellence, and David's own journey of learning Mandarin. David also shares actionable tips gained from his motivational speaking engagements and membership site, all designed to empower you on your path to greatness. Whether your goal is to elevate your health and well-being, develop a growth mindset, or silence your inner critic, this episode offers valuable tools and insights to help you live a more fulfilling and successful life. 

Tune in and join David, Christine, and Mark as they help you forge your own path to greatness!

Transcript

Christine Kawai (00:08.133)
Welcome back to another episode of the Forging Excellent Show. I am Christine Kawai. He is Mark Smith. Mark, how are you doing today?

Mark SMITH (00:20.735)
Hey, I'll tell you, I'm excited. You know, I get excited for the folks that we're talking to, I think for different reasons. I think when we look at who we're talking with today, I get really excited, not just for what he does on the field, but who he is as a person. I cannot wait to dive into it today.

Christine Kawai (00:40.101)
Absolutely. Much more than just another athlete, David is an executive coach and team building expert who comes from a long line of prominent national teachers who have helped shape America. We are thrilled to have him on the show with us today. Welcome David Holloway. How's it going?

David (00:56.45)
That's great. Thanks for having me. We're gonna have a good time, share some great stories, give some insight, bullet points to help you guys get better. I'm here to help you guys win, here to serve. That's my motto and look forward to it.

Mark SMITH (01:09.279)
I love it. That's great.

Christine Kawai (01:09.445)
I absolutely love that. So obviously you have played some pro ball back in your day. And what is your day to day look like now? What kind of gets you up and gets you going every day?

David (01:21.794)
So day to day looks like now, I just said, you know, I serve and I'm here to help you win. That's kind of one of my mantras. Learned it, passed down from the greats who came before me. I'm the third generation pro athlete also. So there's so many great people I was lucky enough to be around that passed down some great wisdom, some great teachings. And, you know, part of my job is to pass that on to fully complete it.

And that's my new mission. I, you know, when I, we'll probably get into this a little bit more, but when I first started playing, nobody thought I was good enough, had to walk on, had to go through a really hard journey. And I learned my own lessons going through that hero's arc, if you will. And so many people started coming up to me and saying, I love your story, you've got to share it. I was never really the most vocal guy. I was more, you know, just follow my lead. I'm about, you know, action.

And too many people started coming up to me to say that, turned me into a motivational speaker, trainer. So now I share a lot of these lessons to many Fortune 500 all over the world now. And it's become kind of a mission of mine to share these teachings. And I feel like not only am I doing a service for them and myself, but I'm also honoring all those.

came before me. And if you look me up or you check out my website, you'll see what I'm talking about. Come from really lucky, just great people in my family, which again, attracted other great people. So that's kind of my mission. That's what wakes me up, is to be a servant. And a lot of the leaders I've been around, you hear greatness all the time in the world of sports. He's great, who's the goat, all these debates.

Mark SMITH (03:12.639)
Mm -hmm.

David (03:13.794)
And if you really listen to the ones that truly are, they always say greatness has to do with other people. How well, you know, did you lift up those other people? How much of an impact did you have in your community and your sport? Because there's so many people, especially when you get to the professional level that are watching you, that are looking up to you, you're a role model. If you can help impact, that's what greatness is. And if you look at any of the greats,

their impact is huge. And to me, that's what greatness is. That's what I've been taught. So the more impact I can have sharing these great lessons, doing these podcasts with you guys, the more impact I can have, you know, the greater reach I get.

Mark SMITH (04:00.479)
And what a great mindset. I think when you start the day off saying, how do I help? You know, how do I serve? How do I help you be better? my God, that's phenomenal. Right. I just saw a great video and you probably saw this of Jordan. I mean, Michael Jordan, phenomenal player. Right. But I think the one video out of everything you see, the one thing that really resonates a lot. And I think it probably made Jordan probably, you know, the beyond the goat that he is. But.

David (04:09.25)
Yeah.

Mark SMITH (04:26.975)
It was not just him being able to create plays or him to inspire a team, but it was a video about him talking to his coach and his team, right? His coach asked him who's open. He says, Paxton's open. Great. Hit Paxton. And he starts hitting Paxton again and again, but it starts putting him in the mindset of not just let me go out and get my 32, but let me go out and help other people score. Right? What does that create championship after championship after championship? And you become a true leader that way. Yeah.

David (04:48.642)
Mm -hmm.

David (04:52.818)
Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. And you know, even if, cause everybody says, you know, servant and giving and it's true, but you also, there's so much reward in that also. So selfishly I do it also because there's, and if you really think about it, I know you guys here feel the same, you know, what, you know, lights you up, gets you out of bed more when you can give and serve and light up others people's day or your own.

You know, it's we do a lot of people do so much more for other people than they will themselves. And if you're a parent, especially you understand what that's like, you'll do anything for, you know, your kids and your tribe and your team. So, you know, complete it's there's selfish reasons in there too, but good selfish reasons.

Mark SMITH (05:42.111)
Absolutely.

Christine Kawai (05:42.181)
No, as I can say, absolutely. And then so of course, you know, we're coming from Smith Arenas where again, the Smith stands for sportsmanship, mindfulness, inclusivity, teamwork and health. Is there any of those five that you're like, if I could put a gold star on one of these, I think if you kind of got better in this one aspect, it would have a ripple effect into everything in your life.

David (06:08.066)
health. And I think that's even more prevalent now because of COVID. you know, there's so much, you know, kind of like the analogies when you're on the airplane, you know, put your oxygen mask on first before you assist the other people. The more you can dial in and get serious with your health. And I mean the very basics, you know, taking care of yourself, exercise, hydrating, which we just cheers at the beginning.

Mark SMITH (06:23.711)
Mm -hmm.

