[00:00:00] Joe Towne: Hey there I’m Joe Towne and this is The Better Podcast.

This is your first time here. Welcome if you’re joining us again, welcome back. And thanks so much for joining us each week. We’re going to explore the concept of better being better leads to doing better and how it impacts all areas of our lives. And I’m super excited for this one. Today. I’ll be chatting with Yogi Roth, who is Yogi first and foremost.

Yogi Roth is a storyteller, no matter the medium of which there are many college football. Emmy award-winning filmmaker, New York times bestselling author. He’s written multiple books, even on Tik TOK. He’s an accomplished coach leading one of the most successful college football programs of all time to multiple titles.

He has spoken at [00:01:00] south by and the TEDx Austin women’s conference. He’s an award-winning documentarian short subject and feature length. He’s sold shows to the CW and he’s created multiple podcasts already with more on the way. Yogi was co-founder of wind forever. Pete Carroll’s charity organization.

He’s an actor. He holds a master’s degree from USC prestigious Annenberg school for communications and journalism. He’s a loving husband with two little men and a dog at home. He’s also my surf instructor and dear friend. The thing that jumps out to me the most from Yogi is how deeply he cares about people.

And how much he wants to celebrate their story. Let’s jump right into the conversation with Yogi Roth, which is all about the power of a dream.

We aim to take care of our better podcast family. So dear listener, this [00:02:00] episode contains subject matter that may be difficult or distressing for some, if this is something that you want details on, please visit the show notes to be made aware of the content warnings and time codes that will allow you to skip that particular section.

It’s been a minute since we’ve connected. And I want to start you off with a question. Let’s say that you, Yogi Roth had a newspaper that was being written about your life at this moment. What would the headline of your newspaper be? 

[00:02:30] Yogi Roth: Okay. I wish there was more creative other than what came to mind, which is really freaking happy.

[00:02:35] Joe Towne: I love that! How many newspapers have a positive headline. That’s not surprising for you. I think this beautiful, really freaking happy. Can you like what would be the picture that would go with that? 

[00:02:47] Yogi Roth: It’d be my kids. It’d be my wife. It’d be our dog. It’d be our boards. It’d be at the ocean. It’d be a football probably near me and a journal.

I think that’s what it would be like. [00:03:00] Those are the things. And I really think about the last couple of days, I’ve tried to just find quiet time before I ramp up for college football season. And that’s what I’ve been around. I’ve been a ball, a board and a book, you know? Um, and it and my family. Yeah. And it’s been awesome, dude.

Like just trying to, like at night I don’t work in any. I just read and I write and I’m like, that is it lets me sleep better. Number one. But it also like lets my brain have a little malleability and a little Tom Brady, T B12 action right there. 

[00:03:32] Joe Towne: TB 12. TB 12 stands for Tom Brady, Superbowl winning quarterback and who is often simply referred to as GOAT, not the kind who eat cans, the greatest of all time, supposedly.

I think there’s a, there’s something called the default mode network. And so when we’re, when we’re running and when we’re grinding and when we’re growing, you know, we we’re working hard. And what I’m hearing [00:04:00] is that you’re actually taking time to be, you’re taking time to let some of that synergize.

And when that default mode network kicks in, it makes connections. It’s running in the background actually makes us better, but we don’t have to do it. So when we actually take a transition time before we go perform, we take a shower. When we get that aha moment where you go for a run and all of a sudden you crack the code on something you’ve been working at.

I feel like the way you’re organizing your time at night is allowing those synergies, you know, to happen. And, uh, you’re taking in information being present to sounds beautiful, man. 

[00:04:33] Yogi Roth: Yeah, it’s good. I mean, I think, you know, this year, dad, like so much happens with our kids day to day that we’re in real time and reacting.

It’s like, we’re playing like basketball and you’re just going back and up and down the floor the whole time. And I think, I know for me, like, it was funny. We were listening to this parenting book that you probably recommend it was called the screen-free parenting. And, uh, they just reminded me that your kids, they changed too.[00:05:00] 

Right? So like the cute two year old and the crazy three-year-old and then like the calm five-year-old is now like the six year old has a lot to say and has an opinion. So it was like such a great reminder. And then it reminded me of like, well, I need some tools here. Like, so if I, if I can’t give 15 minutes a night to some parenting, you know, education three nights a week, like, do I really like, what am I doing?

And, and I’m, and it’s, and it’s hard to find 15 minutes. Like, it’s easy to say it. So I’m trying to just like give a focus to, to that. And I say that probably my, you know, was my 21st year of major college football now, Joe, and it has been my life for almost 30. And I’ve learned that like the extra game that I watched doesn’t really change my world that much.

But I’m learning as a dad, probably the hard way. A lot of times that if I spend the extra few minutes to learn something about being a better dad or husband or whatever, then it may change my life. And I think it might change my kids. So [00:06:00] that’s where I’m at right now.

[00:06:01] Joe Towne:  I’d love to do is flash back to some early days I’ve been doing genealogy.

And studying a little bit about my family. Uh, you know, I have this vision about living overseas and so this genealogy project has really brought up so much for me, um, getting details on my family’s life. And I’m wondering, you know, you have this beautiful Ted talk that if, if anyone out here hasn’t seen it yet, I really highly recommend you go listen to Yogi’s beautiful TEDx talk.

And I’m wondering if you could walk us through, how did you come into being, like, could you share a snippet of the story of your grandparents connection and that spark that became you? 

[00:06:45] Yogi Roth: Sure. Well, uh, let’s just first celebrate that this podcast came into being okay. I just want to make sure I didn’t say that in my first answer.

So congrats on that, bro. We’ve talked about that for a long time, uh, and you’re gonna love these dialogues is what you do, but regarding the dialogue that I [00:07:00] was kind of a part of growing up was. One that was based in the Holocaust to just be blunt, uh, long story short. And as you referenced your listen to the talk, uh, grandmother coming home from school at 12, her teacher stops her as she’s walking home and says, you can’t go home today.

She says why? And she said, because your family was just murdered specifically, they were just axed to death. So she went on the run from 12 years old. I think about that. Now, with those of you who have kids, and imagine when they’re 12 flip it on the other side, um, my grandfather, he, uh, is 19 his plan and his version of former professional soccer over in Poland.

Um, the Holocaust has kind of began it’s slowly kind of getting going, and he comes home from a match one day. And at 19 he finds his first wife and his first born son named Abraham. Uh, they were also killed. And the sad part about that, not only whether they were killed, but the way they were killed, they were turned on by the local towns.[00:08:00] 

It’s a little village called in Poland. And it’s a well-documented massacre of the largest per capita master in the history of the Holocaust, tiny little town. And people killed his wife and his son, but they didn’t do it with traditional weapons. They did it with things like pitchforks things like garden tools.

And when I went home in November, after my mom passed away, uh, I saw a picture of those two for the first time when they were killed, because it’s in a book, which was like heartbreaking to see as someone who had just welcomed a baby into this world and Abraham at the time when he was three months, when he was murdered, uh, he then got put into a concentration camp and went through the process that is pretty traditional.

