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IAM772- Founder Helps Olympic Athletes and Hopefuls Find Opportunities

Podcast Interview with Michael Rasile

Michael Rasile is the Founder of Our Athletes where he helps Olympic athletes and hopefuls find sponsorship and endorsement opportunities. He has also started the ‘Our Athletes' podcast where he speaks with Olympians on their story and path to the games, as well as ‘For the Love of Sports' where he speak with people in the sports world about what they do, why they love it, and the mindset they employ on a daily basis to take it to the top!

  • CEO Hack: I have a friend to help me accomplish my to do list every day for accountability
  • CEO Nugget: Thank you notifications every day to remind me how grateful it is to have another day
  • CEO Defined: Get what needs to be done, done no matter the timing

Website: https://anchor.fm/for-the-love-of-sports

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Michaelrasile1
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-rasile
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michael.rasile
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChrF4fA8uP7B6ImdfaHAe6Q?

FULL INRTERVIEW

Transcript:

Intro 0:02
Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you’ve come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you’re in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:29
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the IAMCEO podcast. And I have a very special guest on the show today. Michael Rasile of Our Athletes. Michael, it's awesome. have you on the show.

Michael Rasile 0:38
Pleasure to be here, buddy. Thank you.

Gresham Harkless 0:40
No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before we jumped in, I wanted to read a little bit more about Michael so you can hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Michael Rasile is the Founder of Our Athletes where he helps Olympic athletes and hopefuls find sponsorship and endorsement opportunities. He has also started the ‘Our Athletes’ podcast where he speaks with Olympians on their story and path to the games, as well as ‘For the Love of Sports’ where he speaks with people in the sports world about what they do, why they love it, and the mindset they employ on a daily basis to take it to the top. Mike, are you ready to speak to the iamceo community?

Michael Rasile 1:10
I cannot wait.

Gresham Harkless 1:11
Awesome. Let's do it. So to kick everything off, I wanted to kind of rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on what got you started to take us through your CEO story. Where did you get start with all the awesome things you're doing?

Michael Rasile 1:22
Yes. So a couple years ago, the 2018 Olympics were on I was watching the games doing some work in front of my computer. And I was rooting for all the people in red, red, white, and blue. And then I started like, Wait a second, I know nothing about these people. And you know the least I could do they put in all this time, effort, energy, money, Blood, Sweat tears, at least I could do at least know their names, or at least know something about their stories, right? So I went did a couple Google searches and then started falling down a rabbit hole quickly found that about 99% of our Olympic athletes make very little money literally about 80% live below the poverty line when it comes to annual income. And I thought hey, I love sports. I want to help athletes, I want to work with them directly, what can I do to help so I got connected with a few people. One big mentor and a very important person to me is David Meltzer. Check him out on the internet, if you haven't if you're a part of this community, I'm sure you've heard of him, but just in case go double check on him. And, you know, he helped me with some ideas on how to put the business together what to do. And now for the last two years, two plus years, I've been able to help Olympians on you know, what they what they do and how they can make a couple extra bucks. I'm not here to make them millions of dollars yet. But you know, if I can make them year changing money, I like to think about it but five grand 678 grand in someone's pocket, it's gonna significantly change who they are and what they do for that year, in my opinion, and in theirs after speaking with some of them. And it's been a wild ride, but I've enjoyed every second of it since

Gresham Harkless 2:37
nice, absolutely love that. And as a sports junkie and somebody who, who always is wondering about that, too, I think especially with Olympic athletes, as you talked about, you know, from what kind of sparked you with it, sometimes you see every you know, two four years however it might be think that they just started training maybe that day, but I remember taking a look, I think what Michael Phelps ate on a regular everyday basis how his workouts are, you know, they consistently put in the time to be that excellent athlete. So, you know, why not give them opportunities to kind of, you know, get some visibility, some opportunities from that are hard work and sacrifice, they're putting in

Michael Rasile 3:07
hundred percent men, it is a it's pretty, it's pretty ridiculous the amount of money that they make considering what they do for our country, as you said every two every four years, but unfortunately, they get their 15 days, you know, 20 days of fame. And then they kind of many of them, unfortunately go back to being you know, for lack of a better term close to irrelevant, but it's not like they stopped. They're still trying for the next time. And it's like the Olympics are the only competition they go to their yearly there are monthly there are weekly in certain situations, competitions that they're going to competing at the highest level, there's just not the media hype around it. So when there's no media, there's no eyeballs, when there's no eyeballs, there's no money. So it's disappointing, but there are some that I've been able to help and will continue to help and others that I hope to help along.

