118: Pro Athlete Turned Tech CEO Reveals Path to Entrepreneurial Success| Lyle Adams

Transcript

Introduction to Lyle Adams – Damon introduces Lyle and hisremarkable journey from professional soccer to tech entrepreneurship.

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I think Curiosity has led me to where I am today so lookingat the pro game where I think any Corporation it's being

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self-aware it's a mental thing in my eyes like I know whatI'm really good at work-wise and I know what I'm really not

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good at you have to delegate to be successful but I thinkthe key with delegation is how do championship teams

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and thriving startups win our guest today has a nationalchampionship ring played a pivotal role at one of the most

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game-changing companies of our time and is here to share howtrust commodity and high performing cultures lead to

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Unstoppable success welcome to the learn itall podcast theshow for today's leaders who want to get ahead and stay

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ahead because we believe that great leaders aren't born ormade we are constantly in the making I'm your host

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Damon Lembi two-time best-selling author and CEO of learn ita live learning platform that has helped upskill over 2

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million people over the past three decades I'll be joiningin a moment by Lyall Adams a walk- ont National

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Championship winning athlete former pro soccer player one ofthe first 100 employees at Uber and founder of spry a

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super successful startup I'm going to ask Lyall to sharewith us how to overcome setbacks why leaning into your

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strengths are key to growth and his secret to building Highperforming teams that win on and off the field can you

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share one piece of advice that's been pivotal to yoursuccess I think Curiosity has led me to where I am today

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um whether that was as a professional athlete how do I getbetter being curious like Hey how do I improve my

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game right CU like at that level everyone's good so like youknow it's a game of inches and margin so being

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curious maybe might not be the right phrase there but it'slike how do you get better and then from a professional

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standpoint that Curiosity pushed me to like explore newavenues or opportunities or

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you encouraged me to apply for Uber back then because I wascurious I like to

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tell some folks I took a my first ride and I was like thisis Magic I had an aha moment and everyone says in the tech

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world like once you have a customer in the Ala moment whenyou have something correctly that led me to be curious

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about how do I get to these locations differently so my onebit of advice was

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would be to be curious or having have a have a curiosityabout yourself to be

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better in any aspects of life I think that that is fantasticand you know I I

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talk a lot about the learn it all leader and one of the keytraits is curiosity I think great leaders great athletes they

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are curious and they're humble enough to know hey I don'thave all the I don't have it all figured out so let me learn

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from others ask questions and and really listen so uh that'sa fantastic piece of advice well let's let's take it back

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let's uh let's talk about your uh career uh walking onstarting at walking on at

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um Wake Forest well that's a wild story um first of all Ineed to like thank my college coaches for giving me the

Walking On at Wake Forest – Lyle shares his story ofperseverance and earning a spot on one of the nation’s top soccer programs.

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opportunity so my junior year of high school my club soccerteam fell apart um

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culmination of four or five different events one of mycoaches was going to

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law school another coach unfortunately didn't have a studentvisa extended so he had to go back to Scotland or team

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manager was moving on to something else a couple of guyswere moving so or club team kind of fell apart going into my

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junior year which happens to be the biggest year ofrecruiting for college sports so I somewhat fell through the

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cracks um many schools in Florida were recruiting me but Ihad aspirations of playing ACC soccer because I felt like I

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had the ability to do so so a pawn senior year comes aroundI talk to my parents and they go hey these are the

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schools that are looking at you are giving you potentialscholarships what do you want to do I said hey I want to try my luck at some ofthese ACC schools

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my parents said sure so I applied I got into some of themWake Forest was one of

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the schools I got into and I said hey I want to try to playsoccer there um but obviously wake is a top 15 program in

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the country um so I actually emailed the coach raw and saidhey I would love an opportunity to walk on no response um on

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new student orientation day I swing by the coach's office tohave a conversation right so the day that all

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prospective students are on campus walking around I decidedto swim by the soccer coach and I made a pitch to

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him uh coach Jay would love the opportunity to walk on asyou can imagine he was somewhat flabbergasted by

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this uh didn't really happen at that time um but he was hewas he was respectful he was gracious like um the

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current coach Bobby Muse now and Coach Jay and Carson Portersaid hey thank you so much for your your interest obviously

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like we have a good roster for next year but we'll make somecalls if you're willing to put in the work and just be

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part of the team we would love to have you if you pass thereference checks fortunately enough for me one of Coach

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Bobby's good friends was a coach at South Florida and I grewup in Orlando

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so he basically said hey the kid's a good player we werelooking at him to come here but he wants to play ACC

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soccer go to an academic school so we kind of put her hatout of the race um so that basically warm referral gave me

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a chance to walk on at wake and I'm in true walk-on wasn'tpart of the plan wasn't part of this um I wore number 30

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because I was the 30th first one on the roster and that waskind of the omen um but showed up at preseason had a good

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preseason worked hard and was fortunate enough to you knowbe named a starter for a first game as a freshman really so

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yeah I played four years I think that's one of the most I'ma typically modest

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guy one of the things I'm most proud of in my life um I'mnumber I'm in top five

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of games started in games played at Wake Forest in schoolhistory um and there's been some really great players that have

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played wow that's a big accomplishment man that's one of mythings I'm actually secretly quite proud of um like I said

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it comes down to my teammates I I still give a lot of creditto my coaches because like soccer doesn't have a lot of

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scholarships right so having a walk on coming and reallygiving them a chance to play and honestly earn their spot on

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the team takes a lot of like leadership and strength andlike he gave me a fair chance you didn't have to and I'm

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forever grateful for that opportunity because that's one ofI would say one of the the change moments in my life that

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had really altered my trajectory so like that was the storyso the walk- on just

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played a lot um so I have a really good relationship withall my college teammates and college coaches because we