David (06:36.29)
with our waters before we started, you know, taking your vitamins, all things we all know, just we forget to do. So the more you can do that and take care of yourself, the more you're able to serve, the more energy you'll have, the happier you'll be. Because, you know, if you're not feeling well, you can't serve to the best of your ability. If you don't have energy, if you don't take care of your sleep, if you don't do the basics, then you're not going to be on your A game the way you would if you were. So.

anything you do in life, not just being an athlete because, you know, I retired a while ago, but I'm still taking care of my health. I'm still learning. I'm still discovering new things. My cousin who is up here visiting in upstate New York plays professional lacrosse and he's learning new things. I'm going to ask him, you know, what else can I do? He came over and made fun of the snacks I had in my closet. He's like, I need to get, you know, you need to get some new snacks, but.

So I'm always open to that. So if you could take care of your health, physical health and mental health, because they're both connected. And one of the best ways, and I teach this in my trainings that I share with people, is mental health. One of the things I was taught by the late, great Sean Stevenson, who you can look up on YouTube, he was only three feet tall, called himself the three foot giant. Amazing man. And...

I remember this was after I was a professional athlete. I was on top of my game. I was like, how do I go to the next level? And he said, you know what you really need to do? Take care of that little voice that lives inside your head. And then he stopped me and he was like, you know that voice in your head that just said what little voice this guy talking about? He was like, that's the voice I'm talking about. And he shared with me that if you can treat yourself more like a best friend.

then you're gonna reach that next level. If you can, especially, it's easy to do when things are going well. But what about when your performance is down, business is down, numbers is down, the relationships aren't going that well. How are you talking to yourself and encouraging yourself and championing yourself in those moments? And when you, you know, when you are an athlete, you're so hard on yourself and there's so much criticism that you take.

Mark SMITH (08:52.287)
Mm -hmm.

David (09:00.098)
and give to yourself because you got to be at such an elite level that man, you can be really nasty to yourself. And if, and the other thing he said was if you took out, you know, we printed out what you said to yourself, you know, in those moments, in those hard times, and we shared those and gave that same advice to a best friend that needed your help in a moment of need, you probably wouldn't have that friend anymore because of what it reads.

And for me, it was just like, you know, I wasn't even aware of that. I didn't know anything about little voice inside my head. Nobody taught me that. So when he shared that with me and I became aware of it, man, that just, you know, whole new level for me, because now I can parent myself. I can now enrich my inner dialogue. And when you enrich your inner dialogue and your vocabulary, man, you enrich your life. And when you enrich your life again,

That's mental health, physical health. You put those two together and man, your foundation is so strong and internally that no matter what's going on in the outside world, you can have a smile on your face. You can, yeah, you're not gonna get it perfect every time. There's gonna be moments like everybody has, but when you can shrink those moments and stay on your A game, man, you're walking with power. And people, you know, you...

You see people walk in the room sometimes and they kind of have like a glow or like some, I don't know what it is. There's something different about him or her. And I guarantee you they're, they're enriched. Their vocabulary is enriched. And the other thing is when you use more powerful language that physically empowers you. And the flip side of it, when you use defeating negative language, saying you suck, you're no good or using that kind of language.

Physically that makes you weak So they're both tied together and it's very you know, it sounds very simple But you know a lot of the foundational pieces do man when you can take care of that You're walking with an extreme power

Mark SMITH (11:09.119)
Yeah, well, let's talk about that a little bit. I love that. So let's say we're talking to kids who are in high school, right? You want to play at the next level. There's a lot of self talk, right? If you miss a PK in soccer, I'm sure you don't want that negativity that your little voice in your head is saying you don't want that printed out, right? You know, if I drop a pass in the end zone, if I let a guy go by me and he scores, right? There's a lot of negative talk. How do you take that kind of negative talk?

David (11:19.522)
Mm -hmm.

David (11:28.514)
Yeah.

Mark SMITH (11:38.655)
as a high schooler and turn that into something positive and give yourself strength.

David (11:43.938)
So here's what I'd say to that. That's a great question because it's going to lead to helping people in those moments in need. And what I tell high school athletes, especially, even if you're not an athlete, if you have a job interview that you bomb or somewhere in life where you feel like, man, that just wasn't my day, it wasn't my time. I share this with people and this is what I did at the University of Maryland when I was a walk -on and I was getting laughed at, I was undersized.

people told me to go back home, I should quit, I should take the academic route that my family has so many champions on that side too. I would have been, if I listened to my inner dialogue and all those people around, if I didn't figure out a way to deal with that, I would have been one of the most miserable people you'd ever seen at that time. But what I did is I developed a technique which I call throw it in the back. And as a teacher, as a,

grown as a speaker and a teacher, one of my jobs is to take all this wisdom and just distill it to make it very, very simple. So here it is. It's called throw it in the bag. Whenever you hear something or you do something and you have those kind of thoughts going on in your head, or maybe it was someone else, maybe someone else told you that you were no good or you messed up or you're not gonna make it, you should quit. When you hear those things,

A lot of advice I don't agree with, which is say, you know, just ignore them, just ignore the haters. I'm on the other side of that. I'm saying, listen in that moment, take it in, take the whole moment in, even what you're feeling internally, it's natural to feel that way. So first of all, don't think that, you know, just because you're a superstar athlete, whatever, you're not going to feel it because you are. And anybody who's telling you different is lying. So you feel that, but you take that moment in and you save it.

And the analogy is you take that moment, the feelings, you put it in a bag, tie it shut, and you leave it at that. Now it's going to take a while to master that, but this is the start of it. Put in the bag. That's all energy that if you continue to dwell on it, that's energy that you're wasting that you can use for something else. So what I did at the university of Maryland early on was I took all that negativity threw in a bag, tied it shut.

