Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Hall of Fame Coach George Raveling on Progression and Being Relevant

Episode Date: December 7, 2016

George Raveling, referred to by many as “Coach”, is Nike’s Director of International Basketball and has been inducted into numerous hall of fames, including the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015 and the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2013. In This Episode -Parents both passing away at a young age and heading to Catholic boarding school -Surrounding yourself with the right people -Importance of challenging yourself -How to get others to believe in themselves -The meaning of environmental control -The tension between accepting someone and challenging them to do more -How the power of storytelling can help people embrace change -Value of increasing self-awareness -Having a purpose in which you live your life -Fueling his “positive reservoir” -Reinventing yourself every 10 years -Investing more time in the “why” instead of the “how” -Taking time to audit your life on a regular basis_________________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.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Remarkable. In a world that's full of distractions, focused thinking is becoming a rare skill and a massive competitive advantage. That's why I've been using the Remarkable Paper Pro, a digital notebook designed to help you think clearly and work deliberately. It's not another device filled with notifications or apps.

It's intentionally built for deep work. So there's no social media, no email, no noise. The writing experience, it feels just like pen on paper. I love it. And it has the intelligence of digital tools like converting your handwriting to text, organizing your notes, tagging files, and using productivity templates

to help you be more effective. It is sleek, minimal. It's incredibly lightweight. It feels really good. I take it with me anywhere from meetings to travel without missing a beat. What I love most is that it doesn't try to do everything. It just helps me do one very important thing really well,

stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Think about this. We spend more time planning our vacation than we do planning our lives. When we're going to go, how we're going to go, who's going to go, how much we're going to spend on it, when we're going to come back. But we don't spend the same amount of time planning our lives. And so to me, if you and I can live our lives strategically, then we have a great advantage over other people. Because I don't know how you know, if you don't know where you're going, how do you know when you arrive? And so to me,

what, if we take control of our lives and we take control of personal development, I think we have a huge advantage over everybody else because most people are just living from day to day. And, but they're not, they're not living with a sense of purpose. All right, welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais. And the idea behind these conversations is to learn, to learn from people who are on I'm Michael Gervais. understand how their unique world works, the craft that they've invested their time in, and how they understand how they work. And then even deeper below that, we want to understand the mental skills that they use and have used to build and refine their craft. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment

that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people. It takes the right tools, the right information at the right time. And that's where LinkedIn Sales Navigator can come in. It's a tool designed specifically for thoughtful sales professionals, helping you find the right people that are ready to engage, track key account changes, and connect with key decision makers more effectively. It surfaces real-time signals, like when someone changes jobs or when an account becomes high

priority, so that you can reach out at exactly the right moment with context and thoroughness that builds trust. It also helps tap into your own network more strategically, showing you who you already know that can help you open doors or make a warm introduction. In other words, it's not about more outreach. It's about smarter, more human outreach. And that's something here at Finding Mastery that our team lives and breathes by. If you're ready to start building stronger relationships that actually convert, try LinkedIn Sales Navigator for free for 60 days at linkedin.com slash deal. That's linkedin.com slash deal. For two full months for free, terms and conditions apply. Fighting Mastery is brought to you by David Protein. I'm pretty intentional about what I eat,

and the majority of my nutrition comes from whole foods. And when I'm traveling or in between meals, on a demanding day certainly, I need something quick that will support the way that I feel and think and perform. And that's why I've been leaning on David Protein Bars. And so has the team here at Finding Mastery. In fact, our GM, Stuart, he loves them so much. I just want to kind of quickly put him on the spot. Stuart, I know you're listening. I think you might be the reason

that we're running out of these bars so quickly. They're incredible, Mike. I'd love them. One a day. One a day. What do you mean one a day? There's way more than that happening here. Don't tell.

Okay. All right. Look, they're incredibly simple. They're effective. 28 grams of protein, just 150 calories and zero grams of sugar. It's rare to find something that fits so conveniently into a performance-based lifestyle and actually tastes good. Dr. Peter Attia, someone who's been on the show, it's a great episode by the way, is also their chief science officer. So I know they've

done their due diligence in that category. My favorite flavor right now is the chocolate chip cookie dough. And a few of our teammates here at Finding Mastery have been loving the fudge brownie and peanut butter. I know, Stuart, you're still listening here. So getting enough protein matters. And that can't be understated, not just for strength, 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 findingmastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash findingmastery. Now, this conversation is with Coach George Raveling. He's been a head basketball coach for a long time. So if you're in the basketball world, you definitely know his name. If you're new to basketball or not really sure what you have to learn from basketball,

let me just set up what he's done and then share some of the reasons why I think this conversation is relevant to all people, not just coaches, not just athletic-minded people, but all people that want to grow and learn. So he was first a head coach at Washington State University from 1972 to 83. So he's been at this for four decades, right? The University of Iowa for another couple of years there, and then University of Southern California from 1987 to 1994. He was a three-time Pac-10 coach of the year, which is a very competitive league. The Pac-10 is a particular league in basketball in NCAA. And then he went on to be the assistant coach at two Olympics, the 1984 games and the 1988 games. He also was awarded the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall

of Fame Award, which is a phenomenal feat in and of itself. And then after that, after his career and tenure and impact in basketball at the highest level, he has gone on to be the global basketball sports marketing director at Nike. Then to continue passing forward or pushing forward his understanding, he became the founder of Coaching for Success, which is a website based on sharing insights and information. And that's at coachgeorgeravelling.com. And Raveling is spelled R-A-V-E-L-I-N-G. Okay, so that's his basketball career. And when he was just a youngster, there was something very particular that took place for him that really conjures up and captures the moxie that he has, the vibrant gusto to go for it. He happened to be invited, and I think his dad helped with this invitation, to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s, not inaugural, he knew that something very important was taking place.

And he looked up at Dr. King as just a young guy, right? And he said, Dr. King, can I have that speech? As Dr. King was folding it and putting it, you know, getting ready to put it away, put in a suit pocket probably. And Dr. King looked at him and said, sure, here you go, kid. Now, now think about that. Now he's been the custodian of that world-changing speech for a long time. Now, think about what it takes to go for it. And to really have an idea that to go for it in the moment when most people were just overwhelmed by it, and he spotted an opportunity to be able to, I don't know, be part of it in some kind of way. And so I just think that that's phenomenal. So we dive into that.

I'm also reminded by a former guest on Finding Mastery, Elizabeth Lindsay. And she said something that I haven't forgotten that's been really important. She said, when an elder dies, it's as if a library has been burned. Now, Coach George Raveling has been a significant influence in the field of basketball. So we want to learn from him because he has a wealth of information. Okay. All of that being said, I think that what we can learn is based on part of this conversation we have with him is that he didn't come from an easy way of growing up. And he talks about the importance of surrounding yourself with the right people.

