Film Room - Andy Papathanassiou

Brian Johnson (00:20.165)
Hey, listener, welcome to Talent Chasing, where we bring real world stories from the fields, courts, and pitches of Major League sports and offices of corporate talent. It's our job to amplify those hidden stories in finding, retaining, and motivating the best talent in the world. Because we know no team exists anywhere without great talent. My name is Brian Johnson. I'm a former Major League Baseball player and scout.

Jasper Spanjaart (00:46.742)
My name is Jasper Spanjaart, I'm a journalist and filmmaker. I know it's...

Chad (00:50.104)
That was a lot of hands, Brian. And I'm Chad, so watch Recruitment Industry Veterans, Startup Angel Investor and Advisor. This episode is part of our Film Room series, where we break down our favorite parts of big interviews, like breaking down the big plays in the film room after the game.

Jasper Spanjaart (01:10.274)
So in this week's film room, we're breaking down the interview with Andy Papathanassiou. I probably nailed the name there. That's good. Yeah. I practiced it. I practiced it. I was on the bike earlier because Dutch people are on the bike a lot. But it was a great interview. I remember it quite vividly because he spoke very well. And his story is just fascinating, right? He pretty much built a profession by himself. So what he did, just to give you a sort of quick overview, he...

Brian Johnson (01:16.453)
That was a good one, nice one. You were practicing a little bit, yeah.

Chad (01:19.5)
There it is.

Brian Johnson (01:23.451)
Alright.

Ha

Jasper Spanjaart (01:39.566)
if I remember correctly from the interview, he sort of built a profession in the sense that pit crews, there weren't such things as pit crews in NASCAR, right? Cars were just being changed as they went. And Andy Papathanassiou thought to himself, we can actually gain an advantage here by doing a pit stop correctly. And obviously pit stops are very well known in motorsports now in Formula One, everyone is paying attention to the pit stops. But it wasn't such a big thing all those years ago when Andy FaZe first came up to the scene.

In this first nugget that I chose, because every week we're going to pick a nugget from our podcast interviews that we think is the best nugget that we can find. And let's just go ahead and play that chat.

Chad (02:21.216)
Okay, we'll play that nugget.

Jasper Spanjaart (02:23.618)
to do. It's just

Jasper Spanjaart (03:49.42)
I mean, there's so many things that he goes over. But for me, what mainly stands out is probably two things. The idea of having a process in place and just practicing that until you can't get it wrong anymore, right? Just having a process in place and like with a pit stop, it's so simple. Everyone has a coordinated task and that's what you need to do. And he obviously, he makes that connection to the business world very easily because you can have something in place where you go.

Okay, your job is that your job is that and together it forms a collective process. that was the first thing that it's just, it's, it's, it's a very easy lesson that we can apply. I think the second thing is sort of when, when he goes into what's his true calling, right? He wanted to do something with sports. He wasn't able to do that because he had a few injuries. If I remember correctly, he wasn't able to pursue, you know, professional sports to the best of his ability, but he, he, he came to himself and he thought, okay, what is it that I love about this?

And how can I apply it somewhere else? And I think that is just a great lesson and a great mentality that we can all learn from because, even though I wanted to be a professional footballer or a professional chef when I was younger, I came nowhere close, but there's elements of stuff where you can go, okay, but I can, here's my intrinsic motivation to do this and I can apply this somewhere else. And I still have that sense of gratification that I can still apply that part of me somewhere in the world. But throwing that open to you guys, what do you think?

Brian Johnson (05:15.643)
Yeah, I love the two. What really sticks out to me is because I was with him during that time he was in the hospital in college. So he had major back problems like throughout his career. He wasn't always the most athletic guy, but he's like 275, 280 pounds. And that's not normal for his normal frame. He had to put all that weight on. So he didn't like that. He wasn't somebody that really, and none of those offensive linemen love the fact they got to put on 50, 60 pounds, right?

Chad (05:28.311)
Wow.

Jasper Spanjaart (05:37.432)
Mm-hmm.

Chad (05:44.322)
Yeah, yeah.

Jasper Spanjaart (05:44.696)
Probably not, no.

