Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Getting to The Truth | NBA Coach, George Karl

Episode Date: May 6, 2020

This week’s conversation is with George Karl, the 6th winningest coach in NBA basketball history.George coached the Cavs, Warriors, Sonics, Bucks, Nuggets and Kings over the span of 1,999 NBA games.He was also an All American player in college at the University of North Carolina and played in the ABA for the San Antonio Spurs.At UNC, George had the fortune of being mentored by the late Dean Smith and was surrounded by other brilliant basketball minds who helped shape his coaching philosophy.George has never been one to hold back and the same can be said for this conversation.He has some amazing stories to share, including his experiences coaching future Hall of Famer’s Ray Allen and Carmelo Anthony and what it was like going up against Michael Jordan in the NBA Finals.We talk success, we talk failure, and we discuss why finding purpose in his post-coaching life has been challenging.Beyond basketball, George is a three-time cancer survivor so he’s a fighter, he’s resilient by nature._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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We don't enjoy winning anymore. We don't enjoy 55 wins because if you lose in the first or second round of playoffs, we don't have enough celebration of doing it the right way and doing it in a proud and a degree of excellence. And I don't know if that's our society right now you know there's so much scrutiny and opinion and you know it's it's easier to sell the negative than it is to sell the positive and and I think so much of basketball now is the next day and not a celebration of your success of the day before the joy joyfulness, the mindfulness of a purpose, accomplishing a purpose. We don't have that in our game very much.

Okay, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery Podcast. I'm Michael Gervais and by trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist, as well as the co-founder of Compete to Create. And I just got to say, I love this community. I really love this podcast. I really enjoy how much I'm learning, how joyful it is to share, how challenging and insightful and wonderful being in the conversations with the men and women I get to be in the conversations with is. And so the whole idea behind these conversations is to understand from people who have dedicated their life efforts towards mastery, to understand what is it they're searching for? How do they organize their inner life?

And what are the mental skills that they use to build and refine their craft and become a better version of themselves? I'm far more interested in mastery of self than mastery of craft, but it is the mastery of craft that allows us to dig in and understand that second, what I would say is foundational part. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort.

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So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value, and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Now this week's conversation is with the George Carl. He's the sixth winningest coach in NBA basketball history. It's a big deal now. And George coached the Cavs, the Warriors, the Sonics, the Bucks, the Nuggets, and the Kings

over the span of 1,999 NBA games. And he was also an All-American player in college at the University of North Carolina. And he played for the ABA for the San Antonio Spurs. So at UNC, George had the fortune of being mentored by the late Dean Smith. And he was surrounded by other brilliant basketball minds who helped shaped his coaching philosophy. And we talk about that, the importance of him learning, you know, at the knees, if you will, of some of the best and the brightest in the field. And George has never been one to hold back at all. And the same can be said for this conversation. He does not do it. It is awesome. And he has, I mean, amazing stories to share,

including his experiences coaching, you know, future Hall of Famers like Ray Allen, Camillo Anthony, and what it was like going up against Michael Jordan in the NBA finals. And so, I mean, the texture and the stories and his history and understanding and insights, I mean, you can't buy any of it. It's all earned. It's amazing. And we talk about success. We talk about failure. We talk about, you know, why finding purpose in his post-coaching life has been challenging. And beyond basketball, George is a three-time cancer survivor.

How about it? He's a fighter, flat out. And he's resilient by nature. And when it comes to this pandemic that we're all in right now, George's mindset is no different. And so his take on what we're experiencing right now, it's important too. And in his words, he says, with the whole shakeup of our lives, we have more time for each other. We have time for ourselves. We're going to get through this. It's not going to be easy. It's going to unify us.

And then what we learn from the process will make us better. So that in many ways, it is his philosophy. You know, they're beautiful words, but this didn't just spill out of him accidentally. This is on purpose, right? Like he knows what he's about and how he faces down challenging situations and environments. And this is one of them. And so I hope that you're staying positive, that you are being resilient, that you're rolling with it, and that you are meeting yourself in this time of crisis, in this high

uncertainty times. and just for the record, so we're calibrating the right way, every day is uncertain. You know, every hour is uncertain, what's going to happen by the end of the hour. And for that matter, every moment is uncertain. I barely know what I'm going to say. And I mean, literally every moment as it unfolds, there's an uncertainty to it. So now's a really important time to get good at uncertainty because it's so alarming for so many. It's just evidence that we're not doing well with managing our minds in the unfolding, unpredictable unknown, which is always the present moment. This is a really powerful moment for humanity. I do not

want to lose the bead on how important this is. And it's going to be like, you know, our chance to imagine humanity 2.0. And I'm super excited about that. And I'm also at the same time, I'm concerned just like all of us are about doing it right and being able to figure out how to take the next natural step together. And so anyways, enough of that. I love you guys. And let's jump right into this week's conversation with George Carl. Coach, how are you? Struggling a little bit. You know, just be hibernating and, you know, I just got out of the hospital about a month

ago. So I'm kind of nervous about what's going on. A little more anxiety than I normally have in my life. I think I'm kind of confused by what's going on. You know, I'm kind of a believer in trying to stay positive about life in our country. But there's some stuff going on that makes me sad you know i'm makes me you know i just i get worried that our country should be a better place than it is or i i was more optimistic that we could handle a little bit better than we are