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all have a lot of jokes about my experience that's awesomeand you know it's almost in Reverse of mine I went as

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a preseason All-American full scholarship to Pepperdine butunfortunately I I kind of came in for

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whatever reason with imposter syndrome you know doubtingmyself how did you as a walk on come in with the

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self-confidence uh to just be able to do it I think thatthat's something that's awesome and and I think people at any

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level in their career let's say we have a listener who justgot promoted as a manager and maybe they're unsure if they

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can do it because they've never done it before in a roomwith all these Senior People how did you do that I don't know

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if there's specific steps like obviously you have to have uman underlying belief

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of like self-confidence but not arrogance right I thinkthere was times in my freshman year like I probably

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bordered too much on one side of that the Arrogant side andit kind of like led me to like get or not maybe it

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helped but at the same time like I think I realized in someof the similar practices hey I can kind of hold my own

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here like yes there are things that other players are betterat than I am but there's things that I'm also really

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really good at so if I can kind of lean into my strengthsright maybe this now

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works out I just really wanted a chance right you know if Ididn't play I don't think I would have been upset right I

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just wanted a fair shot because that's what was kind ofupsetting about my club team falling apart because I felt like I

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was not giv I didn't have the same access as some of mypeers you went to better tournaments I just didn't have a

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good club so for me going in there I was like hey if I trymy best and I fail I'm good enough with that right I just wanted to

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have my best foot forward and that ended up being goodenough to impress the

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coaches and for them to like have faith in me to become aand to play so it was a really humbling experience you as a

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team we made three consecutive final fours we won a nationalchampionship like so I'm forever grateful

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that right place right time if that makes sense I don't knowif it works a year later I don't know if it works year

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before it was just like the stars had aligned and obviouslyyou to put the work in to get there but with all those

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things it happened to really work out positively for me yeahI I understand the right place right time and all that

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but I'm also a big believer that you create your own luckright you know if you didn't put yourself out there in

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that position it wouldn't matter what time it was so um suremaybe there's a

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little bit of luck in there but I think you created your ownluck I don't want to just pass over this you won

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the national championship I mean that that is incredibleright so what was it

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about that team because again I mean there there are greatteams you know there are people with great talent and

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and you went with but what was it about that team that wasable to win the

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championship I would say ironically this is going to soundodd my college team might get mad at me I thought of this

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three the that was her probably second best team no teamthat won I thought my

Winning a National Championship – Lyle reflects on thecamaraderie and culture that drove his team to victory.

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senior year team was the better team like playerwise rightand like talent wise I

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thought we were better senior than Junior but junior year Iwould say the last three years I would say the last

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three years at we we were just close we got along like thelocker room was a happy place right there was no animosity

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there was no jealousy like you were happy for your teammatesto be successful and that was ultimately the

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team success so if someone now scored a goal right mostpeople were generally excited celebrated you were happy so I

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think we were close off the field which I think led to usbeing close on the field but we also then made a kind of a

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pack amongst us we didn't really want to go through freshmanyear again or her first year again I think we lost eight

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games that year we lost seven of those games by one goal theother one we lost

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by two goals but all of us were very successful orcompetitive in high school so we all hated losing so I think that

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was part of the motivation saying hey let's just be betterbut then at the same time you also I think we realized

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we were close freshman year right it wasn't like we weregetting blown out of the water or basically like we're

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getting snash every game one goal here one goal there makingmistakes things that can be corrected with hard worth

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effort and you know commitment right I think that was kindof what drove us to

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be successful but we've also said got a law like looking atyou know hearing some friends who played college soccer

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or College to other places Mall teammates are wonderful I'mprobably texting one of 15 guys every day L like

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we're still very very close we might not see each otherevery single day anymore we have guys with multiple kids jobs all

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around the world but like if someone comes to New York

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there's a 95% chance I will now see them if schedule's alignor if I now go to a

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city with one of my college teammates now live in there's a95% chance we're going to connect if schedule's align

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unless there's some kind of convenience I think that's whatled to Our Success is we got along like as you know like at

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that level it's a game of margins it's inches right like forsuccess and non-success but you kind of have to get

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along to a certain extent I think or teams at wake had thatkind of culture

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the last three years that we were just like we were close weparted together we live together we would hang out together

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we make fun of each other like we were just we were a closegroup and I think that really allowed us to really push

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ourselves to get to that level necessary to be successful ona championship level yeah I'm sure this is something that's

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stuck with you in your professional career too and we'll getto all that I have one more question because I think you said that maybe yoursenior team was

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even more talented do you felt like after you won it yourjunior year that maybe you didn't have the eye of the

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tiger or the edge anymore because you've already done it didthat play a role in it or no or car or car coach ran that

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out of us the spring after we run so I don't I I don't thinkwe had it but I think I think we wanted something a bit

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more like I think if looking at junior year we we kind ofsaid hey we won it but we can be better I think no one was

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satisfied with just having one right because looking at itthe the one that we lost my sophomore year stung it's

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stung it still hurts and I think senior year still hurtsright sophomore year we lost in penalties but we were the better

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team but soccer is one of those games if you don't put awayyour chances anything can happen and that kind of motivated us

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to get there but once you now won I think once we won likewhat I

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think you know Marcus Tracy who won the Herman in our senioryear said it best he's like we won a national championship

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we have a bullseye on our back right now and since we didn'tlike losing I think that's what motivated us to be better in

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my eyes but unfortunately we fell up short I think we we hitthe post a few times at game my senior year

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I think it was three or four times unfortunately in soccerif you hit the post three or four times the likelihood

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of you winning a soccer game is not high but like um Ithought we were talented

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because at that point we knew each other we need eachother's strengths we need each other's like weaknesses right we

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knew how to play with each other but more importantly likesituationally we could adapt to

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everything because we had seen it now three years before sono scenario I thought was like uncomfortable where

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something you kind of have to like learn by experiencing itwhere we experience everything senior year so now it's like oh

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I know how he's thinking we're just going to do this andthis and it's kind of like second nature that's why I thought we werefundamentally better at

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that point but unfortunately like I said we didn't get theball didn't bouncer away and like obviously

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it disappointing but I'm still grateful that we have anational championship because like I said those are really

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really hard to have that's an understatement right andthat's a and that's an amazing accomplishment that

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you and your and your buddies get to live with and and youknow Glory days

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over the years I I think it's I think it's awesome so fromthere you were a you were a second round pick right and

Life as a Professional Athlete – Lyle discusses thechallenges of transitioning from college to the pros and lessons learned alongthe way.

