Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Golden State Warriors President Rick Welts on Culture, Leadership, Alignment

Episode Date: July 24, 2017

This conversation is with Rick Welts.He has 40 years of experience in the NBA and is currently the President & Chief Operating Officer of the Golden State Warriors who have just won their second championship in 3 years.He owns the rare distinction of being part of championship teams in the NBA (2), WNBA (2) and NBA Development League.  We talk about risk -- both private and public risk….and how important alignment in life is (who you are and how you live your life.Rick is known to be a world-class communicator -- and it comes through in this conversation ._________________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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but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. 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. Okay. This conversation is with Rick Welts. Rick has 40 years of experience in the NBA, and he's currently the president and the chief operating officer of the Golden State Warriors, who have just won their second championship in three years. And what a phenomenal run. It's a very special point in time that we're observing a super team.

And when we watch the Golden State Warriors perform and play, it feels as if, from a distance, that they're in group flow more often than any other team in the league. And group flow, when you think about that as like a swarm of birds that are moving and undulating in space, following the rhythm of the lead bird that changes each undulation. And so it's just a phenomenal team to observe and see what they're doing. So he understands winning. He understands culture. He understands how to align people and thoughts and ideas and efforts to create something very special. And in this conversation, we talk about that and how he organizes his thoughts and

other people's efforts. And we also talk about risk, both private and public risk, and how important alignment is in life. And that phrase alignment is really about knowing who you are and having alignment on how you live. So we get into the weeds with that. And then Rick is also known to be a world class communicator. And that definitely comes through in this conversation. So with that, let's jump right into this conversation with Rick Welts. Rick, how are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Emphatically so. Rick, how are you? I'm doing great. Thank you. Emphatically so. Yeah. Well, thank you for hosting and having me up here at your facility. It's a pleasure. Yeah. And so I've been following like many people, what you've done here over the last, I think it's been five or six years,

six seasons, six seasons. And what an incredible, how do you mark this? Just an incredible journey you've been on and marked early on from all of the success and different points of view you've had in elite sports, starting as a ball boy way back in Seattle's supersonics. True. Yeah. All the way through into the league office and the NBA. And now here's the president of the Warriors. When you think about your journey, how do you think about all of those different chapters that you've had? That it's probably great to be at the right place at the right time, number one, and never

underestimate the value of luck in that kind of timing. Because truly, if I hadn't befriended Earl Woodson at Queen Anne High School in Seattle, who was the coolest kid in my high school, because he was a ball boy for the Seattle Supersonics, and if Earl's family hadn't decided they were going to move away from Seattle, and Earl hadn't agreed to take me down and introduce me to the trainer of the Sonics who hired the ball boys, I probably wouldn't be sitting here across from you today. So, uh, you know, I've had, uh, a series of great luck and hopefully you prepare yourself for the opportunity, but you do have to have other people in your life who give you a chance to show what you can do. Okay. So you remember Earl? Very well. Yeah. And how old were you then? I would have been 16, 16. Okay. And then what was it about you and sports at the age of 16?

Like, were you into it? Did you want to be an athlete? Were you an athlete? Was it just something that sounded fun? I had that as the connection point with my father in our relationship. I started going to University of Washington football games when I was probably able to walk. And the experience of going to sports with my dad became kind of our currency for interaction. And the Sonics were the first major league sports franchise Seattle ever had, starting in 1967.

And he and I started going to games at the old Seattle Center Coliseum. And I fell in love with the sport for sure. I mean, there was something, you know, this was getting to see Bill Russell play and getting to see Wilt Chamberlain play. And I loved the drama on the court, but I think what impressed me more or kind of set me on a path was seeing what that collection of, in those days, probably 10,000 people at an NBA game, what that meant to the community, to see the pride that Seattle had in having a professional team that was competing with New York and Los Angeles and Chicago in ways the city had never been on a platform like that before.

But also to see how, you know, all these people who had absolutely nothing in common except a rooting interest in a particular team could come together and, you know, really create a town hall that doesn't exist, especially today, probably existed more then. But there are very few places where we gather like that to kind of celebrate something together publicly. It was kind of the first social network, I guess. And I think, I think the show and that impact is what attracted me and kind of set me on a course that eventually, you know, led to where I am today. Okay. So as a, as a high school, you, did you have that insight then? Like, okay, this feels like a town hall. it's a public place. Was that looking back? Yeah, I think much more looking back. What a cool thought, because I've never had that thought that that's a public place of celebration that communities have.

This is a bit of a, I don't know, a thread that's not totally related. But I remember thinking, or being introduced to this thought that long ago, the largest buildings in organizations were churches. And so they were the center of communities and now it's high rises and they're the largest buildings. But you just introduced a new concept, which is the largest places of gathering are sporting events. Well, you need to study the Colosseum in Rome because I think it was the first time there was a building constructed that was really designed to do what sports facilities do today. I mean, really, if you go back and look at it, it's fascinating. There were so many inventions there that we carry on today. It was the first place you got a pottery shard for entrance. And on that shard was a section row and seat number. Imagine that. We're talking at the Roman Coliseum, right? That had never been done before. Drinking fountains, things that had never been conceived

of in a public place before that haven't changed, which remarkably haven't changed that much if you fast forward 2000 years, right? Yeah. Even the idea of the dome and people, you know, the seats stacked up on each other and, you know, different classes sitting in different sections, maybe not based on their wealth at the time, but on their prestige, probably somewhat based on their wealth. It's really a fascinating study that is so reflective of how we kind of view the industry today. It's really quite shocking. I was fortunate enough to go, I think I was there about seven years ago in the Coliseum and just what a remarkable place just to stand in that presence and feel it.

But something that we don't have is the beasts and the animals and, you know, right? Like all the livestock that was underneath, which is, I don't know if you've been fortunate enough to see it, but it's almost like a basement. I don't know another way to describe it, like underneath the Coliseum. And when you think about how innovative that culture was. And so this is a nice thread maybe into what you're about to build for the organization here. And so can you talk a little bit about that vision? Believe it or not, San Francisco in its history has never had a world-class sports entertainment facility. Having spent the last six years of my life trying to get it done in San Francisco, I know why. It's virtually impossible in the political and social environment of San Francisco to get a project of this magnitude done.

And it requires just a relentless pursuit. It requires being fearless. It requires being willing to pay every bill with not a penny of public money, which is breaking the mold significantly from how other stadiums and arenas get built. I wish I could say there were going to be elements of this that were going to be as innovative as the Romans did. I doubt that. I think there's more of an evolution than it is a reinvention. So I think on the business side, it's very much reflective of how projects like this

will get done in the future because it's as much a real estate development as a arena or stadium. We're building two office towers. We have 100,000 square feet of retail, frankly, because we need the revenue from those to justify the cost of these incredibly expensive, one-of-a-kind buildings that are home to our sports teams. It's not a formula I think that could be replicated in Seattle or Milwaukee or most places in the country. San Francisco is at a really unique place in time and in history right now where we can justify the formula that makes it happen here. Okay. And what is the reason to move? I mean, this is, as you know, like that's a big deal because you were probably part of the Seattle Supersonics when they closed shop and that was gutting Seattle. And then we see the same thing happen with the Rams in St. Louis and the football

side. Like there's a gutting that takes place. Now I don't imagine that it's such a gutting, but because it's a neighboring city from Oakland to San Francisco, but to leave a place that has, I don't know, something magical about it, Oracle arena and the success that you guys have had there. So can you talk a little bit about that? Because I'm curious where the thought came from. And then I'm also going to be curious about what it takes underneath the surface, your moxie, if you will, to get something that big done. First of all, a little history. The Warriors were one of the NBA's original franchises, the Philadelphia Warriors. And they actually moved to San Francisco in the 60s.

So San Francisco Warriors were how this team was born in the Bay Area. And over the course of the Warriors history, they have played in San Francisco, in Oakland, even a year in San Jose, which are the three, you know, kind of anchors of the Bay Area. So the team has played throughout the Bay Area. And, you know, as we have a new ownership group for the last seven years about this team are looking for how you set yourself up for success in the long-term Oracle arena. We adore, it's a wonderful environment. Once you're in your seat, it's the oldest arena in the NBA. It was built before Madison square garden. It's not the type of facility that long-term can generate the revenues you need to be competitive. So we knew we had to have a new arena. Where that was going to be was another story. And we felt that the greatest opportunity for the franchise was going to be in San Francisco. We're moving eight miles.