yeah boy so you're coming from a just that right out of the gate you're coming from a real place right now yeah um you know you know i mean i don't know a bridge a little bit in my life of retirement or relaxation or trying to find a new adventure know, I hang out in the gym a lot with my friends and my coaching friends and mentor them and have a lot of fun. You know, but slowing down has been fun. But in the same sense, I don't think I've totally got into a purpose that I would like to find more of a meaning or a purpose to what I do or how I do it or maybe a little more of a daily direction. You know, I'm kind of all over the place. I jump around and

you know, I do, you know, I do podcasts, I do TV, I do radio, I do, I hang out with my coaching friends. I kind of jump all around. I'm not saying I'm unhappy. I think I'm just, maybe I want a foundation of maybe consistency of a better, maybe a more daily direction. Okay. You know, I think you come from a highly structured world where you dictated the structure for the most part, other than maybe the times you had to play games or get on buses or flights. So now to be in the space where that structure is not there, I hear you say, I'd like some structure and I'd like some purpose, like to recalibrate those a little bit. So maybe what we can do is give me some reference to what was your purpose when you were in the thick of coaching? Well, I think the purpose that I found, I think, very early in my life was I love being on a team. I love being part of a winning mentality,

a challenge to be better than we are and to, you know, climb the mountain of winning championships. And that started with Dean Smith. You know, in North Carolina, I had a good high school coach. I had a good high school base. But I grew up and I learned a lot about not only basketball, but about life through a man that was a great basketball coach but was actually, I think, a better teacher of life and of people than he was as a coach. And, you know, for most of my life,

he's been my hero. He's been the guy that I always wanted to make him proud, kind of like my father and him. And I was blessed. My greatest blessing in life probably is my kids and being mentored by Dean Smith. Oh, wow. So you come from a place of emotion first, more than like analytics and some other sort of logical sequencing of the brain. Like you're coming from a full embodied heart place. Am I reading that correctly? Is that how you organize your life? That's funny.

I just had an hour conversation this morning with one of my last assistant coaches about analytics. And, you know, he wanted me to kind of explain how i felt about analytics and i and i'm totally into what my heart and my head and my eyes say and what my body language of my team is is act how active they are how engaged they are there are so many more things that come ahead of statistics for me. You know, I'm a feel guy. I believe in going out of the box. I don't like being able to be predicted. I like to control dealing the cards, as I call it.

As I coach, I like taking chances. I like taking risks. And that might have been because a lot of my time in coaching, I didn't have the best team. You know, I had to have, I had good teams. And in Seattle, I might have had a good enough team to win a championship. Denver, we were close one year.

But for the most part, we were kind of the underdog trying to find how to good and even great. And what do you know that others didn't know that allowed you to do this? You know, I think the one thing I always have had that connected with players was I have a passion for the gym. I have the passion to coach the game. I have a passion to scrutinize what happened yesterday and make it better today. I think the thing that players liked about me is they could feel my passion. A lot of times when I was younger, it was a little too angry, probably a little too egotistical at times. But as I grew into my career, I was blessed by being mentored by great coaches, Coach Smith being one, but Don Nelson and Doug Moe and Larry Brown and Del Harris and Rick Majerus. I mean, my mentorship was big time and I probably loved the summer more than most coaches because it gave

me a chance to evolve, to learn. And, and we did it hanging out with guys, you know, now we go on, you know, we go on the internet to find out a new play or a new basketball action but back then it was the summertime is where you kind of hung out and ask questions and and uh and i look back at those times is probably the most fun and most happiest i've been the purpose was uh to to do a i think my purpose was a lot around Coach Smith of being a committed teammate to win and understand that the game is a we game and not a me game. So it's so rich coach, because what I'm, what I'm hearing as you're talking about this is that you're the first coach I've ever heard to say it in this way, which is I love the off season because this is where I get fed in many ways about growth and development. And then I take those insights and practices. This is me kind of layering on it, into the season where I can,

in preseason, where I can be part of a team, build a team with, you know, this single focus to do it together and to win together. Do I have the model right? The total model is North Carolina basketball. I mean, Coach Smith's philosophy was play together, play harder than, play hard was not negotiable. If you didn't play hard, you didn't play. But play together as a we, a we part again, and get better and get smarter on a daily basis. And, you know, Coach Smith was a, we always, all Tar Heel guys,

there's always a thought of the day. Every practice started with a thought of the day. And 90% of the time, the thought of the day had nothing to do with basketball. It could be from the Bible. It could be from Buddha. It could be from Muhammad. You know, in the 70s, the race situation was pretty dynamite in our country. You know, a lot of teams, Carolina, I think we had two or three African-Americans on the team. So we're in that transitional period. But, you know, the whole the purpose was all based upon. Basically, team things, you know, help each other. Defense is a game that, you know, it's not an individual game.

