0:56

Welcome to the thoughts and rants of a behavior

0:58

scientist show Hosted by

1:01

Wall Street Journal in USA Today

1:03

. Best-selling author , dr Pauley

1:05

. Okay

1:08

, welcome back to the thoughts and rants of behavior

1:10

scientists podcast . I'm your host , dr Pauley

1:12

, and I'm here with Brett Yaris . Yeah

1:14

, am I saying that , right , brett ?

1:16

Yeah , yaris , yep .

1:17

All right , good man Now . So let me , I have

1:19

to been in True , true transparency

1:21

, which I try to keep it as

1:23

real and honest as I can . I don't

1:26

know much about Brett . I saw

1:28

a post that he made on LinkedIn

1:30

and I noted

1:32

that he is doing some stuff with

1:34

ABA in NFL

1:36

and thought , oh man , there's actually Somebody

1:39

else that's in the

1:41

world of professional sports . That's

1:43

also behavior analyst , because I'm not . I am unaware

1:46

of other people and I'm guessing that they're , they're

1:48

somewhere doing something . I am personally

1:50

unaware of that . I know that the people are doing stuff in collegiate

1:53

sports and amateur sports and that kind of stuff , so

1:55

, but I'm sure that there are others out there like us

1:57

. I don't think it's very many , and I know

1:59

you . I'm guessing you

2:02

might be just like I

2:04

might be the only one that's been doing an MMA

2:06

, you might be the only one that's doing

2:08

in the NFL , and if there are more , you know

2:10

, hey , let's get you on as well . So when I saw that

2:12

, I'm like this is great , people need to hear

2:14

this and I want to find out more . And in another

2:17

side note , that is , there's a few people

2:19

that we clearly have in common . I

2:22

didn't even say your name . I said , hey , I'm gonna be

2:24

interviewing somebody

2:27

, break somebody about the NFL

2:29

and say your name and a couple

2:31

of my friends Right away . So

2:33

it was that bread . Yeah , it

2:37

was there . And I said , well , why should I introduce you

2:39

one of them's , dr Nick Green .

2:41

Yeah yeah , Nick Yep .

2:43

Yeah , nick's cool man . In fact , I need

2:45

to put a little plug here . I told him I do this morning

2:47

, because we are actually

2:49

speaking of this , we're

2:52

gonna be doing a webinar called the path less

2:54

taken a roadmap for behavior analysts seeking

2:57

new avenues . Unpack

2:59

our own journey on how we've ended

3:01

up in our passion Working

3:04

with the science . So I think you know

3:06

what we're gonna talk about with you today . It's gonna be a little bit

3:08

about that , like how you got into this stuff . So , anyways , welcome

3:11

. Welcome to the podcast , brother

3:13

. Glad to hear it . Have you on

3:15

, yeah not appreciate it .

3:17

I'm really excited , like you said , you know

3:19

it's , um , you know it with a

3:21

ba it's , it's rarefied air to

3:23

find people who have sort

3:25

of diverted from

3:28

the pipeline of special

3:30

education , pediatric service

3:32

, and I think you

3:34

know what . What makes me maybe

3:36

a little bit unique even in that

3:39

level , is that I haven't fully

3:41

moved away from special education or

3:43

pediatric service . You

3:46

know , that's obviously how I got my start , so I discovered

3:48

the science , but for

3:50

the last decade or so a little bit more than

3:52

that I've been working with professional

3:54

football players and

3:57

that has led to several things that I'm sure

3:59

we'll talk about as we , as we go on here . But

4:02

yeah , it's definitely a different avenue

4:04

and I always like to to say

4:06

this at the outset excuse me of

4:09

all the you know , the podcast that I do

4:11

or interviews that I do , and I

4:13

assume a lot of people who listen to you or BCBA

4:15

is right , like you know those four letters .

4:17

take their podcast yes .

4:19

Yeah , they're , they're the coveted four letters

4:21

of the field

4:23

. But I , as it stands right now

4:25

, and not a BCBA I Am

4:28

. I always say that I'm a behaviorist Because

4:31

I have foregone BCBA certification

4:34

and that's because of a you

4:36

know and I've talked to . I'm sure we have like Matt Sequoria

4:39

in common and this is something I've talked with Matt about

4:41

a lot on his show . You

4:43

know , I have just a very deep philosophical

4:45

difference with the way the board

4:48

Treats our field , treats our science

4:50

, and so I've chosen to

4:52

not , to continue , to

4:54

not continue with with board certification

4:56

. That's a personal decision , you know

4:58

, for me , but I want people to know that at the

5:00

outset because I know that Ethically

5:03

, referring to yourself as a BCBA when

5:05

you're not is not

5:07

good .

5:08

But I appreciate it , man . My passion is disseminating

5:10

the science , man . So the science is just there , whether

5:13

you're certified or not . That

5:15

sounds like it's a whole different discussion . Maybe you

5:17

know we could get on the podcast another time

5:19

. Talk about that . But were you trained

5:21

as a behavior analyst ? Did you go through formal

5:23

education ?

5:25

Yeah , but did all my course work at FIT , florida

5:28

Institute of Technology .

5:30

Yeah , good me too went through that .