I’d imagine for rhetoric around the Holocaust, walk into a shower. Do you, do you know if it’s going to be water, it’s going to be steam. Is it going to be gas? Uh, that was a constant for him. One day he was led out to. Uh, the forest and what was common practice was having Jews dig their own grave and then get [00:09:00] executed execution style into that, uh, grave.

Something that I often talk to our oldest about is instinct. And I think we get it from him in his instinct said I got to run and he took off and got shot eight times and his upper left shoulder, uh, wounds that I would enjoy feeling. Touching as a child cause they were so real. Uh, he was basically, um, playing dead for two days.

Uh, gypsy do, at that time was seen as an outsider in those communities, found him, saved him, nourished him back to health.

[00:09:36] Joe Towne: In the spirit of better, there’s a term that I’ve come to understand is problematic. That is the word gypsy. It’s something that we use to sell clothes, something that Van Morrison crews about and describes a free spirit who embraces a nomadic and simplistic lifestyle.

But it also conjures up the images of being dirty or stealing or a hyper-sexualized creature. Now I know it was said in the spirit of love by Yogi about someone who saved his grandfather’s life. But as I now know, it is a racial slur. The term that is preferred is the Roma people or Romani. So while I know this was not the intent or spirit with which it was used, I wanted to point out its impact.

[00:10:29] Yogi Roth: When it came back to healthy joint, what is known as the partisan movement, uh, got to number two in command. And what they would do is during the day they would hide out in a night, they would, they would say people, they would extract them from concentration camps. 

[00:10:42] Joe Towne: Uh, partisan is a member of an irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation by some kind of insurgent activity.

[00:10:53] Yogi Roth: And he was rolling. And as that went on simultaneously. Uh, the one, when I spoke at [00:11:00] first, my grandmother, she was in hiding. She was running from farmhouse to farmhouse, living in different communities, pretending to not be Jewish for obvious reasons. Holocaust, uh, comes to a close those two, get an, a train, sit next to each other, and they happen to share their stories.

And here we are, you know, many years later having lived that story for me, there’s many iterations of how it impacted me, uh, on the back of. I sat next to my wife on a plane and told her story to think that that isn’t a coincidence. I would be missing the point of the lineage of where I come from. But as a child, I would be a little older than our old boys.

I’d be about eight and I’d sit across from them at the kitchen table. And I can remember, like yesterday I’d have a glass of ginger rail and this teal little glass, and I’d ask them to tell me story after story, and I’d want to hear the same story. And I believe what it did to me, is it implanted a resiliency and an optimism that I think is unquestioned.

That to me is my [00:12:00] superpower. And I’ve learned years later that at the core of resiliency is optimism. So when they came over from the Holocaust, they started a small market that they went bankrupt in the reason they went bankrupt because they gave so much. There karma was as good as anybody you can imagine.

They didn’t hold on to anger. Right. They held on to optimism. And of course the resiliency is obvious, right? Not giving up when so much is taken from you. So when I was a kid, if somebody took my ball or my, when a video games, but it was a video game or whatever, like I didn’t flinch, like, cause I knew that that was nothing, right.

If we were down two scores in a game, whatever I got this. And I really think that that was where I didn’t talk about a lot. I didn’t run around and say, my grandparents were Holocaust survivors, but man, I knew it, Joe. And that is what has given me a drive that I’d walk into any room, whether it’s in Hollywood or in the country.

And I still feel like I walk on any field and go play. Um, and I think that’s because of what was ingrained in me around my past. And I think it’s [00:13:00] important to share, you know, the past of, of your lineage with your kids, because I do think that you feel a pride that that is unique. And of course I do. 

[00:13:08] Joe Towne: Yeah.

I, I really appreciate you. Sharing that story. And it’s not lost on me. The mirror of you sitting on the plane with your wife, would you mind sharing their names? Their first names? 

[00:13:20] Yogi Roth: Yeah. Morris and Leah. And what’s really, what’s really, uh, what I’m really thankful for is that their stories are told in the Holocaust museums around the world.

So you can go there and hear them talk, see videos. Like I can’t wait for a couple of years from now to take my kids to DC or here in LA, you know, you can find their stories there. Uh, so yeah, Morris and Leah, uh, yeah, that, that’s the only all right. 

[00:13:46] Joe Towne: You and I share love for a book. That book is the Alchemist, a fable about following your dreams.

So I want to ask you about your first dream. I have, I’ve sort of two layers here. [00:14:00] You were an athlete, right? From a young age. How did you fall in love with sports? You’ve got two siblings, artist, artist. How does sport fall in love with you.?How did you fall in love with it? 

[00:14:11] Yogi Roth: Yeah, I remember the day very vividly. I was five years old and I was constantly being picked last, constantly being picked last.

And we would play at the big kids or I could, I grew up in a town of 2,500 people with no stoplights. You walk two blocks. Everybody met at the same playground and use threw down and played hoops from sunrise to sundown. And you just went and you wanted to play with the big kids. And I always was picked last and at five years old, I said, I got to watch my language.

I basically said, screw it like that. Ain’t going to happen anymore. And I went to work that summer at six and I shot jumped shaft for jump shot. And I developed such a rapport with a basketball, with a ball that, that became my most intimate relationship [00:15:00] up until I met my wife. As sad as that is, I slept with a football until I was 22.

Yeah. Right. Um, and I started sleeping with it in eighth grade. Right. I’ve caught thousands of passes in the dark, just to, I know every inch of a football. I was that way with a basketball as a kid. And that’s what I fell in love with. I fell in love with the dialogue I could have internally. Right. I would shoot sit at, sit in our backyard.

I would shovel, my mom would tell me I would shovel three feet of snow to play all night. I was shooting my fingers bled. We had one dimly lit light on the barn, which was our garage that would kind of shine on the hoop. I would shoot, shoot, shoot, shoot. So excuse me, that, that was it. Uh, and I was hooked. I was absolutely hooked with not healthily, but proven people wrong really early on in my life.

[00:15:49] Joe Towne: So there’s this moment that I think happens. We fall in love with something, but there’s a different moment when we realized that we can hang. I’m wondering, can you speak to that moment? When did you [00:16:00] know that you had some skill and that confidence that you were developing was legit?

[00:16:05] Yogi Roth: And that’s a really fun question for me to think about.

Um, I think I always, 

[00:16:11] Joe Towne: cause it may not be super clear, like this is the moment, but you probably know the aftermath, right? Like. 

[00:16:17] Yogi Roth: Yeah, no, I have the moment Joe. I have, I, and I have a couple of key moments in that journey. Moment. Number one for me was in ninth grade. I start getting letters from Columbia and Princeton, uh, recruiting me and they’re asking me to come play for their school.