We're not moving to another state. We're not moving even elsewhere in the region. We're moving a different city eight miles away. And I think it was a big dream because there's no land in San Francisco. And in fact, our first invitation by Mayor Lee was to build over piers into San Francisco Bay on piers 3032. And that actually, when we had our news conference five years ago, that was the announced plan. We were going to build on piers 3032. You know, we envisioned the Sydney Opera House in the Bay in San Francisco. To make a very long story really short, we got caught up in controversy over another waterfront development project, which really crystallized the opposition to waterfront development in San Francisco. And we were... Environmental conditions? More just quality of life. Like, do we, do we want to build more congestion waterfronts? Yeah. Okay.

And you know, what's the waterfronts purpose in San Francisco? And, uh, we were about to go to the ballot to ask voters that when we got a phone call from Mark Benioff, the chairman of salesforce.com said, you know, I've got four city blocks in mission Bay that I have a lot of chairman of Salesforce.com, said, you know, I've got four city blocks in Mission Bay. He's got a lot of blocks of land. It was to be their corporate headquarters. I was fully entitled, designed, ready to put a shovel in the ground. And they put the brakes on it.

And he says, we've outgrown it. handsomely give me a return on that investment by buying those 11 acres, it will do away with a lot of the waterfront issues that you have today. And we frankly reluctantly agreed because we envisioned something quite magnificent over the water. This is 200 feet from the water. I think it'll be equally magnificent, but when know, when you have an idea in your head and when you have a dream in your head, it's hard to change the dream. Okay. My hair just stood up. So I measure success throughout my day of how many times my hair stands up. And just as a quick thought on that, that's the science of awe, you know, the applied science of awe. And to have that means that there's a, there's some grand idea, but also deeply connected to it in the present moment.

And for you to say that it's really hard to give up a dream, can you pull on that a little bit more? What does that mean to you? Because you said it very clearly, and you just have been living it the last maybe five, six years during this process. So what does that mean to you? Because I 1,000% will nod my head to it. And I think there's like three parts to it. There's the having the dream, there's the commitment to the dream and there's the challenge of the dream. Right. And, and you're saying it's hard to give up the challenge of the dream. So can you pull on that just a little bit? Well, I think you said it very well. We, you know,

first the big idea was San Francisco because no one really thought, uh, there'd been many attempts in the past to, to get something done in San Francisco, to build an arena and always fallen by the wayside. I hate when I do this, I have to interrupt. What made you think you could do that? It seemed like the right collection of people. Honestly, our ownership group is comprised of about 20 individuals, but two really control the management of the ownership group. One is a venture capitalist by the name of Joe Lacob, and his entire life has been spent trying to find a new idea and investing enough in it to bring it to fruition when other people

didn't see the opportunity. So very much in his DNA to try to find an idea and then believe that through good management and hard work and it being the right idea, you'd be able to create something really incredibly valuable. His bookend in ownership is a guy by the name of Peter Guber. And Peter's background is in the entertainment business, chairman of Sony Pictures, chairman of Columbia, Casablanca Records, 50 Academy Award nominations, produced movies like, you know, Rain Man, The Color Purple, Batman, you know, to go to his office is a shrine to the industry. But he also, throughout his whole career, at one point was the biggest owner of minor league baseball franchises too.

He loved sports and saw live entertainment as a continuum between what we think of as music or movies, but also live sports as live entertainment. And so it was right in his wheelhouse in terms of creating drama that people respond to and would want to have part of their life. And it's an amazingly powerful combination. And when I sat down with them for the first time to talk about whether or not they would want me to come to work here or I would want to come to work here, they laid out a vision of just this idea, just we think

we can do this. We actually think we could move to San Francisco. And that to me was the biggest lever to pull to decide this is where I wanted to cast my fate. Because, you know, when you're in an industry like this forever, if you're incredibly lucky once in your career, you get the opportunity to take virtually everything you've ever learned about your industry and create this physical form that's going to live on for decades and decades and decades and do it differently than anyone's ever done and hopefully do it in your mind better than anyone's ever done. And it's just an extraordinary challenge to be able to do that. And then again, we met Mayor Lee, the new mayor of San Francisco at the time. And he and I actually fell in love with the same Sonics teams. He went to Franklin

High School in Seattle. We're exactly the same age. I went to Queen Anne High School. And his idea was that this could be his legacy, to bring an NBA team back to San Francisco. And there are these ridiculous piers that have sat unused for decades on the waterfront in San Francisco that are big enough to hold an arena. God knows what's under them. Heaven knows what it would have cost, what other challenges we would have had, even before we got to the politics. But that was taking an idea and then upping it, okay, in terms of what the vision could be. And if you could really create this amazing facility, in effect, floating in San Francisco Bay, that would be a center for sports and entertainment

in the Bay Area for decades. That was a pretty compelling idea. Okay. So there's something about big ideas and compelling, to use your word, compelling ideas that get you excited, right? Like most people. But there's a precipice for many of us where the big idea stays a dream. And that's a nice story we get to tell ourselves. And because there's some sort of risk, whether it's a sweat equity or financial risk or emotional risk to go for it. And you did just that, you went for it. And in many ways have become a point person for building the San Francisco experience. So what is it that allowed you once you had the dream conceived to say, okay, now I actually want to take that risk and put some work in. You said the team, what else was about your makeup that allowed you to do that? For me, I think you have

to go back a couple layers below that because I think, uh, I've always been attracted to really underperforming high potential opportunities. So I think the starting point is actually very important in this. Okay. Okay. I'm going to put a pin in that. Let's come back to that. Okay. Good. Keep going. Yeah. The, the, please. The Warriors franchise at the time I got here had missed the playoffs 16 out of 17 years. That's in a league where over half the teams make the playoffs every season. It's virtually impossible to set out to accomplish what the Warriors had done in terms of futility. So, you know, this was a horribly underperforming organization, horribly underperforming at every level. And at the same time, you look at the opportunity and say, look at the market this is in.

Look at the fan support this team has had despite the fact they've never had a winning product on the floor. You look at the economic vibrancy of the Bay Area, the thought leadership in the Bay Area, and you say, I'm sorry, but if you get this in the right ownership and management hands, this should stand toe-to-toe with any franchise, not just in the NBA, any franchise in sports. And that's not dissimilar to how I looked at the NBA when I got there. It was a horrible business organization. There was nothing. I got there. It was a horrible business organization. There was nothing, you know, I got there in 1982. There was talk about, more talk about franchises going out of business than there was about expansion. It was the first league widely believed to have drug use amongst its players that was really hurting the product. It was three quarters black and Sports Illustrated,

very matter of factly said that, you know, it's really impossible to envision how America would embrace a sport where three quarters of the athletes are African-American. And I love the NBA. And, you know, there I ran into another guy named David Stern before he was commissioner who actually hired me. And a bunch of other young people who actually believed that we could do something incredible with a product that had been so undervalued. So to me, going back to your question, where we were as a franchise, the Warriors, seven years ago, at that time, we're pretty much a laughingstock in our industry. So to me, it makes it easier to take the big challenge, not harder. I mean, it's like, you know, what do we have to lose?

If we aren't successful, then we're not going to be any worse than we have been. And if we are successful, there's gigantic upside. So I think you have to go back to kind of the starting place and, and, and the mindset of the people who are here that we had a chance to take big bets and, and potentially fail, but no one had ever even tried before. So I think, you know, we had enough confidence in ourselves that we didn't know how it was going to turn out, but, but we knew that, that it, we, we had all the success factors were out there. We just hadn't been able to harness them in a way that had resulted in success.

So ownership didn't significantly change 10 years ago to now, say? No, it did. It did. The team traded seven years ago, almost eight years ago this coming fall. That's when Joe Lakeman and Peter Guper bought the team. Okay. So then they brought in new blood, so to speak. They brought in the technology geniuses. They brought in the visionaries from the Bay. They brought in their, their peers. Right. Is that okay. And it's

a large or ownership structure. There's many owners. Yeah. There's like 20, which, which actually the NBA has legislated out going forward. They really don't want that big an ownership group. They really would like to only see 10 individuals represent an ownership group. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentous. 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 Momentus. 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

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And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Grey is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to felixgray.com and use the code findingmastery20 at checkout. Again, that's felixgray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code findingmastery20 at felixgray.com for 20% off. All right. So then the model was, there's an exciting idea. Wow. It could be legacy. You know, there's something really beautiful that I get to be part of building and there's not a whole lot to lose. So let's lay big bets. You know, we've got the resources, we've got the people, uh, we've got an opportunity. So that, okay. So now the story makes some sense to me. There's another story on the other side of it, which is now that you've had great success, does there's your model switch that philosophical model. And that question is coming

from, it's easy to be hungry when let's say you don't have anything. Now that wasn't the case. You guys had a lot, you know, but you could lay big bets because of your history. But what I'm thinking about is the athlete that's early in their career or the business person that's early in their career. And they say, I'm hungry for gold. I'm hungry for whatever. I'm thinking about is the athlete that's early in their career or the business person that's early in their career. And they say, I'm hungry for gold. I'm hungry for whatever. I'm hungry to make it. I'm hungry for, you know, to figure this thing out.