We get into some of that conversation and the importance of working from a challenge perspective on a lifelong journey and how the mechanics and how to help others to believe in themselves. And so I think that there's so much here about investing in oneself, investing in other people, the importance of self-awareness and having a purpose in which you live your life with. And all of this has been shaped by his experiences as a coach and also as a young man who had to figure out his way. And so I am honored to be able to have this conversation with him. I hope that you enjoy it as well. And lastly, before we get right into the conversation, thank you for all of the social engagement on Twitter at Michael Gervais, on Instagram is at Finding Mastery. And those of you who have participated

in the minutes on mastery, it's a hybrid or a, I guess it's like a distilled applied insights from these long form conversations. And it's just under three minutes or less. So that's growing as well. So we want to say thank you. And with that, you know, let's jump right into this conversation with George Raveling. And I hope you enjoyed as much as I did. George, how are you? I'm doing excellent. Okay. So husband, father, hall of fame coach, brand ambassador, maybe that's not exactly the right title, but for Nike and a custodian of the I Have a Dream speech for Martin Luther King Jr. What an honor to be here with you today. Well, it's been an interesting journey for me, and I often envision myself as one of the luckiest

guys in the world to have lived the life that I've lived. And it's always been transformative and inspiring and challenging. Okay. So one of the things I like to understand, so this conversation is about your path, your unique path that you've had. And we all have wildly unique paths. And what I've found or what I'm finding is that we have very common emotions, very common thoughts, but very different experiences. And so can you bring us back to kind of what first

kicked you off, what it was like when you were younger, the family that you grew up in, and just give us some context of what that was like. Well, all of my young life, as I look back on it now, I think was a preparation for adult life. And so I got off to some challenging opportunities. And I do see challenges as opportunities. And so when I was nine, my dad died. When I was 13, my mom had a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized the rest of her life. And so now the challenge becomes for my grandma, so what do you do with George? And she worked for this white family in Georgetown, and the daughter was head of the Catholic

Charities. And so she volunteered to try to help. And so she got me in a Catholic boarding school in upstate Pennsylvania. And so I spent the rest of my time as a student there at the boarding school. And that was the start of the organizational part of my growth. splintered family environment, I now came into an environment where, one, I was in a disciplined environment. I had people who were looking after me on a daily basis. I learned that you had to earn your way in life because here at the boarding school, you had to do a trade and a variety of trades in order to help offset the cost of your presence there. So over the years, I did everything from milk cows to pick eggs, to bale hay, to pick apples and scrub floors, work in the bakery, the kitchen, and work in the dormitories, making

beds in the laundry, washing clothing and apparel, and so forth. So through all of those things, I learned that there's a price that you have to pay directly or indirectly as you grow, and that you have to make some personal sacrifices. You learn to work with people of different colors and different religions and different beliefs. But at the end of the day, you begin to understand that we can be different and yet still embrace the same ideas. And so, okay. The journey that you've had started young with nine at a very young age when you lost both your parents. Okay. And then looking back, well, actually, no, let's not look back. If you could go back to that time, what was it like for you when you were figuring out what to do next? And let's start first with when you lost your dad, who was, you lost first, right? Well, you know, at nine years old, it's probably,

for all young people at that age, it's a tremendous drama for you and trauma for you. Because here's the person in your life that is your role model, someone you admire, someone that you seek for guidance. And my dad was a steward at a racetrack in Delaware. So during the week, he wasn't home a lot. But on the weekends, he would come or during racing season. He was home. The one thing I always remember about my dad was at Christmastime, he would sell Christmas trees outside the house. He'd get this big oil drum, and he'd fill it up with wood

and build a fire because it was cold. And we'd stand out there in maybe 20-degree weather selling Christmas trees, and then we'd use that money to purchase Christmas gifts. And when I was a youngster, when my dad would come back from the racetrack, he used to always give me a silver dollar, and somewhere in storage I have them, and some I lost through a theft in my home. But that was always a big deal to me, and that my dad would give me these silver dollars.

And so I had quite a collection of them. And I didn't really get to know my dad to the extent that I would like to because he was away a lot. But when he made his presence known and those times that we did spend together, I look back on them as times, a quality time. So I felt that for a nine-year-old, there was an emotional engagement between my dad and I. How have you taken some of that forward in

your life? Cause you have a, you have a presence about you and you've been known to, to have that as a coach. I don't know that I intentionally, uh, or overtly look back and, and, and use those experiences as I go forward. I think there's some lessons that you learn in life that become part of you, and they're housed in your psyche. And so as you begin to progress, they are part of you. They're part of your thought process. They're part of your self-awareness. They're part of your discipline. And at that point in your life, you're not intellectually sophisticated enough that you can really identify their presence, but it's there. And as you get older, you start to understand that these are part of the foundation. So if you build a house and there's 150 bricks and the very base of the

foundation, to me, these bricks are the foundation of my life, or all these various learning experiences that I had. And so you don't focus on one or two particular bricks. You happen to see them all as part of this formation that becomes transformative from bricks to a house, to a home, to a place of value. Okay. And then, so if we were to go back and think about some of the bricks, I know that you don't see them now as particular bricks, but what were some of the people and or experiences that shaped you the most to become one of the Hall of Fame coach and all the other extraordinary things you've experienced? I think, one, when I look back, was discipline.

Two was the importance of working together and sharing. I think three was the opportunity to have people around you who inspired you, who saw more than you were. You know, as an adult now, one of the pieces of advice I give young people is surround yourself with as many amazing people as possible. When I look back on my life as a young person, even though I didn't realize it,

I had a lot of amazing people around me. And so what made them amazing was one, they saw things in me that I didn't see in myself. Okay, stop there. That idea that they see something that you can't see within yourself. I'm imagining that you've done that for many. Just that simple little act of seeing potential in another person. Have you taken that gift that you felt when you were younger? Absolutely. Okay. So if we could just pause for that, I don't want to miss everything else. I got to tell you something real quick. It just happened to me. So I wanted to tell you is that lately I've been competing. I learned this from Karch Karai down at the Olympics,

which is one of the best volleyball players to ever the game. You might, you and Karch might know each other, but, um, so we're down at the Olympics and he says, and every time we talk, we have our hair stand up, you know, like there's a moment in the conversation where our hair stands up. And so he says, um, he says, let's compete. Let's, let's compete to see how many times we can get our hair to stand up. So, so I just had, I had that moment when you said it's about seeing something amazing. No, that's not how you said it. How did you say it? Having amazing people see something in you that you don't see in yourself.

Okay. So how do you do that for people? you tried to do it in a covert manner so that the transfer of information, it's not obvious. So you try to put the person in a position where they discover for themselves these unique talents. And I think that was, as I came up as a young person, I think the people who saw something in me, they put me in a position where I could utilize talents that I didn't realize that I had. I was still trying to grapple with who I was, and they were already identifying who they thought I could be. And so as a result, they put me in learning positions where I could discover for myself talents and skills that I had. They put me in position to understand what I didn't know,

but need to know. They put me in position and grow what I call growth positions in that. And they made me understand that, that so much of life as when I look back on it now was they helped me create a self-awareness of myself they a self-esteem of myself they never uh put me in positions where i had to grab a grapple with my self-esteem they were always fueling my self-esteem they were always telling me i could be more than who i was they would they would tell you thately, that there's more in you. Keep going. There's more. And they would put you in uncomfortable situations so that you could learn that that was an accurate

statement. And when you do this for young men, when you were coaching them, men and women, I would suppose throughout your life, how would you go about identifying what you thought was possible for somebody else? Well, I think part of that is an experimentation. I think you're trying to help a person take this journey that they perhaps don't understand the real value of? And what is the journey to reach for your outer limits? I think as a coach, one of the things that is vitally important is that we help the athlete try to reach for his outer limits. And one of the things that coaches have to be very careful of is they don't put up these mental fences that make it difficult for a person or an athlete to pursue his outer limits. by which he's always recognizing mentally and physically that there are no finish lines. That a statement I quote almost on a daily basis, which I acquired from Phil Knight, is that the moment you think you've won, you've lost.