And here I am at 14 saying like, oh my God, I’m getting recruited. And what I had learned as I talked to those schools was they thought I was a senior. So I was misclassified like my coach who sent in like a questionnaire, put my name on it. Right. Watch this guy. I played really well as a freshmen and they thought I was older.

And once they were like, oh, you’re, you’re only a freshman. I was like, oh, I’m only a fro, like, I’m going to go do this. Like if co [00:17:00] one AA schools are calling. Now, like you don’t even know the amount of work that’s going to be done. So I always felt I could. The problem for me, Joe, is I never had anybody champion it.

Right. Like whether it was, uh, my parents or our coaches, even before me decided to walk on a pit, everybody said, well, sure you don’t wanna go to like, Columbia, are you sure you don’t want to go to Delaware or Ethica or like a small school? And I would have been an All-American. I would have done all the things and nobody was like, yeah, go do it.

They’re like, you know, they were trying to take care of me. And I remember going to Notre Dame’s camp before my senior year and I balled out and my dad watched and he looked at me. He goes, yeah, you. So I, I needed that and I think that’s why even you and I share in affirmations for our kids. Right. And not pie in the sky, but in like recognizing their work.

Uh, and I feel like, uh, I, I needed, I wanted that as a kid, but I had asked him, I’ve asked my parents about, and they’re like, well, we didn’t know what a D one athlete looked like. My town didn’t know what a D one athlete [00:18:00] looked like. My coach is like, I don’t want to put words in their mouth, but at least the way they didn’t think I looked like one.

So, but, but I felt it at 14, I was like, yeah, I can go do this. 

[00:18:09] Joe Towne: I love it. What I’m hearing in there is there’s some, some talking to yourself that happened and there’s a feeling that happened. And then there’s this sort of co-signing that sometimes someone that matters to us helps push us over the edge.

And in that moment, when your dad did. It’s sort of reinforced or crystallized all that hard work you’ve put in. So I feel like that’s such an interesting balance for people around confidence, the battle between how much of it is internal. And then that, that part that can come from the outside that can really just bring it all together.

[00:18:43] Yogi Roth: Yeah. That’s a, that’s a really, that’s a good phrase, man, because I, we both agree that confidence comes from what you say to yourself, but I do think that if you’re the only one saying it, it becomes you versus everybody else. [00:19:00] And there’s there’s few to me, there’s few examples of each elite competitors with that as a driving force, Tom Brady being one of them.

Right. But there’s a lot of guys drafted late in the draft that say that, and then go, don’t go do it. And so I, I do think that you need a champion, even if it’s one, but something to make that, not an ugly dialogue with yourself. Cause mine got ugly. Like it was not healthy. It was so intense and it locked so much joy.

Like I got joy in the fight versus like really just looking at a stadium and being like Dan 90,000 people just showed up to watch me play today with my team. Like, this is awesome. I was like, let’s go prove 50% of this stadium wrong. And I would, I recommend to not do it like that. 

[00:19:51] Joe Towne: Well, you had quite a journey as an athlete.

And as you so beautifully expressed, you know, football, let you [00:20:00] know when that time was over football in some ways broke up with you. And I’m wondering how, how did you make sense of that moment? How did you find your way to what was next?

[00:20:09] Yogi Roth: I think I still am. And it’s like I’ve left football, right? Like it’s, it’s thankfully given me a career.

Um, beyond that, the thing I didn’t realize at the time I thought I’d be fine. I went and played in Australia. I went and traveled the world. I moved out to LA and I started coaching, but I didn’t realize that, um, I never got to say goodbye to the game. And I learned in years past, or your sense that the game always says goodbye when you’re not ready for it.

And that is really hard. Right. And a lot of professions, like it’s not like that. Right. If I put in 15 years, I had this chat with JJ Redick a couple of years ago, the basketball player, if I put in 15 years into being a lawyer, like I’m going to continue to probably be a lawyer and have a lot of success.

But I put in 15, 20 years into my sport. I might have three or four years, and then that’s it. If it’s a college [00:21:00] career, if you’re lucky a professional career. So it, it, it has been hard. I think the best thing that I had was I had a guy named Pete Carroll as my biggest mentor. 

[00:21:11] Joe Towne: Peter Clay Caroll is an American football coach, who is the head coach and executive vice president of the Seattle Seahawks of the national football league.

He was previously the head coach at USC fight on where he won six bowl games and a BCS national championship game. Caroll is one of only three football coaches who have won both the super bowl and a college football national championship is the author of win forever. And one of the most remarkable humans, but I’ve come to know.

[00:21:42] Yogi Roth: 

Right? He, you referenced the book, the Alchemist, right? Like he was my guy, he was my Alchemist. He was the guy who kind of guided me so much in my early twenties because he made me really develop a style of vision, the theme of philosophy. To my life, to the approach of my life. [00:22:00] And he w thankfully for me, his career ended similarly not when he wanted it to, he still thinks that almost 70, he could still play.

We’d had a talk last week, literally about that. We both still think we can ride. Uh, of course we, we couldn’t, but it’s a, it’s a mentality. And I think it stems from not having a great breakup. So you pivot and you start thinking, how can I leverage what I learned in the game to other aspects of my life?

And I talked to guys when they retire about that a ton. I try to do that now, even in my broadcast work. So I’m not the former bitter player. Who’s always right. I try to be someone who’s educated and uplifting and shining a light on a player’s face whose helmet I get to take off and tell his story after he makes a play.

So those are the things I think for me, the phrase is like play therapy. Like that’s how I kind of work through that. Yeah. 

[00:22:48] Joe Towne: I’m so glad you brought up Pete Carroll. I know what an Alchemist he has been in your life and continues to be in your life. Yeah. During that time that you were coaching with him, [00:23:00] you also did not a small thing.

You graduated Magna Cum Laude with a degree from Annenberg School of Journalism. Um, it’s pretty amazing, uh, that both of those things were happening at the same time. And I think it may have something to do with that philosophy. You were talking about that you worked out doing some lonely work, doing some of that stuff with Pete.

I’m wondering, can you tell me what the phrase do it better than it’s ever been done before means to you and where did you first hear it? And what does it mean to you now? 

[00:23:32] Yogi Roth: Yeah, it was cool. Like my first day at USC, I had met Pete when I was 19 and still. And we’d play hoops. We’d go to dinner. We go to the beach, we’d hang out, I’d see him on TV.

That was my experience. And I can remember vividly as a kid watching him coach the jets, being like that guy looks cool. Right? Like as lame as that subtle example, isn’t that now here I am playing host with him while he invites me to come be a part of the staff. And I say to him, sure, I don’t want to coach, but [00:24:00] let me get my masters.

I’ll do whatever. And he said, cool, got it. So I go to begin my degrees. He referenced two weeks and he goes, Hey, you want to coach? And I said, sure, let’s go. And now I’m coaching because I’ve always been a coach. Like that’s always been where my energy has always lied. I just saw the lives of coaches. And I was like, I don’t want to do that.