It's a it's a team game offense. When you share the ball and play together, you're better than the five talented people that you have on the field, on the court. And, you know, I was a young kid that scored a lot of points in high school, didn't play point guard. I went to North Carolina and I was told I couldn't shoot. I couldn't do my fortes. I had to learn how to play a point guard. And I grew up very much off the court and on the court because the guidance of Carolina basketball. I mean, you're one of the most winningest coaches ever in the NBA and you've coached some of the,

some great athletes, you know, and then here you are talking about how much you've learned from your mentors. So let me, let me pull on that thread a little bit. Not everybody has a mentor and I'd love to know how do you, or how have you positioned yourself to be a mentee? You know, it's like folding under the wing of somebody who's, you know, got more experience and more wisdom. Like how have you positioned yourself to take that role with people when you've been the mentor for so many? But I'd like to start with the mentee relationship. Well, you know, I think I was lucky in my falling into Rick Majerus

and Dale Harris and Don Nelson and Larry Brown and Doug Moe. Some of that was Carolina. Where are you in? But I just think it was something that was just, you know, I like to ask questions. I like I like, you know, listening. I think somewhere along the way, very early in my life, I learned to listen probably more so. My ego got in the way, but I think I always was a pretty good listener. And I think at the end of seasons,

I never won a championship. I never got to the top of the mountain. So there was always that failure part of the end of the season. And that always motivated me. It always pushed me to go somewhere to figure out maybe what I did wrong or is my personality or my ego getting in the way. And I think I've always had the ability to sit down with someone and ask them to tell me the truth. Don't tell me the spin or what you think or be politically correct. Let's get real here. Let's get

serious about it. I've had those conversations with players at times, and for the most part, they've always been revealing and rewarding in a lot of ways. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentous. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company. And I was immediately drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life.

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and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. So you confront. Okay, so this is like we're going from the mentee. And I think what you said is that I've been fortunate and you're a learner, right? And you want to have relationships. And sometimes those relationships are easy and fluid and other times that they're really hard. And you are not one to shy away from confrontation. You've mentioned a couple of times in our conversation about like ego and anger even.

So you don't shy away from confrontation or even arguments. Where did that willingness come from you to challenge authority, to challenge ideas, to get in there with a veracity that was borderline explosive sometimes? Where did that come from for you? And I'm imagining it's early days in childhood, but that's the psychologist in me. I don't want to presuppose anything here um I think a lot of my passion to play the game the right way and the right way to me is you play with tremendous intensity you play with a team focus and you play you know to get to play together and that came from probably my father my father was a total non-athlete didn't have any idea about athletics my grandfather got me into athletics and my grandfather died when I was in fourth grade and so my father kind of started mentoring me and something he knew nothing

about but the one thing he realized that you know he was a blue collar kind of worker and worked for you know he fixed he fixed things he fixed machines the ditto copiers before the xerox machines and he believed in hard work he believed in putting in eight hours every day with focus and demand and so that hard work part of it, I think, came along from my father. But the learning part of it is I've kind of always wanted to be a little different. I didn't, I've never wanted to kind of do it like everybody else is doing it.

And, you know, so early in my career, I looked at myself when I failed in Cleveland, I failed in Golden State, that I was doing it, I was trying to copy everybody else. I was stealing and cop, I mean, I steal everything, but I kind of went back and reformed my attitude that I wanted to be me. I wanted to be how I wanted to play. And that included Carolina basketball. That included having fun. It included, you know, the intensity that I like to put into the game. But more than anything, I wanted to play, go back to Carolina basketball where we played fast, played fun and play together. Yeah. Okay. I love this idea that you wanted to do it your way. And you know, so that is like the commitment to authenticity and artistic expression, because you hold an idea in your

mind of what, who you could be, who you're working on becoming and who we could be together. And it's a really powerful thought. And sometimes it just sounds like it's words and it's, there's like an, it's an empty meal. And when you say it, I'm like, it's a full meal. Like it's in you. And saying that, I also want to just go back a moment because you said, you know, I've, I failed. How did you measure success? Was it on the win-loss column or was it on the togetherness column? You know, that's hard because I think, you know, at the end of every season, it was, it got, I took it hard.

I remember writing something a long time ago when I was in Albany, New York, and we got upset in a playoff series. And I kind of, the losing of it is almost a dream that you actually see this person, this losing mentality. So I've always ended the season usually hard. And then it took me a week or 10 days to kind of get back into a groove of what's next. What is success? You know, for me, I think it's always having the challenge of trying to be a champion.

And now that I'm out of the NBA, I realize that, you know, when we were basically just an above-average team, that it's really hard to win a championship in the NBA now. I mean, you've got to have great players. You've got to have damn good luck. You got to have sometimes a ball bounce the right way or a call go the right way to win a championship. But I was always driven by that goal. And so now I live in this world of I've never been a champion, so am I a good coach?

You know, like everybody says, someday I might be in the Hall of Fame. I'm not driven about being in the Hall of Fame. That's not on a high priority list for me. But I think our world has gotten too mean to coaches. I think coaches in general, I would say a vast majority of coaches I know have a drive to be a great coach, and they work at it. They're committed to it. Their personalities and why they fail.

But the scrutiny of our game today is so mean, and to a point, I think the territory and the power and the influence of the coach is dwindling. And I think in the end, it makes me sad that there's not more respect for some of the great. You know, you don't have to win a championship to be a great coach. There are so many of my friends, Don Nelson, Jerry Sloan, Rick Majerus. You know, they never got to the – I mean, Nelly, Rick Majerus, Don Nelson never even got to a final game. You know, I played – Wait, wait, wait. Don Nelson never – He never coached in the finals.

