Right

... going through school.

Fast-forward to making my transition out of athletics into the world of speaking and into the world of storytelling and spreading these messages, I bump into a gentleman named Dave closing down a gym to buy some used gym equipment, and he recommends I go read this book called Think and Grow Rich.

Thank you for dropping by.

Antonio, thank you.

[gentle music]

And I know you've probably told this story hundreds of times, but talk to me a little bit about what happened when that dream disappeared and what that did inside of you and then what caused that turn, that pivot into what you're doing today.

Professional soccer was my singular aim growing up.

One of my earliest memories is sitting on the couch beside my family watching Italy in a penalty shootout in the World Cup finals.

I must have been like six or seven years old.

And I just grew up solely focused on sport.

And by the time I was 13, I got an opportunity to actually move to Italy and play with a professional club for six months.

My dad was super excited.

So if you're ready to become the man your wife admires and desires and the hero that your kids want to become and the man you'll finally be proud to see in the mirror, I want you to hit the link in the show notes below and let's build him together.

21st Century Entrepreneurship with Martin Piskorik.

You might be asking yourself, why did Dan Martell write the forward of my new book? Dan Martell has one of the fastest growing personal brands on the face of the planet.

I just saw a post recently saying across all platforms, over 12 million people follow his work.

Not to mention he was an early investor in some of the fastest growing tech startups and is a very successful angel entrepreneur in Canada.

Who the heck is Sam Demma? And why did Dan Martell write the foreword to his book? And I'm talking in third person about myself because it feels surprising for me too.

About two years ago, I read the book Buy Back Your Time, which is Dan Martell's bestselling book that'll teach you how to delegate, how to hire help and grow your business.

And if that's something you're interested in, you're listening to the right podcast, that book will answer some of those questions.

So tell us about the first book, how it came to be and what made you decide to write it?

It was inspired by a conversation with a young man on an Instagram live call.

When I asked him about his goals and dreams, he told me he wanted to have 50,000 followers on TikTok.

I didn't understand why this young person wanted a social media following, but I believe in leading with curiosity, not judgment.

Hashtag Ted Lasso.

Yeah, exactly.

Right.

It's never a good feeling.

[laughs]

Learned that lesson.

We get to the restaurant.

We walk inside.

He- The staff run over.

"Steve, so good to see you." He starts putting $2 bills in front of all the customers at the bar.

Some people are frustrated.

Uh, if people want to f- if people wanna buy the book, and if they wanna, if they wanna see you live in person, how do they do those things?

So when did something snap to do something different? I had a

teacher.

His name was Mr. Loudfoot.

And he was so passionate about teaching.

One day in class, he grabbed a piece of chalk and he wrote these names on the board of people who had changed the world and tried to challenge the whole class to believe that there was nothing different from these people in history who made a massive change than all of us in his classroom, except for the fact that they woke up every day and did something about it.

They took small, consistent actions.

That was his phrase.

Exactly.

Tell me about empty your backpack.

I actually have it right here.

So this is the book is called Empty Your Backpack.

I wrote it and released it November 18th, 2022.

And the goal of the book was very similar to what you just explained.

It was to help people understand that the stories they tell themselves about the circumstances that are unfolding are more important than the circumstances that are unfolding themselves.

that we have agency over the story we choose or the story we tell.

Criticism and how do we deal with it is where we were before the