5:31

I've been masters in special education and the only reason

5:34

I got my masters in special education Was so

5:36

that I could pursue a BA . I

5:38

had gotten a job my first job out

5:40

of college , and my bachelor's degree is in liberal

5:43

studies , which is like the adult version of undeclared

5:45

right . So , you

5:47

know , I I was just hoping

5:50

to coach football , like that's all I wanted to

5:52

do . I , my playing career was over . I

5:55

had played against future NFL

5:57

players in high school and by

6:00

playing against them , knew that the NFL was not

6:02

in my future , had

6:05

, you know , also some injury issues and stuff

6:07

, and so I just really wanted to coach

6:09

and I didn't really know what to do career-wise

6:12

. So when I got out of

6:14

college , you know , I applied for

6:16

a high school coaching job in Westchester , new

6:18

York , westchester County , where it's the county like

6:20

just north of New York City for those who are geographically

6:22

inclined , unlike myself and

6:25

so when I applied for

6:27

that job I got it

6:29

. You know , you can come be an assistant football

6:32

coach here for one of the teams , but

6:34

you have to do something else for the school . You

6:36

can't just be a football coach in Westchester

6:38

County , you have to do some other job

6:40

for the school that you're working in , and

6:42

so the only job they had available at this point

6:44

was a one-to-one aid position for

6:46

a child with autism , a middle school student and

6:48

I was like I

6:51

know anything about autism . I didn't know anything about

6:53

special education or education , but

6:56

all I knew the way it sounded , the way it was sold

6:59

to me was to follow this kid around

7:01

all day and then I can go coach football and

7:03

get paid for it . Oh , like this is the easiest

7:06

money I'm ever green back principal man yes

7:08

. So

7:11

, like you know , I'm thinking

7:13

this is gonna be easy , it's gonna be cake , you know . But

7:16

man , what a three weeks

7:18

in . I was ready to quit that three weeks

7:20

and I was ready to quit the job because I Clearly

7:23

did not have any type of training that was gonna

7:26

Help me . You know

7:28

this , this student and the students that were in

7:30

this self-contained program at the time

7:32

I've had a lot of aggressive behaviors that

7:34

I had never experienced in my life before and

7:37

there was just it was just a very volatile

7:40

situation that I just was like , wow , I'm not built

7:42

for this . And there was a BCBA

7:44

who was contracted with the school district , who

7:46

came in and and began to introduce

7:49

a BA to me . She was car boned train , so a little

7:51

bit more , little

7:53

bit different than I think , what we're used to

7:55

now when the way students

7:57

are trained now in a BA . But

7:59

it was fascinating to me because

8:01

I was employing some of these techniques and I was

8:03

finding success . I was going home less beaten

8:05

up at the end of the day and

8:07

I was like , okay , I think this is it , I think this

8:09

is what I want to do . And so I

8:12

looked up like how do you go into a BA

8:14

. How do you pursue that ? And

8:16

you need a degree in it or a related

8:19

field to pursue the coursework . And so I

8:21

chose to get a master's in special education For

8:24

the purposes of going through to that . So I

8:26

did that and , yeah , I got formally

8:28

, did all my coursework at FIT , did supervision

8:31

for a couple years after that , because I I actually

8:33

ended up Serendipitously

8:36

through the process , I became the teacher

8:39

in that classroom . That I was okay and

8:43

I had a couple philosophical

8:45

differences with the way the public school education

8:47

works for special education , and

8:50

so I thought I'd give my hand in the private field and

8:52

I worked at a private school for a couple years and

8:56

when that wasn't Fulfilling

8:58

what I thought was gonna be helpful , I

9:01

opened up my own , my own shop . And

9:05

this is actually a good segue into

9:07

football , because what

9:09

I ended up deciding and feeling was

9:12

that , in both the public and private sectors

9:14

for special education , probably

9:16

one of the most beneficial services

9:18

we could provide in those settings for individuals

9:21

with special needs was physical education

9:23

. Obviously , we know

9:25

the statistics about the the large

9:27

increase in sedentary behavior in that

9:29

population . We

9:31

know that there are multiples more

9:33

likely to develop chronic illness . That's preventable

9:35

In a society

9:37

that's already multiples above the rest of the world in development

9:40

chronic chronic illness . And I felt that

9:42

, you know , seeing how physical education was done for this population

9:45

, I was like man , this sucks , like we should be way

9:47

better . You know these kids come to gym class and we're just walking

9:49

in circles around the gym . Or

9:53

they're 18 years old and they're riding giant

9:55

tricycles and and not being taught anything

9:57

that's gonna help them when they're 40 , 45

10:01

50 years old , right like these lifelong active living skills . So I decided

10:03

that I was going to use a ba To

10:09

not just work with this population but treat

10:11

movement skills and movement patterns the

10:13

way we treat other behaviors and employ shaping and

10:15

conditioning techniques To

10:19

teach students how to not just develop fitness routines

10:21

but how to learn

10:23

exercises , do them safely , correctly

10:25

, but also make them less punishing , right and

10:27

love for you know conditioning getting

10:30

in shape and Working

10:34

out whatever you want to call it . Yeah

10:36

, absolutely . And so you know

10:38

, surely , into that endeavor , right

10:40

, that's called the behavior movement . That's the company

10:42

that I started . I

10:45

ran into a high school football

10:48

player , a senior who was

10:50

, who heard about what I was doing with special needs

10:52

kids but was , you

10:54

know , experiencing significant back pain and

10:56

knew that I had a background in football . So

10:58

he asked if I could watch him do a workout and

11:01

see if I could assess any movement

11:03

pattern deficiencies , deficiencies he was

11:05

having . And long

11:07

story short , because I've been talking already for

11:09

a while , that

11:11

student ended up becoming a premier

11:13

college football player who

11:15

introduced me because of the development

11:17

in his football technique that we worked on

11:20

, introduced me to his teammates , all

11:22

of which got drafted into the NFL . Then

11:24

word about me spread to their NFL teammates

11:26

and that's how I got my

11:28

foot in working with a lot

11:30

of NFL players over the last decade .

11:33

Okay , well , I actually want to talk to you all fair about

11:35

a couple of things too , because it's got my mind

11:37

spinning on this stuff in

11:39

a good way . So

11:41

it's interesting because our

11:44

stories mirror , nick's stories mirror , and

11:47

that is . A lot of people want to grab

11:49

a job in the thing that

11:51

they want to do with the science , but

11:54

just a lot of people have not pioneered this

11:56

stuff yet . But the great thing is that's the science of behavior

11:58

. So anywhere somebody's

12:00

behaving we can insert

12:03

ourselves . But just like myself , you

12:06

had to still have a job

12:08

, a day job , and do things afterwards

12:11

Like it's really unavoidable , I

12:13

think , until the

12:15

science is just common language , where

12:17

people recognize the worth of it and people

12:20

are being hired as NFL

12:22

behavior analysts etc . Etc . Whatever

12:24

industry that we're focused

12:29

on . But it

12:32

just has to be the way it is and it makes

12:34

long days . But I think the good news

12:36

about is that that second half of your day

12:39

you're in your passion . That's

12:41

why I mentioned the pre-mech principle earlier . This

12:43

is your big reinforcer here and it's going

12:45

to lead to hopefully invest , you do

12:47

it right , you produce a valued outcome

12:49

and look what happens . A lot

12:51

of people are like and I was like this at first thing

12:54

well , nobody's listening to me , but you

12:56

have to get them in touch with reinforcement bottom

12:59

line . So you've got to get them to behave well

14:04

enough and long enough where they produce

14:06

some sort of reinforcement . In my new book

14:09

I call that the leading hat rights and establishing

14:11

operation . Right , you've got to create a want . We

14:13

get the behavior moving . And then there are

14:15

different hats . We got to put on the training hat , the

14:17

coaching hat , the managing hat

14:19

, all in service of getting people

14:21

to behave well enough and long enough . That's producing some

14:24

sort of positive reinforcement for them . So that's

14:26

going to take over . But you are also being paired

14:28

with that positive reinforcement because clearly

14:30

you were , you helped one . You

14:33

spread the word like check out this dude Brett

14:35

making a difference in me , and like , look

14:37

, we don't know how that's like real dissemination

14:39

If they start applying those principles

14:42

within their

14:44

own camp , their own training regiments

14:46

, understanding their own behavior a little bit more , putting

14:49

on the behavioral lens of the things that they're doing . That's

14:52

very powerful , man . But

14:54

I got to think it was still . It's still

14:56

tiring in the moment right , when you're working all day and doing

14:58

stuff afterwards .

15:00

Yeah , it's

15:04

a good point . Tiring is such a good word

15:06

because there's a lot of

15:09

modes that getting tired

15:11

takes throughout this process . Right , there's that physical

15:13

exhaustion of pushing yourself for

15:16

a lot of hours in a day , especially

15:18

applying the science in a

15:20

physical way , right , with movement , technique

15:22

, things of that sort . But

15:24

then there's that mental drain . It's

15:27

the . You mentioned this , you know , when you were speaking before , when

15:29

you said you know there are people

15:31

out there , they're just not listening to me , right

15:33

, that constant rejection

15:35

is , you know it may not be real rejection

15:38

, right , it may be perceived rejection , right

15:40

, we're not getting the immediate results and

15:42

so we perceive like it's being rejected , when

15:45

really it's just you're laying the foundation , right

15:47

, the bright lights right around the corner there

15:49

. Yeah , I keep pushing through that . But

15:52

yeah , it's tiring because

15:54

those are , you're trying

15:56

to do something that no one else is doing , and

15:58

when you're doing that , you're trying to

16:00

change preconceived notions

16:02

. And what you're

16:05

really trying to do is you're trying to change

16:07

established behavior in somebody

16:09

else , right , when somebody has , especially

16:12

in a field that doesn't isn't familiar

16:14

with our science , right , so

16:16

when you're pushing into football , they've

16:19

been doing things the same way for a century

16:21

, right , there's 100 years of

16:23

established behavior that you're not going to

16:25

change overnight . And if you understand

16:27

that , you go into the process

16:30

with that understanding , then it

16:32

becomes a little less daunting because you

16:34

realize that every little I

16:37

say this a lot to my clients , and I

16:39

say this when I give talks

16:41

that the goal for us is never

16:43

perfection . Right , perfection

16:45

in this case is like overnight people

16:47

go , wow , aba is the only way we should be

16:50

doing things , and then we're going to completely

16:52

move to this . Now , right , that's perfection

16:54

. Perfection is unattainable . It's not a thing

16:56

that you're going to get . The goal should

16:58

always be progress . And if you

17:00

are so prideful

17:03

that an inch of progress

17:05

isn't enough for you because you're chasing

17:08

a mile of progress , well

17:10

then you're going to miss out on what it takes to get

17:12

to the mile . It takes an inch . You got to go an inch

17:14

With shaping , that's it . That's

17:16

it .

17:16

It's shaping If you look at that . I agree

17:19

with that 100% . I'd like to

17:21

say that you know , science doesn't give us all the

17:23

answers , but it helps us to find the best ones . Yeah

17:25

, and so you know . This is why it just

17:27

it's so powerful . We should keep our lands on

17:30

. You know one of the things

17:32

that I address , I have one of my books . It's called Quick

17:34

Wins . I wrote it with Anika Kosser

17:36

our second edition and it's about that very thing

17:38

. It's about initiating change

17:40

and getting people in touch with some sort of

17:42

of reinforcement . Organizationally

17:44

, right , it's like an organizational but

17:47

behavioral momentum , if you were . You have to get

17:49

people in touch with some sort of reinforcement

17:51

and that initially is probably going to mean establishing

17:53

yourself as a reinforcer . So you're

17:56

an EO . You know what I mean . Like , hey , just

17:58

give this a try , man , you know , find that one

18:01

thing you know

18:03

in the fight game , you know it would

18:05

be like it's you know , the

18:07

guy lands his punch a little bit more or

18:09

he gets hit less . Right , I want it to be . You know it's positive

18:11

reinforcement . But that's setting up the positive reinforcement , because

18:14

you know you're getting off your strikes by getting

18:16

hit less . It feels better . Hey

18:19

, you know there's all these positive things that

18:21

come with it , but we do have to get people

18:23

in touch with it . Stop talking

18:25

about the science and all the great things they can

18:27

do , make it happen , you know , but

18:29

find something small because , to your

18:32

point , you're not going to make these big changes . You

18:34

know it's like , you know it's behavioral chaining

18:36

, you know , and it's it's , it's shaping , and you

18:38

know there are a bunch of small things . But if you highlight

18:41

that path to begin with

18:43

and it becomes predictable and people know they're

18:45

moving towards that end result , there's

18:47

these series of accomplishments that occurs and those

18:49

serve as reinforcers to

18:52

a larger goal . And when they understand the

18:54

path , if you've done a great job of explaining

18:56

it , highlighting it , and they're beginning

18:58

to reflect on what they're doing , they're seeing that producing

19:00

outcome that's going to take over man . That's

19:02

when it's going to . You know , make all the difference in any

19:05

field at all . I mean , still

19:07

, the basic principles of

19:09

behavior analysis are still at the root

19:11

of it . It's the DNA of it . It's

19:13

the DNA of . I mean , I think

19:16

you are working directly with , with

19:19

players , correct ? Am I correct

19:21

in saying that ?