David (14:11.362)
And whenever I needed more energy, whenever I was feeling down, especially when I went in to work out, you know, when I get up early before anybody else and do it, didn't feel like it, especially in those moments, open the bag up and you just let it all back out. You feel what you were feeling. You picture what, I would picture what the look on the people's face when they're looking at me in disgust or looking at me like I'm the loser. I would.

Mark SMITH (14:37.215)
Mm -hmm.

David (14:39.65)
take those moments and just bring them all back to life right up to the forefront. And man, that would give me such a rocket fuel boost that so now I'm using my energy, my power when I need it. I'm not letting them dictate where they're going to, you know, poke energy holes in me and let it drain. I'm plugging those as quick as I can, but I'm also using it. And, you know, I after you mature and you get older, you realize that they're giving you a great gift.

Mark SMITH (14:50.591)
Wow.

David (15:09.858)
if you do it this way because now they're just giving you even more motivation and energy. And then when you do make it, man, you feel even better. It is so much sweeter. And, you know, a lot of people are driven by that actually, you know, to prove people wrong or to prove themselves right or, you know, but if you can take that and I did a YouTube video on this, how to use the haters instead of, you know, deal with you, use that to your advantage.

And again, it gives you so much energy. So instead of being the most miserable person walking around at that time at Maryland, man, I had so much in my bag. It was over. You know, I had to keep it shut tight because it was overflowing at times, but I used it when I needed it. People were like, man, how do you, you know, why when you're not supposed to be working out, you're here in the gym? And that's one of the main reasons.

Mark SMITH (16:02.271)
Yeah, well you.

Christine Kawai (16:03.013)
I love that. And I love the language that you're using as well, calling that a gift. For myself, I started a kind of journey of learning how to meditate about a year ago now. And I've met some incredible people along the way. And one of the teachers loves to say, you know, the attitude of gratitude and looking at things not as a challenge, but as a lesson, not as a failure, but as a lesson.

Mark SMITH (16:07.007)
Yeah.

David (16:08.258)
Hmm?

David (16:26.57)
Yeah.

Christine Kawai (16:27.717)
And I think that's so important to not get discouraged. Like I just bought my first house and it was, you know, it's not the most stress free process, but I'm so happy I had cultivated those skills to when what felt like a disappointment or a setback at that time. I'm like, this is teaching me something, even if that lesson is patience and just having that utmost mindset of what is meant for me will always be mine and what is not meant for me will never be mine.

David (16:33.826)
Congratulations.

No.

David (16:54.274)
Yeah. Yeah.

Christine Kawai (16:56.229)
But when you talk about your trainings and kind of honing in on those lessons, I'm sure a lot of people might think you're an athlete, you know, I'm a businessman. What would you have if you want to come and give a talk? Like, how do you combine the two to kind of share those lessons?

Mark SMITH (17:04.799)
Mm -hmm.

David (17:12.386)
Yeah, so when I come in and share with people, I understand what certain people's perception are already. my God, you know, they're bringing in an athlete, a football player, like this is going to be a rah rah speech. I'm going to get nothing out of it. I don't even like football. So there's going to be a time where I could zone out, you know, take a nap, be in the back of my phone. I understand that that's just, you know, human nature. So when I go in there, I always within the first.

probably like three or four minutes. I have people raise their hand who don't like football or don't like, you know, don't understand it, don't like it, or even sports in general. If you, if you don't understand it, don't like it, raise your hand. I tell them, you're not going to offend me. Just let me know who's out there. And I always make eye contact with those people and I tell them, Hey, look, you're in for a treat because this isn't about sports. This is about the big game. We all play the game of life.

Yes, some of the analogies are going to use, you know, I'm gonna use what I did but these are all applicable to Anything because in sports you're talking about, you know your health mindset all the Smith, you know dots all of them are there and When you're working even if you're talking about your home life, you know your family is your team Yes, you obviously have to take care of your health your mental and physical health. But when you deal with people

business you're dealing with people you have to have the same exact skills and I also tell them to listen I'm gonna share a little bit I'm gonna get vulnerable I'm gonna share the beginning of my journey where I was no good when I was getting laughed at and I want you to pay attention to the difference of how you view me before I tell it and after and I relate that to business because in business marketing is just storytelling.

when you get down to it. And the better you tell that story, the more people are gonna know, like, and trust you, and they're gonna wanna do business with you. Because the number one question on consumers' minds is, who can I trust? And same thing when you're talking about football and sports. A new teammate comes in, and you wanna do business with somebody on your team, you have to have some level of trust with them. You gotta know at the end of the game,

Mark SMITH (19:37.439)
Mm -hmm.

David (19:39.234)
if you're doing bad, especially if you're having an off day, are they going to help you win still? If the game is over even, and this was something that I got taught by a lot of the greats that came before me. And I'll share this little analogy here and it'll make sense on the business side also. One of the ways you'd want to build championship teams, if you were a player looking for somebody new, is you don't want to watch their highlight tape.

or the game, you know, if you're evaluating the film when they're winning, you want to look at how they're playing when they know they're going to lose. When the game's out of reach, when the score is too much, when you know you're not going to win the game, how are you acting, how are you playing, how are you motivating your team? What are the things you're saying in those moments? Same thing when you're talking about internal dialogue. In those moments when it's hard.

How are you then? Are you really leading that championship lifestyle? Are you really still? Because life, you know, we know this is going to be ups and downs, roller coasters. You're never going to be, it's never a straight shot to success or anything in life, business, ups and downs, zigzags. But in those low moments, how are you acting then? Are you still going to be a leader? Are you still going to be somebody people want to follow? Are you still?

uplifting yourself and the people around you. How are you acting then? And if you can do that in those low moments, man, guess how you're going to be in the high moments. And you, when you're looking at it, it's like, that's a guy I want on my team. This is someone I can trust. Even when, you know, stuff goes bad, he's going to be in my corner and I can work with that because we're not going to be on our A game all the time. But if I'm down, he'll pick me up and vice versa. So I let people know all this pretty early on and

they can now connect and relate to what I have to say. Because I understand there are some people that go out there and it's just the same old rah rah speech and it's boring or maybe it's a great show, but you're not left with actionable steps that you can take afterwards to put that in action. So, that was a great moment, great motivational gas, but now what?