Brian Johnson (05:45.851)
Yeah, you look at Kelsey's brother now that he's retired. First thing he wants to do is get rid of the weight, right? But I love how kind of what you mentioned Jasper as well as the pivot, right? Being open to figure out what do I like? What do I want to do? He was panicking when he first told me this story a long time ago. He was panicking in that whole in the hospital room because he didn't know what he's going to do. He knew he wasn't going to go to the NFL. He had his degree. He didn't know what he wanted to do with it. I mean.

Jasper Spanjaart (05:48.227)
Yeah.

Chad (05:49.59)
Jason. Yeah. Yep.

Brian Johnson (06:12.379)
100 % of the population goes through that exact same process somewhere along their life, right? Maybe not necessarily in a hospital room after having back surgery, but we all go through that same process. And to be open to what it is I do like to do, know what it is I don't like to do. He didn't want to wear a suit. He didn't want to be in corporate world. And so what did he do? He forced himself upon this NASCAR team.

Jasper Spanjaart (06:18.891)
Absolutely.

Chad (06:19.074)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brian Johnson (06:39.799)
Started at the bottom cleaning stuff up cleaning out the garbage cans willing to do that I love that he was willing to do that and then worked his way up and changed the industry as As it was known By redefining what managing a pit group was by making it a sports team in a way. Just just crazy. Love it

Jasper Spanjaart (06:49.015)
Hmm.

Chad (07:00.258)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, he had his degree from Stanford and he's cleaning shit up. Right. And I mean, that's the thing. That's the thing for me. Right. And, and, and I mean, this is not a, this is not a generational thing. This is a mindset thing. We have a lot of kids that come out today with, know, their bachelors or what having, they're like, where's my $120,000, you know, salary. And it's like, guys, you got to work up to that. Yeah. You got to work up to that. Right. This doesn't happen overnight. So yeah, I totally get that. My, my favorite part about this.

Jasper Spanjaart (07:07.532)
Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Jasper Spanjaart (07:19.726)
Yeah. Where is it? Yeah.

Brian Johnson (07:21.825)
Six months? Where's my promotion? Yeah.

Chad (07:29.846)
was being able to focus on simplicity, right? And that's one of the things in the corporate world that we are really bad at because from a management standpoint, from a leadership standpoint, instead of going simple, we go complex so that everybody thinks our job is hard, right? And that's just not the case and it shouldn't be the case. If you're a great leader, it should be simple and you should have people underneath you ready to take over.

Jasper Spanjaart (07:33.902)
Yeah.

Jasper Spanjaart (07:48.11)
You

Chad (07:57.344)
I call it a bus plus one, right? So Chad bus plus one. If I get hit by a bus, there better be, you know, a plus one behind me ready to just jump in and roll, right? And I get that, I get that whole mentality actually from the military because you've got to train the guys be, you know, behind you, either in your team, your squad, your platoon or what have you. And the education system, let's say in the military, they break it down to its most simplest form to try to build those building blocks. So it's easier.

Jasper Spanjaart (08:05.902)
Yeah.

Chad (08:25.868)
Right. And it actually motivates people as you learn to learn more and to want to learn more. Right. And that's why we go through so many damn schools. But back to the, back to the, the, the complexity piece. I work with companies on a daily basis who have some of the most complex processes and tech stacks known to damn man. It is ridiculous. We are talking about ripping those things apart in the business world and making them more simple. And we're doing that.

with robotic process automation, with AI and those types of things today. So what he's talking about in a damn, in a pit crew actually is something that we really need to focus on with business. It's efficiency, which breaks down to simplicity and just great process all the way around. So yeah, I love that one. Thanks for choosing that one, Jasper.

Jasper Spanjaart (09:19.694)
You're welcome, mate.

Brian Johnson (09:23.259)
All right, let's set up the next one. Let's just run it. We'll talk about it afterwards.

Chad (09:27.349)
Okay, we'll run it.

Brian Johnson (12:31.983)
Woo, so good in there. For me, I love the piece about diversity of thought, right? There's so much talk around the world nowadays of diversity in so many other ways, but diversity of thought is one of the pieces of diversity, and that's the work that I do. But just think of that industry, the NASCAR pit crew industry. You know they've had other ideas along the way, along their 100-year history or whatever it is. There's been other ideas.