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you and you and you went into the you played MLS and playedprofessionally first overseas and then um so what was

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that like I mean it was humbling to say the least um thejump from high school to college

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is not is a lot smaller than the jump to from college to

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Pros um and I think the jump from College to professionalsjust the intensity like we practice hard at

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weight but it was it wasn't the intensity you didn't havethe physicality that you saw in the Pro game

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like for contct I'm 62 right um I could do most things Iwanted in

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college for my free at that hyp I was probably like you knowmaybe I'm B 90 dripping wet I wasn't a lot of like

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thick but I was big in the professional ranks like everyonewas my size everyone was strong and everyone was fast right

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like that jug took a while to get used to and then just thesheer length of the

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Season Colin sports in America you play College Office threemonths maybe four

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months if you're really really good and you get all the wayto the championship game from when you start in August right early August withpreseason till mid

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December when the college cup is four months tops theprofessional leagues are

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10 11 months right so I think that is physically andmentally physically and Mally being able now to one focus and

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get through that but persevere when you're having these lawsis kind of the challenge but also at the same time like

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taking your care of your body being disciplined like youhave a lot more free time college is great because

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college is structured you got class you got practice and yougot homework and and you got meals in between as a

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professional you just got practice another whole day is nowyear so being able to structure that but for

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me it was just the physicality of the game right likelooking back at my career

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now obviously I wish I could do some things differently butI have no regret I would say the biggest thing that I wish

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I did my first year as a professional was to really investin my body get

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stronger right really get stronger to handle that justphysicality of the game

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but also another the 10mon season right because like it'sjust it's going to wear on the body and if you look at some

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of the successful NBA players they kind of talk about theirfirst pro season they go hey I realized I'm not strong

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enough to now play two extra months on the top of an 82 Gameseason because the

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physicality and the intensity now is in a different leveland unfortunately you kind of have to just experience that

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before it makes sense so you know what you know need need toachieve yeah absolutely and so one question that I

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was kind of thinking about right here where here you'retalking is when you get into professional soccer

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right I mean you have college and you're in professionalsoccer there are so many players who who have the physical Talent

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so to be successful in the pros how does it break downbetween the

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importance of your physical ability vers you know your yourmental approach to the game I think it's all mental at that

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level I think it's 90 95% mental and and being in of themental capacity though

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it's more like understanding where you are and who you areas a player because like in any sport certain players work

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in certain systems a lot better than other systems whetherit's baseball or basketball or soccer some player can be

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a role player in one team and they put him in a differentposition now they're now a lead contributor in some capacity

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So based based on that that's why I would say it's mentalfor me um you kind of have to Know Your Role I think one of

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my college teammates was really good about that my you knowgoing into my sophomore year which kind of things

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started clicking for me like freshman year I was kind of upand down it was rough like I had good games I had bad

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games I wasn't consistent I would say a consistency VARwhereas going into that offseason a

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couple of my teammates sat me down says hey man these arethe things that you're really good at lean into into your

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strengths and now surround yourself or playing situationthat somewhat doesn't really

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expose your areas for opportunity yes you can work on thosein the offseason right but like there are certain things

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that you do well that your teammates can't do and vice versaso PL your strength that's the mental aspect so

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looking at the pro game where I think any Corporation it'sbeing self-aware it's a mental thing in my eyes like I

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know what I'm really good at work-wise and I know what I'mreally not good at right or I need areas of help on so

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either seeking out that help or openly delegating or havingthat conversation I think is really really important to say

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hey it's okay to delegate or show vulnerability at the sametime you can't be good at everything like no one can be

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good at everything whereas everyone has their strength andfor opportunities so I think that ties into the mental aspect

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of saying hey are you aware of that and if you are andyou're willing now to be courageous or vulnerable to say

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hey I need help here or this is what I'm good at I think youcan get to that success and I guess the final piece

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around professional sports is looking at the NBA or even MLBright if you're a a

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starting position player in the Major League Baseball you'rea very good baseball player like you're a very good

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baseball player normally right we looking at the N even ifyou're even if you're a benchwarmer you're a phenomenal baseball player saylike I people like

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if you take anybody in the NBA and you put them in a YMCA orlike their pickup game or ridiculous game they're gonna

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score 100 points yeah they might not see the court on an NBAteam but like you put them with normal people they gonna

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score 100 points and make it look easy that's like a petpeeve of mine when I go to a baseball game or I go to a

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basketball game and there's somebody in the crowd you knowtalking talking right you know um because it's like do

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you know what the level of talented takes mentally andphysically to be able to get to this level I mean I just have

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the most utmost respect you know for professional athletesand and all of that right because like you said you can

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go play on the men's league afterwards and score 100 pointsin a game oh yeah it's it's I agree with you I think for

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those that's one thing I always respect about athletes Ithink as an athlete you have a lot of like innate qualities that

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will transfer really well to business but whether they arenow being disciplined and being on time trying to

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be reliable and consistent you show up every day day with apositive attitude you're trying to work right because if