Mark SMITH (22:00.703)
Mm -hmm.

David (22:01.058)
So I let all those people know really early because I understand being a student, I understand what, when I'm delivering, I'm doing my art up on stage now, I'm not performing on the field, it's on stage, that there's certain obstacles that I'm gonna have to overcome. And just like in business, when you go in for a sale, you know there's gonna be obstacles in the beginning. So the more you can let people know.

you know, the common ones that you know a lot of people have and you're already up.

Mark SMITH (22:34.015)
exactly right. Yeah. Walk us through a little bit too, because when you get up there and you've talked about it a little bit, it's not a rah rah, right? You're going to let people know about adversity, right? Whether you're into sports or not, you can really get into what you're saying. But talk to us about a little bit about the journey you take people through.

David (22:52.034)
So I take people, and you'll like this, I take people on insider experience. It's not just a speech, I tell people that. You're gonna come with somebody who is a third generation pro athlete, sixth generation college graduate, who is going to walk you into the world of world -class competitors and championship teams. And this isn't something I studied in books.

This is something that I physically and mentally went through. Not only that, I have generations of that. So I've been around, you know, when I was born, you know, just in my world, you know, family and friends, you know, I had, you know, guys like Bobby or, Bo Jackson, guys that, you know, superstar athletes on one side, on the academic side, there's three college presidents in the family.

So you're getting all these lessons from all these, you know, masters, even grandmasters, if you will, you're going back so many years who learned from amazing people before them. You're getting all that wisdom just kind of passed on through me. So it's, you know, I'm not the superstar here. this is not just me saying how great I am. Check out my rings and how good they shine. This is me saying, Hey, I care about you and I care about you winning. I care about you getting to the next level.

because that's how I was taught. I grew up in that world, I realized I was lucky to do that, and now my job is just to pass those gifts on to you guys. So when I go up there and share that with people, man, that just lets everybody know that this is gonna be something much different than we expected. This isn't just some football player up there, this is somebody whose family, the longevity,

is something that there's something there that, you know, I can use for myself and my family because there's always one hit wonders, you know, you can have that one hit, but how many people have it over a long period of time and how many people can say what I've said in the beginning that I didn't even do, you know, I just got lucky to be in that. So when you can do that and say that you're coming with so much more than, Hey, I'm an a**.

David (25:17.25)
Big difference. So the journey I take people on, especially telling them, you know, even that I did come from that, I start off as an underdog that, you know, was getting laughed at, was on the sixth team, sat the bench in practice. You heard people sit in the bench, you know, during the game, you know, I sat the bench during practice. So I share that. And so we go on the hero's journey, you know, the hero's arc where we go down and then we bring everybody back up. So it's a whole...

you know, journey. It's a whole experience where I pull back the curtains and kind of walk people through in an elegant way inside that world that I've been lucky enough to be around. So it's fun. It's amazing. There's, you know, there's feedbacks. There's, I go out in the crowd, I bring people up on stage. It's a whole experience rather than just me getting up behind, you know, and just giving a lecture. So it's a lot of fun too.

Mark SMITH (26:14.335)
It's great too that you do that because that way anybody, no matter what, where you're at in life, right, if you're an athlete, if you're not, if you're a business executive, you're not, right, you're gonna get a lot out of it, which is really cool. So let's do if we can, can we do a little plug, right, or people just go into davidholloway .com, all right, and if they go there, what are they gonna see about you? How do they hire you?

David (26:29.442)
Yeah, sure.

David (26:35.646)
So if you want to be inspired, you want to go on that journey. I share some of it there. I have social media channels that you could find on there that's easy for you to connect with me. My YouTube channel is called Hunting Greatness, where I also do interviews, interviewed some amazing people, businessmen and women, athletes, male and female, all different kinds of awesome people. So you could check that out. To get some more insights, I want to give you...

you know, bullet points, not, you know, 37 of them. I want to give you one, two or three that you can follow, implement your own life. And that's going to make you that much better. So that's, you know, that's my goal. When you go to the site, you're also going to see inside the Holloway huddle up top. That's my membership site where I come live every single month and I'm teaching, I'm sharing, I'm giving my best stories, my best secrets. And what it is, is not only a place where you could learn great

way to do personal development, self -improvement, but it's also a great check -in for a lot of people because you need people to come into your life, ask you the tough questions, ask where you are, you know, with your numbers, you know, with your internal dialogue, your vocabulary, where do you think you are one to 10? And you write that in your journal and say, okay, this is how we're gonna move it from a six to a seven.

And that's it. We're not going for perfection. We're going for progress. But you have someone like me who comes live and direct to the camera, gets nice and close and says, how are you doing? Honestly, without any ego, and I don't care if it's off month, I'm just here to give you the powerful reminders to say, hey, you are a champion. You can grow no matter where you're at in life, no matter where I caught you in life. I have things and powerful reminders that's gonna help you reach that next level or.

you know, get back up if you're in one of those moments in life where you got knocked down. Every single month we're going live on Zoom for about 30 minutes where I teach a master class. We do a little bit of Q &A. We have some fun. I share some great stories. And that's my Inside the Huddle master class. So you'll see that. But you'll also see a little bit more about my speaking and what I do if you go there.