19:22

Yeah , yeah . So I mean there's I mean I do , I

19:25

do a lot there's

19:27

. There's the players aspect and I and you

19:29

know , as a spec roll , we'll spend a lot of time on that

19:31

. But you know , five years ago I

19:33

co-founded a media company and

19:36

my value add to to my , the

19:38

partnership group there was was

19:41

bringing this experience , not just the

19:43

experience of behavior science , but

19:45

I was the only one who worked with NFL

19:47

players . I knew what they cared about , I knew what

19:49

motivated them , I knew what got them

19:52

to pay attention to media , what they needed

19:54

reinforcers . Exactly

19:56

, and so you know , we built that

19:58

to one of the bigger football media companies

20:00

out there until it was purchased by an even

20:02

bigger fish . And

20:05

you know , now I have football behavior

20:07

, which is the brand that I'm doing now , which is

20:09

an analytics company that are analytics

20:11

based solely on ABA

20:14

, precision , teaching , standard , acceleration

20:16

, charting , and

20:18

that's making you know some headway . So you

20:20

know , the long answer is I am

20:22

really trying to push this into

20:24

all areas of football , not just

20:27

direct technique training . But

20:29

yes , the beginning of that was working

20:31

with players , finding

20:33

success with that and then lending

20:35

that success to new areas .

20:37

Yeah , well , I was thinking . The reason

20:39

why because I want to hear more about your company , what you're doing with

20:41

the analytics there and the precision teaching

20:44

and the predictive stuff is

20:47

that when you start working with coaches

20:49

now you , now we got our OBM

20:51

lens on and we're

20:53

really disseminating the science and these principles and now

20:55

we get massive changes across

20:58

an entire team , especially if we start

21:00

kind of going up the chart right up to leadership

21:03

. You know , you know I think

21:05

about these skills again , these four hats and how

21:08

, like , every person needs

21:10

to be wearing these different four hats . If you are trying

21:12

to improve the performance of anybody at any

21:14

level , whether you're the CEO of the company or

21:16

whatever it's called in the NFL

21:19

, going down to you know the

21:21

each level of the coaches , they're

21:23

still . You're still trying to get

21:25

the best out of the people you're supporting , and so

21:28

this requires understanding how to wear these different

21:30

, these four hats , and they're these four hats are response

21:32

, functional response classes , and

21:35

it's all grounded in , you know , the four term contingency

21:37

. It's everything that we do . So our science

21:39

can just be used at the molecular

21:41

level and the molar level . Man , we could

21:43

do self individually , we could shape up that

21:46

nuance , as you very well know , at

21:48

this level of sports and professional sports , it's

21:50

the nuance . It's that small

21:52

behavior , it's that slight pivot with the back foot

21:54

, it's the elbow being just so here

21:56

instead of there . All these small

21:59

changes have massive

22:01

impact at when you are functioning

22:03

at this level . I mean , you think about sprinters . You know

22:05

, if they shave off a tenth of a second , that's

22:08

the difference between winning and losing . You know , people are like a tenth

22:10

of a second , that's nothing , that's huge . And sprinting , you

22:12

know .

22:12

I mean it's the . That's the same measurement in

22:14

the NFL , a tenth of a second . I mean , the first player

22:17

I was working with was an offensive lineman , the high

22:19

school player who went to the NFL when we

22:21

began to work his technique . You

22:23

know he was going to go to TCU , texas

22:25

Christian University , at the time of

22:27

a big , big 12 , you know top big 12

22:29

school and you

22:32

know , looking at his high school tape

22:34

, I noticed that when he was

22:36

getting out of his dancing for the

22:38

uninitiated in football

22:40

you're missing out on the greatest game

22:42

that this country offers . But for the

22:44

uninitiated in football , the

22:47

the offensive tackle is is on

22:49

the end of the offensive line . Who protects

22:51

the quarterback ? Right , he's stopping the quarterback from

22:53

getting sacked , getting hit and all of those things

22:55

. And when he's , you know he's got to move backwards

22:58

, while there are 250

23:00

to 280 pound men running

23:02

through him , running forwards right

23:04

. And I noticed in his tape when

23:06

he was trying to get out of his stance backwards , he

23:09

was popping up vertically , then

23:11

coming back on a lateral plane

23:13

right . And so what we did is we shaped

23:15

that vertical pop up out of his

23:17

stance and TCU wanted

23:20

to redshirt him right , they wanted him to basically

23:22

sit on the bench for a year and develop

23:25

. But we worked all that offseason on

23:27

refining his technique because they thought he was too raw

23:29

, right ? So we refine his technique that entire offseason

23:32

and when he showed up , by the way , this is you working

23:34

.

23:34

Are you working just for free with him Because

23:36

you love for passion of the game ?

23:38

At this point .

23:39

Yes , it was . I just want people to hear this

23:41

like it requires an investment At this point .

23:42

it was free , it was a yeah , it was a time investment

23:45

, but it was something I just . I

23:47

felt that there was a , if

23:49

this worked right , if I pulled

23:52

this off , then I thought

23:54

, man , there is a huge opportunity

23:56

here and this is going to be my life , this is going to be my

23:58

lab right , you have a vision . And

24:01

so he he

24:03

ends up showing up to campus as a true freshman

24:06

at TCU , and his technique had

24:08

changed so dramatically that

24:10

they decided not to redshirt him . And

24:12

he was actually going to be what's called the swing tackle

24:14

, which is , if any

24:17

of the tackles go down the starters

24:19

he's the first one off the bench , regardless of

24:21

what side it is , and that was a big

24:23

thing . Then he he comes home

24:26

after his freshman year and

24:28

we do more work even more talk about a major

24:30

reinforcer for yeah . So

24:32

he's now . He's motivated , right . He wants to come

24:34

back and get this work in . So we

24:36

do all this work and he goes back

24:39

as a sophomore and all of a sudden

24:41

he is beating

24:43

these junior and senior defensive

24:45

linemen who were killing him the year before in practice

24:48

, right , and these are guys , by the way , who end up getting

24:50

drafted in the NFL . Ben Banagu gets

24:53

drafted to the Indianapolis Colts , lj

24:55

Collier gets drafted first round to the Seattle

24:57

Seahawks . So these are guys , these are , these

24:59

are real dudes . He's going against the TCU in

25:01

practice . And again

25:04

, speaking about reinforcers , because they're

25:06

now getting beat by a guy they were killing

25:08

Ben and LJ said to say to him

25:10

they go hey , what did you do in

25:13

this ? Why are you so much better ? Like what's going on here

25:15

? And he tells them he goes hey , I work with this guy

25:17

, he's got this different approach to how

25:19

, how we train technique and boom

25:21

, those guys jump on board , right

25:23

. So it's a reinforcer for them , even

25:25

though they're not directly experiencing

25:28

you know , they're not directly

25:30

experiencing the the change

25:32

in their own behavior .

25:34

Well , teo for them . They want , they're going to want to do , but

25:36

they're seeing this guy doing like let me jump on it .

25:38

Exactly so . And then it just

25:41

, it just rolled from there . They got drafted , you

25:43

know , they told their agents about me , their agents told

25:45

their other clients about me and

25:47

it just snowballed , you know , from there

25:49

. And that same tackle , just to

25:51

put a pin on this , this particular

25:53

you know story , this case , what

25:56

I was , what I became most known for . And

25:58

you , you talk about speaking with the coaches and working

26:00

with the coaches , because you also got to establish for them

26:03

. Right , because , like a team like the Kansas

26:05

City Chiefs , who this guy ended up getting drafted

26:07

to and playing for , who plays for them now

26:09

, the Kansas City

26:11

Chiefs , they have a way of doing things . Everyone's

26:14

got to remember that . Right , the NFL is not

26:16

a singular universe . It's a multiverse

26:19

of madness of 32

26:21

teams . And each coach has their own

26:23

way of teaching . Even if it's offensive

26:25

line play , their offensive line guy does it

26:27

this way , where the New York Giants

26:29

do it in a different way , and so I

26:31

got to work with that coach and make sure that coach

26:33

trusts that I'm going to

26:35

make you know this guy , the best

26:37

Kansas City Chief that there is . So

26:40

, COVID happens in 2020

26:43

. This happens to be the year

26:45

he gets drafted . This Lucas

26:47

Nyang , by the way , is his name , for I

26:49

know I keep saying this guy , Lucas Nyang is his name . He

26:52

gets drafted in a TCU in 2020 , the

26:54

year of the pandemic right , and

26:57

everything gets put on hold and the NFL

26:59

offers players the ability to opt

27:01

out for that year . They won't

27:03

lose a year of their contract

27:05

and all these things , but they don't have to play

27:08

for that year until everyone

27:10

feels safe . And Lucas opted

27:13

out . He decided to opt out his rookie year , taking

27:16

a big risk . He gets drafted to the Kansas City Chiefs

27:18

. This is the year immediately

27:20

following them being in the Super Bowl and

27:22

losing to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because

27:24

the offensive line is not playing well right

27:27

. So , like he's poised

27:29

to go make a big difference and he decides

27:31

to opt out , and he made that decision

27:33

. At the time a study in

27:36

the Big 10 had come out that offensive

27:39

linemen in the Big 10 teams were

27:41

suffering heart complications from COVID . To

27:45

be clear , not the vaccine COVID . They

27:47

were suffering heart complications from COVID and

27:49

this is very early in the pandemic . And

27:52

so Lucas , being in that playing an offensive

27:54

line position having a

27:57

pre medical condition , decides

27:59

it's not worth the risk right now . He wants to opt out

28:01

till better safeguards are in place . So

28:04

for an entire calendar year

28:06

I'm the only person

28:09

who worked with him .