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you're getting to that level you got to come with thatattitude at every single day to work and get better and I think

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many of those traits transfer their business being anentrepreneur like I said is being a lot like an athlete

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right like a lot of the work that you're doing behind thescenes many people really won't see right they just they

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just won't see them but if you want to be successful youkind of have to do that those steps in that process to get

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to where you now want to go because without that that's thefoundation for your success so like whether that's 7

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a.m. runs or doing tons and market research and doing thecalls and the homework and the product testing but you

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have to put in the work to be successful whether it's on theplaying field court or Surface or in the boardroom you could

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say yeah I wantan to I want to say uh you know you and Iwere connected a mutual friend Jay Dixon and uh what he

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says he says it bets he calls it athletic education you knowand uh I love my car ation with him on an earlier

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episode and it's all about how these skills are transferableso your soccer career comes to an end and that must

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have been tough right so what was what was that shift likegoing from being a

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professional soccer player into the corporate world I knewmy soccer career was always going to end but what made it

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tough was I I I didn't end it on my terms someone told methis was now over

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or I didn't really have a chance to basically right my lastwish but that's 95% of

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most athletes if you want to be honest there's only a fewspecial ones

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who get to say hey I'm done when I'm done right whether it'snow Financial or I just don't want to play anymore most

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unfortunately are told hey your career now is over right soI think that was the

From Soccer to Tech – Lyle talks about his transition to thecorporate world and the pivotal moments that led him to Uber.

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hard part for me and I I I really hadn't thought about whatwas next um I I

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wasn't I I was comfortable in my own skin but I wasn'treally comfortable with who I was at that point in my

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career I was still kind of young in my early 20s I was stilltrying to figure out like who I was as a person like who

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Lyall Adams was what what made Lyall Adams take so I thinkthat point of

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self-discovery on top of now not having soccer since soccerwas my identity kind

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of made it really really challenging right um that point ofview then the n9s

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worse my career ended kind of during the last banking crisisso they were really no jobs right so you can have a lot of

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confidence in your abilities but like if no one's hiring Ithink I spent eight months applying for jobs which also now

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was that 2008 2009 200 um 2000 like early 2010 right mid mid

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2010 when my career right in the worst part yeah it it wasnot a great time to be looking for a job when you had no

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experience like many of my classmates had internships in theSummer where they had entrylevel jobs didn't have much

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because I was spending the summer working on my craftgetting get it for the upcoming soccer season so like I

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said no regrets about any of those decisions but I kind ofcame into that hiring

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Arena not really with the class of 2009 my graduating classit was more in my

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eyes the class of 2012 or 2011 because I had no workexperience

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right so I think that's what made the transition so somewhathard was one I was trying to find who I truly was as a

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person right and then not being able to secure a job

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and as quickly as I thought I could have hurt rightobviously now I'm well aware

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of what was going on from an economic standpoint why it tookso long but like at the time you're I was young and naive

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so well I got good grade in school I did these tests well Iwas someone like I said to the macroeconomic environment to

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say hey no one's hiring l so you actually you're applyingfor a job with someone who has an NBA or someone who

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has five years of experience and you have a summerinternship obviously they will now go with the more experienced

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candidates but it just took me a while to get to come tocome to terms with

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that I would to say get over come to terms with therealization of it and once I found peace in all these

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decisions I think it kind of made my professional careertransition a lot easier question for you so let's say we

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have a listener out there who's feeling like let's say maybethey're an accountant or something and they just

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lost their job or maybe they're an athlete like like you andI were and

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we're we're not we haven't really found ourself what is onepiece of advice that

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you can give them for them to help make that first step toreally find themsel you everyone is everyone is unique and

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different so I would say find the place that you're mostcomfortable in and just

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just go there and think and think about hey what do you wantto do or also what don't you like doing I think the latter

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question for me was actually really really helpful as Istarted my as I started to get better with my job sear

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my aunt asked it to me she's like hey you keep telling mewhat you want to do but what don't you want to do and once I

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then realized what I was not appealed to it kind of helpedbut then she made a then she made a really like it still

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stands with me today she's like hey you're somewhat new inthe workplace

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your job is to get experience and to grow right so likewhere you want to go you can get there but looking at now

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doctors you don't become a doctor your first day in medicalschool you become a doctor after four

26:45

years of training and work or six years or eight yearsdepending on your discipline but the point my aunt was

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trying to make was hey as you're approaching this you'reapproaching this wrong approach this in the steps no

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where you want to get there or or no way you want to go andwork towards that every day or every job because as long

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as you're learning and you're growing your milestones andyour um goals are achievable but if you think you're going

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to now jump into go be this person right now and you got nowork experience you're set up for failure right so

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obviously was a tough pill to swallow but I thought lookingback at it she was spot on she saying hey you will discover who you are as a

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person an individual what motivates you when you start doingsomething you you look at this the positives you look at

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the negatives but through those experiences you'll have abetter sense of what motivates you what drives you

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what angers you and and as you build upon and have more ofthose lessons I think you'll be easier to get to that

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sense of identity or who your true self is that's a greatanswer and and that was your aunt who helped you with that

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yeah my a my aunt my aunt's awesome my dad's I gotta say Iwas just going to say I mean she's awesome and so let's uh

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so I know you got an ATT Tech and you worked at LivingSocial but then you ended up at Uber um and one of the first

28:02

100 employees at Uber and as I mentioned at the beginningit's like I think Uber is an absolute Game Changer so what was

28:09

your experience like uh when you got to Uber and really didyou realize it was

28:14

gonna have such an impact on the world after my first week Iknew something was

28:21

special right but I think it really solidified 3 weeks intothe job like I'm

28:26

a numbers guy as an econ major in college I love statisticsthe law of large numbers says

28:33

at a certain point numbers start to normalize right but whenI kind of got

28:39

settled I was like uber was doubling every X number of dayswhen I started like like clockwork it wasn't

28:46

like oh we had a bad week it was like no they doubled againthen like the if you put in the days they were doubling again

28:51

I was like this is people are like what the heck's going onand at the time like like I I had this conversation yesterday

28:57

with someone I was like this is 2012 you had really socialmedia was in

The Uber Experience – Lyle recounts his time as one ofUber’s first 100 employees and the lessons learned from scaling a globalgame-changer.