And they just take calculated or wild risks and it works out. And then as soon as they win, they get the medal, they get the crown, whatever it is. All of a sudden, their whole world has changed because they have lost what to be hungry for. So does that resonate at all for you? I understand it, but I think in the walls of this organization, we have, to this point, been able to avoid that. One is this gigantic bet we have in the future, which is still, we're going to play two more seasons in Oakland. It's still, you know, not until 2019 when we actually get to this place that we're going to call home, called Chase Center in San Francisco. But at the same time, our on-court success came, I think, more quickly,

probably, than anyone could fairly anticipate. I would recommend to anybody considering buying an NBA team, buy one that already has Steph Curry on the roster, because that's a, that's actually a very good thing for the future of your business. And that, even if you don't know it at the time, he wasn't Steph Curry then, but he's the only player remaining from, from when, when we got here. But that turned out to be a pretty good player to build around. He's on path to be one of the greatest ever, period. I think he probably already is, but yes. Is that an argument that a lot of people are making?

I think so. He's 29. He's just reaching his peak for the point guard position. So he should have another few years. We just signed him to a five-year car about to hopefully sign him to a five-year contract. So, uh, you know, hopefully that's going to continue for quite a while. But the point I was going to make is that when, you know, there were, there were a couple of things that went on when Mark Jackson was coach of this team, the atmosphere in the locker room was the same as the atmosphere I had coming into

the business organization, which is you had a group of people who came to work every day expecting not to be successful. And that was okay. And everyone got paid. Everyone got a nice vacation. Everyone came back the next year and did it all over again. And the world went on, right? So Mark Jackson came in and really turned upside down the culture of locker room, you know, and now we were actually, we're going to win. How could that be? You know, we never went like, how, how was that going to happen? And, you know, he was successful in doing that over a couple of years. Did you bring Mark Jackson in? He was, he was shortly after I came in, he was hired. I actually didn't come in with the new ownership group.

I came in a year later. So they were in one season when they bought the team, fired the coach then. And so Mark and I got here about the same time. And he was successful in doing that. Same challenge I had outside the door in the room we're sitting was we had people coming to work every day whether they were selling tickets or selling sponsorships or you know putting on community events or or putting on games they expected an outcome that wasn't good and that had become the comfortable way to do business so you know challenge there was, was in turning that attitude around. Mark was

successful in doing that in our locker room and with our players. And, you know, we really, the approach we had here was, look, here's where we're going. My, my first day here brought everybody in the room and said, here's what we're going to do. Right. Number one, we're going to rejoin the NBA, which sounds crazy, but this was an operation that really believed like you know we got it we don't need any help from anybody and we have a league that is incredibly uh helpful between teams more so than any of the other leagues it's a whole other topic but there's a lot to is this the sharing of data the collective sharing of data complete transparency in all of our business dealings across all 30 teams. And you already had a bird's eye view coming from the league of like what organizations were doing.

Exactly. From a technology standpoint, from a financial standpoint. So you had a bird's eye view of it as well. Right. So the idea was, look, here's where we're going. We can do this. If you think we can, you can buy into the vision. Come on, let's go. You're, you're welcome to come along for the ride. If you really don't believe

this is going to happen, probably a good time to, you know, part ways. And we probably turned over more than 50% of the staff over the first 18 months. The way I heard that story, your story was that you said that you said to the group, the organization, you brought it like you brought everyone in and said, here's the vision. I'd love for you to play that back for me if you could remember some of it. But then you said, we're not firing anybody. Tell me if I have it wrong. We're not firing anybody. Here's our new expectations. And then, then 50% of it kind of couldn't hang or wanted to leave because they didn't like the vibe of it. Did you go in that order? Yeah, no, that was the order. There were, did end up being firings because people would nod and say, I'll come along for the ride and then continue to behave the same way they had behaved. It kind of, you'd reach a point where it was like, you know what, that's just not going to cut it. So why did you do it that way instead of coming in and saying, okay, listen, I'm bringing my crew in. I'm scouring the

globe and I'm going to find the best in the heads of whatever departments, marketing and whatever. And I'm bringing them in. They understand me and my culture. That happens often. It does. So how come you didn't go that way? Because what I thought would be really important is if within the group that was already here who had never achieved success and never known success, we could find at least a couple of leaders who, when given the opportunity and the right resources, could become the success they hadn't been under the prior ownership. So you thought it was in there and you wanted to pull it out. We wanted to find out. And my feeling was if I could find at least a couple of people in that group that would all of a sudden start to get big wins and be seen by their peers and the others in the organization as now having elevated standing and having big success,

getting rewarded for that success, whether it's title or money or whatever it is, there would be a credibility I would have in then doing what you said and going out and then trying to recruit the best of the best in areas where I couldn't find that within the existing organization. Okay. So then that's full because that also matches your philosophy about looking for organizations that are untapped potential. So you do it for, at organizational level and also at a human level, right? So, okay. What did you shape as the vision when you came in? Well, I told the story of why I was here, right? I'd spent a career in the NBA. I had an opportunity to see, you know, teams that were incredibly well-run, teams that weren't well-run.

What I thought, you know, were the environmental factors that led to that based on where a team was located and, you know, said what was absolutely, that people like me had looked at this franchise for the last 20 years and said, this should be amongst the most successful in professional sports. And it's not. But it's not because we're in the wrong market. It's not because there isn't enough disposable income. It's not because there's not a big enough corporate base. It's not because there isn't enough fan affinity to the team. It's just, it hasn't been organized in a way that would create the success that those factors should have provided. So it was just an analysis of the opportunity and saying, it's all here. You just got to believe it's all here. And you got to commit

to the process of putting those pieces together in a way that's going to yield a very different result than what has historically happened. Do you call that culture? When you said it wasn't organized, to me, I've got two questions. One is, do you see it as puzzle pieces or do you see it more as a tapestry, like weaving pieces together? Or are there literally, you know, particular pieces that have to fit in particular spaces? It's a really simple business. It's like embarrassing how simple this business is and what leads you to financial success. Ticket sales is the biggest driver of profitability in the NBA.

So it's the biggest source of revenue for every team. Not true in the other leagues. So it's different. They all look alike. They're all very different. Okay. Broadcasting and sponsorship is the second piece. Financially, the rest of it is an afterthought.

Not an afterthought, but a rounding error. Okay. is an afterthought. Not an afterthought, but a rounding error. Then they're the parts of the organization that define how you're perceived, both internally to your internal constituents and to the community at large. And sports teams play this incredibly important part in the culture of community and have an opportunity so far beyond their economic size to influence the quality of life in communities and how people feel about where they live. And those are just as important as the revenue drivers, but oftentimes there's a big disconnect in sports organizations between the revenue generators and those who are responsible for defining kind of the DNA of the organization as perceived internally as well as externally.

And you have to value all of them equally when you're in the room with peers, right? Yes, you know, yes, you're going to contribute more to the dollar bottom line because you're selling big number sponsorships, but a great community event in San Jose pays dividends that while they're not monetary are equally valuable in defining the culture of the organization and the perception of the organization, which is going to allow those who are selling on the, you know, on the revenue side to do better than they would if you didn't do those things. And that's a struggle that every sports organization has on trying to get people to believe and understand there is such value to both. By the way, all those people in our community relations group really understand it's great when we're driving our revenue goals to a place where we can afford better players and a better team. And it reflects on the raises that they get as

much as the raises that the people who are selling get. But you can't operate a sports organization in silos. You have to have a group of people who are willing to engage across departments, at least at the senior management level, who truly believe in their hearts, what I said is true, and operate day to day with that kind of respect and attitude in the organization that makes everyone feel like a valued member, whether or not you're driving, you're selling season tickets, or you're working for a community foundation. How do you make people feel valued? If we drop it right down to the individual level, I've got this thought in my head. Total Wolf is the owner of Mercedes Formula One and the

managing director. And he says that he did something very similar when he came on as the new executive manager, as well as the owner, and gave this wonderful speech to the entire organization. At the end of his speech, everyone's clear in the room and he's Austrian. And there was an engineer there and they bring in the brightest minds, like the brightest minds across the world, Cambridge and Princeton and Harvard engineers that come work for Mercedes Formula One. And one very smart, respectable engineer said, those are nice words. Let's see if you can make them happen. So I'm imagining people heard you and they're like, this is great. Oh, a little scary because there's change coming. And I'm

not sure about change, but okay. How did you make it so that people felt valued? I literally mean like get into the hearts and the minds of people that they do have value when they've been in an organization that has not been winning. You know, for me, I think the people that you choose, number one, you have to choose people who fit the mold that I'm describing, or at least have the potential to do that. I, every week, I sit for two hours with our senior management team. And it's not, you know, it's all those areas of the company that, you know, contribute to our success. And, you know, I think it starts with me on how I, how they see my interaction with those areas. And then, you know, we, we do senior management

retreats where, you know, we're very honest with each other. If there's, you know, it's not a perfect world, right. And we have different personalities who are involved and some people get their feelings hurt or don't feel as respected and try to create an atmosphere where we can talk about that and not talk about it at the water cooler. We talk about it to each other. And I think more often than not, we're successful at doing that. And frankly, when there's somebody who can't get their arms around that over time, they're kind of self-selected out in terms of being here because I think you learn quickly here what's expected in terms of your interaction with your peers. And you're called on the carpet, in effect, by your peers, not just by me, when that interaction isn't what it's supposed to be.