28:10

Oh my . We were talking

28:12

about isolating a variable .

28:14

Yeah , we . I worked with the

28:16

Kansas City Chiefs coaches to understand . I want to

28:18

know their practice schedule because we were going to keep to

28:20

that schedule . Okay , I wanted to recreate

28:23

the environment as best I could for him , but

28:25

we worked that entire year and

28:28

he shows up the next year . Now

28:30

he gets drafted , takes an entire year

28:32

off , shows up the next year

28:34

and he's the starting right tackle on a Super

28:36

Bowl team . Okay , I'm

28:39

telling you , unfortunately , until he gets hurt . He ruptured

28:41

his patellar tendon late in that season . But

28:44

the point is is that that is the thing

28:46

that really kind of pushed forward when

28:48

we talked about reinforcers , coaches

28:50

and players and agency that this guy takes

28:52

a whole year away from the NFL and

28:55

then shows back up to become a

28:57

starter on

28:59

a Super Bowl team . They go

29:01

how did you do that ? Oh , I was with this

29:03

guy who uses behavior science to

29:05

train me and that's why I was able to maintain

29:08

a lot of this stuff that we worked on . So

29:10

that was a big deal and there's a whole . You know we did a YouTube

29:12

series on it , by the way , you

29:14

can see a lot of the work I did with him on YouTube .

29:16

Yeah , make sure , when we're done , just for

29:18

listeners , send me those links

29:21

and anything that you have and I'll make sure I drop

29:23

in the show notes . So I want to go back

29:25

in two things . One is that some

29:27

people would think , well , I'm not an expert

29:30

in football

29:32

. Right Now I've actually

29:35

gone out and spoken to people

29:37

lacrosse coaches . I've

29:39

just got done speaking , doing a

29:41

. I do . I do keynotes and talks

29:44

everywhere to financial

29:46

advisors . I know nothing about either

29:48

, but I do know the science

29:50

of human behavior , and so , as

29:53

a behavior analyst , you don't always have to be a content

29:55

expert . You

29:58

find out what results they want and

30:00

what behaviors are supposed to be being engaged

30:02

, and then you can help them get more

30:04

of these behaviors over here and less of those

30:06

behaviors over there . So I want to make it clear

30:09

that you don't have to be a football expert to

30:11

make a difference . But it sounds like you

30:13

also had that content knowledge . You

30:15

had an expertise in that , so you could actually help

30:17

to shape this guy's behavior up based

30:20

on what you knew he should be doing versus

30:23

what he should be doing . Am I correct in saying that ?

30:25

I would . I would say I mean , yeah

30:27

, absolutely on the right , the right path there , but I

30:29

would say I didn't have content knowledge

30:31

at that time . I had content

30:33

passion , but I loved football . Right

30:36

, I was a big fan of the game . I

30:38

played it at a high school level

30:40

, which is in no way preparation for understanding

30:42

the nfl style of play , um

30:45

, but I wouldn't say that I was

30:47

an expert at it , to your point . Right , I

30:49

also coached lacrosse and played lacrosse . I would

30:51

not consider myself a lacrosse expert

30:53

, um , but when

30:56

this , this particular player

30:58

, got in front of me at that time , um

31:00

, it wasn't even football that I was helping him with , it

31:02

was how to do squats better , so he didn't have

31:04

back pain . Uh , right , it just

31:06

the the . To your point , they

31:09

bring your , your clients , your

31:11

, your audience , if you want to call them

31:13

that . I I hate the word client , by the way , I know

31:15

I . I think I'm weird in that way . They just

31:17

seem so .

31:18

I say learner , the learner yeah learner

31:21

.

31:21

I love that right , so you

31:23

know they're gonna bring their

31:25

challenges to you . That's

31:27

when you begin to investigate . That's when

31:30

you start to become , or want to become

31:32

, an expert in their challenge . I

31:34

didn't become an nfl expert , I

31:36

would say now , working with different players

31:38

at different positions on different teams . Um

31:41

, and then what I've done in the last five or

31:43

six years in the , in the football , the

31:45

larger football landscape , in the , in

31:47

the media space . I'm much more

31:49

of a football expert than

31:52

I was when I started , but what I was

31:54

an expert in when I started was

31:56

Lucas Nyang's problems .

31:58

That's what I became well said man , well said

32:00

, and that's what . That's the beauty of behavior

32:02

analysis . If I go into an organization

32:04

or at school , they have , they have their own problems

32:07

and there's a reason for those problems

32:09

and although they might have some similar

32:11

Reasons , you know some similar

32:13

root causes . Um , we still have

32:15

to refine the intervention based on what

32:18

the needs of that organization are , the needs of that team

32:20

, and it's still boiling down to the

32:22

behaviors of the individuals to figure out what

32:24

the pivotal behaviors are that we can work on , behaviors

32:26

that are going to get them in touch with their reinforcers

32:28

. That becomes really critical . So

32:31

, uh , it's powerful . You said that . I will also say

32:33

that , as a , as a boxing

32:35

coach , as a mixed martial arts striking coach

32:37

and specialist , um , I

32:39

evolved , of course , uh , my

32:42

, um , my approach to coaching and

32:44

what I was focusing on . But I studied , I went

32:46

back and studied like Mike Tyson

32:48

style and a very homestyle

32:51

and Muhammad Ali and and different

32:53

, you know , because I focused on the striking . I figured out

32:55

those nuances , because it just comes down to behavior

32:57

, and then I tried them out myself . You

32:59

know , um , testing them out in the cajun

33:01

ring . I took some extra beatings because of that , because

33:03

they weren't actually Pardon me , but I figured out

33:06

what was working and I was able to Train

33:08

people based on their genetic makeup , for example

33:10

, like the short guys . Hey , this is gonna this

33:12

is gonna get you in touch with more reinforcers . You know , then

33:15

, doing it this way because this is better for long guys , it'd

33:17

be like , you know , you train in the center different

33:19

than you're gonna be training the linebacker . You know

33:21

, I don't know what's that . Yeah , so

33:23

, uh , so I'm wondering I , without

33:26

going into too much detail , because for me A

33:29

lot of people think , oh well , you know there's , we

33:31

got clickers out , we're doing all this . I use just

33:33

the basic behavior principles , uh

33:36

, and I wish I had metrics for everything

33:38

. I had some metrics that I use , but there's

33:40

stuff with biofeedback that were important . Um

33:43

, I'm probably the height of what I did was with a

33:45

with a good friend of mine , dr Alex

33:47

admins , where we broke down Every

33:50

round into 10 second intervals and

33:52

, uh , I had the fighter doing a

33:54

certain combination and , man , I got so

33:56

much biofeedback on it . I could see the

33:59

combinations that were taxing him more

34:01

than others , right , so this would be the almost a measure of fluency

34:03

, like they're all say , five

34:05

punch combinations . But why is this one Is

34:08

heart rate elevating here based ? The other one we

34:10

could see , I could see how much movement he was doing . It's

34:12

such a , how many times he was getting hit . We

34:15

count that he would do it to take a look at it

34:17

, count his own behaviors in a manner really Helped

34:20

. Um , but some of the stuff

34:22

is just like you know , I'm trying to help

34:24

them see contrast In doing it

34:26

this way versus that way . Right , they need to recognize

34:28

they're getting hit less . Now , having cold

34:30

hard data , it accelerates it big time

34:32

. I have my guys do film study

34:35

but it's not just looking at stuff . I

34:37

discriminate certain behaviors , I break

34:39

it down to those intervals and I have it score themselves

34:41

. And I've had guys who have been like there's

34:43

certain things like in the fight game I

34:45

say , keep your hands up . Well , not necessarily

34:48

, look at Muhammad Ali , roy Jones Jr . You

34:50

know the james tony lair

34:52

homes . There's a number of fighters that

34:55

kept their hands down and

34:57

they use distance as they're built in defense . So

34:59

but if you've been to your point conditioned

35:02

to think about I always have to have my hands up . I

35:04

need for my fighter to recognize the difference

35:06

. So I'd have him count how many times

35:09

he was hit with his hands were up versus

35:11

how many times he was hit when his hands were in the

35:13

position I want to , and I had been

35:15

telling him for a year to change it . When

35:17

I had him study the video and did the interval , it

35:19

changed on a dime . So the

35:21

power of getting some sort of graphic feedback

35:24

, some visual analysis , having them recognize

35:26

A and b right

35:28

, very , very powerful . But I'm wondering what

35:30

are a couple of the key things , without going into too

35:32

much detail , man , because I really want to go on to your next , you

35:35

know your next venture and hear about that , but what are

35:37

the couple key things that you've done

35:39

with Working directly with the

35:41

athlete that are kind of grounded in some of the behavior

35:43

principles ?