29:02

his infancy all he really had was desktop Facebook andTwitter at the time there was really no Instagram right the

29:10

mobile app game was kind of developing at the time but itwasn't as popular as predominant as it was now because most

29:16

of web traffic was done on your desktop so for me U seeingUber now grow so

29:22

quickly without the current mediums and channels that we nowlook at viable grow

29:27

through all these things back then I was like this is wildthis is something really really awesome right from the

29:35

back end right and then like you could kind of see it invernacular we were kind of mentioned in TV shows and like

29:41

you know I called the story one of my good college friendsum right like I told him I was leaving Living Social

29:48

it's like dude L need to talk to you I think it's a mistakefor your career I don't know what you're doing right now

29:54

um but if you think it's smart it's smart 6 months later heyman like I

30:00

don't know if you heard of this company called Uber um youyou can request rides and like a black card super cool here's

30:06

my promo code can you sign up so I can get $50 of creditlike six months later he forgot I had worked there that's

30:12

awesome that had basically was like a full a full circlemoment for me to say

30:17

wow what we're kind of doing is changing but what really wasspecial for my Uber time was obviously the people that I

30:25

worked with I think that was what I missed most what I wasmost hesitant about leaving the place was you worked

30:31

with a ton of great smart people right like a lot ofmeetings I would come out feeling expired or saying wow I have an

30:37

intellectual crush on that person that person is reallysmart I like to think about we didn't really go into meetings

30:44

having to explain the problem we were going to meetings andnow work on Solutions or ideas because everyone

30:49

conceptually got the pro the problem so you would have a lotmore productive conversations and stuff so like it was

30:54

wonderful like it's like I I look back at that period it waslike the second most transformative period of my life

31:01

right uh on that side and the other aspect that I really

31:06

like didn't realize how powerful was was when you startedhearing all the customer stories of the partner stories

31:12

with Uber right of how people so much struggle to get aroundbefore Uber and DC or in like different parts cabs

31:19

wouldn't go or it was just a nightmare to communicate overthe course of time you press the button now and a car would

31:25

show up and take you wherever you would go and not have toworry about safety or paying the driver or getting robbed so

31:31

once these things really started spreading that was whatmost re warning because you basically to your point

31:36

movement became ubiquitous it was no more longer siloed orlike contained to

31:42

a certain certain people or certain locations it was easy toget anywhere right I live in New York now there's

31:47

obviously a benefit of being near the subway when I lived inDC I have to walk a half a mile but Uber could take and

31:54

pick you up and go anywhere you were I think that was thetrue power and then seeing how that industry took off when I

32:01

was there like going from the concept of like you know um a

32:07

contractor contractor employer relationship or like the gigeconomy in general it opened up a lot of doors like

32:14

seeing how some drivers were saying hey man I'm retire thisis great like I can still now meet people and keep my mind

32:21

sharp and at the same time I can turn off and go pick up mykids my grandkids from elementary school and spend the

32:26

afternoon with them right like I couldn't find a normal jobthat gave me that flexibility either can do that or

32:31

seeing a lot of single mods who were saying hey this givesme a way to make some additional income and also spend

32:36

time with my kids so like there was so many positive storiesthat you saw and

32:42

felt and it was really nice to be part of the back operationstaff that made

32:48

the these stories possible yeah I mean Uber is basically aword now right just

32:54

like Xerox is for copy paper you know nobody says to get alift that even if

32:59

you order a lift you're still you're going to call an Uberdid you get did you get an Uber you know it's uh it's it's an incredible andbut you were

33:06

there for six years and there's a lot of positives but werethere any really tough times or any challenges that you

33:12

could share with us I would say you know in early 2017 likeyou know the world was doing a lot of like self-reflection

33:17

on what was right and wrong from a Humanity standpoint rightthe met too movement some of the things and Uber had

33:23

a very negative um story that basically came out about oneof our engineers and it was it was

33:30

upsetting to hear like I obviously I felt for thatindividual wholeheartedly

33:35

um the whole company basically was now put through this youknow this tough

33:42

time from a PR perspective um it was challenging because noteveryone was a bad seed not everyone was a bad apple

33:50

there were some really good people who worked there and Ithink it was now challenging as a people manager at time

33:56

hearing what now was being said about you as a company whereeveryone who now worked there when in reality you know

34:03

deep down inside not everyone was like that there were somegood people right there were some and I think that was one

34:08

of the more challenging times as a organization because manypeople poured their heart and soul in the Uber to get

34:14

to where the company was at that time yet unfortunately afew um bad apples

34:21

had soured the bunch and then hearing these stories andnegativity and try to now be respectful and say hey everyone

34:28

is not that right I think that was kind of one of the thetougher times if I'm being honest like um as a minority I

34:36

know when places aren't friendly to minorities or women Inever once got the sense of that when I was there right I I

34:43

thoroughly enjoyed my time I learned like if I made amistake I made a mistake and I was told not to make a mistake again but itwasn't a reflection

34:50

of who I looked like or what I did or any of my other thingsit was just like I made a mistake and there was a

34:55

standard that you had to now came which I truly respectedbut now hearing like I

35:01

said or seeing the the new cycle drag everyone through themug was somewhat painful