And so there's no finish line. And I look back on my youth, and most of my education was centered around the Catholic Church because the boarding school was run by Catholic nuns. And so the nuns brought discipline to my life. They brought self-esteem to my life. They were always encouraging you to be more than who you were at that time. And they always kept you value and education. And very seldom were there times when the dialogue was negative. It was always a soft sell of the expectation was that you can do better than this. If you were getting B, you could do A work. And they really made me understand the importance of education, the importance of challenging yourself, the importance of trying to find out the answer to the lifelong questions.

Who am I and what am I capable of being? Why am I on earth? And what is it that I want to do with my life? They made me realize and set the foundation for me understanding that, in my opinion, all of us are on earth to share and help other people. Our mission in life is to help each other become the best me's that we can be. And so those are things that kind of helped me segue into coaching, helped me segue into positions of leadership. And how did you come to, I mean, the number of gems, if we could measure by minute, the number of insightful gems that you just shared, it'd be riddled with them over the last, you know, 90 seconds. So I'm not sure exactly which one I want to pull on. So let me start in reverse order because my memory will serve me better that way. How would you help people be able to believe in themselves?

Well, I think first thing is that if you are going to change a person's behavior and their performance, the first thing you have to do is change the way they think. And so we've got to inspire them. We've got to enhance their vision of themselves. We've got to get them to reach for higher levels of achievement. I think we've got to continue to fuel their lives with positive reinforcement. And to me, for every negative statement, you've got to reinforce that with 10 positive statements. Where did you come up with that idea, the 10 to 1? Was that something you just learned? No, I tested it as a coach i just think kid young people remember what you say and they tend to remember the negative

more than they do the positive things that people like one time i had a teacher who said to me that i wouldn't that and admonishing me, and I know it was an emotional response, but she said she didn't think I'd ever be anything. And so when I was graduating from high school, the first invitation I sent out was to her, to let her know that I was someone. And so even, even that negative comment inspired me to, to, to, to prove to her that I could be somebody and, and, and that, uh, so, and over the years, I look back on people, uh, that I've worked with or coached or, or worked alongside. And the more I encouraged them, the more I spoke in positive terms, the better they performed. And I think what you want to do is create a mindset.

I know myself, I try, if someone says to me, coach, how are you doing? I have two pat responses. I either say I'm doing sensational or if I were doing any better, it would be illegal. And you say that enough and it becomes part of your persona, who you are. I get up in the morning and I say to myself, okay, every morning you say to yourself, you got two choices, George. You can either be happy or you can be very happy. And so I believe we have a much greater control over our lives than we do.

The problem is that most of us allow people exterior of us to create the environment, make the rules for how we live, and then tell us who we should be. I have a saying that the hardest fight a person has to fight is to live in a world where every single day someone's trying to make them be somebody that they don't want to be. And so to me, I think that we're in a constant battle to be uncommon. We're in a constant battle to be who we want to be. And we have to get to a point where other people's validation of us is irrelevant. The most relevant thing, as I see it from validation validation is my self-image of myself. When I look in the mirror, do I like the person in the mirror? Do I feel good about, do I root for the person in the mirror?

Am I trying to take that person I see in the mirror and make them the best possible person that they can be. And so one of the things I'm experimenting with now, mentally and physically, is what I call environmental control. There's an outer world that we live in, the universe, and then there's this thing called me, and that's where I reside. And so I can control that. I can control who comes into my world. I can control, I can make the rules for my world. I can control what I see, what I read, what I do. And I think we have much more control over our lives than we ever believed that we do. But we grow up in an environment where other people make the rules in our lives.

Other people try to validate who we are and other people want us to be someone in their self-image of us. And I think we'd all be better off if we accepted people as who they are instead of who we want them to be. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust 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 drawn to their mission, helping people achieve performance for life. And to do that, they developed what they call the Momentus standard. Every product is

formulated with top experts and every batch is third-party tested. NSF certified for sport or informed sport. So you know exactly what you're getting. Personally, I'm anchored by what they call the Momentus 3. Protein, creatine, and omega-3. And together, these foundational nutrients support muscle recovery, brain function, and long-term energy.

They're part of my daily routine. And if you're ready to fuel your brain and body with the best, Momentus has a great new offer just for our community right here. Use the code FINDING MASTERY for 35% off your first subscription order at livemomentus.com. Again, that's L-I-V-E momentous, M-O-M-E-N-T-O-U-S, livemomentous.com and use the code Finding Mastery for 35% off your first subscription order. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Felix Gray. I spent a lot of time thinking about how we can create the conditions for high performance. How do we protect our ability to focus, to recover, to be present? And one of the biggest challenges we face today is our about how we can create the conditions for high performance. How do we protect our ability to focus, to recover, to be present? And one of the biggest challenges we face today is our sheer

amount of screen time. It messes with our sleep, our clarity, even our mood. And that's why I've been using Felix Grey glasses. What I appreciate most about Felix Grey is that they're just not another wellness product. They're rooted in real science. Developed alongside leading researchers and ophthalmologists, they've demonstrated these types of glasses boost melatonin, help you fall asleep faster, and hit deeper stages of rest. When I'm on the road and bouncing around between time zones, slipping on my Felix Grays in the evening, it's a simple way to cue my body just to wind down.

And when I'm locked into deep work, they also help me stay focused for longer without digital fatigue creeping in. Plus, they look great. Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off.

Okay. So I've got a question that as you're going, so I'm trained as a performance psychologist, you're hitting on like some well-researched and well-understood principles, and I'm sure you've studied them, but you speak of them with an authority because you've lived them. And so it's not just something in the textbook, you're, you're articulating the way that you build humans so that they can feel that they want to go to battle for themselves or that they want to coach themselves to be great. And that process is so significant that what it ends up doing is helping people become themselves. Now, how do you manage this little piece here where the phrase is, we should accept people for who they are, right? And then the other tension of that is that the idea of seeing potential in them.

So the tension is that there's more than what they are now. So if I just accepted you for who you are now, you might not become the man that you're meant to become because I'm not challenging you quite enough or I'm not exposing you to this idea that there is more in you because that little dialogue that you have inside of you is maybe self-limiting or anxious or uncertain. So how do you manage those two thoughts that I wish that we would do more accepting of people? And the other side of it is, no, we need to help people by sharing what we see that is possible for them. I think what you do, it's like going to a restaurant to dine. When you sit down, they put a menu in front of you. And then you select from your entrees from that menu.

And so my thought is that you put a menu of ideas and thoughts and circumstances and information and knowledge in front of that person that is going to allow them to continue to grow, allow yourself to continue to grow, and let them pick from it and not impose your values and your norms and standards and mores on people. And so what you do is you provide a menu of intellectual foods and vitamins and thoughts that will allow that person to grow and grow at their rate and grow in an area that they want to grow. And so that to me is how I deal with this, what appears to be an obvious conflict. Because if you don't try to help that person with fresh ideas and fresh thinking and fresh eyes, then it makes

it so much more difficult for them to reach for their outer limits. So I see it from conceptually that my job is to provide a menu of information, knowledge, visions, goals, strategies, executions that will allow them to reach for their outer limits. But I'm not putting undue influence on them. And I guess in our judicial system, someone would, in the court of law, you're not allowed to lead the witness. The judge is going to say you cannot lead the witness. So in this situation, I don't want my contribution to them to be so compelling that I'm leading them down a road that they don't necessarily want to go down. And so to me, we talk so often about taking the road less travel. But I really believe that's a little bit more than a cliche. I think that most of us in life would grow quicker and come closer to understanding who we are if we did Sometimes a road less traveled is a singular journey. And so as you travel along, you don't have someone to talk to you. You have to think your way through it.