Does that mean consistency? Yeah. When you say one thing and act differently, depending on the circumstances? Yeah. And, you know, that I mean, that starts with me. That starts with leadership. We have a mutual friend who said to me that you're a world class communicator. What does what does that mean? Honestly, what I think it means is that you listen really really well

because i think people who aren't good communicators are bad listeners and i think that you know i don't ever think i'm the smartest guy in the room on any particular topic i do think if i'm getting the right opinions from people who are smarter than me in that particular, uh, on that particular subject, I'm, I'm pretty good at making the right decision. But I think that it comes from being able to, to listen and to not only hear the facts, but to understand why somebody is feeling the way that they are. And I, I think that then you're able to respond in a way in your communication, your outgoing communication

that someone can accept because you've actually heard what they said, not, not just got the facts right. Okay. So when you listen, you're listening for the storyline and then you're also listening for the emotions or the context underneath of it. So how do you do that second part? Practice, practice, practice. I don't know. I think, you know, this is, this is going 180 degrees the other direction. I think part of it is who I was growing up. I was gay, right? And nobody knew I was gay. At what age did you have that insight? I think probably six or seven. Whoa, that's really early.

Not those words, not thought about that way, but knew there was something different about me. How did you know? That's phenomenal. Just knew. What does that mean? I just, it just, well, you, you knew that the attractions you had in your life were not the ones that you saw on TV. There you go. And, and, or in any behavior that was demonstrated by the most important people in the world

around you or people that were looked up to or anything like that. And I think it makes you ultra sensitive to words and to trying to understand things because things for me didn't add up in a lot of ways. I knew how I wanted to be, but that wasn't who I was at the moment. I was trying to learn what was different about people that could help me get closer to what I thought I wanted to be when I was a kid. No kid wants to be gay. Every kid wants to be accepted. Every kid wants to be loved by their parents. And those things were all in conflict with me. So I think it kind of created a sense of awareness for me personally that, you know, words became really important. I became much more interested in people who were different than me than people who were

the same as me. So, you know, the most influential people in my life are the people who are probably the most different from me because I felt like I learned the most. Not that I was going to be like them, but that I took something away from that relationship that made me better understand other people. Um, so I, it's, it's, it's a little, you know, it's a little wishy-washy philosophical, but I do think, uh, I do think there was some value to that. I think I, I became a really good listener. I became very sensitive to trying to understand how other people were feeling and why they were feeling that way and feeling there was maybe a path for me to be different than I felt I was. It's all pretty complicated.

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secretive and be, you know, compartmentalized outside of the rest of my life, you know, in my even teen college and beyond years, you know, it wasn't, You know, there just was nobody out there that I could see who I admired, who was a role model for me to say, wow, you could actually be in sports. You could be gay. You could be successful. And you could have a career. Like, there was nobody out there. And, you know, I didn't have that person.

So that was a big barrier for me to publicly come out because I just didn't know how it would affect my my really career it wasn't about me you know about my personal life my my family had always been incredibly supportive once we finally had the big discussion and I had a great group of friends, but you know, my work life was, was a, was a separate thing from that. And the two never crossed. And you know, that, that's a, that's a lot to carry, uh, as a person. Yeah. And so the thing I, if it seems to me, the thing underneath the storyline for you, if we follow the methodology we talked about is alignment alignment. Who I was and who I was presenting to be were off. They were misaligned or separated in some way. And you're looking for alignment. And would you say from pain is why

people change and being uncomfortable is why people grow. So did this come from pain for you, the split in alignment? Was that a painful experience or just uncomfortable? Uh, initially just uncomfortable. I mean, initially at, you know, there were events in my life that made it painful. Um, but, but, you know, it, and, and it wasn't that like in 17 years of going to NBA holiday parties, I never asked a girlfriend to come with me to kind of, you know, I'll go by myself. You know, it wasn't that I was constructing anything other than, you know, I never presented in a in a unauthentic way in my work life. But not alignment. But it wasn't a complete way. Yeah, that's that. There you way. Yeah. That's that. There

you go. Yeah. So it's like not telling a lie. I wasn't telling a lie, but I wasn't telling the truth. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Right. And then was it harder to tell your family or was it harder to tell? I don't know who you tell in business world. Do you tell the media first or you tell like the ownership? Like who do you, what does that mean in business to do that? Well, you know, your family was the biggest, hardest thing for me, but it was a much younger age. Cause I, as I said, every, you know, I just wanted my, I love my parents and I wanted them to love me. And I was afraid that this wouldn't be consistent with that and would change the way they would feel about me. And, you know, I'll tell you exactly the funny story. I'm, I'm, uh, have you ever tried to wallpaper? I have. It's so hard. It's really impossible to get, to get the lines. It's impossible with all the glue. Right. Yeah. My

mother was a wallpapering genius. Okay. So she was over at my, this is her profession or she just was a wizard in the house. She could have built a house. She was so good. Um, but, but wallpapering was one of her specialties. And I had this tiny little apartment in Seattle, my first apartment, and she came over to help me wallpaper the bathroom. And, you know, I know she does 26 years old. One of the things she'd been thinking about how this was going to get asked forever. Right. And so finally in the midst of wallpapering, her line was, so like your father and I were wondering, do you have like any trouble relating to women? And I can imagine how much rehearsal went into that. And what happened?

No, no, no. Are you so ridiculous? I've had girlfriends, you know, I've had girlfriends, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then by the end of the day, we're hugging and crying. And, you know, and then she asked again, or like, yeah, I mean, eventually it was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the story. Right. And but then, of course, the next day, you know, my mother and father have to come over for the family meeting and sit in my living room on the sofa horribly uncomfortably. And they were just – they had more questions. Like, well, why did you ever – what did we ever do that would make you think that this would change how we felt about you? And I didn't really have a good explanation for that other than I just had never seen them interact or talk about it. Or I didn't know why. And she said, well, you know, your uncle Bob is gay.

It's like, well, that would have been good information to have. I mean this was my – You didn't know why. And she, well, you know, your uncle, your uncle Bob is gay. It's like, well, that would have been good information to have. I mean, this was my dad's brother who was a doctor in San Francisco, the coolest guy in the world, traveled the world. I used to go, you know, spend a week in the summer with him and his beautiful house in Marin. That's phenomenal. The stories we make up about like our experience, like what other people are going to think of us can be wildly wrong when your dad had a brother. Who was beloved. He was, he was everyone's favorite relative. My parents loved him. If I'd only like, you know, that would have been helpful.

How did you know? No clue. No clue. No clue. So he was, he was, he was open about his preference, but. No, no, no. Oh, he wasn't? No, never. Oh, there you go okay no never very different time you know yeah okay he would be 89 or 90 today and it actually married a woman later in his life who

had been his bridge partner she lost her husband they ended up being the most glamorous couple i think in san francisco and and uh you know i, I never even crossed my mind. So, so that was, that was, you know, a gigantic relief business wise, completely different. Um, you know, I had, uh, I reached the point, you know, in 2011 where I made up my mind. We can talk if you want about what led up to that, where, you know, I, that. It was time. I needed to bring my work life and my personal life together. And I figured I could go talk to the people I work with. I was ready to do that. But I had a friend named Dan Cloris in New York City who was a media guru, had run the biggest PR firm there for a while.

We'd become friends through my work at the NBA. So I asked him to dinner. It's going to look great in the movie. It was a snowy night on the Upper East Side in New York City, and we sat down at the dinner table and said, Dan, here's the story. I'm so much too close to it. I need your opinion. Like is, is this is something I can take care of.