35:09

because I need deep down in t everyone wasn't like that likeI'm not a negot person yet oh everyone who works there

35:15

is evil everyone's a terrible person like no like noteveryone but then that's that at the time was challenging

35:22

especially being the microcosm of San Francisco which is amore insulated place and Tech kind of dominates

35:28

um the culture or did back then it was challenging I wouldsay that was probably the the hardest time where

35:34

being able to like talk with some of my you know femalereports about what they were feeling because they were also

35:39

upset by it and I fully understand why but I would say of mytenure there that was probably the toughest time um in

35:47

general oh absolutely and you were uh you were a peoplemanager at the time so

35:52

I'm sure there had to be some tough periods of of keepingpeople motivated and wondering if they should even be

35:58

coming uh you know sticking with Uber what advice would yougive to other

36:03

people leaders out there who are listening to your story nowwhere they work in an organization and let's say

36:09

that they just went through layoffs or something tough andso the team that they have has lost some of the

36:15

motivation how do you help reverse that trend for them as astheir leader well

36:20

you have to be positive I think as a leader that's that's apro and a con you got to have a smile on your face right I

36:27

think obviously like no one wants that Workforce reductionsor any of these difficult things but they happen like

36:33

you can't you can't script everything everything is notalways two steps forward sometimes you take a step or step and a half backwardsbut you have

36:39

to kind of keep trudging forward so I would say to thepeople managers like be honest you don't have to like

36:46

what's going on but you kind of have to be empathetic but Ithink that's the key for me is like being authentic and being

36:52

empathetic the kind of understanding where the person's atpretending that nothing is wrong think is going to be

36:58

viewed wrong if you if unfortunately you reduced the C by30% you know what's happened right you can be upset in the

37:04

empathetic but you kind of now like I said if you'reauthentic and explain what happened or what you're how you're feeling and howthey can now cope I

37:11

think eventually your team will come around hopefully theycome around but there's no guarantee they will what in my

37:19

experience I I gravitate to people who are authentic whotell you the truth who are kind of Straight Shooters at the end

37:25

of the day what whether or not not you might not want tohear in the moment when you had time to digest and calm

37:32

down or like you know really like settle you'll appreciatetheir perspective

37:38

because it takes a lot of courage to share that withindividuals um and just being honest

37:43

about your feelings and emotions I think that that's goldright there by the way and what I hear you saying is be

37:49

authentic genuine um and be transparent right and you can'tfix everything but

37:56

people know if you're hiding something and they know thingsaren't going well and if you do if you don't do all of

38:02

those things Lyall people lose trust in you and if they losetrust in you you have a you have a much bigger much

38:08

bigger challenge so I think that that advice right there isis awesome let's jump forward to you leave Uber and you

38:16

start spry so start with tell us a little bit about what nilis because some of our listeners don't know what it

38:22

is and let's get into what spry does and and how it helpsits customers so spry

38:28

is an Athletics management platform so to answer your firstquestion um nil so

38:33

nil is name image and likeness so until 2021 Collegeathletes were not permitted

38:40

to make money from their name image and likeness so theirname obviously L Adams they're aiming a picture of KN I.E L

38:47

Adams or their likeness maybe a character of L Adam so until2021 that

38:53

wasn't now permitted under the existing NCAA guidelines soif a student athlete

38:58

were to pursue any opportunity there unfortunately it wouldhave jeopardized their eligibility sobody didn't really

39:05

do that however though that law was changed and as startingin the summer of

39:11

2021 student athletes could now make money BR was foundedunder the tenant of

39:17

helping student athletes at scale navigate this new worldand the the

39:22

macro thesis was not every student athlete would have an Aor a business manager looking at

39:29

myself I played soccer and despite how you knowself-confident I am I don't think anyone was going to pay me

39:35

$100,000 to do an nil deal especially in college right sowhat I'm I wouldn't

39:41

have had a team a group around me to surround me and put mein a position to be successful I kind of have to do

Founding Spry – Lyle explains the inspiration behind Spry,its mission, and how it empowers student-athletes in the NIL era.

39:47

everything on my own and that's SC spry was basically foundit to be now hey let's now build educational resources of

39:53

put everything together now across the board so a school cannot only stay on top of what their student athletes are

39:58

doing but also Empower them with the resources and tools tobe successful because most student athletes wouldn't

40:04

be like a paig buers or Caitlyn Clark or Caya Williams wouldhave big teams to

40:10

help manage their Affairs most student athletes will bedoing it on their own and if now your deals are hundreds of

40:16

dollars and tens of dollars instead of tens of thousands ofdollars you couldn't afford to pay help so that was

40:21

prise mandating thesis so that's where we got our start andit was wonderful to see how we were helping student ask

40:27

athletes you know a few early success stories were I believein the fall of

40:32

2021 shortly after gel went live we ran a promotion tobasically help a ton of

40:39

student athletes now um learn more about niil through aseries of educational

40:45

videos in the app those who saw the video saw 80% increasein earnings over

40:51

the next six months so it just showed that nil was foreveryone conceptually

40:58

and that's what I loved about it you like not everyone wouldmake lifechanging money but everyone would

41:04

have the opportunity to make money and looking at myself asa former athlete if I made an extra $200 a month in college

41:11

that's a big deal for me right in college right likeobviously as's an adult that's a totally separate thing

41:16

but in college now that's extra food money they can go outto dinner maybe

41:21

they can have a couple Libations on the weekend right likeit's it's pretty good walk about in college for you right

41:29

that's the that's the beauty of nil and from a businessperspective nil was entrepreneurship in my eyes right and I

41:35

always going to teach a lot of young men and young womenearly on how to be business owners how to think about your

41:41

brand how to have some of these sof business skills thatunfortunately I didn't really learn till I graduate or