Which every player says until they get a taste of a coaching is like, This is amazing. Well, within that, you also get taken inside the belly of the beast and an SC. It was a beast, right? It was the program in college football, look at Alabama today, but put it in Hollywood with a coach that is much more outgoing than Nick Saban, which was coach Carroll.

Imagine that environment as your first job out of college. And I sit in the staff room and, um, you know, there’s kind of like a, uh, an org chart of where people sit right head goes to the head of the table coordinators on both sides. And you kind of work your way down, um, way back in the hood. I mean, way back, not even at the table, uh, probably like S like just squatted down on my knees, because we had so many people in such a small room and the old heritage hall, [00:25:00] and he starts to take everybody through the philosophy of the program.

And I loved that he drew a pyramid, which you can read in his book when forever. And at the bottom of it, it had a belief system. And it really challenged me and he would challenge the staff every year. He’d take us through it. He goes, I need to take you through it once or twice a year. So you keep hearing it.

And he, and he talked about what do we believe in, right. We believe in competition being the central theme of the program, like whatever it is. And I’m writing February, firstly, like I still have all my notes from back then. And he hits this line, which is the core foundation, which is we’re going to compete to do things better than they’ve ever been done before.

And for me it resonated so strong at 23 years old of life. Oh, yeah, I can do this. And he would challenge everybody, whether you were drawing a card to look off of in practice, whether it was stapling practice scripts, which was my first job, like 18 practice scripts, top left corner, make them perfect, whatever it was.

Or if you were calling plays or recruiting a player or [00:26:00] showing up on time for work or getting a workout in, or being a dad or a husband, whatever it was that phrase. Can I, am I doing it better than it’s ever been done before? And I think if you’re a competitor, man, that resonates like a strum on a guitar and you are just like, am I, and then you look in the mirror and you know, very clearly, like if you slacked off, if you didn’t run around the cone and the drill, if you didn’t touch the line in the sprint, similar analogies to sport.

So I, I loved it and it’s been a principle for me now. Right? If you looked at my call sheets for calling a college football game, you’d be like, damn, that looks awesome. And I’d be like, okay, every week I’m basically putting together like a doctorate presentation. To call a game for no one other than me, because I’m going to look in the mirror before I go on, I go to the bathroom.

I say my little spiel and I say, all right, yoga, like basically, did you do enough to get ready? Like how you feeling, bro? And I, as you’d imagine, I’m saying, yeah, hell, well, hell yeah, let’s ride. And that all stems from Pete giving me that phrase.

[00:26:58] Joe Towne: Well, not only did you go on to coach as part of maybe arguably one of the greatest runs in college football history, you referenced, we can read Win Forever that Pete wrote, but he didn’t do it alone.

You helped him write that book. Um, so you’re writing, you know, the way you tell stories, the way you teach, the way you coach, you’ve always been a coach. I feel that way in our relationship and in our friendship. One of the things that you taught me is around this word, you just referenced, which is competition.

And it gets thrown around in sports a lot, right? We were just competing out there and you were the first person to help me think about competition differently. I used to think about it as this zero sum game, right? If I win, you have to lose. If you win, I lose, but you actually shared this ancient definition of it.

And it changed the way I look at the world. Could you share how you understand that definition and what it means to you? 

[00:27:56] Yogi Roth: Sure. And I learned it from Pete, you know, luckily, uh, [00:28:00] when he went to the NFL, uh, it was also strike shortened season. So when I left coaching, we began a company titled Win Forever, which was going to coach coaches on how to develop a philosophy and coach athletes on how to compete.

So we went around with Nike around the country with guys like Kevin. That’s how I first met him guys like Dr. Gervais, who I’d gotten to know by then guidance, Matt, James, who oversees all aggressors football at Nike. And here I am, this young punk, like kind of the EmCee of the event. And Pete of course, was the keynote.

So I think we go to like six or eight stops and we’re going to like TCU with Gary Patterson, Stanford with David Shaw, we’re going, we go to Miami with, uh, Al Golden was the head coach. Then we’re doing these talks all across the country. So I got to hear the same message a lot. And P had done this to our team where he would say, what do you think the definition of compete is?

And that also the same thing that we would all say or that you and I both thought prior to this dialogue, which is to kick your ass or you to kick mine, basically there’s a winner and a loser zero sum game as you [00:29:00] reference. And he goes, ah, man, like, let’s look at the root of this word. The Latin root of this word is to strive to get.

Whereas the current definition is the strive against, and the way you get all the millennials, as you say, or the gen Z is look at your phone, just look up the word, bro. And literally the word says to strive against, and then a scroll down a little further in that little Latin italics version, it says to strive together.

So somewhere throughout the course of time that the word has altered. And if you can get a group of people, even though they may be going against one another in the situation in practice to recognize that, you know, Joe, you’re making me better and I’m making you better, right. A la The Better Podcast, right?

Uh, we’re going to be better as. Right. And I think for competitive athletes, we all like the idea of a rising tide floats all boats, but it’s a very soft phrase in a locker room or a team setting. And it’s, it’s probably more like a, it’s a little older than maybe an [00:30:00] athletic team, high school, college, even young pros.

But if you say no, no, no, no. We’re going to strive together. And then one-on-ones you as a corner of me as a receiver, you’re going to throw down and press coverage. I’m going to throw down with my best release and whoever wins wins, but we just both got better. And we started talking that way, I think in that way.

And you saw practices change. I saw youth practices, high school colleges look at Urban Meyer. How does he talk since he got to Ohio state of Florida? Everybody’s ripping it from Pete because of the way. He described it and then the stage in which he had in the sport. And I really think he changed the game.

He changed how coaches practice, how teams practice, how coaches recruit and the dialogue around that work. 

[00:30:40] Joe Towne: Yeah. I think it’s pretty remarkable to see that in action and that sort of nuance here is first. It’s a competition with ourselves, right? We’re going to strive to be better than we have ever been before.

And then collectively we are going to strive together to do it better than it’s ever been done before, [00:31:00] which it has this inward focus and this outward focus at the same time. And I think the magic is the dance between the two. I know the, the one non-soft phrase I hear a lot is iron sharpens iron.

You’ll hear that thrown around a lot. Right. And I was watching the Olympics recap from the other day. Two women, one older, one younger, and you know, they’re doing the hurdles and you can just tell in the way they talk about it, as you pushed me to be the best version of myself, and it’s no surprise, like they trade off winning these metals around the world.

And, uh, to watch that, you know, and to recognize that inspiring each other and pushing each other in that way is possible, particularly as an artist, because we walk into a waiting room before an audition and a lot of people, they start looking at the end. And they, they really miss the boat. They think that if they talk to each other, they’re out to mess with them.

They think that if they share a secret or help them out run [00:32:00] lines or fix their makeup, that somehow they’re going to lose because we have this sort of, um, zero sum mentality about jobs, but really the people that really get it, you know, they know that their essence can’t be taken by anybody else. You know, that their best work comes from not only that moment, but all the moments in the relationships they build.