Chad (12:34.25)
I know, yeah.

Jasper Spanjaart (12:56.846)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Johnson (13:01.307)
Andy Poppathon to see you coming up with an idea. was not the first time they ever had a new idea. But this dude that's cleaning up the pit crew, that's emptying the garbage cans, comes up with a new idea. And so, and it's with the team, it's relatively young, doesn't know, nobody knows who Jeff Gordon is at that point. And so whoever was leading that stuff, this guy Ray Abraham, whoever it was, that said, hey,

This is a new idea because I know this game or I know this platform. I know this industry. This is going to be a good idea. We're going to we're going to give this a chance. I think back to big Bill Belichick in the NFL and the Patriots were awful for decades before they won for the next 24 years. Why? Because they let this backup quarterback come in and take over the job for their Pro Bowl player. Tom Brady takes over for Drew Bledsoe. He got hurt. He got hurt one time.

Chad (13:41.196)
Yeah.

Brian Johnson (13:55.053)
and never came back again for the patrons. It's so interesting how these things happen where good leadership recognizes where they're at, recognizes where there's talent, and they believe in the talent and they allow that talent to flourish. And then the company, the industry, the team, whatever it may be dominates and goes for changes. The industry changes everything and gets after it. I love that piece of Papa's story.

Chad (13:57.59)
Yeah, yeah.

Chad (14:20.812)
Yeah. Well, and because we are in a time of instant gratification that if we don't have a quarterback or a leader, right, let's say a leader that actually gets us those wins and those wins could be quarterly wins, right? We're taking a look every quarter, what's happening every quarter, as opposed to taking a look at that long-term strategy because it takes forever to be able to build a dynasty, right? You can't, yeah, you can build a winning team. Maybe you've got a winning record, but

Jasper Spanjaart (14:25.645)
Yeah.

Jasper Spanjaart (14:37.196)
Mm-hmm.

Chad (14:49.206)
Everybody wants a dynasty. Well, nobody wants to actually take the time and the effort it takes to be able to build a dynasty. So it's also funny because Papa's talking about being able to actually let people know, hey, this is what I did. I literally had a discussion two weeks ago in Nashville with a TA leader. And I was like, you know, this is probably secret sauce.

far ahead of everybody else and what she's doing from like a social dynamics and advertising and things of that nature. I'm like, you probably don't want to share that. She's like, I don't have a problem with that. I can share them what I'm doing now, but that's going to put them at least a year behind. And we're talking about tech and advertising. That's like 10 years, you know, compared to a lot of these other areas. So you take a look at the velocity of business today and how fast tech is actually pushing business.

to be a leader, be able to first and foremost understand that you can't build a dynasty overnight. And then secondarily, to be able to cement yourself as a leader is also a mentor to others who might not be in your organization. And that's okay. And seeing that Papa was doing that, to me, that is just, it's not just revolutionary for what he did for pit crews because they didn't care about efficiency. He's like, wait a minute, if we start,

Jasper Spanjaart (15:50.254)
Hmm.

Chad (16:13.388)
You know, if we start cutting seconds off, those seconds becomes minutes, right? And how far are we behind? To me, it is revolutionary from top to bottom. Just a great interview.

Jasper Spanjaart (16:24.302)
I think the funniest thing is now we look at it and we go, of course you want to shave off like seconds. want to save off, no, of course, like, duh, why didn't you do that before? But it takes someone to stand up and go, well, actually I've got a concept here that can actually win you championships. And I love what he said about overnight success because overnight success is never overnight success. Like there is no such thing as overnight success. Like, and I think it sort of ties in neatly with the point I wanted to make is that.

Chad (16:29.483)
yeah, Duh!

Chad (16:36.986)
huh.

Jasper Spanjaart (16:54.146)
We also get sort of obsessed with everyone has their own platform. Everyone has their own Instagrams and LinkedIn channels and go like showing the hard work versus actually doing the right work, like doing the hard work. And I rarely sort of trust people who put out posts every day or every week, like showcasing how hard they're working. Like here I am doing a filming trip somewhere. And I go, sure, but that's your job. Like just do the work and let the work speak for itself rather than.