35:45

Yeah . So a lot of um

35:47

. What I've tried to do is is try

35:49

to best replicate the environment

35:52

that I know they're going to be in

35:54

either on a practice or a sunday

35:56

, and I will say I have the benefit

35:59

of , or had the benefit of Of

36:01

age . I'm still relatively

36:03

young where I'm holding man . Uh

36:05

, right now I'm 34 .

36:06

Okay , look good , dude , you got a baby

36:09

. Face man .

36:10

I shame for you . So

36:13

the uh , but you know I , so

36:15

I I actually put myself a lot

36:17

in the drills because you talk a lot

36:19

about the , the bio feedback

36:21

, right , or the physiological response

36:24

and and in contact

36:26

sports , collision sports like football , I'm

36:29

combat sports like MMA and boxing

36:31

Um , what they feel is going

36:33

to be Really reinforcing

36:35

compared to what you tell them right , and

36:37

I would say and you illustrated this , I

36:39

think , beautifully is like it's what they feel , then

36:42

what they see Right , whether it's in

36:44

film , study or wherever else and then

36:46

what you tell them right , and hopefully , what

36:48

they feel and what they see marries to what you've been

36:50

telling them , and that's where you get this great Synergy

36:53

. But you'll see it , if you watch that youtube

36:55

series , you'll see I'm in the drill , I'm a pass rusher . I'm

36:57

in the drill , I am going , I'm getting my ass

36:59

kicked , but I am in there , uh

37:02

, you know really , really pushing him

37:04

as a pass rusher , so he can feel the

37:06

difference between you know , hey

37:08

, I am going to use a swim move

37:10

on you , right , and then on this

37:12

next rep , I'm going to use a , a

37:14

spin move , and you got to feel

37:17

what that difference is . So you know how to react . You

37:19

know how to respond because that's what we worked on

37:21

a lot was latency

37:24

. Decreasing latency right , for I'm

37:27

sure everyone knows this if you're listening to this podcast

37:29

. But right , latency is that that , that time

37:31

difference between the stimulus appearing

37:34

and your response to it . Right

37:36

, and a lot in football . You need

37:38

that latency to be weighed down . You got to see

37:40

it and react instantly . We talked about the tenth

37:43

of a second being this , this big

37:45

differentiator . And so one of

37:47

the things I would do to work on latency

37:49

is I would do what's called a free for all

37:51

drill . We would . We would drill these

37:53

different . You know , uh , move

37:55

, pass , rush , moves , rip , swim

37:57

, spin , bull , all these different things

37:59

. And then I would say

38:01

, okay , we're gonna do a free for all . You have no idea what's

38:03

coming . I'm not gonna tell you

38:06

. We're gonna do five reps in a row . Each

38:08

one is gonna be different . It might be all five of the same thing

38:10

. You have no idea . It's a free generalization

38:12

folks . Absolutely . And

38:14

then what we would do is we would

38:16

look and say , okay , did he respond correctly

38:19

to the , to the move ? We would do it . This

38:21

is all , but all of a sudden , all on the youtube series

38:23

you can see , I'm not just , you know bs

38:25

, and you hear on this um . The

38:27

other thing I would do is I would physically

38:30

, I would add what what I would call

38:32

physical environmental changes , um

38:35

, beyond just myself being in the drill . So when we

38:37

worked getting up , uh , removing

38:39

that vertical pop-up from his stance

38:42

, I would put in , okay

38:44

, a Um , like I

38:46

would hold like a bar or a pad over his shoulder

38:48

and if that shoulder hit the pad immediately

38:51

we would stop and start the rep over um

38:54

. So a lot of environmental and

38:56

then shaping that right and then so the bag

38:58

would start out high and then I'd come a little bit lower

39:00

and come a little bit lower and shaping , I

39:02

would say , is like the biggest Technique

39:05

that we would use . I did a little bit of tag

39:07

teaching um a little bit , and

39:09

I probably Modified it to our

39:12

needs a little bit . Um , you know , using

39:14

a clicker or or an audio Sort

39:16

of cue as to whether or not a response was correct

39:19

or not , um , but what I would do is I would use

39:21

the whistle , because the whistle is something that

39:23

he hears a lot in the football environment . Right

39:25

, coaches , wraps , they all blow whistles to signal

39:27

the end or start of something . So I

39:29

tried my best to Really

39:31

focus on what the environment for him

39:33

was going to be like in the matters that

39:35

, in the moments that mattered for

39:37

his performance , and I tried my best

39:39

to replicate that In the sessions

39:42

that manipulated to our advantage . So not

39:44

just shaping his behavior but shaping the environment

39:47

To bring out what was going

39:49

to be the best , you know , performing for him

39:51

.

39:52

And I know the other guys that we work with . So I'm

39:54

going to come back to my hats now , and I have , uh , what

39:56

you did is very similar what I've done in MMA . I mean

39:58

, still , it's , of course , is going to be , if we've had success , it

40:01

was grounded in behavior principles . And

40:03

so , uh , using just the hat illustration

40:05

of these four hats , um , having the

40:07

leading hat on , you had to create a want for him

40:09

to want to engage in that stuff , right , uh

40:12

? And so , uh , I don't know , he might have been in

40:14

a state of deprivation for something he was losing

40:16

, you know . So there's already that . And he said , hey , we could do this

40:18

stuff , you're getting moved in the right direction

40:20

, but now you have to engage in the training hat . You

40:22

have to , you have to make sure that

40:24

you're equipping him with the right skills

40:26

Right , so he has a vision of what he wants to be

40:28

. Now you're building the skills right

40:30

, one skill at a time , whatever it is , breaking that

40:32

skill down to behavior . Here's

40:35

where the rubber meets the road and the lines with what , the

40:37

things that you're talking about , and I'm

40:39

proud that my colleague

40:42

, dr Nick Wedley , and I kind of coined this

40:44

functionally . So we go from

40:46

the training hat to the coaching hat . People forget about

40:48

this . They don't even differentiate this , right , but

40:51

within the science , we can differentiate it . Training

40:53

is about skill acquisition . Coaching is about supporting

40:55

a generation of learned skills

40:57

into the natural environment . Right , and

41:00

one of the most powerful ways you can do this is through

41:02

simulations . What you're talking about is simulations , and in my

41:04

world , simulations are sparring

41:06

, and this is what's often missing

41:08

in every industry . Right

41:10

, people are trained , they get theory

41:13

, they might even have good training , behavior skills training . My

41:16

fighter might look great outside

41:18

of the cage or ring . I drop in the ring . They're going to

41:20

take a beating because those responses got to become automatic

41:22

and I have to make sure I control

41:24

the variables that are being thrown at them and

41:27

make sure that I'm getting him in touch with her , in touch

41:29

with some sort of reinforcement , right . So

41:31

now they can respond to these dynamic variables and

41:33

I start to layer back in right

41:35

, I start to fade back in all the other variables

41:37

. So at first they're just slipping one jab

41:39

, right , and we're doing that . 30% and the 40%

41:41

and 50% . Pretty soon they're fluent

41:44

with slipping the jab . Now it's the two

41:46

, right , we're doing it with each punch , then I start

41:48

to make it the one , two , right , then it's the two , three

41:50

, and then we're starting to generalize all this stuff and

41:52

pretty soon they're able to slip these punches

41:54

effectively back . I got to make sure that they got

41:57

the body mechanics best and

41:59

then the final piece is

42:01

the managing hat that I call it , and this

42:03

is about maintenance . Right , so

42:06

we get these skills , we generalize them , but now we need these skills

42:08

to maintain , and this

42:10

is like we do it in your system , or training is , and this

42:12

is getting them to take , you know , evaluate

42:14

their own performance and see how well they're

42:16

doing versus . You know , here's what I should be doing

42:18

, here's what I was doing . Am I doing those

42:20

things and having a system for that happening ? So

42:23

it seems like we're engaging in a lot of the same

42:25

type of approaches . I think

42:27

in our own field , simulations , right of

42:29

behavior analysis , are missing way

42:32

too much theory . We need a theory because it's the science

42:34

, right . So I'm not knocking that piece of it , but

42:36

we need simulations and we need it through , probably like

42:38

gamification or some way where

42:40

people can take the concept of

42:42

positive reinforcement and

42:44

apply it to special needs . They can apply it in sports

42:46

, like somehow you and I weren't conditioned

42:49

to think about it this way . We're like I was surrounded

42:51

by a bunch of behavior analysts . I didn't go to . I

42:54

didn't go to the university at first . I ended up going back to

42:56

FIT many years later because

42:58

, god bless them , dr

43:00

Jose Martinez Diaz gave me a scholarship

43:02

back , and how can I refuse ? I took all

43:05

my coursework over and did it and

43:07

so , but I could see even going back through it , like

43:09

all the coursework are

43:11

. You're being provided examples that are about

43:14

you know , everything's at the mid-elect or level

43:16

. A lot of it's in special needs populations

43:18

, and so people aren't given the chance

43:20

to think about how you apply this in

43:23

other settings . I call it behavior myopia

43:25

, right , when we're only thinking about it here

43:27

and not thinking about like the principles are always the

43:29

same and so people are kind of stuck in the matrix

43:31

and I'd love to kind of break them out

43:33

Then in my discussion . I think

43:36

differently , which you are doing that

43:38

. But , by the way , how did you do that

43:40

? Why did you think differently than the average person

43:42

? I've got my own thoughts I just mentioned by . Like , what

43:44

got you out of thinking about just

43:46

using the science here where you could use it elsewhere

43:49

For me ? I just thought I didn't go read

43:51

research . I thought , wait a second , I'm a behavior

43:53

analyst and this is behavior . Let me start looking

43:55

at what I'm doing and why it's working and

43:58

then , when I start doing that , I also figure

44:00

out why some things weren't working . And

44:03

this is how I got came up with the concept

44:05

of the generalization skills and , like I got to put on my coaching

44:07

hat and create this environment so those skills

44:09

grow up and they can work in the real world when the real

44:11

fight comes .