And I, I’m not surprised that that’s where that got born. And I just see you embody that in the way that you do seek to lift up the people around you 

[00:32:30] Yogi Roth: Look at your company, right? The performer’s mindset is, is about that. And when I, when I do corporate talks, I always give an analogy of, if you get to the starting line in a a hundred meter dash, right?

You referenced the Olympics. How much confidence do you think? Oh, let’s, let’s play the game. How do you think the following impacts the person you’re running. Option one, you look to them and you say, I’m going to roll you, bro. All right. Option two. You don’t say anything. Stoic. Look everywhere else. Option three.

[00:33:00] Hey, let’s kill it today. Let’s ride, right? Like, think about like the confidence you have to have to do the final option, right? Let’s go, let’s go both break the world record and see what happens. And I think that there takes a, you gotta be secure to think that way, right? You see it in quarterback rooms all the time.

I call them shark tanks and sometimes they want somebody to sink. Right? This is reality. I get it. Like it’s dog eat dog in that regard. But I think that you, as the performer perform better when you’re not focused on the outcome of somebody else’s performance. So why not go the other way? Like, Hey man, crush it today.

I hope you read this play really well. Right. Hey, how you hope you read your lines and kill it because you don’t have control over in any way. I don’t know, do I think it just takes time to get to that place. And we’re trying to get there with young kids and quarterbacks. You’re doing it with, with performers and artists and athletes as well.

Cause I think they need to hear it because it can be a total shift in a mindset. 

[00:33:57] Joe Towne: Yogi, I want to ask you about locker rooms. [00:34:00] You spent a lot of time in them in pretty much every position, right? You’ve called games. You’ve coached. You’ve been an athlete. You come in as a broadcaster. What do you think is different about locker rooms now versus ones that you spent time in when you were 18?

[00:34:14] Yogi Roth: Oh, man. So much. Gosh, so much show. I mean, let’s just go with the obvious. I didn’t have a phone when I was 18. So I got to know Antonio Bryant. I got to know Chris Wilson. I got to know Joe Stevens. I were 82. They were 80, 81 and 83. Right? Like those are my locker buddies. I just got to talk to him. I got to know him.

I think you had more enjoyment. I don’t think you have. You know, we weren’t Juju since Schuster and having guys doing tick-tock dances, which has its own level of comradery, but that stuff wasn’t happening. Uh, I think language in locker rooms has dramatically changed. I know it did for me when I was in a locker room at 18, uh, a lot of phrases would get thrown around specifically like homophobic [00:35:00] phrases.

And I say that because at 19, when I’m 19, my brother comes out and I start hearing that much more. Right. And I start calling it out. Obviously I stopped saying it because it was kind of a vernacular in a locker room. Don’t be this or you’re that. And it was just kind of common language to a degree. So I think awareness around, you know, societal growth is, is major in a locker room, I think then in a locker room now.

Um, and you taught me this as well is, you know, and I believe this being a white guy, I go to a locker room and I always see the three guys I referenced were all black. So. Buddy’s their bros or family. Like I still talk to them. I didn’t necessarily see them as black athletes. I think now you need to see them as black athletes.

And I think that that’s happening. I think you saw Trevor Lawrence a year ago, stepping up and elevating and using his platform to talk about social injustice and racism in Clemson, South Carolina, let alone all of college football. And he’s a white guy. [00:36:00] Who’s relatively white privilege compared to some of his other teammates.

I think you have to see color now. And I think athletes and coaches are, so I think there’s a dramatic change. Um, in that regard, I think the locker room has more power than it’s ever had before. And I think that it’s reasoned and I think the players are thoughtful in how to utilize that. And I think the people upstairs, which a lot of times it’s upstairs as the coaches and downstairs with the players, that’s how it was for me.

And most facilities are like that. I think it’s not as separate as it once used to be. You see so much. Player councils, all those things that were, or it’s not just to have it, to have it, but really teams and staffs and players working through things. So yeah, I think the locker room has dramatically shifted over the, the last 20 years.

[00:36:44] Joe Towne: Yeah. I think one of the central themes that I want to explore with this podcast is, um, how we can evolve around our understanding of things. And I love several of the things that you [00:37:00] referenced, you know, like you, might’ve thrown around a word in the locker room at a certain point in time, and then you didn’t have any point of reference to do anything different when you know better, you do better.

So your brother comes out, you start reframing your relationship to that word. Well, two things happen one this week, Matt Damon was educated by his daughter about maybe that’s very same word. So it takes time sometimes. And when it’s time, it’s time. The other thing I remember is, you know, I don’t know what year it was.

Maybe it was 2014, 2015. then President Barack Obama talks about how he grew up with a more conservative mindset and he had evolved on gay marriage. So now he was advocating for it. Whereas when he was younger, that wasn’t something he considered. So here are two people, one, one of the leaders of the free world and one an A-list celebrity in Hollywood.

And we can look at those moments and we can put them into a binary, [00:38:00] right? You are this, or you are not this, but I think the nuance of the conversation is to call in and, and encourage, um, not only that self-reflection, uh, but also to use our platforms. I think it’s so great that you highlighted what Trevor Lawrence did.

And, um, as two guys who have privilege to be able to use our platform to shine a light on that feels vital. Yeah. 

[00:38:23] Yogi Roth: And you know  what’s interesting about the Matt Damon one is, I don’t know if you were like this. When I came out and I saw it, I was like, really. Like it took you this long, but then you, then you pause for a minute and find little power in that.

And you’re like, well, have you gone around the country lately? Like, there’s a lot of people that still talk that way. My brother’s gay. He he’ll tell you, he travels all over the country and it still exists. I mean, you look at the amount of states where marriage is illegal. You look at the amount of countries where you go to prison or you get killed if you are gay.

So like on one hand, I’m like really mad, like be better. And then on the other hand, I’m like, well, you know, thank God he did because [00:39:00] there’s some dude in the middle of nowhere that thinks the same thing that maybe got impacted by that. So while he got lit up for it, maybe he changed some people that had a mindset that clearly, you know, I don’t think, and I don’t think you, I think you would agree is isn’t necessarily for the best.

[00:39:15] Joe Towne: Yeah. Got it. I really hope so. You know, um, there’s so much, I want to ask you and, uh, I’m going to be mindful of your time, but recently this phrase mentally. Uh, has come up a lot. When I look around the media, I look of Ireland. Are you a tough person? If you bail out of something and, uh, particularly around Naomi Osaka and Simone Biles, Naomi Osaka withdrew from Wimbledon a few weeks before the Olympics, Simone Biles pulled out of the Olympics in multiple events.

They did this as a means of taking care of their mental health and wellbeing. They also faced intense criticism [00:40:00] and backlash for these actions. I wonder, can you speak to, what does it mean to be mentally tough in 2021? 

[00:40:07] Yogi Roth: You know, I think, I think like a lot of things in sports broadcasting and sports vernacular, they’re just there because they’ve always been there.