Gresham Harkless 3:47
Yeah, absolutely. And I think we saw to the women's soccer team that was definitely at the forefront about equal pay, and things like that. So I think I appreciate you for providing opportunities for these Olympic athletes. They're stellar at what they do to be able to get those stellar opportunities as well. So I know you touched on a little bit, can you take us through exactly how that process works? How exactly do you serve these athletes that are doing phenomenal things? And what exactly do you do to kind of help provide those opportunities that they get?

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Michael Rasile 4:10
Yeah, so I have built a relationship through the our athlete podcast and now with the love of sports or for the love of sports podcast, I've been able to build relationships with athletes themselves, obviously, I've also been able to build relationships with industry experts, industry veterans, just sports business executives, and everybody knows somebody right? So that's always nice and and being able to go through that through the podcasts and meeting all these people have been able to to amass a pretty big Rolodex for everybody out there that doesn't remember what that word is. It's just the list of people, a bunch of names and numbers and people that I've been able to build a relationship with. So through that, I've been able to build a relationship with probably around 150 Olympic athletes at this point, which then means I'm one phone call away from just about everybody outside of that top top top tier of athletes. So what I do is I sent it I speak with brands I speak with the sport industry executives, I speak with people that are just looking to work with athletes. They know it or not, and then understand their wants their needs, what they're trying to get out of a deal. And then I can go back to my list of athletes and say, Hey, I you know, I can have five athletes for you at a specific price point that is much lower than if you wanted to work with one NBA athlete, even if he seventh eighth man off the bench, I can we can do it for cheaper, we can give you more stories to connect to, we can give you a bigger demographic to connect to and more specific demographic to connect to. And then from there, we're really just able to aggregate the talent. So if the athletes are interested in it, we're then able to put those deals together, whatever those brands are looking for we at our biggest and try and fulfill them at the best possible and above expectation. So obviously, we want them to come back, and then be able to really just run run from there, you know, just continue to build relationships and learn new things. Because I do believe these athletes stories, there's nothing like it, there's no one else like them. And what they do, again, on the national level, every couple years, yes, but really just on a daily basis, they're still grinding, they're still putting in their discipline, they're still putting in their work. So it's not like they just vanished, they still have audiences, there's people that connect with them within each of their respective sports within their demographics, their hometowns, their home states, so their audiences are still very big, which I think is the important part and understanding that aspect of it. So it's really just getting brands to understand the opportunity and and how much more affordable it is to use, you know, five Olympic athletes versus one NBA athlete or you know, not to pick on the NBA or MLB, or NFL athlete that, you know, may have a at first glance, a big audience. But once you aggregate the five or six of these athletes together, it's going to be bigger, and it's going to resonate more, which I think is the most important part.

Gresham Harkless 6:28
Yeah, absolutely. And definitely, you know, what I hear like, obviously, the term influencer has been used a lot. And a lot of people know these are even could be pro athletes, to me, athletes, NFL, whatever that might be that might be these influencers. But I think that's what's coming are emerging even more and more with the sophistication of the internet's those micro influencers, those people that are influencers, maybe like you said in their hometown, or maybe specifically for the type of sport that they do. And having an opportunity to not just, you know, reach a broad base of people reach a really focus demographic and you spoke to is really something phenomenal.

Michael Rasile 6:58
Yeah, it's been a lot of fun. And getting able to, you know, work with these athletes, obviously, last couple months has been a little weird, with everything that's gone on around the world, but back into it now that sports are starting backed up, you know, as a recording, we're starting to see a lot of these things start to happen. So very excited to you know, just just get back at it, see what we can do and see how we can help.

Gresham Harkless 7:15
Yeah, absolutely. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, and this could be for you personally, or your podcasting organizations. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart makes you unique?

Michael Rasile 7:24
You know, that's a great question. First, I'm going to start with everybody not watching it's my moustache, of course. I mean, I think No, I'm kidding. Of course. It's it's really just, you know, the the passion that comes with it. There's a lot of things as I said, I brought up David Meltzer before and again, anybody out in the community that does not follow him already. He's been a huge, huge influence. It's, it's really been the mindset, right? It's, it's the I never ever say I have to do anything, because I get to do it. I, you know, I wake up every day extremely grateful, you know, I've meditated, I think something like 750 days in a row at some point, and I do my 30 push ups or whatever that number ends up being for the day I do my you know, so it's, it's the routine that I built into all these days that while some people say yes, I meditate on a daily basis, they'll they might miss a Sunday, or they might miss a Tuesday, it's sincerely not missed a single day. And almost, if not more than two years at this point. And, and I think that is something that does set me apart, and not just the meditation, but it's just the dedication, the discipline to do something. Every single day, everyone says, it's really easy. Until you get today like sick and like, I don't really feel like doing my pushups today. You know, I've felt that and sometimes it is two o'clock in the morning, where I'm just like, shoot I forgot to do today, you know, let's get up. Let's do it, you got to do what you got to do. And, and there's other days where things get in the way, but you know, I'm doing a minimum every single day. That's really something that more people can take advantage of that they don't realize how, how difficult it is, but so easy it is to do something every single day, it's not not Monday through Friday, it's not you know, everyday with Sunday, or just you know, occasionally when you want to it's literally every single day. Now, of course I have other things that I get to work on, that I want to get better at. But at the same time, it's I think that's something that sets me apart, because there are so few people, every list of things that every single day they actually do. And for me, I think that list is about seven long and do them every single day. And I haven't missed a day. And you know, as I said over to you this point,