44:13

Yeah , I would . I would say that along

44:15

the way there were maybe a couple

44:17

of things that pushed

44:19

me even further into it , where

44:22

maybe at the beginning I wasn't thinking

44:24

about sports I definitely wasn't thinking about sports but

44:27

a few things that were said

44:29

or taught in the course of the journey

44:31

. Right , we're like man

44:34

. What if I did this over here ? And

44:37

the first thing being the first

44:39

time I heard the definition of

44:41

behavior as everything a living

44:43

thing does , and

44:45

that stuck to me because I was like

44:47

, wow , a living thing . I'm

44:49

here because I'm working with these kids with autism

44:51

and that's why I'm trying

44:53

to learn the science a little bit better . But you

44:55

didn't say everything an autistic person

44:58

does . You said behaviors , everything a living

45:00

thing does , and that that stuck with me . So

45:02

that probably was the first like , even

45:05

subconsciously , just having me think

45:07

you know otherwise .

45:08

Just could be by anywhere .

45:10

Yeah . And then throughout the course of the , the , the

45:13

coursework I

45:15

, in the Cooper Herron book okay

45:17

, the white Bible there was

45:20

a a figure

45:22

about free throw fluency in

45:24

women's college basketball . In

45:27

fact it's the only non , non

45:30

pediatric or special needs example

45:32

in the entire book and

45:34

in a lot of the coursework that we were given . But

45:36

I was like , wow , this is sports , this

45:39

is cool , like this . This got to be something that

45:41

I could do this here , so that

45:44

the definition and then that chart

45:46

in that book was like

45:48

sort of the confirmation that

45:50

this can be done in other things . Now

45:52

I think a lot of it too has

45:54

to be your personality . I

45:56

. I believe that somewhere

45:59

along the way I was conditioned to be

46:01

rebellious . I left

46:03

the public school setting because you

46:06

know , as I mentioned , when I was a teacher , I

46:08

pushed for a little bit of funding for for

46:10

something , and I was told by the superintendent

46:13

we are fair and appropriate

46:15

, not optimal , and I said what does that

46:17

mean ? So we provide the floor , not

46:19

the ceiling . And I said I don't

46:21

know what . Can I curse on here ?

46:23

Yeah , go ahead , brother .

46:24

I said bullshit .

46:26

That's not that .

46:27

I cannot operate that way .

46:29

We are very similar .

46:30

Right , I go to the private school and

46:33

I see that there it's just like we charge an exorbitant

46:35

amount of money for tuition special

46:38

needs kids and we're going to babysit for

46:40

six hours and collect our money . And she's

46:42

like man , this shit , this system is so

46:44

broken it is so broken , brother . My initial thought

46:46

is to . I got to , I got to change

46:49

it , and so , and

46:51

by the way , to this day , I continue to work in

46:53

special education with special needs families . I do

46:55

a lot of advocacy .

46:57

Are you working in a district or you it's like

46:59

you work one . I have contracts .

47:00

I have contracts with districts .

47:02

Okay .

47:02

And then I have my own company where I work with with families

47:05

privately .

47:05

Yeah .

47:06

But I'll tell you that I I've lost district

47:08

contracts because I'm

47:10

just taking your values and because

47:13

I and here's the here's the cold hard truth

47:15

I am in a financial situation

47:17

now , at this point in my career

47:20

, where I could tell people to kick rocks

47:22

yeah .

47:22

Right .

47:23

You got to earn that .

47:24

You got to earn that in business , yeah , so

47:26

so it's nice , it's very empowering

47:28

, isn't to be there ?

47:30

It is yeah so . So

47:32

for me to , you know , to to figure out how can I move

47:34

this science in a different direction . It

47:36

started by moving it out of the

47:38

classroom and out

47:41

of , like the whatever you

47:43

know you mentioned in , in , in , in ABA

47:45

. You know that we put these kids across

47:48

from us and we do these little things that don't

47:50

really generalize the natural environment

47:52

. It started for me moving out

47:54

of the schools and focusing on movement

47:56

and exercise and active living . That

47:59

was my first point of diversion . Then

48:01

it extrapolated from there into

48:03

, specifically , football and

48:05

sports , with , you know , the

48:09

general population , and so , and

48:12

then , and then NFL players , right To where

48:14

we are now , and then everything that's come since . So

48:17

a lot of it has just been this gradual progression

48:19

. But it started with this idea

48:21

that behavior is about living things

48:23

regardless of diagnoses

48:26

that they have . That

48:28

was the very first thing , and then seeing

48:30

an example in

48:32

the litter of it not being applied

48:35

to special education was sort of the green

48:37

light to move forward , and that's that's

48:39

. You know how we got to where I'm at

48:41

now , very cool , man Again

48:44

.

48:44

Once again , some paths , similar

48:46

approaches , same thing . And I'm

48:48

actually do work in a . Besides the

48:50

work I do with professional crisis management association , my

48:53

colleague Anik and I do stuff OBM

48:55

and schools , you know , really focusing on a

48:57

district and the school level change there . We

49:00

actually have some stuff with different states

49:02

as well . We're doing some stuff with Hawaii

49:04

. I'm stoked , man , it's very cool to be able

49:06

to make those changes yet . But I

49:08

want to make the shift now , boy . Do

49:10

we have similar paths ? Although it looks topographically

49:12

different , functionally it's

49:14

the same . How

49:16

tell me about this whole

49:19

use of precision

49:21

teaching and the science for

49:23

doing , for predicting , I

49:26

guess , for predicting outcomes with it ? Is that what you're doing ?

49:28

Yeah now yeah . So

49:33

let me backtrack for a second and I promise

49:35

it leads to the end of the rainbow here

49:37

. In my work

49:39

with NFL players , I

49:42

began to implement

49:44

the concepts of precision teaching

49:46

. I began

49:48

to track data

49:51

in a way that was nonlinear for

49:53

the first time and

49:55

just was stunned by you

49:59

mentioned being able to show people the

50:01

results , right , the data and

50:04

was blown away by the data

50:06

I was able to provide people .

50:09

What kind of data are you tracking ?

50:15

So an example would be for

50:18

a pass rusher . We

50:21

were doing a drill where he

50:23

would have to not

50:27

to get two in the weeds . The pass rusher

50:29

has to go around the arc we call it . It's the

50:31

path they take to the quarterback and they want to shorten

50:33

that arc so that they can get to

50:35

where the quarterback is . They don't overshoot , and

50:39

so I would make the path really narrow

50:41

and I would make it really difficult and I would track

50:43

frequency of

50:46

being able to do that . But I would time

50:48

it Right . So I would say , okay , you have two

50:50

minutes to do this correctly as many times as you

50:52

can . And what we were

50:54

tracking simultaneously was

50:56

the precision

50:58

, the ability to do it correctly . But then

51:00

we were working on fatigue and fluency . How

51:03

often could he do it without getting tired ? Because

51:06

in the NFL you heard something called

51:08

the two-minute offense at the end of the half or the end of

51:10

the game . It's called the hurry up offense . There

51:12

is no break .

51:13

Well , and that's also something that can be tracked through biofeedback

51:16

. You can see what their heart rate is , how quickly they're

51:18

recovering what it was in

51:20

terms of in compared to the time they did it completed

51:23

the task , yeah .

51:25

So if I was able to show this pass rusher on day

51:27

one , hey , we do two-minute

51:29

intervals here and you're getting

51:31

about three per minute , three correct

51:34

responses per minute , or six in that total

51:36

drill , and at the end of a week you're

51:39

up to 15 in

51:41

the drill , or seven and a half per minute .

51:43

I think reinforce , or he's seeing his own progress

51:45

.

51:45

Yeah . And then I can say , hey , I can now

51:48

precisely not

51:50

to use a pun there , but I can now precisely

51:52

say you improved day

51:55

to day or interval to interval by X

51:57

amount of percent .

51:59

Which is very rare for a coach to be able to come in and do

52:01

that . Or , and also , they're only

52:03

looking at the long-term outcome Are we scoring touchdowns

52:05

? Are we doing this and that ? And we know , if

52:07

we pinpoint the right behaviors , eventually

52:10

we're going to get that pie in the sky outcome

52:12

that we're shooting for .