The it factor mentally tough, uh, bounce back, right? Like we just we’ve seen it adversity. You’re like, like they’re, they’re, they’re. Right. And I’m one who’s used them. I’ve been lazy on a broadcast and I’m sure I’ve used mental toughness. Uh, to me, I, I think there’s a, there’s a lot of layers to dive into.

And yesterday you’d love this. I chatted with three of the biggest Tik TOK stars in broadcasting. And I was like, I want to learn about you guys. You’re like 20 years old, you’re making a bunch of money. You’re uh, you had a boatload of views, you got millions of followers. And they were using a lot of words, phrases like that.

And I’m like, like one of them said, uh, well the, this players or these receivers, uh, they’re like as [00:41:00] dumb as a bag or a bag or a bag of rocks. And I said, do you know any of them? Like, did you meet any of those guys? You’re just watching film. And you’re just saying, you don’t think their intellect is as high as you see.

And I say that the same thing around mental toughness is we don’t know what’s going on underneath, underneath the helmet or with Naomi as your reference or Simone Biles. And thankfully they’ve opened up and shed a light on what they’ve gone through. So to me, as I hear mental toughness, If you’re going to use it, uh, have some depth to how you utilize it.

Because for me, calling a game and watching a guy get hit and bounce back refocus and go play. I don’t even know if that warrants me saying he’s mentally tough. That warrants me saying, like, he’s not afraid of adversity. He’s not afraid of conflict. He can deal with contact and bounce back. Like he’s got qualities to him that makes him unique, but to be able to really speak to someone’s mental, if you break the phrase down, I think you got to respect the word a lot more.

Um, for me I’ve always, and I [00:42:00] try to never say it any more broadcasting I say resilient. And what I do is I’ll try to meet with players beforehand and ask them that question of, Hey one, have you met adversity? And how have you found resilience? And you’d be surprised where people go, where they found, uh, where they found struggle, where they found adversity and how they powered through that.

So I think mental toughness for me is, is a challenge to. To really unearth Joe, because we don’t know a lot of people’s mental and we don’t know what’s tough for one, it isn’t for another. And I just believe that. And, and I, and I come down strong on some conservative thoughts on it were, which are this following.

And so if I make a comment about Joe town, it’s not my fault if that offends Joe town fair. But do you have the awareness that what you’re saying may have a big impact on Joe, Tom? Because somebody probably said some disparaging things about you and I still don’t think we’re at a place where that is accepted conversation.

I think it’s where we need to go. And [00:43:00] unfortunately, the world of sport and media, it’s the louder and the hotter, the more you usually get paid, you know, 

[00:43:05] Joe Towne: I think about the word resiliency used, and I know for me, you know, especially around parenting or somebody’s doing a lot, um, when I’m tired or burnt out or overwhelmed or triggered, it’s really hard for me.

Be resilient. What allows me to be resilient is recovery is, uh, prioritizing. Silence is filling up with nature is eating a good meal is getting a hug from the woman I love is spending time playing with my son and to call those, uh, extraneous or, um, to, to disclude them. Doesn’t allow us to be a sustained performer at our best.

Doesn’t allow us to be resilient. So I’m so happy. This is taking center stage in the conversation. Now it feels way beyond time. You know, [00:44:00] I want to take us back to, uh, a journey we went on together. You were kind enough to invite me on an epic adventure, San Sebastian Spain. So I don’t know if you remember, I’m pretty sure you do.

Uh, we had a checklist that we came up with together and the checklist had four things. It was something that we were going to do every day, work with me. What do you recall those four things to be?

[00:44:26] Yogi Roth: We were going to move. We were going to write or create we were going to eat well, and I, and I’m, I’m imagining we were going to surf.

[00:44:36] Joe Towne: Jump in the ocean. Yeah, that’s exactly right. Yeah. So I’m a list guy. I’ve always been a list guy as a coping strategy. It’s not my actual essence. My essence is I’ll talk to you for 16 hours and forget to eat. I might even forget your name, but I am in love with you. And like, let’s just keep rolling. But I became a list person at USC so that I could go to class on time so I could get stuff done.

I loved this list because it was [00:45:00] simple. During that week, we jumped in the ocean a lot, you know, um, we ate amazing food. We wandered and got lost, and we also exercised even when it was windy and rainy, but we also, you finished a book. I finished a screenplay. Like we were very productive. And I’m wondering, like, I know you love travel.

I know you love surfing. How can we do all those things and also be that productive? And what might that teach us about the way we’re living our lives?

[00:45:29] Yogi Roth: What a cool question. I know you’ll have Ken Black on this show. Uh, cause I talked to him about that a ton, especially when you add in, as you know, a wife, a kid, two professions —

[00:45:44] Joe Towne: Who is Ken black? Ken Black, the former Vice President of digital design transformation and global Olympic creative director at Nike, during which he helped change the game of business and sport after building the startup Spark Training, which was later acquired by both Nike and ESPN, he started a private consulting business, helping artists and creatives pivot their trajectory, using the skills he had developed in the decades prior is now the CCO at GMR marketing. And a sought after speaker and inspiring human.

[00:46:19] Yogi Roth:You want to develop your kid? He’s got, or she’s got stuff going on. Um, it’s hard because you’ve worked so much and you and I are both parents later in life that we developed a cadence, right. To our grind, to our hustle, to our creativity. Whoa. Yeah. That’s going to change because of this little guy and it does, of course it does.

And for me it was, I had to hit burnout. Like I had to be like, no, I can do both. And it took about a week and I was like, I’m a zombie. I can’t put sentences together. I’m forgetting names when I’m broadcasting them, this isn’t working anymore. So then what I learned from you, Joe, and I really learned it in the pandemic was [00:47:00] around the stages of.

And there are five fundamental stages. The final one being acceptance, and some woman whose name I’m forgetting, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross. There it is. She believes there’s a sixth and I co-sign all day on the sixth stage being meaning

[00:47:21] Joe Towne: One of the most important books ever written on the grieving process is on grief and grieving co-authored by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and David Kessler. You may be familiar with the five stages being denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. After her death, David Kessler discovered and wrote about a sixth stage. 

[00:47:42] Yogi Roth: And I believe the following that for all of us would say, I just need a month off and I’ll write my book. I just need a year and I’ll make my movie. Well, you had it. Did you write it? Did you make it? And if you didn’t not shame on you just recognize that it didn’t have as much. [00:48:00] As whatever rose to the top.

And I think the pandemic year around meaning was incredible because we got done what we needed to get done, what mattered most. And as an artist, when I finished life in a walk, my favorite movie ever about my dad, I was up every night till three in the morning, doing that and calling games, I didn’t care.

I didn’t miss a beat. I didn’t mispronounce a name. It meant so much. I have another film that’s going to come out at the end of the season, called the Cape. It’s taken me six years to finish reality is it didn’t mean as much as something. So intimate is a adventure with my dad. So I just think that’s where I net out of like, how do we be productive?