He's the winningest coach of all time, right? In the NBA. And he never got the, and you got, you did get to the finals, but so you're saying, you're saying, listen, the best coach, the most winningest coach never got there. But what I'm saying is I think over time to get, get past what, what I looked at as success is the degree of excellence I brought to the game. Is my team playing at a high level? Do my players get better in our culture?

The one criteria I would say at times is, do the really good players I had, did they have their best years when i was coaching them so there are other ways to find rewards of what is success um but i kind of live by the chinese proverb that success means you have another challenge and you know fortunately most of my career i had an opportunity of coaching in the NBA, which is one hell of a challenge. So I want to ask a dual part, pulling on that thread, a dual, a two part question here. Why have you been so successful and how have you failed? Take it wherever you want. And I feel normally wouldn't ask that question

about like the failing piece, because to me, it's almost like people aren't able to explore that idea. And my sense of you is that you explore, you explore ideas, you have a deep appreciation for thinking about things. And so I feel like I can, I hope it's not a mistake here, but I'd love to hear your take on both of those. Why have you been successful and how have you failed? You know, I think a lot of my success is a lot. Again, I go back to Dean Smith and his philosophies on how to coach and how to motivate and how to inspire positive energy. I'm a big positive energy guy in the NBA.

You can you can lose five in a row and still play good basketball. But nobody thinks you're playing good basketball when you lose five in a row. But, you know, you could be on a road trip, you kick your last game of a homestand, and then you go play San Antonio, Houston, and the Lakers, and you can lose two points, four points, five points, but everybody thinks you're an awful coach. So I think for me it was trying to find the excellence of even in losing to continue the challenge of an NBA season.

You know, I always wanted my team to be the things I succeeded in, I think, a lot was when I joined a team, it got better and then it got better and very seldom we ever slipped. And so every year, the process delivering a better team to your organization and to your city. When you came in, were you creating high standards or were you creating a shared vision? And I'm sure you're going to say yes to all of them, but I'd like to know kind of where you leaned more like these ridiculously high standards for what we can do. Was it more about motivating by having a clear vision for everybody or was it more orientated toward the relationships and building those relationships so that you could go the distance and maybe you say no it was not that one it was these can you can you pull on that a little

bit the vision i always had is be the best team we can be i you know i i just I have such a mindset that the game of basketball is best played as a Wii game. And, and there are a lot of teams that allow individuals to have their individuality. I don't think I was a very good coach at that. And so maybe the great player, you know, like, you know, Mel, I've talked a lot about Melo lately, and I have said that I failed because I compromised with Melo. And instead of going and demanding a more committed belief, a together belief that we could come together on, we kind of both, we kind of shadow boxed with each other on compromise. Okay, I'll let you do that, but you got to do this. And compromise is a failing. And in the NBA, compromise will fail.

You must be a committed basketball team. And so I think I learned that later in my career. But in the same sense, I took guys like Sean and Gary in Seattle. And in a very intense, aggressive way, they both, I think, got to the all-star, talented level that they're capable of being. And the personality of those guys at times were difficult. Gary Payton is a handful. I'm sure of it. I don't know him personally.

And then Sean Kemp. Yeah, I mean, there's a little bit of, you know, I always I had the ability to handle a little crazy. And I've always said, well, maybe that's because I'm a little crazy you recognize it yeah there you go you know and and I'm I'm not I'm you you mentioned this in one of your one of your questions was I I'm kind of anti-authority I don't like to be told to do things I like to be directed to do things and so the rebellion in me at times gary payton was a little rebellious we'll be free little rebellious joe barry carroll intellectually aloof i mean they're they i mean most people are passive aggressive i didn't have passive aggressive all the time, even though

I had some of those guys too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're so you like aggressive, you like aggression. I like it. I like enthusiasm, intensity and being physically aggressive. Yes. Yeah. We'd like that. And I like to do it in a smart and together way. Yeah. Your principles are clear. Like that you keep folding them back in, in an eloquent way, which tells me that you know what you stand for. Right. And like they're crisp and clear to you. And it's almost like when I know people that have clear goals and clear principles, and it's as if each conversation is a way to explore it and anchor it and figure it out just a little bit more. But I don't know if that's how you're doing it. But I want to come back to the, was it standards?

Was it togetherness? Or was it, what was the other one I asked? Standards, togetherness? Or that like the shared vision was so clear that it was compelling for people i didn't have a lot of vision individual visions no okay um i sometimes we set goals for players early in my career and we decide not to ever do individual goals i think we reverted to always having team mentality things. So the vision would be like in Seattle, our vision one year was to be, to break the NBA steel record for steals. So instead of saying we're going to be a great defensive team,

we kind of gave them a goal that was linear that they could see. We never got to that point, but we got to accomplish what we wanted to do. I liked breaking the NBA season down into 20-game pieces. And every 20 games, we wanted to win double digit wins. So, you know, you had to win half your games or hopefully 11 of those games. And that kind of made the game a little short, the season a little shorter. So I did little games like that, mental games that you could throw in front of the team. But fortunately, most of my career, you know, the vision was usually to be a playoff team and be successful in the playoffs in some way.

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that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery. Were you more about outcome goals like winning and stats, or were you more about like the process of getting better? I think earlier in my career, I was definitely more about winning. But as my career went on, getting better became very important to me. And we spent a lot of time on the culture of, you know, not only getting better as a skills of basketball, but getting better as a human being, getting better at connecting and trying to be aware of every player's maybe off the court situations.