I can talk to the people I work with. I can, and that's fine with me. But is there something more to be gained if I do this in a very different way? Okay. Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

This is, this is great because mom asked you and you said, no, no, no, no, no, no. And then she's probably asked you again in another way, or you went back to wallpapering with awkward silence and you said, okay, mom. Right. And see, okay. So then, okay. But the first hesitation there was to not say it, but you really wanted to, you really wanted mom and dad to know, right. If it was going to be accepted, I was petrified. Right. Okay. So then, okay. Because the same thing is holding true for the business. Like, okay, I can tell my relationships with people, but I was too close to it. The PR idea was like, how is this going to

affect my global reputation? Now in that moment in the Upper East Side, you said East Side, right? And it's snowy, snowy evening. If he would have said, don't do it, or if he would have said, you'll be fine. No, what I was asking is, should I just deal with it one-on-one with all the people that are around me? Okay, so you would definitely. I was fine with that. That'll be, that was plan A. That was my plan A. A larger courage act with your family?

Was it the same? Not at that point. Not at that point. Because, no, no. Okay. Cause I want to hear the story, but I also want to know about courage, right? To live and express one's authentic truth is really hard, especially, and that, that thought, what I just, that mouthful of words I just said is like at right at the center of me, like to know yourself and to authentically express yourself requires a commitment to an incredible swath of mental skills, nonewithstanding insight and awareness, but then the mental skills to have the courage to act on it. And that's the same for athletes as

well. They've got this incredible craft that they've developed, but then when the lights turn on, some people shrink access to the craft and they can't get it. Right. And we call it choking or whatever, poor performance, but it's really, they can't access it for the rest of us who don't have the craft of Steph Curry, right. Or, or whomever in the NBA, our craft is, is being authentically ourselves. Like that's it, whether it's in business or it's in, um, family relationships, can we be ourself? Okay. So you're at that precipice and I want to, I want to get underneath the surface, but

I want to hear the story as well to see how, how you managed the experience of sharing. So, you know, do I take care of this one-on-one with everyone or Dan, is there something bigger here that could be done that would be more important than me just feeling better about myself? And, uh, he calls me Ricky. He just looked across the dinner table. Ricky, he's got a crazy voice. You know, if you're willing to do this, uh, I want number one, I'd like to help. I'd like to help craft this with you. And number two, I think it's page A1, New York Times. Oh, so go big. Yeah, that was my... No, the story is that big.

If you're willing to tell it publicly, the story is that big. And that's what I describe as my oh shit moment, because it was kind of like, whoa, that's big. So you didn't see the magnitude? Not from my seat. I my seat, which is why he was there. I was asking him to give me a perspective that I couldn't have with it being my life. Okay. So for, is this the first, um, executive in a major sport? Yes. And still the only, the only, The only? Yeah.

Do you think that that is a function of authenticity? Like you literally are the only gay man or? No. I certainly know otherwise. Oh, you know otherwise. And they just, they're not comfortable yet. They didn't have some sort of internal mechanism or social support system to do what you've done. And, you know, before I make myself out to be mother Teresa here, you also have to put, you know, where I was in my career. Like I had really accomplished

at that point, my, my fear was my career. And at that point I was president of an NBA basketball team, Phoenix suns. Like that was, that was my ultimate and a successful team. Yeah. I mean, terrific during your heyday or during that time, it was a heyday for them. Yeah. So, you know, I, I had much, I had much less career risk at that point in my life than I would have if I had, you know, taken this step when I was a 30 year old. So, you know, in fairness, you know, yes, it was, it was, you know, the experience was quite overwhelming, but at that time, you know, what was the worst that was going to happen? Was somebody going to

fire me because of that? Probably not. Um, does that limit other things I might do? I didn't know, but it wasn't like, you know, I had a 30 year horizon going forward in my industry that, that could be affected by that. And I don't hear in any of your capturing of the story that I wanted to do something for a community that feels oppressed. Or I wanted to do it because it was going to make the New York Times. It doesn't sound like that's part of your motivation. if and how this would take form, it became pretty clear to me at that point that I could be that person I described to you as never having had, right? I could be that person who others who were in my industry could look at and say, wow, that could, that actually could turn out okay.

I wish I'd had that. I mean, if I'd had that, my path might've been much different, but that didn't exist, uh, in my life. And the thought that maybe I could be that person for others, uh, became a really compelling reason to kind of follow through on the plan that would eventually end up with a story on the front page of New York times. So there's that thought underneath many great movements, if you will, and even success in sport and otherwise. It's important to be part of something larger than yourself, whether that's a spiritual framework or that's a legacy framework

or there's something. Did this do that for you? It did, yeah. I didn't know how it would turn out. It has turned out that way. or there's something. Did this do that for you? It did, yeah. Yeah, okay. I didn't know how it would turn out. It has turned out that way. That was the hope as we kind of went down this path that it would turn out that way,

but it certainly was no sure thing that this would have ended up being the right idea. I mean, I went to, my mother was still alive, but had been, had lung cancer at the time. I didn't know how much longer she had to live. And she was, before I had this conversation, I went to her and just said, look, you know, I'm ready to do this, but if this will cause you, you know, any embarrassment with your friends, if you're concerned about family, then it's not that big a deal i can i can deal with it a different way and she was great she was just like oh go for it you know i think it'd be awesome

i don't know whether she really meant it or not but she said the right things a mother should say in that uh in that situation so uh and we can continue the story if you want i mean we oh yeah no this is like groundbreaking no no this is the essence of it. So, uh, this guy, Dan Barry, this reporter from the New York times came out to Phoenix where I was living and we, we spent, uh, a couple of days together and hatched a plan because if you're really good at doing what you do in my job, in our industry, you're really not well-known. You know, there are people who are well-known who are presidents of teams, but it's usually because they have a miscalculation about what is people, what fans really want. They really care about your players and your coaches and how your team

performs. They really don't care about the guy in the suit, uh, in the office, who's kind of the engine behind it. If you're doing your job right, that that's my point of view there are others who want to be a big part of the show that's just not who i am so like nobody knew who i was right on a national level like nobody knew who i was so as we talked about it we said you know the good the interesting thing could be you've been exposed to and become friends with some of the most famous people who are in the industry that everyone knows. So whether that's Bill Russell or it's David Stern or it's, you know, Steve Nash or it's whoever, these are your friends. Like what if they told the story? What if really it was their words that told the story instead of necessarily your words and people will pay attention because these are people that everybody knows if you're interested

in sports so that that's the path that we went down you know the hard part for me of course then was i had to meet with each of these people and ask if they would they already participate they didn't know no well whether they knew or not we never had it wasn't that discussion yeah okay so you know the first one was bill russell so flew up to seattle he lives on mercer island and uh just drove my rental car to his house and knocked on the door and i'll never forget you know that door swinging open and here's this giant of a man wearing his Boston Celtics hat. And, you know, we're, we are great friends. It goes back to our

time together at the Sonics. I was white boy down the hall for a long time before he actually knew my name, but, uh, we've remained friends forever for whatever reason, right? We've been very close friends and he brought me into his little study and he sat in one chair and I sat in another. And between us was a little table with a framed picture of Barack Obama saying, you know, thanks, Bill, for being my inspiration. Nothing intimidating about this setting at all for me. Right. So now did he know what this meeting was about? OK, you said I want to talk to you about something. I just need to chat. OK.

And I said, you know, here's the story i'm gay um i'm gonna i'm wondering if you would talk to a reporter for the new york times bill russell hates reporters hates talking to reporters what an ask uh talk about and it was like yeah yeah i'll do that and night then that was it and two hours later i left after we'd had big laughs about a hundred things that had happened in our past and, you know, just talk like old friends, but. So you shared the way that you were going to roll it out and his part piece in it. If he would consider being a part of it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And what, why, why would he do that for your love or for like, I think cause he truly cared about me, you know, and he, and he, uh, he's, he's been a kind of a social justice guy his whole life for sure. You know, historically.

Um, so I think, you know, I think it resonated with him a little bit, especially when it was a friend. I would not, if it hadn't been a friend, but, uh, you know, then that was a conversation that I ended up, you know, repeating in hilarious ways with the commissioner of the NBA, David Stern or our MVP point guard, Steve Nash or others that, you know, ended up agreeing to be a part of it. And then I was blessed by having this, you know, amazing writer, write this amazing story that, uh, you know, ended up on the front page of the New York Times. Did you have any buyer's remorse? No. Well, I was prepared mentally.

So when this all happens, what's the outcome, right? And my expected outcome was, look, there are going to be some jerks out there, right? There's going to be, I don't know what percent, 10% of people who decide they want to be nasty to me, and I think 90% will be great. Um, the remarkable thing about it. And, uh, so the story was going to post, uh, about noon on, uh, I forget what day of the week it was a weekend. Uh, I think it was Sunday for Monday. And my partner and I got on a plane at SFO and we're going to fly to New York because part of this was going to be a whole media tour that would take place as a result of the story appearing in the Times. And in those days,

way back in 2011, well, number one, before I took off, I had made a list of about a hundred people that I wanted to say to give, you know, unfortunately like the same email, like, by the way, here's what's going to happen today. I'm about to get on an airplane, uh, 2011, no wifi. So, uh, just before we boarded, I, you know, hit send and then got on an airplane and spent the next five hours wondering how my life will change by the time I landed in New York city. How did you manage that? I'm smiling because I can, I can only imagine. There was wine involved. Um, but it was one of the most surreal experiences because, you know, somewhere over Kansas, I knew that this story had posted on the New York Times website.