Well, to your point, whether it’s your list or your pause of what, uh, what really matters, like what, what means a lot to me to get done and then go attack it. It’d be cool with it. 

[00:48:50] Joe Towne: You are somebody who mentioned this at the top of the podcast, you were going to keep a journal off to the side. I noticed a couple of times you jotting down thoughts.

You and I have had a lot of chais in a lot of cafes. You bring your journal everywhere. Now you are a journalist, so maybe it’s metaphorical, but where did that idea come to you from? Why do you bring a journal everywhere? What do you, what’s your relationship with that? 

[00:49:16] Yogi Roth: It’s really special to be blunt with you.

Um, and it’s transformed in its form over a years. But when I was in fourth grade, I’ll never forget this. I was the editor of the trail times why elementary school was called Lackawanna trail. And I began to write, it was also the first time in my life, in the little town I grew up in that somebody said I wouldn’t achieve.

I grew up with three other guys and we would play every sport imaginable. And prior to playing the dial, I would go something like, oh, you want to play hoops? Sure. All right. I’m Jordan. I’m bird. I’m magic. I’m Barkley. When I play tennis, I’m courier. I’m Lando. I’m Sanford. I’m Agassi. I want to play football.

I’m a Tana. I’m rice. I’m far of, um, monk, like whatever it [00:50:00] would be, I’m running a, we would just go. So we were going to be pros. Like that was just what our name was for that afternoon. Fourth grade comes and my basketball coach says, Hey, everybody, Yogi is going to get his MBA. I said, not on a coach. I’m gonna get my I’m gonna go play in the NBA for the Sixers.

And he laughed at me and everybody else laughed. And he goes, nah, okay, yo, you’re going to get your MBA. I didn’t know what a masters in business was. I had no clue. I’m lucky. I know now, but I felt so small because I was like, man, this dude just took away. My, you just told me I’m not going to play for the Philadelphia 76 years behind Barkley in front of Iverson.

And what, and I was. And I didn’t know what to talk to. So I began to write and I wrote my first journal that night and to my right in my home studio here, little creative lab, I’ve got every journal from college at the proudest of entries every time when I look back at them every once in a while, but on a serious note, like I’m so glad I’ve captured from 18 to now.

And to me [00:51:00] writing is my, my best form of therapy. And it’s probably what I’d hang my hat on. If you said, if you had a skill that you said a, okay, you’re going to get paid for one thing in life, I would say I’m gonna throw it out on writing and see how it goes. 

[00:51:11] Joe Towne: Thanks for sharing that story. First of all, you know, I think the sting of somebody’s misrepresenting what we mean.

I see it with my four and a half year old, you know, when he’s not being understood. And, um, what I’m really hearing in there is that the journal was a Eureka moment, inspiration for you. And even though you might not be proud of some entries, it’s not for anyone else it’s for you. It sounds like it’s a process thing.

It’s not about results. So I love your relationship with your journal and I hope it inspires other people to, to bring them back, you know, and, and to utilize them. Um, you mentioned dream, right? We started with a sort of big dream, which was around sport and you’ve had other big dreams. And I want to talk about one of them because, [00:52:00] um, it came to fruition relatively recently.

So you’ve had this idea for a show for a long time, all American stories. And over the last year, you not only sold it, you not only produced it, it aired. And this dream was a long-held dream. Sometimes we have a dream like, oh, an ice cream today. Well, Postmates it’s on its way. Right. This is a long-held dream.

So what I’m wondering is like, what did it mean to you to have a long-held dream come to fruition? 

[00:52:35] Yogi Roth: It meant a lot. And I say that because I, in the pandemic, after my mom died, I started going to therapy with my wife. And it was really important because I didn’t have tools of how to deal with loss. And what I learned was not only ways to cope with that, but also ways to be better.

And the number one way that she recommended and was spot on when she said, Yogi, you are terrible. I mean, terrible [00:53:00] at giving yourself a pat on the back to just be blunt. Right. She had a very nice technical term for it. Um, but ultimately she’s like, you’re terrible at that. And I was like, you know, you’re really right.

And I track my life. Even in this dialogue, I was never, when I earned a scholarship at Pitt, I didn’t say good job. I went and worked out until three in the morning. Right. When I, uh, got my degree, I didn’t have a party. When I got my master’s degree, I kept going. I, you know, maybe I surf by myself, like I’ve never enjoyed them.

Because I’ve always been a walk-on mentality, right. As I referenced, proven everybody wrong versus proving myself, right? 

[00:53:38] Joe Towne: Uh walk-on in American and Canadian college, athletics is an athlete who becomes part of the team without being recruited beforehand or awarded an athletic scholarship. This results in the differentiation between walk-on players and scholarship players.

So a walk-on mentality means someone who had to scrap and [00:54:00] scrape and may play a bit with a chip on their shoulder. 

[00:54:03] Yogi Roth: And with the night it aired, I paused and just sat there with my family oldest, who came with me on shoots on my lap and we watched it and I like teared up and I was like, good job, good job.

Like I’ve had this idea for 15 years. And everybody said, no, you all know who you are. And one said yes. So I never anticipated being the one. And it went and it did well and it inspired people and yeah, it was. It was great. Uh, it was a beautiful experience that in and of itself, let alone, of course the stories of being around and the character.

[00:54:37] Joe Towne: I love that. You’ve got to share it with your son, your oldest. Um, I, I love the idea of acknowledging these wins because the way our brains are designed to work, you know, we get a small role. We want a bigger role. You know, we get a nice house, we want a better house. We’re constantly stretching the playing field.

It’s like, okay, I made it to the one let’s add 20 yards. So the idea of [00:55:00] actually pausing a celebrate, there’s incredible science around that that allows us to get through hard moments later. And it sounds like took some pain to point it out to you and become aware of it, to listen to it, act on it. But it also then flooded you with emotion when you thought about the culmination of that dream and for anyone listening, um, I just really.

I continue to be in awe of your vulnerability, you know? Um, and, and what that means, uh, to hear a man speaking vulnerably in the world today. All right. Want to have a little bit of fun with you if you’re, if you’re all right with that. Yeah. So I want to do a little bit of like a lightning round. So, uh, some, some phrases that I hear you, uh, say a lot, right?

Um, sometimes chatting with you, you know, I learned different things about being a Californian. Like it’s an SNL sketch than I’ve ever heard before. So I want to hear a couple of [00:56:00] phrases and I just want to know what your, your first instinct is, uh, about them. So how do you pronounce this word? Y-E-wwwwwww

[00:56:13] Yogi Roth: Yewweeee! Basically when you’re in the ocean and somebody is ripping a wave.. 

[00:56:16] Joe Towne: Yeah. Awesome. I get that in a text from you a lot. Okay. How do you make sense of these phrases? Things are rolling.

[00:56:21] Yogi Roth: How do I make sense of it? Uh, I feel like it means like it’s, you’re, you’re moving. It’s good. All things are, all things are moving on track.