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Gresham Harkless 9:03
I wanted to switch gears a little bit. And I want to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this might be what you spoke today might be an app or book or habit that you have. But what do you feel makes you more effective and efficient?

Michael Rasile 9:13
Yeah, so with those that list of things that I get to do every day, as I said get to do every day, I made sure it was difficult for me in the beginning to make sure that I was doing it every day. So I spoke with a friend of mine, Rob cressy. He's incredible. If you haven't had him on the show, I highly highly suggest it I'll make an introduction if needed. He He told me he's like, Alright, well you have to do is you have to find a community people that are as dedicated as you are. And it was a little difficult. You know, some of my friends were like, Nah, I don't really want to do that. Like that sounds kind of knowing whatever. So it was just like, hey, every single day you have to text me in emoji form all the things that you did that day and it has to be the same thing. Sometimes you can add new ones. Sometimes you can take away old ones if you don't feel it's as effective. But every single day you have to text me the day and all those emojis so you know it's day 375 it's day 456 whatever that ends up being. And for me still personally it didn't work that well. So he's like, Alright, you have to take it a step further than so what I did was I went and found a friend of mine, I said, Hey, we're gonna do this thing. It's our accountability test, what we're gonna do is every single day, both of us have to do whatever we say. And whatever we set out to do is good friend of mine, he's Luke, he's in my wedding party coming up in a couple couple months here. And I said, Dude, well, we all have to do it. And add that extra layer of accountability is if either of us misses, we're both starting over from zero. So, right now, I think we're only on like Dave 56 as of recording, because one of us miss something, you know, how 57 days ago or whatever. But when one of us misses, the other person is to add something to what they have to do every single day. So it's not just the accountability of like him and I are connected in this journey. It's also do some mean stuff to him. And if he misses, you know, we've we've thrown some ideas back and forth, it's like, Alright, the first time we miss, I'm not gonna add something too crazy. But no, if it's the fourth of the fifth time, then you you might be, you know, running a mile every single day minimum, on top of everything else that you have to do, I don't care about time, I don't care if you're sick, I don't care about anything. Because if you miss again, I get to add something else on top of it. So it's adding that that accountability factor of someone else who wants to improve themselves themselves as well. But it's also adding a little bit of fun, a little gamification to it saying like, Hey, man, if you miss like, I can make you do 30 chin ups, you know, before 10 o'clock in the morning, you better not

Gresham Harkless 11:17
miss. I absolutely love that. That hack. And so now I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget. So this could be like a word of wisdom or a piece of advice, it might be something you would tell yourself, or if you were to happen, you were hopping to time, she might tell your younger business Self.

Michael Rasile 11:33
the I have to versus I get to that and grateful every single day I have, I think I have on my watch, I have two notifications that go off, they say thank you on my phone, I've three alarms that say thank you The first of which is the alarm I wake up to that's just labeled Thank you. It's just being grateful man, you know, I sincerely sincerely appreciate every single day, I think it's awesome. There's obviously a lot a lot of stuff going on in the world now. And really, just forever, there's always been a lot of crap going on. So just understanding that it's a good day to be alive. You know, I'd rather be alive and not alive. So you know, I every single day, is it good to be alive and, and really understanding. And I try and do with my friends, I try and do it with my fiance, anytime someone says, Oh, I have to do this, it's done. No, you get to do this, you really do. And if you have that mindset, personally, that's helped me significantly deal with stress to deal with anxiety. And you know, really just understanding that, I get to do this, right. Like, there's so many people that hate every single day of their life. But if you just said I get to versus I have to you get that gratefulness in into your life and gratitude, I think is a huge piece that many people are missing. You know, I'm grateful for my friends, I'm grateful for my future wife, I'm grateful for my family and grateful to be here with you today. And not everybody gets that opportunity. So why not be happy that I get that opportunity? And thank you for it.

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Gresham Harkless 12:44
Now, I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO or broker to have different quote unquote, CEOs on the show. So Michael, what is being a CEO mean to you?