And by the time we landed, I just kind of took a deep breath, picked up my BlackBerry, turned it on. And I think it came as close to exploding as I've ever seen. I mean, literally hundreds of emails. Did you ever have the thought that maybe no one cares? Like, what if I don't get any texts or emails? Did you not have that thought? I guess I didn't have that thought. At that point, I thought there might be a response.

That's great. Okay. What's the takeaways for you about this part of your life? Well, the takeaways were really defined by that next week of your life? Well, the takeaways are, are real. We're really defined by those next, that next week of my life, because, uh, that reaction that I was prepared for was completely different than I expected. Uh, it doesn't even sound realistic. I actually printed out and have on a shelf binders full of these emails. So people who took the time to actually find my email address and send me something, thousands of emails. Um,

did you just keep the positive ones? Uh, I did just keep the positive ones. The reason is I never got a negative one or someone, I know it doesn't even sound realistic. It doesn't even sound possible, but for anyone who took the time to find an email address and write something to me or write a letter, actually people still wrote letters in 2011. Um, you know, and, and the ones you probably would expect, you know, from people you work with your life and just couldn't have been nicer, but all the people I didn't know that was the impact. It was, you know, from people you work with your life and just couldn't have been nicer. But all the people I didn't know, that was the impact. It was, you know, the parents, the kids. This is phenomenal because you're in a unique position as the president of an organization who, like you said earlier, most people don't know who the presidents are, right? If they're

doing their job and then, but you've got this unique experience about what it's like to read media on you as your athletes do. And so I've got a pretty strong point of view that I think most athletes that I know are barely or not at all qualified to be on social media because it is so overwhelming and noisy and emotionally charging to see what somebody has to think about you that's negative. So can you, can you talk about that in any way? Like, imagine if you were 21, you know, like your, your position on social media or your thoughts about it. Yeah. And again, point of reference on 2011,, in 2011, nobody was tweeting. That's right. I didn't have to deal with that.

Yeah, you got ahead of that for sure. But listen, I'd been a, you know, the subject of media discourse my whole life, just based on the industry that I was in and what. So I, you know, I was comfortable in that world and wasn't, you know, knew the good and bad that comes along with that. You know, I'm not a big social media guy now. We have a whole department that takes care of that in a better way than I do. It's just not me kind of at this stage of my life. I'm not doing a lot of it.

I do think it's completely the whole, you know, I go back to when I was a, you know, ball kid at the Sonics. I learned so much from that experience of doing that because I was the guy who opened the locker room door after the game was over for the five maybe media people that were covering the team in those days, home and road. And you look at the media scrutiny that athletes are under today,

it's a completely different world. And it's so much more difficult for athletes today to navigate their way through that. And the relationship of the media to athletes is so different today than it was in the 60s, 70s, where reporters' livelihoods depended upon their relationships with the athletes, and they took care of each other. They didn't talk about the bad stuff and they glorified the good stuff. And that's just the way the interaction worked.

And I was a part of all that and got to see coaches and players and how they interact and trainers and things that most people never get exposed to. And I was doing it as a fly on the wall, just as an observer, not in the interaction itself, which was incredibly valuable, but it's so difficult today for athletes to, you know, I, we watch what Kevin Durant went through last year when he, uh, when he changed

teams, uh, and, and, you know, actually got to choose where he went to work. Unlike other Americans, I guess they're not supposed to be able to do that. I don't know. But when he went through that and what he endured the entire year, social media-wise, of the venom that came back to him for having left his team and joined already a championship caliber team is amazing. And his poise and ability to, frankly, not react to most of that

was his greatest sign of maturity, I think, because it would have been much easier for him to tit for tat fire back on the attacks that he had. But I think that today you really have to pick and choose if you're a high profile athlete, when and how to engage in a way and always think two steps ahead in terms of, do I really want to put that out there? And if I do, potentially what comes back? And I think that's a lot to ask of a 20 something who's, you know, grown up with this as their primary form of connection with people. I think so too. And I've seen how overwhelming it can become. And I hear Michelle

Obama's words when she said, when they go low, stay high or something, something to that effect, really, really thoughtful, you know, approach. Okay. So how do you define success? You know, I know it when I leave the building every day, I it It's just, you know, if I've had one of those days where, you know, I really, I really move things forward today and I really, or I did something that made a difference today. That to me, it's just a feeling. It's just, I know it when I, when I feel it, you know, there's certain things like, you know, winning a championship, but you know, I didn't play too many minutes in game five to win our, our championship this year. I didn't, I had, I did not play in that one, but I know when I see it, I can, I think I feel it more than anything else. Um, there's,

there's certainly, there's nice trophies when you're named sports team of the year, there's reports that the NBA issues where now the Warriors are on top of those reports instead of on the bottom of those reports. And that, you know, there's little, there's, there's little indicators along the way, but I think at the end of the day, it's how you feel about the job you've done and, and whether or not you feel like you've really been able to contribute to something that collectively we did as a group that caused a lot of joy and a lot of happiness. Okay. So let's say wild professional success that you've had and you're on your deathbed. I know

now it's, now it's a dreary thought, but you're on your deathbed and you didn't tell your parents that you're gay. And then the other thought is that the second on follow on is that you didn't tell your industry, you know, through media. Would you be would you think that you were successful in in either of those cases? I think I would have felt like I was maybe the luck level of fulfillment, um, where today, you know, there's, there's, uh, you know, nothing in my life that my, I can't share with my coworkers or, or that my coworkers don't know about my family or, you know, I can, I, there's just, there's no filters in terms of what I can or can't say to people. Uh, I'm, you know, I can, I, there's just, there's no filters in terms of what I can or can't say to people.

Uh, I'm, you know, more importantly, I think the depth of my relationship with others is at a completely different level than it was before because of the boundaries I had set in terms of what I, I wasn't going to ask you about what you did last weekend because I didn't want you to ask me what I did last weekend. So, so freedom is what you found. There's a freedom and a completeness of human relationships that you can have that was lacking in my life. So how do you think about other people? Like how do you think about humans? And I know it's a huge question, but like what are we doing and how do you think about other people? When I'm, you know, I'm going to be thinking about the people in my life when I'm laying there on my deathbed. I'm not going to be thinking about inventing the slime dunk contest. Which you did, right?

Which was the, I love that. This was the NBA All-Star weekend, right? Yeah. What you're credited for. Yeah. So, yeah. And I won't be wishing I had worked more hours and spent less time with my family. You know, I think, I do think about that stuff a lot. We've all had death in our lives and I've had death in my life that's, you know, to me, a significant person dying in my life has always been incredibly inspirational, not depressing.

I've always taken that as a kind of opportunity to recalibrate, you know, and to assess, like, how I'm living my life and who I'm living it with. And am I being a good partner, uncle, brother, you know? And I think it inspires me to do better um and and hopefully i got a lot more of those years to to get more inspired and to do better than i'm doing but i i think the most important thing to me is that i've treated people in a way that reflects well on my character and on me you know that that this is a this is a, this is a, what goes around comes around industry more than as much as any I've ever seen. And people who are empowered and don't treat people well, inevitably fail. It may not be in a year, it may not be in five years, but inevitably they fail. Going back to my very first Sonics locker room, when I walked into my first Sonics locker room in 1969,

there were three athletes in that room who went out of their way to be nice to me. And it's a great lesson because the three of those ended up going on to be the most successful people over the rest of their lives than anybody else in that locker room. Lenny Wilkins, who's in the Hall of Fame for being a player, being a coach, being a part of the Dream Team. Rod Thorne, who had a spectacular career, not as a player, but as an executive and in the NBA. And the guy by the name of Tom Asheri, whose number's retired here at the Warriors, who became an author, still a good friend today. All of them still good friends today.

None of the rest of those guys had the time of day for a 16-year-old that didn't mean anything in their lives. But each of those three, in a hundred little ways, one other way to make me feel important. Is there a phrase that guides you or your life? And then is there a phrase that, that is, that resonates here at the, at the warriors? And this is like a philosophical, like, like, do you have a philosophy that guides you yeah i you know i would say i i keep a poster on my wall that is my you know my kind of operating demeanor which is the keep calm and carry on you know like nobody ever sees me totally meltdown all meltdowns are done in private are they so you have meltdowns we all do yeah But I have learned from the people that I've been around that those who are the calmest and the most thoughtful in the most stressful times are the people that I end up respecting the most.