52:13

Exactly . And then I would start to track it simultaneously

52:16

against the competing behavior , right or behavior

52:18

we wanted to see decelerate or decrease

52:21

, and then being able

52:23

to use the overall improvement index and

52:25

go over that stuff . So that was

52:27

the start of implementing it into football

52:29

and into sports and be like , wow , this is great

52:31

. Then , shortly after

52:33

the formation of that media company it's called Pro

52:36

Football Network , by the way , I'm not affiliated

52:38

with it anymore . I sold my stake when we got acquired

52:40

, but my focus there was I

52:43

was working with these players and these

52:45

coaches and they all complained

52:48

about how there's more access to information

52:50

in football now than there's ever been for the fans . Yet

52:53

the fans are less informed about football

52:55

than they've ever been . What are you going

52:57

to do with all ?

52:57

of that . It looks good , the color graphs look great , but what's all

52:59

this stuff mean ?

53:01

And I think that's actually a larger societal issue . I

53:03

think that goes beyond football . But

53:06

the reality is that

53:09

there are companies and I'll tell you that . I'll name them . I

53:11

have no issue here , but Pro Football

53:13

Focus is a very famous data

53:15

analysis company for football and

53:18

they provide all these different things and the players

53:20

hate it because they're just

53:22

making stuff up . There's no way

53:24

Like there's grading , like they grade players

53:27

, and it's like how do you know what my coach

53:29

told me to do on this given play ?

53:31

Right , like you're saying , I did it wrong . What's the standard

53:33

we're shooting for ? How do you know ? I didn't do exactly

53:35

what my coach told me to do . And

53:37

you're saying it was a suboptimal .

53:40

And , by the way , this is like six years ago . I'm having these

53:42

thoughts in this conversation . Just recently

53:44

, jj Watt , one of the best defensive

53:46

players who's ever played football , came

53:48

out and called out Pro Football Focus and said

53:51

like guys , you guys , you don't know what you're doing and this

53:53

is public in Google , this is all over the place , you're

53:56

making stuff up and so that's

53:58

an opportunity right there . When something like that pops

54:00

up for you , yeah , so I start

54:02

to think about OK , what can we ? How

54:04

can I continue to build

54:07

on what I'm doing ? But now put it into

54:09

a bigger context a database

54:11

. A lot of the

54:13

problem is that these companies

54:16

, these media companies , these analysis companies , they're

54:18

trying to standardize what you see

54:20

on the field every Sunday . They treat every environment

54:23

, every team , every year

54:25

, every past season it's

54:27

all the same , and the reality is it's not

54:29

. The NFL is this and I

54:31

called it before it says multiverse of madness , and

54:35

we believe , as behaviorists , that the environment

54:37

is such a big role in how we behave . In the NFL , the

54:40

environment is completely changing . Last

54:43

year , a team , you know team A , had these players

54:45

with these coaches , and the

54:47

very next year , 40%

54:50

of those players are gone and they have a whole new coaching staff . How

54:53

could you reasonably say that those two environments

54:55

are the same ? They're not Right , and

54:58

so that's a big area of focus

55:00

for me is getting rid of that

55:02

concept . But to what

55:04

we said earlier this is

55:07

the way it's been done now for close to two decades

55:09

, and the fans have latched on

55:11

to this belief .

55:13

You know just pause there for a second , yeah , Just

55:16

because I was thinking about this like what could

55:18

make it stay similar is if they had really strong

55:21

two things values and

55:23

I'm going back to behaviors as values right Values

55:25

and systems . You know good systems . So you

55:27

have the coach , you hire the coach

55:29

that has aligned values and then , like events of offensive

55:32

coach that values these things . Okay

55:35

, you meet the values that are of this organization and here's

55:37

the system that we use to do it right , so their behaviors

55:40

are aligned with that system . Then you might be able to keep

55:42

things going in the right direction . But

55:45

to your point now you've got a whole , probably

55:47

because nobody's hiring based on that , you don't have a way to assess it . They

55:50

probably don't even know what their own systems are or how to make the connections

55:52

behaviorally , and so

55:54

it's restarting anew every year and

55:56

the best organizations are going to adapt . And

55:59

that's the beauty of behavioral principles Organizations

56:02

need to adapt or they die . You know , that's just like an organization and we don't

56:04

want to rely on natural selection . We

56:06

want to be able to pinpoint behaviors right . Yeah , absolutely

56:09

Not . Let them happen accidentally

56:11

through all these other things that can occur , like

56:15

injury and losing and etc . Etc . And that's not just the case

56:17

with the teams themselves .

56:19

That's the case with the sports media industry . They're

56:23

not adapting to what is actually meaningful and

56:25

relevant to the information they

56:27

should be giving to their audience . So

56:30

when I first jumped on Pro Football Network

56:32

, my goal was to bring a better education experience for

56:34

the audience . Parley

56:38

my experience , my direct

56:40

knowledge and work with these guys and say , hey well , you keep getting

56:43

, you keep getting fed over here . The actual

56:45

humans on the field don't give a shit about , they

56:48

don't care about it , it doesn't mean anything to them . So

56:50

what I wanted to do was change that experience for

56:52

the audience and

56:55

I think for the four years that

56:57

we built this company to your point that

57:01

you bring up really eloquently reinforcers

57:04

emerge that actually could divert your path and

57:08

over the four years Pro Football Network became

57:11

less about educating the way I wanted it

57:14

to and more about getting clicks for

57:16

ad revenue like every other media company . Because

57:19

what we learned early on is that's what was bringing in money

57:21

money being the audience With the shame because they don't

57:23

think about sustainability and like make it a win and win .

57:25

You know , take a little less at the beginning , right

57:27

, but now you've got the greatest thing in the

57:29

world and nothing else compares that , everything else

57:32

going to fall off , and that's how you get that sustainability Absolutely

57:35

.

57:37

And , you know , maybe your audience is

57:39

familiar with Ryan O'Donnell , the daily BA , but he is somebody

57:41

that I brought over to Pro

57:44

Football Network with me , and we had we

57:46

had this grand vision for what we were going

57:48

to do . In

57:50

fact , today , as it stands

57:52

, the most viewed content in Pro Football Network's history was put

57:56

together by myself and Ryan , and

57:59

so , after four

58:01

years and it became becoming

58:03

clear the direction that Pro Football

58:05

Network was going , as we were , you know , people

58:07

were coming to acquire us . I

58:10

could no longer be

58:12

okay , profiting

58:14

off of something I didn't really believe in , and

58:17

so this was an opportunity for me to kind

58:19

of get paid and do something

58:21

else , and so Pro Football

58:23

Network continues to exist . It's

58:26

now a subsidiary of another company

58:28

, and their focus and they're good at

58:30

it is to get as many clicks as they can , but

58:33

that's not , personally , something that I believe

58:35

in , and so what I've done now

58:37

is start my own shop

58:39

Football Behavior . Footballbehaviorcom

58:42

is the website , and we have a free newsletter , and

58:45

it's an analytics company , and

58:48

we are doing NFL analytics

58:50

better , and we start

58:52

with a very , very simple expression

58:55

Humans play football . Human

58:58

behavior is predictable . Thereby

59:01

, football behavior is predictable , and

59:03

so , using the principles

59:05

of ABA , precision , teaching

59:07

, standard , acceleration , charting I

59:10

have developed over 15 proprietary

59:13

metrics and a database

59:15

that allows me to make predictions

59:18

about team and group behavior . That's

59:20

a different environment for me , because

59:22

I've been focused so much on individual behavior all this

59:24

time , but for the last four

59:26

or five years I've really been moving towards group

59:28

behavior and predicting group outcomes , and

59:32

so that's what I've been doing a lot

59:34

of , and the model

59:36

and all the metrics have been public for

59:38

two years , though they've been backtested

59:41

six years beyond that , so eight years

59:43

in operation total .

59:44

Oh man , very cool , and

59:46

will you send me the link where people can find

59:48

more information about that for the show notes as well

59:50

, so they can take a look at the type of data

59:53

that you're

59:55

collecting and just dig into a little bit more ?

59:58

Yeah , I think what's important to have people

1:00:00

know , especially football fans who are familiar

1:00:02

with companies like Pro Football , focus and

1:00:05

ESPN and others , is when you

1:00:07

hear stats metrics like EPA

1:00:10

or Points Per Game or DVOA

1:00:12

. These are metrics that are

1:00:14

rooted in averages and standardization

1:00:17

and , just from

1:00:19

a basic statistics practice , right , anytime

1:00:22

you try to use an average and pull

1:00:24

it across multiple different environments but

1:00:27

use it as a standard average , that's

1:00:29

bad statistical practice , especially for prediction

1:00:31

. It amounts

1:00:33

to a 50-50 guess . It's

1:00:36

like the example of the divorce rate

1:00:38

, right , it almost says the divorce rate is 50%

1:00:40

. 50% of the barrage is going to end in divorce . Well

1:00:42

, that's not true if you look at environments

1:00:45

, right , because

1:00:47

in two people or college educated and

1:00:49

middle class or higher , they're likely

1:00:51

to stay married forever , right ? So

1:00:54

what I try to do in my

1:00:56

analytics is I bring the environmental

1:00:58

context back to it and

1:01:00

I don't make any assumptions . So there's

1:01:02

no player grading . I'm not going to pretend to know

1:01:04

what a certain player was coached to do . It's

1:01:08

all objective and it's all about what the

1:01:10

players and teams are

1:01:12

actually doing on the field that I can

1:01:14

observe and it just really gets back to

1:01:16

the principles and roots of behavior

1:01:18

science and applied behavior analysis

1:01:20

and then using that to

1:01:22

make predictions . And you know elite

1:01:24

sports betters want to be right 55% of

1:01:27

the time . We've hit on 68%

1:01:29

of our prediction .