I never got really good at that. that but I think the more that I look at my failures a little bit might have been I think today's game there's a little bit of a separation between player and management and player and coach and that that's being filled that's being filled by agents you, shooting coaches, nutritionists, players have so much clutter around them that it blocks away the coach or the assistant coaches or the organization. And I think organizations have just accepted that. But in the end, I think the good organizations understand that it's got to be a part of it. And I think that in the end, I think we're going to see more organizations try to be more connected with their players, not only in practice and in the weight room and in skill development and the culture of winning, but in the, in being a person, being, being in life together.

Yeah, there you go. Okay. That's an innovative thought because we're starting to see it happen now where – so I'm in the field of sports psychology that teams for a long time had somebody come in maybe just to do a motivational talk. And then it was like, yeah, if you want to go do some mental skills training, like go find somebody on your own, or we have some people that we kind of know that we think are good, but they're definitely outsiders. And now we're starting to see it fold in. And the good part about the folding in, well, here's the challenge. The challenge is from an athlete perspective, can we trust them? Can we trust that? Is he management or is he here for us? So that's the challenge that the organization has to answer.

And the opportunity is when you get it right, that it's a we thing, back to your point, which is, no, we're all on, everyone here is required to be great and we're all in it together. And so when that messaging gets clear, it becomes much easier to figure out lanes and how to use resources appropriately. But it's coming. It's still not there yet. And on that note, before we get to the failure piece, did you ever work with sports psychs or were you afraid of them? Or did you think that they were full of whatever? Or did you think there was great insight and not how to use it or did you use them on a regular basis? I like them.

I think earlier in my career, I was probably more into it than I was at the end. I think what happened at the end is management kind of took over that side of the game. It became more of a general manager or player personnel director theme. And that was OK with me. I don't think anybody's mastered it. But the training of the mind over the last 10 years since I've been out of basketball, I would say my books I read on leadership, but so much on Stephen Kotler and your programs. And there's so many things that we know now about this head thing

that now we can scientifically almost prove. And I think it's going to be an area that's going to explode. I think there's, you know, at the end of my career, I got into the word flow. And I'm into mental flow. I'm into basketball flow. I'm into life flow. I'm into flow purpose.

I'm into meaning. I mean, all I, you know, Stephen Collier talks a lot about it, but I know when I'm in flow and I kind of know a little bit about why I get there now better than I did five years ago. But flow is powerful. And then when I watch my basketball team play and it's in flow, it's unbelievably powerful. And then when I'm watching my basketball team play and it's in flow, it's unbelievably powerful. And an average team can beat a great team if they know how to get the flow. Yeah, you go. So one of the things we do with one of the rooms that I work in at the Seahawks, and when I say rooms, like each department or each position has their own room, right? And one of the

rooms, we've gone pretty deep on the triggers, right? The ways that you can manipulate the environment as well as your psychological skills to increase the frequency of flow. And they've got a routine. They've got a routine that they do that puts them and it's all cool. It's not nerdy in any way. And it's theirs and they've made it theirs and it triggers group flow for them and it is something it i mean it's something really special to be part of you can't help when you're in it and part of it or just right even next to it it's like this neurochemical exchange happens that it's like yeah man i i my last 10 years ever since I had head and neck cancer,

I'd have a morning meeting and the group flow with coaches is pretty easy to get to, but we do it just before practice. And we try to, you know, whatever, motivate, inspire, talk creatively, innovative, you know, open the window of thought uh empower everybody to feel that they're equal pieces of the puzzle all those things i i i saw it working with my staff and i think we got good at but i never you know You know, it was like flow and teaching sometimes get in each other's way. Because when you're in a practice, you're teaching a lot. And you're directing and you're talking a lot. And you're not allowing flow to happen, basically.

You're kind of getting a hurdle. But in games, I learned to try to make, instead of making the game plan complicated, I went, my last five or six years in coaching, I went to total simplicity. Make it as simple as possible. And as the game goes on, if you have to add, you know, basketball IQ or detail, you add it. But you allow the creative and innovative skills of your players to have this open window early in the game. Don't close it down and try to open it up. It won't work. Open it up. And then if you have to close it down, you might be able to do that. I love it. There you go. And I love the part that every day you'd have basically an hour for

innovation. And what I hear you saying is the way you would part that every day you'd have basically an hour for innovation. And what I hear you saying is the way you would cultivate that is you'd make sure that everyone's got an equal footing in it, that there's really, you know, there's no bumpers, just talk, sort it out, let's figure it out. And you would kind of guide I'm imagining, but that's a radical practice. Well, I enjoyed it. I mean, it lifted me up. I mean, I hate being a dictator. I mean, in a meeting of quality, talented people, it should be an open space.

And when we walk out of the room, yeah, I'm the coach, and you're going to have to read me and feel me and follow me. But, you know, I had a lot of old-time coaches listen to these meetings, and they thought I was crazy to open up the window of information and opinion and, you know, criticism and scrutiny. But in the same sense sense i think it was empowering for me i needed that juice and i think it also became a good i think the process taught how i like to coach easy they could feel how what i wanted in an open room rather than a dictatorial situation.