It's one of those characteristics that I try to bring into my life in terms of how to emulate that because I think that that's a true test of leadership. So calm, being calm as a skill. And how do you train that skill or how have you developed that skill to become when other people are either anxious or angry or physiologically overwhelmed? How have you built that skill? You know, honestly, like much of my leadership style is just like I'm going to conduct myself in a certain way. And I kind of expect you to to, you know, in your own way, try to reflect some of the things that that I do. So I don't have a lecture about staying calm, you know. But certainly if I see somebody who, you know, is, you know, something bad, something's gone crazy wrong or stressed out about something, it is an opportunity to, you know, say, look, you know, this too shall pass, right?

Let's figure out how to, you got a lot of people here to help you. Let's figure out how to make it better. Let's figure out, you know, if we can't, let's learn from it. Let's move on. It's, you know, at the end of the world, you know, the sun's going to come up tomorrow. Okay. So as you're doing that, the sun's going to come up tomorrow. Okay. So as you're doing that, I'm hearing three things, your perspective. So you keep perspective and that helps to keep calm or maintain a sense of calmness. Then you also do gratitude, which is that, okay, there's other people here that are here to help us. And let's move through that as

well. And a sense of optimism, it's going to get better. Like whatever it is now, it's going to get better. So you, so your perspective in in life gratitude for others and optimism of the future and then do you do anything around physiological reduction of of activation do you do any breathing work or any sort of meditative work to have volitional control over your heart rate and your physiological responses wow uh i guess the answer is no. I'm that physical exercise is important to me, not to try to keep the pounds off, but more as a, as an escape and mental. I'm one of those people at the gym who doesn't talk to a person. I've got my music on in my head. It's my time to be by myself, to get as tired as I can possibly get, to, you know, not to worry about, you know, anything that's going to happen or could happen.

It is, for me, physical exercise is an important ritual several times a week just to be able to kind of, that's my decompression, I guess, a little bit. Okay. Where does pressure come from? You know, in this business, it's the most public, uh, it, for a small business, we are the most public possible business you could have. You know, there's a, you can't have a newscast that doesn't have a section of the newscast devoted to your industry. You have, uh, you know, any media outlet has a, uh, a section devoted to deciding how well you're doing your job. You have ownership.

Everyone's got a boss, whoever you are. You still have a boss out there somewhere. And, you know, you're doing your best to excel in your work environment. Your family can put pressures on you. I mean, I think pressure can come from anywhere. Do you see it more as external sources? Only for me, I would say it's probably 50-50. day to do everything I can to make our organization and their personal lives, business lives as successful as we possibly can make them. And, you know, I think they know I've got their back.

You know, I'm most proud of the people that I've worked with who've gone on to brilliant jobs, careers, success, however they define it in the world. And I, you know, I, I spent a lot of almost every day I'm, I'm on the phone with somebody about somebody who's looking for a job somewhere or somebody who's getting referred to a job and you know, how I can be helpful in that process of, of, uh, getting them to the next thing that they want to do. And I think all these people here know that,

that that's, that's, I'm going to, I'm going to do that for them and use my network to try to be helpful to them at some point in time when they, you know, see an opportunity that they really want to go after that, that I'm going to be a cheerleader, not a, somebody trying to hold them back. I don't know if there's any one thing, but I think all those things contribute. Knowing what you've experienced and the success and failures that you've had, we haven't talked about those, but knowing with your life experiences, what guidance or insight would you give to your younger self? I say this all the time, pick great bosses, right? I was so lucky to work for a series of people who absolutely taught

me everything about what it was. I got, I got very lucky, you know, right to my first boss at the Sonics, who was like the coolest marketing guy ever in the history of the world. And I could never be that good at that to the young lawyer, David Stern, long before he was commissioner, who just had this, you know, unquenchable desire for knowledge, right? Just the most well-read person I've ever been, the most, the person who read about the craziest variety of topics ever, and would always be handing me a story about an industry that had nothing to do with us, but that he could see somehow there was a dotted line to what we were doing. I think the second you think you got it

all figured out, you got a really big problem. Every day is an opportunity to reevaluate the way you think about everything. And if there's somebody who's doing something that's 100 degrees opposite from what you're doing, the thing you need to do is try to figure out why they feel that way about that and work your way back to how you feel about it, not find fault in how they're analyzing the same situation and justifying the way you do it. I think attitudinally, that's probably the most important thing to just wake up every day thinking like, I got so much to learn today. I'm like starting from zero again.

I got to go figure it all out and be open to thinking about the way other people view the world as an opportunity to refine the way you think about it. How do you wake up in the morning? Because, you know, what you just described requires work to be open to new ideas and to explore equally intense opposite ideas. Is there something that you do to kickstart your day? You know, I have my favorite hours. That's my first hour when I crawl out of bed and get my first cup of coffee. And I just read for probably a solid hour. What do you read? Whether it's, you know, first I got a glance at my emails overnight, but then it's, you know,

I'm a big, you know, I'll read my San Francisco Chronicle, I'll read my New York Times, I'll read my industry publication, all of that before I ever get in the shower. And it helps me think about the day. It helps me think about what I'm going to do today. Do you get out of bed to read? Yes. Yes, you're out of bed reading. Okay. Are there any books that have been important to you? Peter Cooper's Tell the Wind. Yes, of course. Peter. Yeah. I read a lot of them, but I don't know that I would pick any of them. Do you listen to books or read books?

No, I read. You read books. Yeah, I'm still a tactile experience. Even with my newspaper. I mean, I read everything online too, but if I have the opportunity to sit down and read it, especially in periodicals, I appreciate. I wanted to be a journalist when I went to the University of Washington. It was at a time when journalists were heroes.

It was during Watergate. Journalists were amongst the most respected of industries, of professionals in industry. And I got a great knowledge and respect for the organization of news when you're talking about a well-run organization and having thoughtful editors and how stories are placed and who's thought about what's more important than something else. And I appreciate having somebody do that editing for me without me just curating it all on my own that might take me to things I'm all on my own that might take me to things I'm interested in, but not necessarily give me perspective. When you strip it all down, what are you most hungry for? Like most hungry for in your life? You know, at this stage,

it's probably evolved a little bit. I think maybe that sense of, uh, fulfillment that, uh, I've been a part of something. I've always wanted to be a part of something that I've been a part of something. I've always wanted to be a part of something. I've never, you know, the worst, like, little period of my work life was I actually left the NBA to go to a company Fox created called Fox Sports Enterprises. I was the president of Fox Sports Enterprises when they owned the Dodgers, Dodger Stadium, and some other things.

And they had, you know, I was at that job for six months after having worked at the NBA for 17 years. They sold controlling ownership to another entity. And that was the best and worst time of my life. It was the best time of my life because I, um, really got to sit back and say, you know, what, what makes me happy in a business environment? What, what really were the things that drove that? And that led me back to the NBA and back to the Phoenix suns. And eventually here, um, it was the worst time because I was not in a collaborative, uh, environment, which I, I miss, I would be a really bad, you know, remote employee because I need, I feed off of the energy of other people who I can talk to and, and be around and, and engage with on an ongoing basis, face to face.

You're an extrovert. I'm not though. I'm not, I'm not, that's my, that's, that, though. That's how I gather my information and form, get my satisfaction. But I'm not an extrovert. I'm, I think, by nature, kind of an introvert. More introverted. Are you an introverted feeler? Do you feel privately?

Or do you express your feelings to others? I've evolved there. I think I'm now much better expressing my feelings to others. I think more early in my life was much more introverted in my feelings as well. If you were to ask someone on the path of mastery, a legend in whatever field that you conjure up, what question would you want to ask them? Well, I think the core question that I got to is, do you really understand what motivates you and gives you satisfaction in your life? You know, because I think that sometimes we get a little off course on that. I think I got a little off course in that when I left the NBA after,

you know, 17 year run the league office and went to baseball because, you know, it was seemed like the next big thing to me. And then I realized that it was those relationships. I, what I, what I found I missed was those relationships that I had spent, uh, 25 years building and was not able to draw on that to be successful in my new, I mean, I could draw from the experience, but I, but I wasn't as engaged with people in, in being successful. And I, that's, that's what makes me happy. It's the collaboration that goes into, uh, success that, that you experienced together as a group. And I want to be, I want to, I want to be a big part of that. I want to really feel like I was a contributor in achieving something. Does that come before, uh, financial or public success? It would you put it in that order? Yeah. For me. I mean, I, I absolutely, that, that absolutely is true. Okay. Is, um,

thank you for your time. We're, we're about to round up, but I want to give you some kind of quick hits and see how you respond to these. Is there a word that cuts to the center of what you understand most? A word or a phrase, you know, I, I think, I think that knowledge is power. I mean, I would say, I think, uh, I'm not, like I said, I don't ever go into the room thinking I'm the brightest one there, but if I can learn more about any particular subject, I'm going to make a better decision. Okay. And then what is your ability to take risks? One to ten. I would say in my business life, it's very high at eight, right? I would say in my personal life, I'm less risky. Interestingly, I would say I'm probably a four.