Mark SMITH (28:56.383)
That is phenomenal. So can I make this claim? You can help take people from the bench of practice to the Super Bowl. Is that fair? Yeah, there you go. There you go.

David (29:03.714)
Mm -hmm. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. I might steal that one. The track of friends all the way to the Super Bowl. And listen, there was nothing, you know, you're talking about, and it works in business too. You know, I, I related to that. I was like, you know, not being able to get into practice is like not being able to get coffee for the guy who gets coffee for everybody. I mean, that's how low.

Christine Kawai (29:12.101)
Hahaha!

Mark SMITH (29:31.039)
Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

David (29:33.154)
you are or you can't even get in. So yeah, from that all the way to the top of a craft where less than 1 % make it. And you know, I did that within, you know, record time almost. And, you know, a lot of times you hear walk -ons or, it's great if they play special teams or it's great if the coffee person makes it to the base level. But with what I share with what I teach and I got this question all the time.

How did you get here? What did you do to be in this position? We didn't even know you were here. And I remind them, I was not even getting into practice, they wouldn't even have seen me. But here's how I did it. And here are the steps I took in the times that it was the hardest.

Mark SMITH (30:20.191)
And that's good. It's great because you talk about your inner voice, right? And I think everybody has that, whether it's your first day as an intern, right? Whether you're an executive, whether you're into sports or not. Yeah, you've got to understand it. You've got to understand it to the degree where now you can kind of take that, you know, dip into your quiver. Like you talked about that bag, right? Of energy bolts, right? And help other people with that, right? Put your focus into that, your energy and really help people be better. I love that.

David (30:24.194)
Everybody.

Mm -hmm. Yeah. Any level.

David (30:38.914)
Mm -hmm.

David (30:47.265)
Yeah, yeah, if any level, no matter what your leadership position, your age, where you're starting, there's lessons for everybody and there's powerful reminders. And some people, Sean Stevenson again, taught me that when amateurs hear something they've heard before, they go, I've already heard that, what great insight. And masters, when they hear something they already heard, say, thanks for the reminder. Because we all need reminders.

Mark SMITH (31:14.591)
Mm hmm. Spot on. Every day.

Christine Kawai (31:17.541)
I feel like I'm unintentionally Mark's reminders sometime of like, hey, hey, but we need those people because I come from a learning and development background. Now I've kind of segued into, you know, all sorts of fun. But it's I always want that mindset of like the learning is never done. I don't want to think I've peaked right now. Like if I think of myself 10 years ago and if I thought and again, younger in your 20s, ego might be kind of at the forefront of everything. But it's being able to take that step back and.

David (31:17.89)
So automating.

Yeah.

Mark SMITH (31:21.215)
Yep.

Christine Kawai (31:47.077)
know, Mark and I right now are trying to learn Japanese, like my husband's Japanese, you can tell by my last name, and that uncomfortableness of starting something new and it's, you know, the more, I mean, it's, it is, but it's so, and it's helped me in so many other things and having that constant, you know, not student mindset, but, you know, I am always willing to learn.

David (31:51.554)
wonderful. I love that.

David (31:59.362)
Yeah, starting at zero.

Mark SMITH (32:00.959)
Yeah.

David (32:11.458)
I'd say student mindset, yeah. Yeah, very important. You talk about the greats and people that I want to be around especially because when I made it to a certain level, there were some people that were there to collect a check. Same thing in the business world. They're there to collect a check and go home. I've always been connected with people that have a bigger vision than just collecting money because that's not that impressive. It's been done before, but it's not as fulfilling.

Mark SMITH (32:28.895)
Mm -hmm.

David (32:41.922)
You know, when you get to the end of your life, you're not going to talk about how much money you made. you're going to talk about the impact you had in those kinds of people. I found have always been student lead a student had that student mindset. I always wanted to get better. And a lot of the greats that I came before that came before me, one that jumps to the top of my mind is Walter Payton, who even in the off season at the, there was a story my dad shared about it was in the pro bowl. This is in the off.

You know, the Pro Bowl, Walter Payton's gonna get maybe eight plays in the game, the season's over. And when practice was finished, you know, before the game, you know, out there, back when it was the real Pro Bowl in Honolulu, he was there all by himself on the field. He was like just cutting full speed against the air. And, you know, my dad went up to him, Walter, what are you doing? You're only playing eight plays in the game, the season's over. Why are you out here practicing so hard? And he looked at him and he said,

I'm currently breaking the tackles I have to face next year that are impossible to break. So I'm building a memory map to an anticipated future. And to me, those, when you can do that, the relentless pursuit of excellence in the unseen hours, man, you're talking about mastery, you're talking about student, you're talking about continuous and never -ending self -improvement.

And he embodied all of that with that story. Here's a guy who's to me the greatest football player, arguably ever, definitely the greatest running back. And because of that mindset that he had, that student mindset, and I'll share with you real quick. Also, I've always wanted to learn a second language. And so maybe 12, 13 years ago, I went on my first big trip to China and I was there for about a month and I had about six months till I went.

And I was like, I always want to learn a second language. You know, obviously, you know, from my story, you could tell I love challenges. So I was like, listen, I'm going to learn how to speak Mandarin. So I did what a student would do. I get around people who speak it. I remember I took a class. There's an engineering school near me. So I just put out, I just asked people and they said, we have a bulletin board where there's, you know, trading English for a Mandarin.