Okay, so let's pivot. Let's get into the ways that you experienced failure. What were some of those? In your own words, what were some of the failings that you experienced? Well, I think early in my career, I was searching for my success had to be based upon money early. I mean, I, when I went back to Seattle, I made probably the, one of the lowest salaries in the NBA. I came back from Madrid to coach the Sonics. And then we had a lot of success. We won, I think, 55 games, six years in a row. But my salary always stayed low. And so I got into an ego of fighting for money,

which is not healthy. I don't think it makes you a better person because that's not who I am. You know, yeah, I'm happy to make money, and I like making money, but I like coaching, and I like teaching, and I like playing and being a part of a team much more than I want in money. So I think I got kind of in a mental tug-of-war with myself. So I think I failed. My ego was a big part of my early failures. Being anti-authority, I had battles with my general manager, some in my past.

But I think, I actually think I always was loyal, but I wanted my voice heard. And when my voice wasn't heard, I got maybe a little aggressive to a point of maybe being stupid. In coaching, you know, after every playoff series, you go back and you look at the games and, you know, I'm pretty hard on myself. You know, I wish I would have done this differently. Why was I so hung up on this?

And sometimes I think I try to win games with enthusiasm and energy. And I think I played that player over maybe a talented player that didn't have maybe the right energy or commitment. I think, I think I failed there quite sometimes. Um, you know, I, I got to, you know, I don't, I don't like to focus in my, on my failures, but I think I'm pretty hard on myself most of the time. Okay. So here, here's a, um, on that note, Kobe, your son, um, I did a little thing is I, I, I text him last night and I say, Hey, can you send me a question? So you ready for this one? So this is for, this is from Kobe. Okay. Okay. Here we go. So he says, and Kobe is a coach as well, right? So he says, knowing what you know now regarding your curiosity and sometimes the bouts of anger that you had, how would you approach your interactions with ownership and your superiors differently as well as your players?

Well, I think the one thing that Kobe and I talk about a lot is how I wish I learned the balance that I have in my life now. I wish I learned that 20 years before. And I learned the balance after 2010. And so I coached about five years, three years here in Denver, a year and a half in Sacramento. With a much more balanced mentality about win-lose, taking it home with me, anger. You know, I still think I have my my fundamental non-negotiable philosophies on

how to play the game you know i i don't think you should cheat the game i don't think you should try to be i think you got to be respectful to the game and i think there are team things in there that i i don't i don't. But I think the balance of basketball is not life. It's just not. I mean, it was more important than life

most of my life. And I think I cheated a lot of people. My family, my kids, my spouses. I think my love for the game of basketball clouded the reality of life. And now I think I'm more, I wish I would have had those years back. And I think if I was more balanced, I would probably ask more questions

than wanting to express more answers. You know, I had that mentality that I wanted my voice heard. And I realized today that that's not always the best way. Silence sometimes is actually better than hearing a voice. Your honesty and your examination of the truth is awesome. It's apparent. And your reflective nature, I'm imagining, has led you to the growth arc that I'm experiencing with you right now, which is, hey, I've made some mistakes, and here's how I made them. And I'll tell you what you're saying, it's like, it hits home in so many ways, I'm trying to learn to how to have that quote unquote balance. I don't I don't know balance. But I do struggle with the amount. I feel like I swim in the water of trying to understand human potential and it is all consuming and I love it. And I get concerned, like, am I paying too much time to that and not enough time to family? And, you know, and, and this, the situation that we're

in right now is really good as a reset because we're home and we're in it together. And, you know, so I don't know, I just share with you, like I get haunted by that and I do my very best and, um, I check in with them all the time and, you know, like it's, it's just a, it's a real challenge. Um, so thank you for sharing it the way that you share it and reminding all of us how important family is on that note. Um, have you, did you ever coach somebody that could have had you fired because the new generation athletes can get coaches fired did you ever wrestle with that it happened in milwaukee ray allen went to the owner and asked him to fire me and that was sad

um did you get i knew about i found out about it. Did you get fired? We actually traded Ray before I got fired. Okay, so I'm sorry, but the way you said it, it's like, so we both got fired. Oh, God, isn't it? Isn't that the case? You know? Oh, geez. Yeah. So that stung? You know, it stung because Ray and I at one time had a very close relationship. And he was a great player.

He's the best shooter I've ever coached. He's probably the one player that talking about failing is he had a lot better career after me than he had with me even though I think he had a good career with me I don't know why I mean it was that era of around 2000 kind of where

what you're talking about began, that players were trying to get more influence, more power in the organizations that they were working for. And, you know, I think there's more of that in today's game than ever. And that goes back to kind of what I said about I think coaches, a lot of – my knowledge of coaching is it's unbelievably – it's gotten unbelievably better. I mean, how much people study the game, how much numbers we have

and statistics and analytics, psychology. We are all, coaches are all trying to be better. And I think they're losing their territory, their respect of the coach. And it all comes down to the of win-lose. And win doesn't always save your job. For many years in the NBA, if you won, you had a job. But that doesn't even matter anymore.