You have to see your way through it. So I think some of these mental journeys that we go through in life are tests of our intellectual worth. And I don't know if I'm making sense. I've always felt that in the latter part of my life, I've grown to understand how complex life really is. But at the same time, how unique it is in the sense that it gives us multiple opportunities to to grow and and to to come closer to understanding well why i why i'm on earth and you know um and i always say that the the the two of the greatest days in our lives are the day we're born and the day we find out why we're on earth. How did you, profound statement, and how did you, did you, have you figured that out yet while you're here? No, I think a lot of it depends on what aspect of my life I'm in. I

sincerely believe we live our lives in cycles and every years, we reinvent ourselves. And so if you look at the actuarium tables, the insurance tables say the average American is going to live to be 89 years old. So if in fact, we accept that as being true, and I'm 79. So if I hit the lottery, I got 10 years at least to live. So now I have to say, okay, what am I going to do with those 10 years? So I say, okay, take the 10 years, divide them in half. And so I'm in the front half of the five years. And so now what do I want to do with the next five years of my life? How can I remain relevant? What is it that I don't know, but I need to know to stay relevant as a 79-year-old person? In a period in your life of transformation from this standpoint, we've gone from an agricultural society to an industrial society to a technological society.

So here I am at 79, and we're in the early stages of this evolution into technology. And the technology is being driven by information and content. Technology is all about content. And so what that tells me is that information is now a valuable currency. And so in a real sense, I think today, probably two most important currencies in the world are money and information. If you've got money, you can buy information. If you've got information, you can get money. And so I now at 79 realize that I have to unlearn certain things in order to learn what's relevant today. I've got to undo things in order to do things. So a lot of things I learned at 20, 30, and 40 are not as applicable in this new technological age.

So how do I learn to think of one of the things that I've come to the conclusion, I've got to think different and I've got to be different. Concretely, what does that mean? Because when I hear you speak, I think you're speaking about universal truths, whether independent of generation or age of industry or agriculture or technology, that you've studied the human experience for a long time. You understand the process of growth and the mechanisms that support you to be able to do that over and over and over and over again. And so what are the ways that you want to think differently? What do you want to unlearn?

I think the first thing is to learn how to think. I think at 79, I really clearly understand the value of thinking and how to think. We have to learn to think analytically. And certainly analytics have become a dominant part of the technological society. So to me, I've got to learn to think analytically. I've got to learn to think critically. I've got to, I'm starting to understand what are the skills that I need as a 79-year-old person to remain relevant.

I mean, I can be a statistic or I can be a contributing citizen and try to find out how I can do something substantive in life. And so- Is that what relevant means? To me, it does. I think relevant is something different to each person. But to me, relevant is being able to effectively participate in our social system and be a positive difference maker. If you can contribute and be a positive difference maker in the 21st century, then I think you're relevant. And each of us find our own way. There's this popular thought process now of change the world. And so each of us in our own way change the world. And I'm not sure change the world means the globe. Sometimes change the world is as simple as change the world that you live in that little universe call me.

If you can change that and make that a better and more wholesome, challenging growth opportunity for you, I think that satisfies change in the world. Okay. And that goes, that begs this question that I've been asking folks, and I'm curious your response, which is, are you more interested in going deep with few or impact across many? I think realistically, at the very early stages, logic would say to me, try to positively influence few. And then most mass movements started small, and then they grew and they grew and they took on energy, and then they became huge social, you know, you look at King. King died at 46, so he basically started as his first pastor at 24.

So in a short period of time, he took a movement and it became a groundswell. Steve Jobs, you know, the old axiom was find something that people want and make it and sell it, you'll make a lot of money. Steve Jobs said, find something that people need but don't know that they need, and you can have the same effect. And so what Steve Jobs did is he changed our lives forever. He changed the world forever. But not as many of us are going to be as fortunate as Steve Jobs to be able to change the universe, but we can change those little

pockets of the world, that world who is my world. And I think that's where all of this finds its origin and the understanding that change has to start with you. What is the greatest accelerant that you've come to learn for change? To be receptive to change. That's the first thing. I think that if you have a choice of welcoming change or you have a choice of resisting change, and because people live their lives based on habits, it's difficult for most people to enthusiastically remove themselves from their comfort zone. And so it becomes both a mental and physical challenge to change. And the minute we confront change, the first thing that our self-talk, our conversation with ourself is, what's in it for me?

If I make this change, what's in it for me? If I make this change, what's in it for me? And so we're starting right from the beginning to resist change. And sometimes I think that we have to acquire the intellectual sophistication to just be willing to freely confront change for what it is and to examine it with the wholesomeness and the wonderment and not get caught up in how is this going to profit me physically, mentally, or monetarily, but how is this change going to help me lead a much more productive life? How will this change help all of us? And if there's ever a time in our lifetime when we need to embrace change, it's now. If there's ever a time in our country that we need to live who we are, and so who are we? We're the United States of America. And the key word is unite. And if there's ever a time when we need to unite as a people, it's right now. And so if we're going to unite

as a people, there's some of us, and of us are going to have to accept change and the difficulties that come with change. But at the end of the day, if we can embrace positive change, then we're all going to be the recipients of a better life. A thousand percent. And then I guess the question that's begging me or knocking on the back of my head is like, how do you help people that are not open to change? And they say things like, listen, I got here for a reason. I'm one of the best there is because this is how I got here. I ate what my mom fed me. I trained like my high school coach told me, and it's been working, right? And they're resistant to change. And as an observer, you can see that there's so much more inside. The rigidity, the closed-mindedness, the pain and turmoil that they suffer after a loss does fuel them, but it

becomes a torment, an internal torment. So how do you help people change that are rigid and closed-minded and exceptional at what they are, but maybe not reaching their outer limits? I think that the minute you become satisfied with where you are, if you're not careful, you're going to come you're going to come to a stance that is to me, every day there's, there's three fundamental motions that we have. We, we either go backwards, we either stand still or we go forward. And two of those are, are, are not productive for me. Clearly I don't want to stand still. So if I continue to embrace a success where I am today, then how do I grow and how do I continue to reach for my outer limits if I'm satisfied with where I am today? And so I think

you have to continue to challenge people to see change as growth, to see change as an opportunity to reach your outer limits. And I go back again to what Phil Knight said is the minute we think we've won, we've lost. There are no boundaries in life. There are no finish lines in life. is an internal journey to find out what it is that we can do to be positive difference makers in our lives. And depending on what cycle we are in our lives, the challenges and the contributions change. What I contributed at 40, 50, and 60 are not the same. Now I see life so differently at 79 now. And so I have to re them think in broader terms. We have to put them covertly in situations where they can see life in a broader spectrum than they are and help them not become satisfied with who they are today, but to help them refocus on who they can be tomorrow and what they contribute tomorrow. And on that refocusing of what they can be tomorrow,

the outer limits, so to speak, the pursuit of the outer limits, is there a particular set of questions that you ask people or is it more about they know that that's what you stand for? And when you stand next to them, they can't help but remember that you stand for pursuing outer limits. So their antenna just comes up and they're more attentive to learning. They're hungrier to grow. I find a way that's been successful for me is storytelling. And so you can tell stories that, one, you're going to get people's attention right away because there's always this childlike manner of us that at 79, you still love stories. And then we grow up as children loving stories. Give us one. Give us a great one. Give us a fun story

that you love that you've used over and over and over? I don't know that I've used one over and over and over. I just think what you do is you, the one thing I've learned is you get people's attention right away when you start to tell a story. And it just depends on what you're trying to get the person to understand. It can be a story about persistence. It can be a story about leadership. It can be a story about failure. But what I try to do is to not sell the person on change as much as put them in an environment where they can figure out for themselves the necessity for change, the rewards for change, and get them to see it in a broader circumstance. All of us are going to be rewarded. And some of us are going to be rewarded less than others because everybody is not going to benefit from change the same. But at the end of the day, I believe we have a moral responsibility to do what's best for the greater population. And I think that's part of where I see the weakness in government today. We have people in positions who have their own personal agendas.