41:48

had to now interview or do certain things but if you're nowworking with a restaurant and doing a speaking

41:54

engagement you have to engage and do public speaking thesethings I think nil will allow athletes to do a lot earlier

42:01

I think is the biggest benefit so now you have tangibleexperience coming out

42:06

upon your graduation day right so you can now hit thecorporate world running I personally think nil is like uber to

42:14

the taxi business you know um as an ex-athlete myself youknow I saw a lot

42:21

of friends who didn't have any money they couldn't work theycouldn't get paid for what they're doing and uh I

42:27

think that uh I think it's fantastic and the NCAA shouldhave jumped on that a long time ago I they really should have

42:34

and um but I love that we're here now and I I love whatyou're doing to support it and um and so let's talk a

42:41

little bit about spry growth because I believe you're up toabout 200 customers yeah we' we've had an amazing run

42:47

recently like I would say since we've so last two week beenin the feature set um

42:54

the reason for is our customers were asking for more theyyou know coming out of co co reset the sports industry on a

43:01

macro level many activities within Sports organizations werealways in person come to my office come to this

43:06

Auditorium I have a team meeting many things were always inperson when covid happened I everything became

43:14

virtual and now many of these you know organizations orathletic departments were buying a series of horizontal

43:20

Solutions across the board to get their operations or taskdone while this led

43:26

the short-term efficiency it led to long-term inefficiencybecause now I had eight or nine different platforms I was

43:32

using I had nine different logins I had tons of spreadsheetswith scattered data

43:38

so heing all this customer feedback we decided toverticalized hey let's wait a second let's put all these core

43:43

functions into one platform let's do paperwork let's doscheduling let's still provide practical education for

43:49

nil let's do nil management let's add roster managementcompetition let's put

43:54

everything into one app if everything's now in one platformthis now can allow us to be

44:01

successful at scale because we can sell into all types ofschools not just those heavily focus in ey out so since we

44:08

expanded the feature set last summer we've probably grown 5xright like it's

44:14

been really humbling and rewarding to see that you know thevision that we've laid out as a company has now become a

44:21

reality um so it's great there but like anything good itcomes with a lot of

44:26

sacrifice being a startup is hard I tell people all the timeyou hear no way more than you hear

44:32

yes you hear and I think as the great Ted lasso says you gotto have memory of

44:37

a goldfish absolutely and that's one question I have for youright there you know for our listeners who maybe want to

44:43

be a a Founder what advice do you have for the founder

44:49

especially where should they be spending their time as aFoundry you have to have a real good sense of what's important

44:56

for that game given period in the company like right now mybusiness is my

45:03

business has seasonality to it in that there's a clearerbuying season when most of our contracts are signed there's

45:11

a clear time to train and Implement and there's a clear timeto refine and

45:16

improve right so I would say to any business owner like youhave to really know your space I think that's the bigger North Star for meinstead of like

45:23

where you spend your time so you really have to know yourspace and know your team right when to lean in when not to lean

45:29

in like in the middle of um or peak season I spend a lot oftime helping

45:36

Business Development right whereas that now priority mightshift and focus more on

45:42

product development now during our Improvement Cycles rightstill touch and base with you know the BD team but it's

45:49

not as pressing as it need right in other times of the yearso I would say that but it comes down to I think as a

45:55

business owner you have to delegate that what of comes downto the end of the day like unfortunately you only have eight

46:01

hours a day you can only do so much as one individual so ifyou're going to De

46:06

delegate you have to delegate to be successful but I thinkthe key with delegation is do you Empower people to

46:12

be business owners themselves not renters but I think ownersI I got that from Uber right like

Advice for Founders – Lyle offers practical tips onleadership, delegation, and staying focused as a startup founder.

46:18

being business owner because if you own your house you'lltake care of it a lot more but if people not rent or just stay

46:24

over like at a hotel the level of of care and commitment anddedication is

46:29

not as high as someone who owns So how do you Empower yourteam to be owners of the business as well right because if

46:35

everyone now feels that they are a viable part of theproduct the the

46:41

culture the fabric of what you're now doing they'll putforth the effort that is needed to be successful and you don't

46:48

really you can scale yourself I like could tell people Ineed to only make eight decisions a year if I'm really

46:54

good at my job right I shouldn't be making a lot ofdecisions I should make eight decisions a year big strategic

47:01

decisions but me saying hey Damon what color is this buttonor what color the button should be I should Empower you

47:06

enough to make that decision on your own instead of mehaving to be super super Hands-On with everything one thing I

47:13

want to add is I had this conversation at dinner last nightwith a a guy who's G to be a fractional cro for um a

47:20

startup that just raise about 10 million and he said thatone thing they struggled with working with this guy is

47:27

this guy is didn't know his strengths Lyall you know thisguy was a technical guy and um doesn't know anything about

47:34

sales so what I hear you saying is you know you got to focuson your strengths

47:39

you got to surround yourself with great people and you gotto delegate out those responsibilities right have the

47:45

self-awareness to know hey I'm strong in this but um I thinkyou could just go

47:50

much further if you're able to delegate out and and putsomebody in in in charge

47:56

and give them the the autonomy to to like if bring insomebody who has done it before in sales and knows what to do

48:03

that's how you help grow right absolutely like I said likeyou're going to have to delegate and I think being

48:10

self-aware of what you're good at I think is really reallynecessary because you know you know my my my first boss at

48:18

Uber was wonderful she said hey you always want to hiresomeone smarter than you it's counter two of but you want to

48:23

hire someone smarter than you because if they're smarterthan you but they can do your job and they'll make you look good

48:29

ultimately which is like that's the only way you're going tomultiply and take things off right or is to basically

48:35

surround yourself with talented people because you knowTalent breeds success like you know success is contagious