1:01:30

That's incredible Wow .

1:01:33

January 9th , before the playoffs started , I

1:01:35

ran a simulation of

1:01:37

the playoffs , every playoff game all the way to the Super

1:01:39

Bowl . On January 9th , I told my newsletter

1:01:42

subscribers that the Kansas City Chiefs were

1:01:44

going to defeat the San

1:01:46

Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl and

1:01:49

that the Chiefs the point spread should

1:01:51

be about half a point , that they're very , very evenly

1:01:53

matched . Well , as it turned out , a month

1:01:55

over a month later , the Chiefs would beat the San Francisco

1:01:57

49ers in Super Bowl in a game that would go to overtime and

1:02:00

a game that ended in a tie after four quarters .

1:02:02

Well , now did we at that point did

1:02:05

that ? They weren't

1:02:07

the playoffs weren't done yet right ?

1:02:09

So we didn't even know they were going to be playoffs .

1:02:10

They hadn't even started yet no , that's amazing

1:02:12

man .

1:02:13

Yeah , so , and again , it's all . It

1:02:15

was all based on behavior

1:02:17

. It was all based on what not just

1:02:19

what they had done up to that point , but

1:02:22

, as any anyone who's familiar with precision teaching

1:02:24

will be able to talk about , it was about a lot

1:02:26

about their celebration rates Right , it

1:02:29

was . It was a lot about the way that their behavior

1:02:31

was trending over time . It

1:02:33

was a lot about their bounce rates , right , their consistency

1:02:35

, and at

1:02:37

the time I made that prediction , the Chiefs were plus

1:02:40

900 to win the Super

1:02:42

Bowl . So for anyone who's not familiar with sports betting

1:02:44

, they were not anywhere near being a favorite

1:02:46

, and if you bet $100 on

1:02:48

them to win Super Bowl , you'd get back 900 in

1:02:50

profit , right , so that's

1:02:53

like a . It was a long shot for them to win , but that's what

1:02:55

our behavior charting was showing

1:02:57

us .

1:02:58

But you got about 100 to get 900 , or has it been 900

1:03:00

to get 100 ?

1:03:01

Bet 100 to get 900 .

1:03:03

Okay .

1:03:03

That's how much of a long shot they were at that

1:03:06

point , january 9th , to win the Super

1:03:08

Bowl .

1:03:08

Okay .

1:03:09

So when we made that prediction

1:03:12

, a lot of people were like you're crazy , this is

1:03:14

a Chiefs down year . They're not good this

1:03:16

year , you know , the receivers suck and all

1:03:18

these different things . And I said , all of that might

1:03:20

be true in the way you look at statistics

1:03:23

, but what I'm telling you is the

1:03:25

way the behavior is tracking . This

1:03:27

is what I think is most likely to

1:03:30

happen and and

1:03:32

I have some stuff that that's coming out over

1:03:34

the next couple of weeks that

1:03:37

are the actual transparent

1:03:39

calculations and breakdowns

1:03:41

of our metrics so people can see the behavior science

1:03:43

involved . But what we really

1:03:45

try to focus on is moving away from this reliance

1:03:48

on averages . Okay , the

1:03:50

Miami Dolphins this year everyone kept talking about their offense and

1:03:53

how many points per game they averaged and all these

1:03:55

things , and I was like man . That hasn't been

1:03:57

true about them since week seven . If

1:03:59

you , if you watch their trajectory , they're

1:04:02

they're due for a collapse . We said the same

1:04:04

thing about the Philadelphia Eagles . We

1:04:06

said in August , before the season started

1:04:08

, the Eagles , who had just been in the Super Bowl , are

1:04:10

probably going to go through a severe regression

1:04:12

at some point this season because their entire environment

1:04:15

changed overnight . They lost their entire

1:04:17

coaching staff , except their head coach , new

1:04:19

coordinators , new systems , new players , that

1:04:22

they're probably going to see some regression from

1:04:24

that and then as the season went on , they were winning

1:04:26

games and people kept telling us , oh

1:04:29

look , they're winning . And we kept saying , yeah

1:04:31

, but their behavior is not matching their record

1:04:33

. Eventually it's going to come back to earth . They

1:04:36

lost five of their last six games that got bounced

1:04:38

in the first round of the playoffs . That

1:04:40

isn't to say that we have the foolproof

1:04:43

method and we can predict every outcome . You

1:04:45

can't make variables way too

1:04:47

many that and that we admittedly don't know

1:04:49

and we'll never know unless we work for these teams .

1:04:51

I'm getting 67 . That's huge .

1:04:53

I mean , that is a big , that is incredible man .

1:04:56

It sounds like I bet it's unheard of .

1:04:59

It's a big number A lot of people find a lot of

1:05:01

issue with , with like is that , are

1:05:03

you , is that really a liar ? Are you a liar

1:05:05

? And the great thing is I

1:05:07

published it all before the games are played and

1:05:10

in fact , every bet that , every

1:05:12

prediction we've ever made , every bet we've ever placed

1:05:14

, is all publicly available for people to go look at

1:05:16

. So the you

1:05:19

know you can't do this . You

1:05:21

can't be in the analytics or prediction business

1:05:23

and not be transparent . But

1:05:27

so we are . But I want to . I want to emphasize

1:05:29

that the sports betting is not the

1:05:31

goal here . The sports betting is a proof of

1:05:33

concept . It's how I can apply what

1:05:35

I'm doing to something tangible , a

1:05:38

reinforcer , if you will , for the audience

1:05:40

. Right ? What's most

1:05:42

interesting to me through this process

1:05:44

is what it actually means for teams

1:05:46

, what teams could do with

1:05:48

data like this . Right , if

1:05:51

we're showing , you

1:05:53

know , that a certain team is trending in a different

1:05:55

way , we might be able to say to a team hey , you

1:05:57

might want to change up the environment a little bit . You need to make

1:05:59

a change now before this gets out of control

1:06:01

, right , you know

1:06:03

? Or vice versa at the end of a season , you know a

1:06:05

coach , you know you might think a team underperformed

1:06:07

, but we say , hey , actually , from start to finish , this

1:06:10

team improved by 60% this season . Give this coach another

1:06:12

chance . They're

1:06:14

actually probably moving in the right direction . There's

1:06:16

a lot of implications for this data .

1:06:18

I can see being a coach and getting down to the

1:06:20

molecular level , being a coach of coaches

1:06:22

. So you have the offensive lineman coach

1:06:24

, you have the quarterback coach and when they understand these

1:06:27

principles , that can apply it . They can

1:06:29

start using good metrics to let

1:06:31

the you know , to know if they're on track

1:06:33

or not , and then shared and even getting

1:06:35

the having the

1:06:37

players begin to self monitor and report out

1:06:39

so they're recognizing their own behavior in the outcomes . Yeah

1:06:42

, man , the power of behavior science . Well

1:06:44

, brother , I think you know we got up to

1:06:46

just maybe a little bit of our hour here . Man , you

1:06:50

know , say again , I know I think you might have said it earlier

1:06:52

on where can people reach out to you ? I

1:06:55

know we're going to put stuff in the show notes , but they want to say

1:06:57

you know what ? Hey , brett , I want to find out more from you , man , what's

1:06:59

the best spot ?

1:07:01

Yeah . So the best , the best thing to do is to

1:07:03

go to football behaviorcom that's

1:07:05

. That's our website . All of our content

1:07:07

is there . All of our analytics are there . And

1:07:10

then there's where you can sign up for the newsletter

1:07:12

. Newsletter is free . It's 100% free . There

1:07:15

is a paid option , but that's up to you guys at the side

1:07:17

if you want to do that . But all of our content

1:07:19

is available for free in that

1:07:21

newsletter . You sign up there . When you sign up there

1:07:23

, you can also you know all my contact

1:07:25

information is there Send me an email . It's

1:07:28

be yaris at football behaviorcom

1:07:30

for those who just want to send

1:07:32

an email and ask more questions . But I

1:07:35

can talk about this stuff for eons . So

1:07:38

please feel free to reach out , ask questions . There's

1:07:41

nothing hidden here . There's nothing I'm trying to keep

1:07:43

behind a veil for any

1:07:45

type of sake . This has no value

1:07:47

If you guys the audience

1:07:50

don't see it as valuable . The

1:07:52

only way for you to do that is to know everything about

1:07:54

it , and I'm happy to always share that . So , like

1:07:57

I said , please visit football behaviorcom

1:07:59

for all that stuff .

1:08:00

Thanks , come on , brother , it's been fun . Man , I

1:08:03

love , love seeing people applying the science

1:08:05

outside of the norm . Great job .

1:08:07

Yeah , thank you .