The first thing almost every interviewer asks Alan Stein Jr. about is coaching Kevin Durant. But what they gloss over is that it took two years of calls and faxes (remember those?) for Durant’s prep school, Montrose Academy, to bring him in as a strength and conditioning consultant, that this role was initially unpaid, and that he covered his own travel expenses. There’s also rarely a mention of all the unseen hours that Alan spent training general population clients and building up his basketball coaching business with DC-area high school players. Alan applied the same level of diligence and persistence once he got the role at Montrose, and as he began to work at Nike elite camps. This experience gave him the confidence to start impacting teams and coaches, and eventually led to his transition into high performance coaching for companies and executives, which he balances with keynote speaking and authoring the best-selling books Raise Your Game and Sustain Your Game. In this episode, Alan shares: How working with general population clients crossed over to coaching basketball players like Kevin DurantWhy the best measures of a player’s progress are how they perform on the court and how much fun they’re havingWhat role a mentor played in developing his coaching craftWhy investing in becoming the best version of yourself is the most valuable thing you can do How relationship building and showing how much you care are the keys to impactful coachingLearn more about Alan’s principles-driven coaching in his new book Sustain Your Game and follow him on Instagram.