Are you better at emotional risk or financial risk or strategic risk? Terrible on financial risk personally and and really good at it uh in my career so it's uh maybe maybe we're discovering some uh some some strange faults here that's fun yeah it's better to it's better to play with um with house money sometimes for sure okay um one to ten how important is music for you uh nine really important what kind of music everything i'm one of those people that if you look at my playlist you're like really you listen to all that stuff yeah what are you listening to now uh i'm on french house music right now yeah no it's really it's now you know from seven to eight o'clock gotta I'd have my French house music. One to ten, spirituality?

Also in evolution. I think maybe it's a natural progression with age. I would say an eight also. One to ten, breaking rules? Again, I'm going to tell you there's a complete disconnect between my personal and my, uh, and my professional life. I think we, uh, preach risk-taking in my professional life. And that drives me a lot. I think, uh, breaking rules in my personal life. Uh, I'm, it's very important to me not to break rules.

Yeah. It's interesting. Cause I, I saw you, what kind of work through that, but you took great risks in your personal life, you know, like world-class risks, world breaking news type of risks. And then also that there's an intimate risk of the, the first time that you, that in your model, and I'm, I'm trying to find the right words to this. So stop me if I'm wrong on this, but in your head, there was a taboo nature to being gay. You weren't quite sure people around you didn't know what to do. Like you didn't have models, so to speak. And that's an incredible risk to take the first, to have a first gay experience because it's so different than everyone else. The guys that you're talking to

or you know hanging out with so that's an that that way back when whenever that was feels like that would be a an important risk moment as well i guess so but but but you know it's nature right it's not it's it's a it's it's something innate it's, you know, it's not, that wasn't a choice to me. I guess, I guess the moment was a risk, but, but it wasn't. Actually, I think, um, one of my family members is gay and that she says very much the same things, which is that, listen, I was born this way. Like it's, and I wouldn't choose it for anyone. It's hard. And she, you know, she's got a point of view about it. And I think that the point is that some people could not act on it, could not express their true nature. And that's a risk as well. You know, my, uh, uh, I, I think I'm allowed to talk about this. My

partner, you know, was married, has two beautiful children and wasn't until he was 27 years old that he kind of came to grips with the fact that he was living a life that was uh orchestrated and not not natural for that's a cool thought orchestrated not natural that's a cool thought yeah yeah that there's risk in that as well okay um thank you so so much. Thank you. Yeah. I feel like I should be, you know, writing a check after this session from my therapy. No, it's not supposed to be that at all. This is supposed to be, this is supposed to be a curious conversation about like, how, how do people on the path of mastery organize their thoughts, their worldview and their philosophical, you know, approaches. And, you know, is there anything you

could pass on to folks that me included about how to develop like internal strength? You know, life experience is just an amazing thing. You know, I just think, uh, that if you're, if you're, you know, emotionally engaged every day and you're experiencing life as it comes to you, and I think I went through a lot of years of my life where nothing bad ever happened. And I certainly learn a lot more from when bad things happen than when good things happen. But I think one of the blessings of being a human being, I think, is that if you have the openness to experience life, that the accumulation of those experiences is the most valuable thing that you can ever have. Brilliant. Okay.

What do you hope the NBA gets right? What do you see the future of basketball? So bullish. I don't think the NBA has ever been You know, so bullish it's, I don't think the NBA has ever been in a better position than it is right now. And if you were, uh, if you're looking out over the next 30 years, uh, there's just, there's just so many positive things happening. I think, uh, first and foremost, it's international nature. Um, you know, there's no, uh, you know, Americans don't understand what the rest of the world calls football, you know, there's no, you know, Americans don't understand what the rest of the world calls football, you know, soccer and how much bigger it is than the NFL or Major League Baseball or the NBA or all those combined.

But there's only two sports played worldwide. And it's what we call soccer and basketball. And we have a unique model, especially as you compare it to football, basketball rather, I mean, what we call soccer, in that while every kid growing up kicking a soccer ball dreams of playing for his club team or his national team in the World Cup, every kid growing up bouncing a basketball dreams of playing in the NBA. There's no other competitive environment that is equal to that. So we have between 25, 30 percent of our players now are non-American and that number will continue to grow. And the ability as a business to then export that around the world is something that impossible in baseball based on the real estate necessary to play the game. Harder in football, American

football, because while you can play on a field in soccer, for whatever reason, the American game has not been able to grow as quickly internationally as it has domestically. So I think the future is genius for the NBA. I also think at this particular point in time in our society now, I don't know if this is a, you know, if this is something that continues, but I think the power of personalities on NBA teams is something very different than we have in other sports right now, uh, for better or for worse, an individual player, uh, is so influential in the success of a team. And as we talked earlier, the social profile of those individuals now has been blown up,

you know, bigger than it's ever been historically. And for whatever reason, football and baseball have evolved more as your team first, player second. And the NBA kind of embraced, listen, this is about the players early on. And in our social environment today, that is really resonating with young people. If you look at the audience ages, if you look at all the social media measurements, the NBA is blowing away the other sports right now. And maybe it's a moment in time, or maybe it's something that you build on going forward in the future. It's, you know, but I like our chances.

Where do you see technology in five years for human optimization? Yeah, it's such an interesting subject as we're building a new facility because, you know, the world is built around our handheld devices right now. And so I think the most important thing is whatever you're doing has to work as incredibly well on that device, better long term than we're worrying about a television screen or anything else. That device has got to work, which is the most important thing. So the environment we create has to give you access and the bandwidth to do anything you want, whenever you want. At the same time, you know, I think there's a uniqueness to the in-person experience of attending a sporting event. And I, and I especially, you know, believe that's true of the NBA where, you know, you're an incredibly intimate environment with guys running around in tank tops and shorts. And the way the game is covered on television is all about faces and emotion, you know, close proximity,

reactions to calls, all of that. It's an intensely emotional experience that the pace of the game as well, I think is really, really important. So from a technology perspective, our view is that we're working really hard wherever we think technology can enhance our guest experience. We love it, but just to have it for the sake of having it is a distraction, not an enhancement. And I think that that's, we're trying to start with the end experience and work our way back to figure out where technology enhances that and where it doesn't and not be caught up in needing to have the newest and best toy. But making sure that if we go down a path that it's truly additive to the connection that somebody feels with our team, not just another thing. Very cool. Last big question. How do you articulate or define mastery? How do you

think about the concept of mastery? I, I might've said this to you on the phone. The first time we talked, I think anybody who thinks they have it certainly is on the wrong path, right? So I think it should be an aspirational thing that you live with every day, not something you ever feel you really accomplished. God, where can people find you? Where can they follow along? Where can they just our welts at warriors.com. I talk to everybody who emails me. It's the at Rick Welts. Yes. But you're not, you're not going to be very excited about my, uh, my Twitter posts. Okay, good. All right. Thank you again. Um, it's an honor to, to learn from your perspective and your journey. And so thank you for your time. Thanks. Yeah.

Well, how fun was that conversation? Rick Welts is on it. And that was just a joy to be, um, to learn from him and to feel how he communicates and see the thoughtfulness in the way that he sees the world. And so that was a joy. I hope that you were able to pull out as many gems as I was in that conversation. And maybe if you missed a couple or you want to further that discussion, head over to our community. And you guys are doing a phenomenal job at building this community. It's on findingmastery.net slash tribe.

And it's just, it's a bunch of us that are supporting and challenging each other on this path of mastery. We're posting things, we're challenging questions, and it's a phenomenal, it's just a phenomenal community. And then if you want to ask some questions, hit us up on social, on Instagram, it's at Finding Mastery. And then we've also got Twitter is at Michael Gervais, and that's G-E-R-V-A-I-S. And you can also follow along with other conversations that we've had on our website, findingmastery.net, as well as punching over to iTunes and subscribing to the podcast there. And you know what? If you haven't had the moment and you've enjoyed these conversations, please write a review.

It helps. It builds awareness. It's part of the algorithm for iTunes to keep us rolling. So please do that if you will. And until next time, thank you for listening. And we hope to hear how you're doing on your path of mastery in your own life as well. 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. We really appreciate you being part of this community. And if you're enjoying the show, the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe

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