Michael Rasile 12:52
Whatever, whatever needs to get done, get it done, man, you know, obviously working with brands working with, you know, other companies and seeing what they do and working, you know, especially in the smaller companies, obviously have having talked to the CEO of Procter gamble, or Johnson and Johnson yet, but I'm sure it's coming. And it's really just understanding, you know, what, what needs to get done? And how do we get it done, whether that's gating whether that's doing it yourself, and it's really just putting your path to the metal. I mean, you know, it's funny, I have my laptop in front of me at all times, pretty much and my girlfriend and you know, fiance, whatever you want to call her, my family, they're like, Why do you still have that? So things are, I still need things to do, just because you know, I'm not doing something doesn't mean you know, just because it's a weekend, doesn't mean there's stuff to do, right? You know, I truly do believe all 2024 hours in the day, they're all created equal, doesn't matter when you're doing something or how you're doing it, you know, all that kind of equal. So if you want to take time off, that's great, but you're gonna have to make it up somewhere else. So I mean, Monday through Thursday are jam packed. For me, it's more fun that way, and getting everything out. Yeah, on Saturdays and Sundays, I like to hang out with my family, my friend, of course, but all hours are equal. So doesn't matter if it's six in the morning, or if it's six o'clock at night that, you know, time wasn't created in, you know, nine to five chunks, time is created all equal, and we have to utilize when we can.

Gresham Harkless 13:59
Yeah, absolutely. And being aware of that, especially as it being one of the most precious resources that you have, how you're gonna leverage it and in alignment with the vision that you have. And what you hope to see is so important, and I think it's definitely a great reminder and you know, as a quote, unquote, CEO, business owner, entrepreneur, whatever we might call it, it's so important to be cognizant of our spending those times where we're putting those chunks and investing it into what we hope to see in the future and I think when we do that, then we start to see the fruits of our labor.

Michael Rasile 14:22
couldn't agree more man could not agree more.

Gresham Harkless 14:25
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, Michael, truly appreciate that definition. I appreciate your time even more. And what I wanted to do is pass you the mic so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know and of course how best they can get overview strapped to the podcast and hear about all the awesome things you're working on.

Michael Rasile 14:40
Yeah, check out the podcast Apple iTunes, Spotify, anchor will podcast. It's everywhere For the Love of Sports. I've actually taken the our athletes podcast and pretty much just plopped it into the for love of sports podcast, so I don't have to do multiple I can have athletes on and talk to them all the time. I've had it and it's worked out pretty well. So yeah, For the Love of Sports, wherever you listen to your shows also on YouTube. Michael Rasile. For the Love of Sports as well we have some pretty cool interviews up there so I do all the interviews live on LinkedIn so you can get me there Michael Rasile and I am on Twitter Michael Rasile1. But Twitter is a terrible place. I try not to spend too much time there. It's the greatest and the worst place all find into one. So I try not to spend too too much time there. You can find me there as well. And yeah, man, I mean, just just be a good person do what you can understand that I guess it said time is not created equal. But time is created equal. So that nine to five mindset if you're coming out of the corporate world and into the entrepreneurial space, or if you're in the entrepreneurial space, even find some time for yourself as well. I think that's important. But talk to people, man, especially now where we're not really allowed outside. We're not really allowed to go to events. I used to go to them all the time. That was my favorite thing. I've go networking, I get the energy from it. And I haven't done that in months, you know, being here, right? So close to New York. See, I can't take advantage of it, unfortunately. But talk to people ask questions. I'm a big believer in karma. So find ways to get karma on your side. And I'm sure very good things will happen.

Gresham Harkless 15:54
Absolutely. Well, I definitely appreciate that Michael, we will have links and information in the show notes just to make it easier for people to follow you and connect with you. And I you know, I love everything you stand for everything that you're doing as well too. And I appreciate you know all the good energy that you put out on this podcast and in the world as a whole. And I think it's a great reminder for us to kind of be what we hope to see in the world. And if you want to see good then be good if you want to see greatness and be great, and it's definitely something we all should carry with us all the time. So I appreciate that my friend and I hope you have a great rest of the day.

Outro 16:22
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at IAMCEO.CO. I am CEO is not just a phrase, it’s a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Google Play, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. Grab CEO gear a www.CEOgear.co This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.


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This is a post from a CBNation team member. CBNation is a Business to Business (B2B) Brand. We are focused on increasing the success rate. We create content and information focusing on increasing the visibility of and providing resources for CEOs, entrepreneurs and business owners. CBNation consists of blogs(CEOBlogNation.com), podcasts, (CEOPodcasts.com) and videos (CBNation.tv). CBNation is proudly powered by Blue16 Media.

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