I mean, I got fired when I won 57 games. Vinny Del Negro got fired winning 56 games. Dwayne Casey got fired winning 59 games. And, you know, that makes me sad because the job is not easy I love my job but I don't think people understand you probably don't want the job of being a head coach in the NBA it's a hard job um and and uh the love of it as I said cluttered my life a little bit where I probably didn't appreciate the great things I had in my life as I do now. There you go. It is a tough job. I wonder,

because of the responsibility and period, the responsibility, I guess, is it, but it's also a privilege in so many ways, right? To have the opportunity to create something and to co-create, I guess, more eloquently. You coached at the same time as one of the greatest ever to play, Michael Jordan, and you coached against him. Do you have any stories, you know, because I don't know him. But do you have any stories that really capture your inner engagement with him? I mean, he's one of the most talented athletes ever to play the game. But his mind and his competitive spirit were greater than his talent as athletic talent. I've played golf with him.

I've played golf with him. I've played cards with him. His focus on winning, I've never seen anybody have it. I mean, LeBron comes close. Bird and Stockton and Magic. I mean, Magic didn't have that focus that sometimes some of these other guys. But Michael was possessed by not only beating you, he wanted to mentally affect your next day. He wanted you to go home thinking, I'm not very good.

He wanted you to go home saying, I could never beat that guy. And he's the same way on the golf course. He's the same way on the ping pong court. I mean, he doesn't want to beat you. He wants to dominate you. And at the end of his career, mentally, he got to understand the game at a high, high level. So he didn't have to put output a lot of intensity.

He just figured out how to play the game with his brain. And that was fun to see too. But his focus, his demand of being a winner and being special, there are not many of them out there. I had Coach Kerr was on the podcast, the current coach of the Golden State Warriors. And so we're talking about his engagement with Jordan. He said he was, in his words, he's like, it was terrifying to practice with him sometimes.

It was electric and wonderful, but sometimes terrifying. He said, you know, and he told me the story where like Jordan punched him in the nose, you know, for, for not being able to get around him. And so, you know, I hear that and I hope to meet him one day, but I hear that and I go, I love it. I'm excited by it. And then also I say, wait a minute, there's no wisdom in this. You know, this is like, this is an endgame that's going to end poorly. And so, I mean, I know people like that, close to that, I should say. And it's good to be around them for a little bit. But it's not someone I want to spend much of my life with. And that's just me speaking totally out of turn. But do you push back on that in any way uh i think i think the one thing

that the game of basketball is missing maybe sports is missing now is joyfulness hey how about it uh coach we don't enjoy winning anymore yeah we don't enjoy 55 wins because if you lose in the first or second round of playoffs, we don't have enough celebration of doing it the right way and doing it in a proud and a degree of excellence. And I don't know if that's our society right now. There's so much scrutiny and opinion. And, you know, it's easier to sell the negative than it is to sell the positive. But, you know, when I've been around Michael, and I haven't been around Michael in the last five years, but Michael doesn't seem to be happy.

And being the best that ever played, I think you should be celebrating that on a daily basis. And I think so much of basketball now is the next day and not a celebration of your success of the day before. The joyfulness, the mindfulness of a purpose, accomplishing a purpose. We don't have that in our game very much. What are some of your practices that you have that have been cornerstone for your insight,

your growth, your honesty, you know, you're living with vibrance. And the easy question, if I would just want to keep it specific is like, do you meditate? Do you have a mindfulness practice? But I want to, I want to open it up. What are some of the practices that have helped you become the man that you are? Well, um, again, a lot of it came after my second cancer in 2010, the balance part of it came with some yoga. I I'm a meditator. I don't chant or anything. I'm not a deep Buddhist meditator. I'm more of a, I like people talking to me sometimes in my meditations. I like getting to that subconscious state of, you know, what I call mental high. I've learned in the last probably five, six years that calming my head

is really important. I do a 20, 20, 20 in the mornings, most mornings, which is 20 minutes of exercise, 20 minutes of meditation and 20 minutes of learning and that gives me an hour for the day now my day now has much more than that i can do i can open up my avenue of learning or or mentoring or conversing you know um you know now i get a lot of calls from my assistant coaches and we talk a little bit about their team and what they're doing but i would say the one thing i enjoy about my life now is stillness uh there's a book out i just read stillness is the key oh yeah holiday oh yeah yeah good kobe had a lot of influence in that one. And Kobe, you know, he's a very stoic guy. And we talk a lot about mental,

mental confidence and calmness. I mean, I think Kobe wants to be a calm. I always say to him, I think Kobe, you coach a little bit like Phil Jackson more than me. And I think Kobe actually probably likes how Phil coaches more than maybe the angry George that I

coach that like sometimes. And just for reference, we're talking about your son, Kobe, not Kobe Bryant, not the other Kobe. Yeah. So okay. Yeah. He's got that. He's got more of that Zen approach. You know, your son. Yeah, he definitely does. He's got that. He's got more of that Zen approach, you know, your son. Yeah, he definitely does. He's got some things that are new school. There are times I'm with him going, what the hell are you doing? But he makes him work. Yeah, there you go. Yeah. Very cool. Okay. So what a treat. Like you're a legend. I remember watching you and going like watching the Gary Payton and Sean Kemp days and be like, look at what he's putting together. And so this is a treat for me. And so I just want to say thank you. And do you have some like books

that you would want to float my way? Some stuff that you think would be good for me to read. Of course, I've read Stillness with Brian Holiday, but anything else that comes to mind? I think a book you might want to read is called The Second Mountain. Oh, yeah. Okay. I know it. Second Mountain. It talks a little bit about how I think it's written by David Brooks. Yeah, it was. And David Brooks had a very successful run in his life, but he felt like he failed. He's a great writer. And he talks a little bit about the second mountain being his second attempt.