And it's not an agenda as what can we do for the people we represent? How can we make their lives better? And that, to me, should be the paramount difference. And if we're going to take a country right now at this moment is splintered, how do we bring these people together to work together? Historically, if you go back and you look at America, in times of crisis, the country's always united. If it's 9-11, it brought everybody together. And we're now at one of those critical junctures in our lives where we have to figure out if Trump wants to go down and he wants to have a great legacy,

if he can unite the people right now, he'll have an unbelievable legacy. Have you ever had a team that's had a strife or that they've been split or splintered? And can you maybe talk us through how you did that as an almost an emblem for maybe what Trent could do? And one of my SC teams, we started the conference play and we lost the first four games in the conference. Now, three of them we played on the road, but we lost them. So now we're 0-4 and win last place in the conference. And we only lost one more game for the rest of the season. And we ended up being nationally ranked and went to the tournament.

But it's not where you are now. It's where you're headed. And so we could sit back and feel sorry for ourselves. Oh my God, we lost four in a row. Or we can continue to persevere and see a light at the end of the tunnel and see things that other people don't see and do things that other people don't do. And most times the answer is being different, thinking different, acting different, performing different. So we have to hold ourselves to high performance standards. We have to change the way we think. So much of our lives are controlled by the way we think and how we program our minds. the, the, the conversations that I have with my inner voice. And, and, and, and, and I try to,

to dominate the conversation I have with my inner voice, uh, from a positive perspective. I try to, if I start to think negatively, I immediately try to, to, to eradicate that from my mind. And I think if we can dominate our mind with positive thoughts, they'll be acted out in our day-to-day lives. I think, honestly, I've said this two or three times now, I think we have far more control over our lives than we think we do. I think, one, we've got to put more emphasis on self-awareness. I think we need to audit our lives on our activities and our beliefs and performances on a weekly, monthly basis. Very few people I encounter audit their lives. They just live

from day to day. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery. It's become part of my nightly

routine. Throw on their lounge pants or pajamas, crawl into bed under their sheets, and my nervous system starts to settle. They also offer a 100-night sleep trial and a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding, which tells me, tells you, that they believe in the long-term value of what they're creating. If you're ready to upgrade your rest and turn your bed into a better recovery zone, use the code FINDINGMASTERY for 40% off at CozyEarth.com. That's a great discount for our community. Again, the code is FindingMastery for 40% off at CozyEarth.com.

Finding Mastery is brought to you by Caldera Lab. I believe that the way we do small things in life is how we do all things. And for me, that includes how I take care of my body. I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple. And they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy.

They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high-quality personal care products that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash finding mastery and use the code finding mastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. That's calderalab, C-A-L-D-E-R-L-A-B.com slash finding mastery.

The self-awareness is, my experience is wanting. And then having self-awareness is really a difficult thing. That's why we look outside of ourselves for people to be our self-awareness beacon. Like, hey, why'd you think that? Or why'd you say that? And the challenge is that we often don't find people that are well-trained as coaches. And so do you have a, I've got two questions. One is the, but do you have a particular way that you engage in deepening your self-awareness? And then the second, I'll save just right after, but do you have a particular way that

you open yourself up to become more aware? I think what I try to do is, is, is one to read because it helps me, uh, learn. And I, and I, and I think there, there is, there, there is a trap that people read to learn, but I think they need to read to learn to understand. To learn is not the ultimate journey, but to learn and to understand. So I'm trying to learn and understand. I try to keep myself associating with amazing people who are thought-provoking, truth-tellers. I believe in all of our lives, every one of us need as many truth-tellers in our lives as we can, people who help us see ourselves in a broader context. I think we need true believers in our lives,

people who believe in us and inspire us, and I think we need maverick thinkers. So I don't want to be in an environment where I'm around people who all think alike and act alike and agree on things. If you and I agree on everything, one of us is unnecessary. So I want people who are going to challenge me and help me think and grow. And so if you know me, I don't hang around with many people my own age, because people my own age, they're spending their lives now talking about yesterday. And I can't stay relevant living my life in the past. So I tend to hang around and associate with people who are younger than me,

because they can stimulate me. They represent the future. Their vision is in the future. Older people's vision is in the past. And I've got to continue to look ahead. Even at 79, I'm trying to look down the road and ask myself what's next. So this isn't my question, but is that because that you like the way it feels to grow? Or is that because you want to be recognized in a certain way? No, I think it is, I'm still trying to figure out life, its complexities, its challenges, and how do I fit into this? Is there something inside of me? Is there some skill inside of me that I'm not maxing out? Do you sleep well? Because you're on this relentless path to grow, which is so inspiring. That's probably the most challenging and difficult thing in my life right now is sleeping.

Sleep. Is it? I don't sleep well. I don't have many nights of comfortable sleep. And I keep a yellow pad by my bed because I wake up in the middle of the night and I'll think of things. And especially if I have a presentation or speech to do, it's funny. I wake up sometime at 2.30 in the morning and I'll start thinking about it and I'll reach over and get the pad and I'll start writing down some things. And, uh, uh, but it's interesting. And, and I, I, I'm certain because of your professional training, you probably figured it out, but, but, but I don't sleep well. Yeah. Yeah. That's, um, is there, okay. So on that thread, I still haven't got to the other question I want to ask you, but on that thread, do you ever find moments of peace and content and quietness?

Or is it different inside of you, which is a relentless pursuit to the outer edge? And so there's lots of activity internally. No, I have moments of peace and tranquility, moments of reflection. And I have them on a daily basis because I schedule that time. I think that. How do you do that? How do you schedule? Set aside an hour and I call it think time. And so I have a time during the day when I, when I,

when I devote to reading publications in newspapers and so forth, I think, I think once again, it's all about environmental control. We have to take control of our lives. People say, oh, coach, how do you read so much? I don't have the time. That's BS. We make time for those things that we think are important. And if we can take control of our lives and control our schedule, then it's not that difficult. For example, if you and I get up every single day and we decide that every day I'm going to do this for certain, I'm going to identify what's the most important thing I have to get done that day, and then I'm going to do it. And think about this.

If you and I every day do the most important thing that we had to do, it's going to put us in the top four or five percentile in the world. How many people every – let's say we try that 30 days, and only 20 days we do the most important thing we had to do. Boy, that's a hell of a hell of a, uh, an achievement for us. And so, uh, but we spend, we spend, think about this. We spend more time planning our vacation than we do planning our lives. When we're going to go, how we're going to go, who's going to go, how much we're going to spend on it, when we're going to come back. But we don't spend the same amount of time planning our lives.

And so to me, if you and I can live our lives strategically, then we have a great advantage over other people. Because I don't know how you know, if you don't know where you're going, how do you know when you arrive? And so to me, if we take control of our lives and we take control of personal development, I think we have a huge advantage over everybody else. Because most people are just living from day to day. But they're not living with a sense of purpose. And they don't have control of their lives. People exterior of them are making the rules for the games of life for them.