David (35:06.818)
And so I did all kinds of stuff, went to the library, bought living language. I learned that from Tim Ferriss who did the four hour work week. That was one of his recommendations, language learning. Learn how to speak Mandarin pretty conversationally well to the point where I went there. I had a full conversation with somebody, a local who spoke no English. And I'll tell you, it was one of the highlights of my trip in...

just to see them open up to me and share some really cool things and how we were able to bond. You know, it was really, really cool. It never would have happened if I didn't have that mindset, if I didn't want to continue to learn. I already graduated, I didn't need to do this, but you know, when you're learning for fun, I'm sure you can relate to this, there's something for your own personal needs, there's something a little bit more fun to it.

you're focused a little bit more on it. And when you can, you know, you're dual language, I mean, that's just another skill you have that, you know, a lot of people don't have. And it was just a great experience for me. So, you know, I appreciate you sharing that, brought back memories of when I did that and the experience I had speaking it. And it was just, you know, awesome, awesome to do that. And again, another box checked off my list that,

Christine Kawai (36:33.157)
Yeah.

David (36:34.498)
You know, I can't speak it fluently, but I'm pretty good. And I'm sure you know when you, I don't know if you've been to Japan, but when you go to China, most foreigners can't even say hello and thank you correctly. I mean, the two most basic things. So for them.

Mark SMITH (36:51.519)
Can we teach them right now? David, let's teach them, right?

Christine Kawai (36:53.225)
Well, it's funny because well, it's the afternoon, so it'd be Konnichiwa, obviously, for hello. But like right now, Mark and I are giving Duolingo everything it's got. But it's funny because there's been these moments where even just taking off the English and I challenged Mark with this, too, because we had like those those training wheels on of I can still see in English what it says. I'm like, no, first of all, we have three alphabets to learn and just kind of diving in and.

David (36:54.754)
so.

David (37:04.93)
Yeah.

David (37:13.634)
Yeah.

Christine Kawai (37:22.085)
You know, my husband was like, you have to not you can't have the option to fall back on, you know, what's comfortable. If you really want to learn, you have to toss yourself in. And one thing that I started to do, I think I've watched The Simpsons, you know, every episode a few hundred times. And when it comes to that, I started to listen with the subtitles on in Japanese. And there was one moment where I could actually understand.

David (37:32.894)
yeah.

David (37:36.577)
Yeah.

David (37:45.218)
huh.

Christine Kawai (37:48.805)
like what they were saying and it was such like, my gosh, like I can't respond quite as well, but I love that. 

David (37:54.594)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mark SMITH (37:57.407)
Wow.

 So, yeah, which is kind of neat, because if you're watching The Simpsons, you know, what is that like in Japanese? How do you translate? Doh!

Christine Kawai (38:24.069)
Well, and it's funny too because of course when you learn through an app it's a very formal way of speaking and then when you hear native speakers speak and it's talking like we're talking now, I'm like can we can I play it at like 0 .25 speed? Like can we slow this down a little bit?

David (38:24.29)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Mark SMITH (38:30.911)
Yeah, yeah.

Mark SMITH (38:36.511)
Yeah. Yeah, slow down, slow down. Yeah. Yeah.

David (38:40.674)
Yeah, and you learn the difference. There's different slang words and you know, it is not as formal, but I did something similar. I did it with old Kung Fu movies like the Dragon Brothers. I think those is the Shaw Brothers. So I'd watch and I'm a big old Kung Fu fan, but I would watch them and I'd have the subtitles on underneath. So another way again,

Mark SMITH (38:45.183)
Yeah.

Mark SMITH (38:55.071)
No way.

David (39:10.626)
tip that was given, I forget by who, but I took that. You know, if I could have watched something and have the subtitles and try to do it on my own, just again, another way to immerse yourself in it. And then when I was there, obviously in China, I've been to Japan too. And a lot of the people there where I was did speak English, you know, the street signs you're driving down the street, a lot of them were in English, but,

some of the moments where there was no English, you know, I can understand that I can pick up and I can, you know, I could order food in that language, which is very important. but it's just another awesome experience that if you have that mentality, again, this has nothing to do with sports, but it does have to do with sports because you're talking about that learner's mindset, like you said, so you're always studying, always reaching, always watching, always.

Mark SMITH (40:03.423)
Yeah.

David (40:04.482)
of being observant to pick up little things that you could learn to make yourself even better. Same thing with the language learn. You're around all these new experiences. You're starting at zero, but little by little, you're picking up all these different things because you're being a student. And again, like you alluded to, it's helping you in other areas that you weren't even aware of. So that's the beauty of it too. Everything just gets like multiplied when you start to skill stack like that. And again, nothing to do with me being a football.

Mark SMITH (40:13.151)
Yeah.

Christine Kawai (40:35.173)
Yeah, for me it was getting comfortable with the uncomfortable, knowing that that is a necessary part of the process. And if I try to ignore it, I will never complete the process. And I don't want to be the one to cap my own potential. So, you know, I can always I can always learn something else, even if it's, I mean, just our journey with the podcast and things that we have learned along the way. And the hardest one was always that first one. But.

David (40:46.562)
Yeah.

Christine Kawai (41:01.477)
I like to joke and call it the first pancake because sometimes when you're making pancakes for whatever reason that first one's like a little funky right into the garbage. But then the next are all great. And I'm like, as long as you just get that first one out of the way, even if you just get that little bit better every day, it will add up. And the only one you're really in kind of comparison to is who you were yesterday. So.

David (41:06.498)
Yeah.

David (41:13.346)
Yeah.

David (41:24.338)
Yeah. So you said a couple of key things there. One of them, well, I love the pancake analogy. I might steal that one because the first one does come out a little funky. you said a lot of great things. One of them was the beginning was, you know, you don't want to cap your own potential. When I come and I do trainings, I say, Hey, I'm going to uplift you. I'm going to champion you. I'm going to inspire you. I'm going to share some great things, takeaways, but I'm also going to challenge you because if you live in your comfort zone, you're not, you know, growing.

Christine Kawai (41:30.309)
Go ahead.