Show me the results, like you learn from that journey. Like we've preached that before, like enjoy the journey, that's great. But just do the work, right? Because there is no such thing as overnight success. You have to really work for it. You can't cheat it. I think we've mentioned that in previous film room episodes, but you can't cheat overnight success. It doesn't happen. It just doesn't happen.

Jasper Spanjaart (17:50.35)
Off he goes to save his dog.

Jasper Spanjaart (17:56.908)
Luckily you can edit all of this, hey?

Chad (18:04.172)
FedEx. So you're talking about, you're talking about social real quick. I got to drop this, this nugget, Jasper. If, if, if you're talking about social, you're talking about social media, you guys, and you probably, you see me share some of these, but you've got to go to TikTok and follow Jeff Perlman. Because in for anybody who hasn't listened to the Jeff Perlman series as well, got to listen to Andy's, you got to listen to Jeff's. He tells stories about

Brian Johnson (18:06.346)
Hahaha

Hahaha!

Jasper Spanjaart (18:11.086)
you're not gonna live... I'm not gonna live that one down, are we?

Jasper Spanjaart (18:22.3)
yeah.

Chad (18:32.758)
this entire, I mean, all the different sports, right? And it's just freaking amazing. So go check that out. And again, a guy that we really, think all three of us revere. Last but not least, my clip.

Jasper Spanjaart (18:43.095)
Yes.

Jasper Spanjaart (18:47.096)
Did you just did you just set up yourself as last but not least? How is that? Be more humble, dude.

Chad (18:50.23)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Last but never least. what?

Brian Johnson (18:53.824)
The nugget.

Chad (18:56.04)
Shut up, nugget boy. so what would you do to follow your passion? That's, that's the, that's the big question, right? But listen to what Andy did.

Brian Johnson (19:19.055)
Hahaha

Chad (20:01.846)
Yeah, would you go to jail for your passion? You know, and he didn't even really know what to say. This was more of a hunch than it was anything else. He got in there again, dude from Stanford has a degree, says screw it. I'm jumping a fence. I think this is what I want to do. Then he gets in there. He does anything they'll ask. He learns. He gets that experience. And then.

Jasper Spanjaart (20:05.07)
Thank

Yeah.

Chad (20:27.382)
It's almost like he's a startup founder. So you see a lot of these startup founders are in big companies like they're in the Googles, in one of the fan companies, and then they pop out and then they really create, they create the startup. Well, he did it underneath the umbrella, obviously of Ray Everham. And there was like this little mini startup that was happening inside that was really just boxed off and siloed for the pit crew. That to me, again, just trying to make a parallel to business. He was focused.

on efficiencies. He saw a problem where they didn't see a problem.

Jasper Spanjaart (21:02.54)
I think the analogy with a startup founder is great because that's the exact, exact type of mentality you need to have. If you're trying to build something revolutionary, you're trying to change something in the world, you need to, you need to be a little bit of Andy Papathanassiou. You need a bit of that. You need to be able to, I'm going to jump over this wall and I'm just going to see where this goes and I'm just going to go for it. And I think like we see a lot of companies today that sort of start with that energy.

But they find it so hard to maintain that level of entrepreneurship where they go like tap into what you you wanted to do, like tap into your first month of trying to be an entrepreneur, jumping over those fences and keep doing that, keep that mentality. But how would you, how would you sort of summarize that? Because it's, it's tough, right? It's tough to keep that mindset, like always trying to be better and always trying to improve yourself and have that sense of jumping over the fence. But what do you think?

Brian Johnson (21:31.941)
you

Chad (21:56.932)
The best leaders out there, they know how to transfer their passion to other people. And in many cases, and then they also understand expectations, right? So first and foremost, you have to be able to transfer that passion, but you also have to understand those...

other individuals are not founders. They don't have the amount of shares that you have. They don't own the organization. They don't get the pay that you get, right? So it's like all these different expectations as leaders. I don't know how many times I've heard Elon Musk's dumb ass talk about sleeping in the office. Well, yeah, it's your company, man. It's your company. Don't think that somebody else is going to do that. Not to mention you're a multi-billionaire. Give me a break, dude.

Jasper Spanjaart (22:31.031)
yeah.