And what I'm trying to do is to control my environment and control those. I can control the people around me because it's my choice who I decide that I want to be associated with. And I'll bet my life on the cross that if each of us would surround ourselves with as many amazing people as we could, it would have a significant change in who we are and how we see life. And I think that it would unequivocally help us increase our thinking skills. It was one of the things I was craving for when I started this journey on the Finding Mastery podcast is the electrical synaptic chemistry that happens inside of people that are switched on. It just bleeds and emanates from them. So that's exactly what I set out to increase the frequency of. And so again, thank you for giving that gift to me and then anyone who's also listening.

And I would, so let me go back to that question I had, which is when you are aware of your inner dialogue and you notice that it's critical or it's not positive, what do you do? And I've heard maybe a handful of different strategies from people across my life trying to understand the inner dialogue. And I don't want to lead you down that path. So I'll just ask you the question, like, what do you do? And then I'll, maybe if you're interested, I'll tell you what I've heard people say. Well, and my situation is that the moment that I see myself starting to go down this side road of negativity is first to identify it and then and then then the shut it off as quick as i can and then to try to to replace it with with the positive thought and and and so it takes a little bit of a conversation with yourself why am i thinking this way and and how can i supplant this with a positive thought i don't i i think a little bit you're kidding yourself if you just say

you just stop and and i think there has to be some some uh um creative resource as to, as to how you go about doing it. And I think the first thing is that you, you, you've got to be realistic and say that, that, Hey, I'm going down a road now that, that, that I don't, I shouldn't go down. Why am I going down? Why am I feel most times, if you just ask yourself a few simple questions, you realize that there's a fear, there's a dilemma that you have, and that's causing you or you lack a lack of confidence and belief in things. And so, but I don't go through that exercise very often because I find enough on a day-to-day basis to fuel my positive reservoir. And once again, I think part of it is controlling your environment so there aren't that many opportunities. If you live in a safe neighborhood, then you're not as worried about people breaking into your home. And so if you live in this positive community that's dominated by positive thoughts, actions, and behaviors, there are going to be far less chances that the negative is going to be a challenge for you.

How often do you run through friends or acquaintances? Like what does that cycle look like for you? To me, the great thing about now at 79 is the handheld device gives me access to people in real time on a 24-hour basis. So I can pick up the phone and call people, ask them for their opinion. You can text people. You can email. To me, the handheld device is a great mechanism for helping you broaden your relationship web. And so what I do now is if I have a dilemma,

I'll run it by five or six people and say, hey, how would you handle this? What did you think about this? This whole idea about environmental control, it's something that I've really, the last 10 months, been examining in my own mind. And so over the last 10 months, people who I really respect their opinion, I've asked them about it. What do you think about it? What would you do differently? This idea about us living our lives in cycles of 10 years

and reinventing ourselves every 10 years, I like to get into discussions about things. And every discussion I get in, someone's going to bring up something that I didn't think about, but I should have thought about, or that it's going to be a challenge. And I love when people challenge the way I think, because it helps me, one, understand how to think better, because some things I didn't think of. It also helps me see things in a broader circumstances. And sometimes you just need the reassurance that from someone else that you are on the right path.

And then how do you want to be remembered? You've 80 years almost running at, you know, sport at a high level, and then also understanding the human experience. How is it that you want to be remembered? The most simplistic answer and an honest answer that I can give you is I would like to be remembered as a good person who cared about others every bit as much as he cared about himself. And is there a word or phrase that cuts to the center of what you understand the most? What I understand the most? I don't know if I've ever thought of life from that perspective because what I a lot of things that I think I understand if I I grow over the uh the years to come to

understand what I thought I I knew and understood I didn. And so I'm constantly trying to rethink and put my ideas, my assumptions, my opinions to test. I think every day, what I've really learned in late in my life is to challenge the status quo, to audit the way you think and, and, and, and to have people challenged the way you think, because a lot of times I found out the way I thought was more convenient for me, but it wasn't real. It wasn't real. And so at this point in life, I'm constantly trying to learn how to think better and under what conditions. And so to me, every day is about search and discovery.

I'm trying to search for information and looking for places to discover it. So if I've learned anything at this point in life is there not as many definitive things, thoughts, actions, behaviors as we think they are, that they're always a transitory entity. And would that be your philosophy, search and discover? Would that be a phrase? Yeah, at this point in my life, yes, I would be lying if I said that. I placed a high value on that in my younger days because I, you know, like a lot of young people, I was caught up in material things and caught up in things that I wanted, not what I need.

At this point in my life now, my life is centered around what I need, not what I want. And so... And what are those things, those needs? I imagine one of them is to be around amazing people. Yeah, amazing people. The need to know, the need to learn, the need to learn, the need to think, the need to be. And none of those things are contingent upon where I live, what kind of house I live in, what kind of clothes I wear, what kind of car I drive. all those things, at some point in your life, you go to understand that they

were a waste of time. They really didn't bring the satisfaction to your life that you thought they would, but they're all part of trying to make you look good in the eyes of others. And to me, the set of eyes that I've got to satisfy and the thirst that I've got to satisfy is my own. And I've got to put my own validation on my life. And that's what I'm trying to do is to be relevant and try to validate my life and continue to search. Is there something missing in my life that I need to bring to a more prominent position in my thought process?

Do you have a spiritual framework that you work from? Well, when you say spiritual, I don't know if that means religious. To me, spiritual has a lot of connotation. So I'd have to ask you when you say spiritual, how do you define spiritual? It's a really important question to wrestle with. And so the easy answer is like, is there a religion, a religious practice that you identify with? But that's not exactly what I was getting at. The spiritual part is, is there, is there a idea about how you are thinking about your life now and what happens when you die? And are there guiding principles and practices that are beyond the physical form?

I don't know that I've arrived at a point where I really have thought about that a lot. I think about dying and I really believe that I'm in a position in my life where I could accept dying. And I believe that I've led a wholesome life, a productive life, and I have few, if any, regrets about the way my life has unfolded. So I could accept death. I'm not at peace with myself in terms of what's after that. Is there a life after that? I don't know the answer to that.

I am amazed at people who have a definitive or come to a definitive conclusion that there is a life hereafter and this is what it's going to look like. I haven't reached that level of confidence yet. My suspicion is that there probably is some form of life after life here on earth, but I don't really know what it is. And it's never driven me to a point where I spend a lot of time thinking about it. I'm just trying to do the best I can with what I have here on earth. And I guess I've kind of convinced myself if I do a good job here on earth, if there is a life hereafter, I'll be rewarded for it. But I don't have a – I'm not – maybe it's shameful to say this, but I don't see myself as a spiritual person as it relates to religion.