David (41:52.066)
in there. Yeah, it's a nice place to be, but not much growth happens there. So I'm coming through to challenge you also to ask you the tough questions that a lot of people avoid. But I don't mind doing that. Why? Because it's going to get you better. I'm going to tell you the truth about your numbers and where you're at, because it's going to get you better. Anybody that knows, you know, whatever leader or, you know, the greatest coach, leader, teacher, business woman, man, they've heard, I've been around, they've always told them the truth.

Whoever that was and that's the great ones. So you said that you also said, you know, little by little every day. That's how greatness is. You know, you don't stack. There's not some huge giant thing. It's a lot of little ordinary things done well again and again and again, day after day after day. And at the end of it, you know, just like what happened to me, people are going to say, you know, where did you come from? How did you do this? You speak this pretty formally. Like, how did you do it?

But you know, yeah, you started at square one. You know, you started at the beginning. And now because of your dedication, because of your mindset, you know, here you are, much better person, much more skilled, able to connect with a whole group of people that you never would have been able to connect with before. And man, you're walking again with so much more power.

Mark SMITH (43:14.239)
Yeah, it opens you up. I love the fact of doing that. Anytime you get out of your comfort zone, right, and you throw away that first pancake. Love that, yeah. David, you gotta use that. Try to use it next time you're on stage. You gotta throw it in, all right? Yeah.

David (43:25.218)
yeah, I'm not kidding. I said I'm going to use that. So part of what I do is to make it easy for the audience. Stories are great with lessons. Analogies are also very good. Acronyms are good. But yeah, the pancake one, that's a great one. It's easy. Everybody can relate to it. And who doesn't love pancakes anyway? So it's a great analogy.

Christine Kawai (43:43.237)
Right?

Mark SMITH (43:43.615)
Yeah, there you go. Hey, walk us through real quick if you can, David, we talked about a little bit. And I want people to understand, you know, when we talk about mental toughness, we talk about getting through physically. There's a lot that goes in every day, whether you are, you know, trying to get business while you're trying to make a team, trying to get A's in school, whatever it might be, right, whatever your challenges at the time, there comes a point where mentally and physically you are at 100%. You know, the thing that reminds me of that.

David (43:55.042)
Mm -hmm.

Mark SMITH (44:12.607)
is you talked about doing a workout with number 52 Ray Lewis. Walk us through that workout.

David (44:16.49)
Yeah. Well, that wasn't a workout. That was a religious experience. Let me tell you. And I say that, first of all, for me, you know, I'm somebody who's sitting the bench and fast forward two years later, I'm getting a phone call to come over from one of the greatest in the world in my position to work out one of the most intimate times, which is the off season. That's when you get better.

Mark SMITH (44:22.718)
Hahaha!

Mark SMITH (44:45.375)
Mm -hmm.

David (44:45.378)
You know, during the season you make adjustments, but off season is when you heal, is when you get stronger. It's where you, as an athlete, you're really able to improve when you're, you know, with that student mindset, you know, the story I shared about Walter Payton, always getting a little bit better off season time. So many people take breaks, but real champions in those times, that's when you get better. So here I am, you know, former nobody now, you know, I'm like, you know, wow, you know,

It's a good thing I didn't quit. It's a good thing I used those techniques. It's a good thing that I didn't listen to all the people telling me, you know, you shouldn't do this. Cause now I'm going to work out here, you know, in Baltimore, Maryland, with somebody who's the best in my position. And you go there and I walk in and you get a fresh, you know, fresh veggie smell in the air. What is this? There's a guy, a personal chef already making the food that.

in proportion to exactly what we needed already. So after the workout, I was sitting there on the table. For me, big note check, like, man, look how much is getting invested into this process. Not just, you know, you talk about business, the before, during, and after of a sale. This is the before, you know, the workout during the workout and after. There's three parts to that too. So before it,

You know, we're already getting ready for the during or for the after portion. So we didn't have to think about that. And it's going to be for refueling the best that we can have it. So we're already maximizing. So you go downstairs and you walk down into a basement and he's got these jerseys hanging on the walls, you know, magic Johnson in.

There's Barry Sanders and there's Michael Phelps, Olympic warm -up, all these greats. So you're almost like you're going into this great atmosphere where nothing but the best is going to be accepted down here. And almost like their aura was in there a little bit. I don't know if that makes sense, but it's like, wow, they're really there. So you go in, you walk into this weight room. It's not some giant.

Mark SMITH (46:51.999)
Sure.

Christine Kawai (46:52.101)
for sure.

David (47:01.346)
you know, weight room, but it's a good size and it's got everything in there we need. And I remember we walked in and we all had our gallon water jugs. And the first thing we did was he said, let's grab whole hands, let's grab hands and say the Lord's prayer. And I remember in that moment, man, did I get really, really nervous. It was like, okay, I've prayed before a game, certain, you know, major events.

never prayed before an actual like ordinary Tuesday workout. What is gonna, what is about to happen? And let's just say it was a religious experience. It was, you know, we're yelling at each other positive things. We're, you know, it's fourth and one on the goal line. It's just you and that other person who's gonna win. And we went, we didn't count reps. Most of the things we did.

We went till physical failure to you physically could not, you know, lift that weight and it just fell. And, you know, it was, you know, it was maximized. It wasn't like a six hour workout. It was probably like hour and you know, right around an hour, but man, there wasn't much breaks. It was high intensity. You know, we got the music on, we're encouraging each other. it was completely different experience.

than just going to the gym and working out. Three of the best, for those two, two of the best, him and his younger brother, Keon, some of the best athletes I've ever been around. So you're dealing, and in that environment, you're dealing with nothing but the best. And to do that was an amazing experience for me, especially someone who came from, yeah, I've been around the greats before.

But for me to do it in my own personal way and my own personal journey was a pretty epic moment for me. And I'll tell you a funny story afterwards. So we do that workout, go upstairs and eat, take a break, handle business, whatever. And then we do another workout later in the afternoon, which I painfully found out. But in between that, after the first one, we did these thing called 22s.