I don't know if you read Stealing Fire by Stephen Kotler. Yeah, Stephen and I are friends. Yeah, that's a good one. That was my favorite of his books. I'm reading his book now, The World is Moving Too Fast. Abundance? Oh, no, not Abundance. Is that the name of his next one?

Bold and Abundance. And now he's written a third one on The World is Moving Too Fast. Oh, that's what it's called. Okay, cool. It's brand new. It came out about a month ago what's up steven come on buy steven's book everyone uh he was actually in denver about two weeks ago and spoke oh cool uh so those are uh i kind of have those are two stillness and

and the second mountain and all three of those books are on. And I read a chapter or two each night from one or two of those books. So thank you for your time. But I just, I got to get this question out, like, because I missed it. I missed this question as we're going. And I had it like four or five times, which is, what did you do to kick cancer's ass? And what did you do the moment that you learned you'd had that diagnosis? Well, you know, unfortunately, I've had too many of them. I've had three. Not many people even know I had ocular melanoma three years ago. I mean, I have a personal yelling relationship with God. So I yell and I go in my backyard, usually after a gin and tonic. And at times I start screaming, why, why, why are you doing this? And? And then I think so much of cancer is your support system. The people that don't have a support system, I feel so sorry for because I needed help.

I needed people to hold my hand. I needed Kobe to come be goofy Kobe. I needed my daughter to be there. I mean, if you don't have, I call them cancer angels, it's hard to figure it out. And so much of once you actually go through the process of radiation or chemotherapy, and then you are clean and clear, you're not out of the woods yet. That's where depression and getting, you know, for me, I was clean in April and it took me to August to get the confidence to go

coach again. I mean, you're insecure. You, you don't feel like a man, you know, I lost 60 pounds and I had to fight and I had to meet with my staff and say, hey, I'm not strong enough to do this by myself. And so we got a process of delegating more responsibilities. Again, that taught me that I should have been doing this earlier in my career. But in a lot of ways, I learned. I've always felt that once you fight through cancer, you usually come out a better person. But sometimes you don't come out that way. I was fortunate because I had the support system.

I had the doctors. I didn't have the cancers that killed. You know, I have the cancers that killed. I have the cancers that treated. But then it's even worse. Michael, it's worse. When Kobe called me and told me he had cancer, I was really angry that day. Man, you've been through it. You've been through it, coach.

Thank you for sharing your heart, your mind, your practices. If there was a thought of the day, right? Go back to coaching days for a moment. If there was a thought of the day and we're walking into the meeting room and you're like, Mike, I don't have a thought of the day. And I say, come on, what do you got? Thought of the day, come on. What would it be right now for us?

Oh, you know, I'm I would probably I would gravitate to gratitude of all the hell that I've gone through. I've gotten a lot of heaven in return. And I've always said this to coaches. There's two things I believe in coaching. One, if you can't take, accept this responsibility that players win games, coaches lose games. And the second thing is you don't remember the wins as much as you remember the relationships. Awesome. That is awesome. Okay.

Last coach. Last thing. What do you, what can you say to people that are scared right now with the uncertainty of COVID that are really struggling with not knowing about, you know, how to manage this new way of doing things and the uncertainty about finances and economics and the uncertainties about health. Well, coach us up. My, my thing is, you know, a little spirituality of maybe we're being called to regroup and awaken in a better place. You know, maybe, maybe we're being, this is, this, this, this whole shakeup of our lives. We have more time for each other. We have time for ourselves.

And then my thoughts is we're going to get through this. It's not going to be easy. It's going to unify us. And then what we learn from the process will make us better. That has been the American way in many, many ways. And I trust in American, our country, I've trusted it. As I said at the beginning, it makes me nervous some of the things that are going on right now, but I think it will empower us to regroup and restart maybe a better chapter, a better phase in American history. Coach, thank you. I feel like I needed you today. I appreciate you. Okay. This is epic. And where can people find you? What's the best way people can find what you're doing and stay connected to, you know, how you're living your life and the messages that

you have? Well, you know, I have a podcast called truth and basketball. I like it because I get to tell the truth. And I think our world is too much on spin and perception um um you know my I have a email coachcarl22 at gmail.com uh I'm interested in being a part of our process of evolving and learning I like creativity I get motivated by you know one of the things I ask Kobe all the time is, Kobe, my son, all the time, is where is the game going to be five years from now? Because I want to get there before anybody else wants to get there. I always wanted to be ahead of the curve. I wanted to be outside the box.

I wanted to find answers before anybody else. Do you want to coach again? I have a 15 year old daughter. It's a sophomore in high school. I don't think I want to coach until she graduates. There you go. Okay. So I'm going to give her two years.

I'm pretty sure unless the best team in basketball calls, I probably want to give her two years. I'm pretty sure unless the best team in basketball calls, I probably want to give her those two years. Oh man. All right, bud. Coach, thank you for your time. This is awesome. Truth in basketball. Is that the name of the podcast? Truth in basketball. Let's go. Okay. All the best. I look forward to the next time that we're able to cross paths here. Michael, thank you very much. Take care of my son. Yeah, you got it. All the best to you. Take care, coach. Thank you. All right. Thank you so much for diving into another episode of Finding Mastery with us. Our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you.

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