Today we’d like to introduce you to Ryan Schachtner.
Hi Ryan, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
After having my collegiate baseball career cut short by injury, I, like many other college and pro athletes struggled to figure out who I was and what my path in life should be outside of sports. I ended up getting into financial services and for 20 years built a financial planning firm that housed over 40 advisors. One of the markets we served was professional athletes, however, it wasn’t when they signed the headline grabbing $300 Million guaranteed contract, it was after they either made bad decisions or were taken advantage of. One reason we had athletes from the NFL, MLB and NBA is we dealt with the attitudes, behaviors and beliefs regarding money that they brought to the table. Those athletes had always asked me to write a book, which I did and Foundations of Financial Excellence, Lessons From the Pros, A Game Plan for the Collegiate Athlete was released a week after Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) became a reality in college athletics. The book went on to become an international best seller and I started to get invited to speak and collaborate with teams and athletic departments on not just financial literacy but on NIL. Through that process I started to notice that there were some consistent obstacles that were preventing both coaches and teams from aligning recruiting, development and retention to winning consistently and from athletic departments from delivering engaging and impactful athlete development. My brain immediately went to my experience as an athlete and I knew that being able to close this gap was not just an opportunity but a necessity. Knowing that excellence in sports and business is rarely a lack of ability or talent and almost always a lack of alignment of the right behaviors, I built a tool that could 92% accurately, identify, measure and map the 20 core performance behaviors, communication and learning tendencies and the 10 key behavioral characteristics. Behaviors like being coachable, managing game stress, work ethic, focusing under stress, grit, leadership potential, growth mindset that align to not just sustained athletic success but success outside of sports. By accurately and precisely identifying the psychological/behavioral strengths and understanding that experiences drive beliefs and beliefs drive behaviors, we can one on one or by collaborating with teams reverse engineer what holds people back from reaching their potential, identify strategies to quickly impact on field performance and prepare individuals to successfully adapt their behavioral strengths in sports to life outside of sports. By working on the core drivers of success, in 2 years working with NCAA teams at the Power 4 and FCS we have helped college teams win 3 National Championships, 6 Conference Championships and 1 Coach of the Year. We’ve worked with NFL Combine athletes for 4 years and 32% of our players get drafted a minimum of 1 round higher than projected and 90% go at least as projected. Working with high school teams we seen much of the same success proving that success in sports is not just physical but mental/behavioral and being able to identify the key strengths and gaps we can very quickly impact the outward success of winning and the inward success of developing better, more prepared and more successful people.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Anytime you bring something new to an industry that’s used to doing things the same way for decades it can be challenging. Struggling to get to the right people, articulate the need, impact and multilayered usefulness were all hurdles. Luckily we were aided by coaches and athletes intense drive to be the best, and an intense amount of change in college athletics from NIL, transfer portal, the immense pressure and expectations whether realistic or not from fans and athletic department on coaches to build programs rapidly and win immediately.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Success Beyond Game Day?
At Success Beyond Game Day we work with athletes in the NFL, PGA, LPGA, Power Four and teams from the FBS, FCS, High School and AAU to create pathways to achieve and sustain success. We do this by helping individuals and teams identify, measure, map and develop the glue that binds potential to actualization; behavior. Once you have awareness of how you show up in the world, real and impactful development can occur. We either work one on one, with teams or collaborate with steak holders to facilitate real and lasting personal or team development, recruiting tools to rapidly identify the right person, cultural fit or positional alignment, and working to impact mental performance with specific and relevant strategies to the individual and sport.
While most people use personality assessments, we understand that personality fit is temporary, when it wears off and people are pressure tested, what shows up is behavior. That is what not just separates what we do but explains why are results are so massively better than anyone that does something similar.
One thing I’m extremely proud of is the lasting relationships with athletes and teams. The word of mouth introductions and repeat engagements are the best testimonial and validation of what we do.
Behavior is a commonality among humans, we all have the same core behaviors but exhibit them at different levels. Awareness of our individual strengths and weaknesses is key to unlocking potential. Most of our frustrations don’t come from lack of ability but the mental behavioral roadblocks, beliefs and stories that we play on repeat in our heads, most of which are false. Being able to reverse engineer it and rewrite with truth can unleash potential most didn’t think possible.
We work with professional athletes, teams and front offices, college athletes and teams, high school athletes and teams
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
I read and listen to books/podcasts non-stop. Anything where I can learn another’s perspective, hear how they overcome challenges is great. Modern Wisdom, Diary of a CEO and most any book written by athletes or military is on my list.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.successbeyondgameday.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryansbgd/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanschachtner/
- Twitter: https://x.com/RyanSBGD