48:41

energy is contagious if I now see Damon crushing it Iwouldn't want to crush it right so like that's what I think is

48:47

somewhat lost um these days obviously that's a lot hardernow than it was in

48:53

the past um while technolog is great that you and I can havea virtual connection today there are certain

48:59

things that can be done in person that can't be replicatedvirtually and think you can

49:06

like my father says you don't know what gets done in acoffee machine until you don't have a coffee machine right with

49:12

that that could be a copier it could be the break room it'sall the same right but like there are certain aspects and

49:17

elements that I think remote work has been wonderful at likeyou know get Talent you can get better people like

49:23

you can really broaden your reach but in the same timethere's something about being together and cohesive right so I

49:30

think as a leader you you're always struggling to fightthese pros and cons but at the end of the day like you want

49:35

to put your people in success you want to give them theresources and tools to be successful whereas your job is not

49:41

the free up blockers whereas not the micromanage you'reyou're preaching to the choir I mean learn it is a I got

49:48

about 70 employees we're a remote first company but um rightdownstairs in my

49:53

little office I have 10 of my team members who who flew inand last night after dinner uh we all

49:59

said there is no substitute for being in person especiallywhen it comes to collaboration and I just think it's so

50:06

important there are pros and cons to everything but you gotto find the time for your team you know for your team to

50:12

get together because at the end of the day I I you knowpeople could argue with me on this but there's no there's no uh

50:19

replacement for for getting people together in the inpersoncollaboration so Lyall you know we're kind of wrapping

50:25

up now and I would be respectful of your time but look wheredo you see spry

50:32

what's the future hold for spry I think 2024 will be arecord year for us like I said um exponential growth in terms of

50:40

Revenue customers engagement so hopefully could building onthat momentum in

50:45

2025 um right without like getting the details if we can seethe same success

50:51

we solve this year next year I'll be thrilled but moreefficiently I'm looking at more non

50:57

traditional kpis as a as a business leader not everyonelooks at topl line but I'm

51:03

thinking about where do I provide value can I now lower thetime to value for my customers okay how quickly can I get

51:10

them to that aha moment so if that aha moment now takes Xhours can I be 0 five hours in

51:17

the future next year right how do I now have people now sayhey W like I spoke

51:23

this so and so and they are gushing about your product thoseare the the kpis I now focused that for this year

51:28

right I think we just launched a customer page on thewebsite recently which was really rewarding to see some

51:33

of the feedback we got from customers as I was talking tothem it was awesome to hear how they truly felt about the

51:39

product or what they liked and didn't like and over linglyright now it's a lot more Pros than positives than

51:46

negatives as a leader I definitely think was obviouslythings that we can improve but hearing now someone who went from

51:52

having pencil and paper or whiteboard to using Sprite sayshey man you freed up

51:57

hours of my life or it's a lot easier to do this process isreally like

52:02

gratifying to hear and I think for me next year can I doublethat can I hear

52:07

more of those stories can we impact and Empower a lot morepeople across the Collegiate athletic space is kind of

52:15

what's next in my eyes little product St but we have somereally cool features to follow feel free to find us on LinkedIn

52:21

or like you know reach out to our newsletter awesome thingscoming up but

52:26

can we continue to the lighter customers as I would say myNorth Star for 2025 well and this kind of comes full circle

52:33

we started off with talking about curiosity and what we'rewhat we're talking about now is exactly that you

52:39

know is getting curious to see what you can do to get betterI do have one more question for you and then I want you to

52:44

tell the uh listeners where to connect with you what's itlike being a dad you got a

52:50

kid two months old it's awesome I have a little guy at homeum um oh Isa Rock are

52:57

um it's a very it's a very words is kind of hard to describeit to pick one word to describe the

53:03

experience I would say it's very it's exciting it's humblingit's um

53:11

a lot of sacrifice but overall like I said it's been reallyreally great um so

53:17

I'm my wife is a rock star um and I'm lucky my kids sleepsuh so I've heard

53:22

from a few people so far so um very grateful on that butI've en every moment of it so far like I said um me

53:28

and the little guy get to spend mornings together it's ourtime we have some tummy time we go for walks and I've really enjoyed it um Ithink I'll enjoy

53:36

it more when you can actually see me but so far it's beenwonderful um no

53:41

complaints there's nothing better we talked about thatbefore we jumped on where can our uh listeners connect with

53:47

you at feel free to find me on LinkedIn um ly Adams I thinkit's back score ly Adams is one you can always go to spry's

53:53

website ww. spry doso if you email us there I will respondI'm always happy to

54:00

connect with people like I said curiosity is one of mygreatest strength

54:05

so anyone who reaches out I'll get back to you I promise itmight not be instantaneously but I'll I'll make an effort to respond to allemails and all

54:14

requests and messages because I was once out there seekingfeedback or ideas from those in the industry and I wouldn't be

54:21

here without their time and dedication so I'm a big believerand pay it forward that's that's awesome L you've been

Reflections on Fatherhood – Lyle shares his experiences as anew dad and the lessons he’s learning from this exciting chapter of life.

54:27

awesome so much great wisdom and I'm excited to see uhspry's Journey your

54:32

journey uh both as a business leader and of course as a dadand what I what I ask

54:38

our listeners out there um what I want you to do is is thinkabout somebody who

54:43

could benefit from uh my conversation today with Lyle and Iwant you to shoot

54:48

them text them this this uh conversation because I know thatthey'll get value out of it until next time everybody here

54:56

we go Lyle stay curious and keep learning have a great dayeverybody see

55:01

you thank you so much and this was a gut punch cuz I justquit a very lucrative

55:07

big job that most people wouldn't quit and I'm hearing thatthis isn't a problem that we're trying to solve

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