Jasper Spanjaart (22:37.912)
But isn't that sort of the danger of like when you're a founder and you see your company growing, you're starting to want to hire copies of yourself. think that's the biggest mistake people can make, right? It's absolute because you don't need copies of yourself. There's already one of you. There's enough of you, right? So you need different... Exactly.

Chad (22:46.412)
Yeah, that's, yes.

Brian Johnson (22:47.237)
Sorry. Sorry.

Chad (22:51.007)
NO!

Like Brian said, you need diversity of thought, which means you need diverse backgrounds.

Brian Johnson (22:57.967)
Yeah, Yeah. No, great call. And I'm so glad that you brought up that Elon Musk is an idiot and a dummy. Just because you're smart and something doesn't mean you're smart and everything. but yeah, the putting putting that aside. But yeah, hats off before we get out of this. Hats off to that team, the Hendrix Racing team for giving this kid a chance. Twenty two, twenty three year old.

Jasper Spanjaart (23:09.41)
That aside, pretty bad aside, right?

Chad (23:13.624)
We'll get back to that.

Jasper Spanjaart (23:13.838)
you

Chad (23:21.6)
yeah.

Jasper Spanjaart (23:22.845)
yeah.

Chad (23:24.916)
yeah.

Brian Johnson (23:26.719)
A former football player that won't take no for an answer. Someone saw his passion. Someone saw, wait a second, you're from where and you do what? And you used to do what? Someone said, let's give this kid a try. Just let him do it for the weekend. He'll probably just leave because he don't want to do all the garbage jobs we're going to give him. And hats off to them for giving the kid an opportunity.

Chad (23:50.634)
Amen. Well, well, listener, this has been fun. but, we're done with this episode of film room. Thanks for, thanks for joining us and, and, Jasper's nuggets. look for more amazing interviews and play-by-play breakdowns coming your way from your favorite podcast, talent chasing, share it with your friends, share it with your family. Listen two or three times cause you love it. We'll see you next time. Thanks guys.

Brian Johnson (23:57.913)
No more nuggets.

Jasper Spanjaart (24:16.47)
three. Bye.

Brian Johnson (24:17.339)
You're such a good salesperson.

Chad (24:19.073)
Later.

Chad (24:31.103)
stopping but it's not stopping.

Chad (24:41.644)
Yeah, mine's 99, but it says stopping for some reason.

Jasper Spanjaart (24:50.04)
Total disaster.

Chad (24:52.034)
Total. Gotta love technology, baby.

Jasper Spanjaart (24:56.034)
Mm-hmm.

Brian Johnson (25:00.143)
Then Wi-Fi is good. we're at 44. we're back to 43. What is going on?

Chad (25:04.824)
I mean, does your say stopped? Does your say stopped?

Jasper Spanjaart (25:04.898)
Why is your internet terrible, Brian?

No, it's just recording. Mine says recording and uploading.

Brian Johnson (25:09.861)
Now this is uploading.

Chad (25:11.275)
Okay, okay.

Brian Johnson (25:14.651)
sitting on 44%. But it goes back to 43 and 44, 43 and 44.

Chad (25:20.408)
weird.

Brian Johnson (25:22.265)
When the recording is done, may need to

Brian Johnson (25:33.819)
I want to give it a push because it's in a rut.

Chad (25:42.232)
trying to reconnect, make sure you have stable internet. The internet's fucking great.

Brian Johnson (25:49.007)
Mine's locked in.

Brian Johnson (25:54.587)
Mine won't move off of 43%.

Chad (26:04.46)
Yeah, fucking blazing over here.

Brian Johnson (26:14.842)
last

Brian Johnson (26:34.575)
You got kicked out. We were still here.

Jasper Spanjaart (26:35.596)
You

Brian Johnson (26:46.779)
Mine's still at 43. Not moving.

Brian Johnson (26:58.885)
Maybe when it gets done with you it'll come to me. Maybe you can't do more than one thing at one time.

Brian Johnson (27:10.939)
Why is it always me? Why am I always the problem?

Brian Johnson (27:17.867)
Yeah.

Brian Johnson (27:23.195)
She's barred from the show.

Brian Johnson (27:31.6)
as well.

Brian Johnson (27:38.073)
Hahaha.