I'm not an agnostic. I do believe there is a God, but it's not a real integral part of my life right now. Is there a moment in time, thank you for sharing, is there a moment in time that you remember when you became aware of what you're most afraid of? I don't know if I ever looked at it from the standpoint of most afraid of things. Right now, I guess if I had this, if you said to me, what are you most afraid of right now? I would probably say that I'm going to run out of time, that there's not enough time going to be left for me to do all the things that I still want to do with my life. That's probably the thing that I worry about the most is I'm going to run out of time. And people talk about all the awards that I received,

but they've all taken place since I was 70 years old. So just think if I died at 60, I wouldn't be in the Hall of Fame. I wouldn't have a lot of these awards. And so some of these things is you got to keep hitting the lottery and get more years on your life. And so right now I have a lot of things that I still want to learn, a lot of things I still want to do. And I'm just hopeful that I won't run out of time. So Hall of Fame coach. And so obviously you understand the game of basketball and were able to be successful, deemed by that committee and many men that you've influenced in the game of men's basketball. So this has been a question that's been nagging me while we've been talking is, what do you understand more, the technical

or tactical part of the game or the mental part of the human experience? No question, the mental part. I think coaching today, the 21st century athlete, I believe that we're far out of balance. We spend far more time coaching their bodies than we do coaching their heads. It's outrageous, isn't it? And to me, if we spent more time on the how of, I mean, the why of things, the how of things would become a lot easier. We spend 95% of our time on the how and 5% on the why. And I believe that impedes our ability to reach deep into the heart of the 21st century

athlete. I believe that we have to spend more time talking with the 21st century athlete than we do talking to them. Right now, coaches are always lecturing to them. Their talk-to-listen ratio is so far out of whack. And we need to listen to the athlete more. We need to understand athletes more. We need to understand the world they live in.

We need to respect their braids, their tattoos, their hip hop. It doesn't mean that we have to agree with it, but we have to respect it because that's who they are. And so today, I believe if we're going to get the most out of an athlete, we've got to spend more time trying to understand them. You know, if you had a huge mountain-like figure and you drew a line across it in the upper portion of the mountain, you'd probably have 30% of what you know about the athlete. And the lower part, you'd have 70% of what we don't know. And if we really wanted to positively affect that athlete's life, we've got to get into that 70% that we don't know about the athlete that will help us more positively contribute to his life or her life. So two questions again, if there was two, if there were, okay, two questions I have for you. One question is if there was one question that you could ask over and over and over again to drive some sort of clarity for any human being, what would that question be? And it's going to stitch

to my second question in just a moment. I would just keep it as simple. And I, and the, the, to me, the, the, the, the best and, and most valuable question in human existence is why. Do you add anything next to it? I mean, why do I think the way I do? Why do I act the way I do? Why do I value these things as opposed to others? I think we're trying to reduce the complexities in our lives. So if I can simplify it to one word, I think I can better utilize it.

So I can understand that you could elongate the question. But for me, I'm trying to make the process as simple as possible for myself. And so to me, the question that we have to ask ourselves on a constant basis is why and why will drive this self audit that we that we we neglect? Very few of us engage in auditing our lives if it's on a weekly, monthly, yearly basis. I think we'd all be better off if we would take time out and audit our lives. Okay. And then the second was, if you were to design a program right now, you're going to get a head coaching job that was exactly what you would want, right? And I don't think you want to go back into coaching, but I'm just imagining that if there was an opportunity and you could hand select one

of the greatest, I think, gifts of coaching is that we get to select the people that we want to work with. And so if you could design a program, how would you spend the first? No, no, I was going to say like, how would you spend the first day? But what would you do to make sure that you did better now than you did when you were working to become a Hall of Fame coach? Well, I think if I were going to go back into coaching, the first thing that I would have to do is to assess the state and the culture of the program that I'm taking over. And I've got to do an in-depth analysis of the program so that I understand thoroughly where the program has been, where it is now, and where it is that we need to take it. And so I've got to have some information about the past, the present, and where it is that we can go and what is it that we need as we go forward. And what the people that I hire, what skill sets are they going to need to excel? So I just can't, if I hire people, I want to put them in a position to succeed.

And so if you're going to, if the person is going to be my administrative assistant, what skill sets do they need? If the person is going to be an intern, what skill sets do they need? If the person is going to be an academic coordinator for the program, I think today you've got to have someone on your staff who is a technological nerd. Because we live in a society that's driven by technology. And I think in coaching today, one of the biggest mistakes you can make is to hire your friends. I think one of the things I would also look at in my staff is fit. Does this person fit into my staff? If I hire this person, what values are they going to bring? So there's a value proposition that goes into it.

And so the things I would put unique importance on is fit, skills, and value. And what value are they going to bring? If I hire them, is there some unique value? Or if I hire them, are they just going to be another assistant? I think what I want to do is I want to hire as many smart people as I can, and all of them should be smarter than me. I mean, it's kind of a colloquial statement now, but if I'm the smartest person in the room, then I should get out of the room. And to me, I don't want to be the smartest person in the room. I want to be the best listener in the room. So I'm going to try to

put together an all-star staff. Okay. And then of the mental skills that we think about, not the thinking part of the game, but the mental skill part of the game, which is generating a sense of calm, having the ability to generate confidence, being able to see a future state imagery, but through imagination, having very clear goals, being able to regulate our system, our internal system. What do you imagine to be the most important mental skills? I think one is vision, a realistic vision of who we are, where we are, and where we want to go. is my thinking aligned with the overall goals and missions and aspirations of Nike? At the end of the day, if they're not aligned, then I'm in conflict with the culture. And it's going to impede my progress to be able to positively contribute to the company because I'm in conflict with them

already. So those are some of the things that I would think about. I do some of my best thinking with a pad and a pen and I start to write and collect and go back and make a sense out of things. So I like quiet time when I can sit down and I can put my thoughts on paper and then go back and try to take all these pieces of the puzzle and put them together and create a clear picture for me. But those are some of the things that I think. But to me, unequivocally self-awareness and self-esteem and a vision. All of this, this whole idea of mastery is having a realistic vision and purpose for

your life. Okay. Brilliant. And can I ask you if you're an introvert or extrovert? I haven't been able to suss that out, but I'm thinking more introvert. I don't really know. I would suspect that most people who are around me on a frequent basis would probably say I'm more of an extrovert. Where do you gather more energy? Thinking or by being around other people and talking and listening and being involved in conversations? Wow, that's a tough question. I would say probably being around a group of amazing people and just listening and learning and thinking.

I think you're more of an introvert. I think that's where you get it. This morning, you know, we were having a conversation before my wife went to work, and she said something, and I ran and grabbed a pad. I actually have it written down in there, but I don't remember exactly what she said now. But she says, one thing I try to do is keep a pad around because when people say things, I want to record it right away. And then I have time later to think about what they said and see it in a broader context. I love it.

Yeah. Okay, good. All right. So last kind of set of questions here. And you can just fire off on these or you can take them wherever you want to go but are you more street savvy or analytical uh analytical and then do you prefer to learn in a slow-paced environment or fast-paced environment slow and then are you more of a rule taker i'm sorry rule follower or risk taker? I'd say a risk taker. And particularly in the latter part of my life, I've learned that, that particularly if you want to be innovative and creative, I think you have

to take risks, but you, you have to try to craft those risks as smart risks. And I've learned that there are different levels of risk, and the ones that I want to stay away from are high risk. And the ones that I want to gravitate toward are smart risk, where there's a risk involved, but the impact of it is not going to be highly critical or impactful. So your approach then for going for it is to take intelligent, many intelligent smart risks. Yes. But not put yourself in positions where there's catastrophic events that take place if the risk doesn't go the way that you want to go? I think you've got to minimize putting yourself in those positions, but to totally avoid a high-risk situation, then I think it becomes you measure risk versus reward. So Obama has to make this decision. Do we go in and try to capture Obama? I mean, bin Laden, there's a high risk if we fail. How many lives are we going to, what is this going to do to our position globally and politically? And so that was a high risk. But sometimes you have to measure risk versus reward.