Yeah. Yeah. well, you’re the Shui master. You are, uh, my Shui guru. Feng shui, of course. Being a one of your many talents. So it’s good energy sending it back to you. 

Joe Towne: Stoked. 

Yogi Roth: Stoked is a real cool word for me because it’s one that is thrown around and then you look it up and it’s really about enjoying the moment.

And I was screaming it in the ocean the other day, cause it was so fun. I was surfing with our six year old and first time he’s like put me on a board alone and I was like, this is so I’m so stoked. And I just was, I was premium [00:57:00] peak energy, excitement.

Joe Towne: Love it. Free fun. 

Yogi Roth: Learned that from my dad. And uh, it’s a reminder that we’re in a world where we can want and want and want, but free fun is all around us.

All right, it’s playing. It’s going for a walk. It’s jumping on the sand. It’s playing with. We see with a newborn is playing with a plastic bottle. And for me it’s important because I just wrote my first children’s book titled The Search for Free Fun.

[00:57:22] Joe Towne: Whoa, I can’t wait to read that to my son. A couple of other quick phrases, 50 to nothing.

[00:57:29] Yogi Roth: Rick Neuheisel, Matt Barkley. I’ll never forget that one. 

[00:57:32] Joe Towne: Hot yoga

[00:57:36] Yogi Roth: Uh, clarity

Joe Towne: Form versus essence

Yogi Roth: Everything and misunderstood. 

Joe Towne: Fourth and nine.

Yogi Roth: Smashing a television in South Bend liner to Gerrit check 82 stay Sluggo’s Z win or F win. I remember that like yesterday.

Joe Towne: Smoke show 

Yogi Roth: My wife

Joe Towne: Dawn patrol

Yogi Roth: wake it up, get in the ocean and get on that sand before any other footprints are there

[00:57:56] Joe Towne: Dirty chai?

[00:57:58] Yogi Roth: Joe Towne. 

Joe Towne: Tikuna olam. 

Yogi Roth: Yeah, it’s right over here, over my shoulder. Uh, heal the world, my mom told me to make sure that I do right before she died. 

[00:58:05] Joe Towne: Okay. Is there anything in your life that you can’t stop watching? 

[00:58:09] Yogi Roth: Yeah. Two kids. Just when they don’t see me, I can’t pull away from it. I watched our six year old last night set up his bed and put a stuffed animal at one place and is pulling another.

And he finally caught me and he’s like, well, what are you doing? Or, or a baby figuring something out in the corner. I can’t, I can’t turn away from it. 

[00:58:28] Joe Towne: Okay. The theme of this podcast is better. I’m going to challenge you to brag on yourself for a minute. What’s something that you do better than most people

[00:58:35] Yogi Roth: Take the helmet off and tell the story underneath it. I put myself up against anybody in my profession, in that regard.

[00:58:42] Joe Towne: What’s something that you’re working to get better at?

[00:58:45] Yogi Roth: I’m working to get better at learning the mindset of kids, um, and working to get better at curating more content to take out. I sold one thing a year for a long time. It’s time to sell three or four or five a year.

So how do I organize and orchestrate my life to do that? 

[00:59:03] Joe Towne: All right. I know that you have The Cape coming later this year. Um, I hope we’ll be able to shine a light on that. It was my great fortune to sit in the movie theater and watch life in a walk at the Newport beach film festival, you there with your family, with your dad.

Um, so we’ll look out for that. Is there something else besides college football season on the horizon we should look out for with regards to you? 

[00:59:26] Yogi Roth: Yeah, I, uh, I got a really cool show coming out. Uh, the title is TBD because of legal right now. Uh, but it’ll be in your show notes by the time this show ends.

Cause it’ll be done in a couple of days, but ultimately I’m going to do it. I think I’ve what I referenced earlier is I’m going to take the helmet off a lot of athletes in college football and I got a new show. That’s going to be long form, uh, 30, 40. Podcast interviews, or I get to find out a lot about these young men who are known for their feats on the field.

And I can’t wait. And I’m going to take a lot of pride in not asking them about their feats [01:00:00] on the field and unearthing who Kayvon Tibideau is more about Jared Goff and Sam Darnold and the players that came from the conference of champions of the pack. 12 Trent McDuffie first round draft pick in my opinion, this year, coming out of Washington, who shared for the first time with me on air last week that his brother died at 21 of a heart attack.

He was in eighth grade and he never talked about it. He never shared it until he came on television. There’s a lot more to that. So those stories about what drives athletes I’m going to tap into, and I’m going to steal a lot of the questions that you asked me on this podcast. 

[01:00:30] Joe Towne: Let’s go Yogi Roth, storyteller seeking and uncovering the humanity in sports around the globe.

How can we stay in touch with you? What’s the best platform?

[01:00:40] Yogi Roth: Yeah, I’m @yogiroth everywhere. Instagram Twitter. I just started tik-tok channel cause my intern tells me that that’s what I need to do and that’s been kind of fun. Uh, but yeah.

[01:00:50] Joe Towne:  I want to see you doing the Juju dance. 

[01:00:51] Yogi Roth: Yeah, totally. It’ll be more football analysis and life adventures, but, uh, yeah, that, those are the places I’m there and I’m easily accessible.

[01:00:58] Joe Towne: Yogi Roth.[01:01:00] 

Thank you. My friend from the bottom of my heart for so many things, this podcast started as a seed in my mind because of you. Um, you challenged me, it’s been a long time coming. The fact that you said yes so immediately, and were my first guest on here. It means the absolute world to me. And I’m so grateful to call you my friend.

Thank you for your time, for your heart, for your wisdom. I hope you have a beautiful day. 

[01:01:28] Yogi Roth: Amen brother. Congrats on making people better. 

[01:01:30] Joe Towne: Thanks.

So I’m really excited. If you didn’t pick up on it during our conversation, Yogi was my catalyst and cheerleader and encourager to conceive of doing this podcast. So having him on was a dream fulfilled for me. I’m super grateful to be sitting here sharing this with you really stands out to me is that Yogi knows who he is.[01:02:00] 

No doubt through knowing his own story and sitting and wrestling with hard questions. I’m impressed with how his grandparent’s story of perseverance inspired him in his own journey. I love the parallels of how his grandparents meet cute mirrored his own with his wife and clearly how clearly he loves what he does as a college football analyst.

And as a dad, you can certainly find out more information about Yogi from Yogi roth.com. Follow him in his social handles at Yogi Roth, Twitter, Instagram. Some of his upcoming projects and passions are listed in our show notes and let him and us know what you thought of the conversation. It means a lot.

When you do a gentle reminder, please don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast you won’t want to miss next week’s guest Lino DiSalvo. Lino was the head animator for Frozen, and we’ll be talking amongst other things about the impact that risk-taking can have on career success, the highs and lows that our journeys inevitably bring and what we can learn from these important moments.

Thanks again for being here until we meet again. Be well.