David (49:20.322)
And again, it's toe muscle failure. It's a lot of muscle endurance. You know, the weights, you didn't have to bench, you know, a million pounds, but you have that muscle endurance going now in the third and fourth quarter, man, we're still fresh when everybody's starting to get wore out. So we did that for a reason. But I remember after that, I couldn't lift my arms up to take a shower afterwards. So what does that mean? I couldn't get my shirt off.

Mark SMITH (49:35.967)
Mm -hmm.

Mark SMITH (49:41.663)
You

David (49:44.354)
So I'm sitting there like an idiot, like looking at my shirt, like I'm gonna get you off some kind of like, like it's an enemy or something. Like in my, so they went to, there was a sauna down there. They went that over there to lose some more weight. So I had two options.

Mark SMITH (49:49.287)
You

David (50:03.17)
sit there and try to figure out how I'm gonna get my shirt on off option one. Option two, which I never even considered, but that would be to walk in through that tunnel where all those great jerseys are hung up into the sauna room and asking like a freak, can one of you guys, two of the greatest ever, can one of you guys help me take my shirt off? How embarrassing.

Mark SMITH (50:31.387)
You

David (50:32.322)
like, man. So I just had to sit there, you know, with my shirt on, you know, I'd take a shower with my shirt on. My arms functioned, you know, finally after, you know, 10, 15 minutes or so, so I could take it off and do it. But that's the kind of workout that it was. And again, it was a new standard for me. I went there with that student mindset. This is, for me, this is going to be the first pancake because it's going to be ugly. I'm not going to be able to get my shirt off.

Christine Kawai (50:57.125)
Right?

Mark SMITH (51:00.543)
Yeah.

David (51:01.666)
We're going to throw this experience, you know, some of those memories out. But again, the next one, so much better. And I was prepared for it. so again, just lessons from grades, always open to no matter what business, you know, what profession you're in. I have so many other stories about, you know, business lessons, life lessons. But if you're open to that, you have that student mindset, continuous thing, you know, continuous, never ending self -improvement.

Mark SMITH (51:22.879)
yeah.

David (51:31.361)
That's when mastery comes in. To me, you're leading a great quality of life and you're able to give like we were talked about in the beginning, so much more.

Christine Kawai (51:39.269)
Yeah, I love that. And before we let you go today, one question that I love to ask, so let's say someone they listened, whether it was to you speaking, they checked out your YouTube channel, joined some of your master classes. If they kind of tuned in, tuned out a little bit once in a while, if there was just one thing that you hope they take away, what is that one kind of golden takeaway?

David (51:44.162)
Mm -hmm.

David (51:52.226)
Mm -hmm.

David (52:05.794)
The golden takeaway for me would be that I reconnected you with your personal power.

David (52:18.69)
We walk around sometimes forgetting all the things we've done, all the great things we've done, all the things we've overcome, the obstacles, the things in life, the accidents, the health scares, the deaths, all the things we've already overcome and the power that we have inside, people forget that. And they're walking around not the greatest version of themselves. They don't have that personal power.

that will allow them to achieve so much more. So when I can reconnect people with that, with that personal power, man, they're a whole, some people, a whole different person. They're walking out of, you know, my interactions, my teaching that again, it's not really me, it's coming through me from all the greats that came before me. When I can reconnect with that, I'm honoring the greats that came before me. I'm doing my job as a servant.

and they're getting elevated, which has a ripple effect into their life. So their personal power, if I could reconnect, recharge you, stick that iPhone charger back in. If I can recharge, get you connected back to that bigger purpose in life that we all have that I think we all should walk with more often than I've done my job.

Mark SMITH (53:39.967)
I love it. Wow. Well, David, thank you so much. I love hearing that. Right. Bringing out somebody's personal power, helping people with their inner voice. Right. We talk to ourselves so much. Let's make sure it's positive. We're doing the right things. If it's negative, what are we going to do? Throw it in the bag. Yeah.

David (53:47.458)
Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. How are you going to parent yourself in that? You know, this, I said this, but that's not really what I meant. You know, let's, let's change that vocabulary. Yeah.

Christine Kawai (54:02.597)
Yeah, whether you think you can or you think you can't, you are correct. Simple as that.

David (54:06.21)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Mark SMITH (54:07.007)
You got that right, well good. Well, with that, David, appreciate you, love the time. Again, give out the website, let people know what they can do on the website.

David (54:17.154)
Yeah. So davidholloway .com you'll find everything there inside the huddle. You'll find a link, a tab at the top. If that's something that you, if you want me to come in live and direct every single month like this, there's a coupon code I'll leave. So in this podcast, you're able to leave like descriptions in the link and stuff. So I'll, I'll, I'll leave one down there. So only make it a dollar for the first three months. So everybody has a dollar they can invest, to see if you like it.

Mark SMITH (54:34.815)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Christine Kawai (54:35.269)
Yep, definitely.

David (54:45.762)
I also have my socials there at DX Holloway if you want to follow me there on all my socials and YouTube hunting greatness. If you want free stuff, free motivation, free lessons that you can take use so you can get even more personal power, whether you're an athlete, non -athlete, you know, stay -at -home mom, dad, if you're learning a second language, it doesn't matter. There's going to be stuff there that you can take out into your life to get you to that next level.

not only a higher level, but you're doing it with more sanity, you're doing it with better health, you're doing it with more positive relationships intact, you're doing it so you enjoy the journey even more, you're walking with more personal.

Mark SMITH (55:29.727)
So good, so good. David, appreciate you. Big applause. Thanks for being here. Yeah, we'll catch you guys on the next one.

David (55:37.442)
Take care, guys.