And you have to be courageous enough to say, check, I get it. This is a high risk. But also, it's a tremendous reward. And it's one that I'm willing to take as a courageous leader. And that's what he did. And he won. And so now can I have a steady diet of that? I doubt it. But there's going to come those pivotal moments as a leader when you're going to be confronted with a high risk, whether you like it or not, and you're going to have to deal with it. Do you in those moments? Well, not in those moments, but do you make fast decisions or slow decisions? I would say that I, I would tend to make a slow decisions.

I would be cautious. I would try to not be making an emotional decision. I'd want it well thought out, but I wouldn't want to prolong it. I think at some point I've got to gather, uh, I, I to gather, I'm a person who believes the best decisions are made based on fact and data and not opinion and assumptions and biases and so forth and myths. So I want to try to get as much definitive information as I can and a diversity of opinions so that I can see this from a variety of perspectives. And then I've got to make a decision.

At the end of the day, as a leader, I have to make an intelligent decision. But if I'm going to make an intelligent decision, I've got to have intelligent information to help me make that decision. Okay, brilliant. And then pressure comes from? From inside. I think, I think the most authentic pressure is the pressure that we put on ourselves, not the pressure that other people put on us.

Okay. Just one more question really. That's, you know, that's been begging in the, in the, in the back of my mind. And then a final question to come is when you were with, uh, listening to the speech of Martin Luther King Jr. And you're just a few people away from his, I have a dream speech, which was later titled that as we've come to learn, you didn't have a title on it. Um, and so there's all the reasons why you got to sit that close. I'm more interested in as a 26 year old, is that right? 26 year old man that you had the wherewithal to ask the man that just read something that was moving and powerful to say, can I have your speech?

Well, what gave you the right to, to, to think that you could ask that question? Because it's amazing that you have kept, been able to be in a custodian of something that is almost a national treasure. So can you, can you help me understand like how you because this i think this is to capture that moment in life you you you're better off being naive than than than than being practical and in that situation there, it was an impulse. I didn't really have a whole lot of time to think about it. I just, I would love to have some exotic reason why I did it. But just my inner instinct said, ask for the speech.

And I've always been a collector. I mean, you can look around the library, look around the speech. And I've always been a collector. I mean, you can look around the library, look around the house. I've always been a person who collects things. And so I think I've tried over the years to understand why the hell did you who saves things. And a lot of it's because I like to go back and reflect on them. The other night I was speaking at an engagement, the guy came up to me and he's a very prominent lawyer in Los Angeles. And he said, coach, my name is so-and-so. He says, you probably won't remember me, but when I was 14 years old, I went to your basketball camp at, at Washington state.

And then he opened up a folder and he had a, had the letter that of acceptance to the camp and, and some of the paraphernalia that we, we, that we gave out at camp. And I re I didn't ask him at the time, but I do plan on asking him if there's any way he would give me any of that because I like to have those things to draw back on, those memories, and also for my family to have when I'm gone. But I definitely would say the answer to that is I have a collector's mentality.

Yeah, so you were just being you in that moment. Yes. And were you moved by it at the time? Oh, yes. Everybody was. I mean, he was the final speaker of the day. He's certainly one of the great orators of all time. And from an African-American standpoint,

clearly if he's not the greatest African-American orator of all time, he's certainly in that cluster of people that are. And I was a fan of his before that. I have, and I still have in storage, probably 20 cassette tapes of speeches that he made during the time. So it wasn't, when I came to this gathering, it wasn't like I was starstruck because I was always a huge fan of his. For years at Nike in my office, I kept a collage up on the wall, and it was a head and shoulder shot of three people, Martin Luther King, James Baldwin, and Malcolm X. And they were my mentors, and people see it and ask me why I have it up there and who they are.

Some people get, most people get King, very few get Malcolm X, and almost nobody gets James Baldwin. And I say that they're my mentors, and they say, oh, did you know them all? I say, no, I only knew one. Well, how are they your mentors? Well, that's because we think that a mentor has to be a living person, something that we touch and we see. But you can have mentors who are dead. I never met James Baldwin, but he mentors me every day through the messages that he left, the books that he read, the things that he said. Over the years, I've collected numerous tapes of James Baldwin's

debates, his speeches, and so forth. Same thing with Malcolm X. There are tons of Malcolm X quotes that I use, and one I use in reference to the speech is that Malcolm X said that history is best situated to record all man's deeds. And so my interpretation of that is that historians are best positioned to put things in their historical context. So it took 50 years, but historians put the I have a dream speech in this historic context. And so to me, a person can be a mentor of yours, and they don't have to be alive, and they don't have to be touching and they don't have to be touching. They don't have to know because they leave behind them a wealth of mentorship materials for us. And we just have to read them and learn from them and understand them. And that's what I try to do. Okay, brilliant. So the last question is, how do you define, articulate, or think about the concept of mastery? a reality check. It's about purpose. It's about being able to have full and authentic control of who it is that you are. I think that mastery is not a mastering of over a collective body or group of people.

The most important thing that you get to master in your life is yourself. And to do that, one, I've got to master how I think, how I behave, how I perform, those things. And so it goes back to this whole thing about environmental control. I must be the master of my universe. That little village called me, that's where I have to master. That's where I have to fully and authentically understand will be a lot more comfortable to live in. So to me, when I think of master, I think of, I've got to master who it is that I am. I love it. Coach, thank you so much for this time and, and sharing your insights and wisdoms and your practices and the ways that you've been thinking and how you've spent your 80 years pursuing growth. And with that, where can we find out more from like what

you're doing? I know you've got a website and I do a lot of Twitter work and I do a lot of speaking. I probably should write more blogs than I do, but at this point, I just need to be a little bit more disciplined. But the one thing that I deeply appreciate about this conversation that we've had today is we talked about some things that rarely in my life have I ever talked about. You've asked questions that I'd say 75% of the questions you've asked me, no one's ever asked me in my life. And so it really caused me to have to go down these different mental highways and go back into the little storage bins and pull out thought processes and make me, and I'm sure now for the next two weeks, I will relive parts of this conversation because you made me think about some things that I need to think about,

but don't think about. So I deeply appreciate that. Brilliant. Well, let's do it again. Okay. Anytime you want. Yeah, let's do it again. This is, um, it's a gift for me to, to get to know you and to, uh, better understand how you've made such an influence on so many people's lives. So with that is, do you know your Twitter handle and social media handles that we can, uh, we can share? And if not, I'll get those posted online for us. Yeah, I have a person I pay to do my website and my Twitter, but we can get you all that information. I'll get all that posted up. And I look forward to having conversations on social media with you as well.

Okay, thank you. Okay, all the best. Thanks, Coach. Thank you you too. 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 or follow button wherever you're listening.

Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback. If you're looking for even more insights, we have a newsletter we send out every Wednesday. Punch over to findingmastery.com slash newsletter to sign up. The show wouldn't be possible without our sponsors and we take our recommendations seriously. And the team is very thoughtful about making sure we love and endorse every product you hear on the show. If you want to check out any of our sponsor offers you heard about in this episode, you can find those deals at findingmastery.com

slash sponsors. And remember, no one does it alone. The door here at Finding Mastery is always open to those looking to explore the edges and the reaches of their potential so that they can help others do the same. So join our community, share your favorite episode with a friend,

and let us know how we can continue to show up for you. Lastly, as a quick reminder, information in this podcast and from any material on the Finding Mastery website and social channels is for information purposes only. If you're looking for meaningful support, which we all need, one of the best things you can do is to talk to a licensed professional. So seek assistance from your healthcare providers. Again, a sincere thank you for listening. Until next episode, be well, think well, keep exploring.