Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - The First Openly Gay NBA Player On the Power of Courage, Leadership, and Empathy | John Amaechi

Episode Date: December 3, 2025

What does it really mean to live with courage and conviction?On today’s episode, we sit down with Dr. John Amaechi — organizational psychologist, New York Times bestselling author, and the first openly gay NBA player. Along his journey, John always set out to be himself in a world that repeatedly told him he was too big, too soft-spoken, too smart, too different. In this conversation, John brings us into parts of his internal world that are hard for any of us to talk about: navigating shame, identity, belonging, and the responsibility of not shrinking so others can stay comfortable. He talks about the cost of visibility, and the radical power of deciding that your worth is not up for negotiation.In this episode, we explore:How to move from clarity to conviction in your personal and professional lifeWhy vulnerability is a core strength of courageous leadershipThe key to creating relationships rooted in empathy and presenceHow to develop moral courage — and know when to walk awayWhat it means to lead from your first principlesThrough stories drawn from sport, psychology, and leadership, John challenges our cultural obsession with individual achievement and redefines what it means to succeed — not by how high you climb, but by how deeply you care and how many people you lift along the way. ___________________________________________________Links & Resources:Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and wellbeing: 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: findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow on YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and XSee 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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That's LinkedIn.com slash finding mastery to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. Amici's no ordinary British sportsman. John is just 17 years old and is joining the Cleveland Cavaliers as the first British person ever to play in the NBA. The dream had come true. There's one player in the history of the NBA that has started at the age of 17 and six years later been starting in the NBA. That is me. People are interested in the fact that I happen to be gay, not anything else about it.

Just, oh, to be known as the gay NBA player. What if the greatest act of rebellion in your life is refusing to apologize for who you are? When I came out, I realized that there was about a 20% group of people who were warm and supportive and some part of that number were grateful. And that there was a 5% group that were vociferously hateful. They hated me. I had more death threats in that period than you can imagine. Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast,

where we dive into the minds of the world's greatest thinkers and doers. I am your host, Dr. Michael Jervais, by trade and training a high-performance psychologist. And the idea behind these conversations is simple. It's to sit with the extraordinaries and to learn, to really learn how they work from the inside out. Today's conversation is with John Amici, former NBA player, New York Times bestselling author,

associate fellow of the British psychological society and someone who has spent a lifetime choosing dignity, truth, and courage overfitting in. I went to Manchester Pride and I look over my shoulder and there's a kid crouch behind Tombstone watching the Pride parade. Ian McKellen's doing the thing, waving from side to side. He weighs in our general direction

and this kid rises as if lifted from behind a tombstone. How awesome is that? right? A wave from a stranger from a distance. And I was like, damn it, I've got to come out in America. John didn't set out to be the first openly gay NBA player. He set out to be himself. You were not afraid in that moment. Oh, totally afraid. You were afraid. Yeah, yeah. Did it anyways. Yeah. Why did you tell the truth? Principles aren't principles until they're dinged a little bit, right? So you realize that there might be consequence from it. But also, there is something important about not denying who you are. This is a conversation about carving your own path.

It is about resilience, sovereignty, and the courage to hold on to your truth when the world tells you not to. How did you manage that time when you had that level of vitriol pointed at you? I don't believe I've ever been asked that question before. I think. With that, let's jump into this week's conversation with John Amici. Okay, John. go. I'm so stoked to sit with you. You've been leading from the front for a long time. And so just to get us started, can you describe how you're spending your days now? Before we go

into kind of some of your history and where you've been. Yeah, it's exciting for me to talk about because I get to help people thrive and in the fullest sense of it, not simply allowing people to do that stratospheric burn where they become very successful, but at a huge cost. But the idea you can help people to move, make transitions and really embed themselves into these these high-level positions that they themselves want to get to. And then the other side of it is helping people who don't know what it is they want to do, but have tremendous potential. And probably the third group of people I support are people who have no idea how remarkable they are, who are unable to describe the skills that they have with any kind

alacrity, right? They are. They just think that things that they do that are extraordinary. And as I watch, my eyes raise because it's utterly remarkable. So this constellation of people I get to meet every day, work with them sometimes individually, sometimes within their teams or their organizations. So when you speak, you have a spark in your eye. You have a light inside of you that's like beaming to come out. I always look for that. That is something that is important to me with like okay where is somebody coming from and of course there's not like a literal lighter spark but there's a a feeling that comes forward and so can you can we use that as a as a rope to pull on of where does that come from and it likely the contrast between times when it

wasn't there would be an important mark in the story yeah i get to help people with my words right it's it's an amazing thing it's by storytelling by embedding especially science i think a very similar way to you do you you don't just give people science that's dry like like almost taking a powder straight to your mouth you mix it in with storytelling and context and it gives people a chance to absorb it properly and i think it's an incredibly cool way to spend your living right talking to people and helping them to then take that and move on When I was much younger, I was a fat kid from Stockport, a tall, fat, black kid from Stockport, which is a town near Manchester in England.

And everywhere I went, people were either afraid of me or dismissed me as without intellect, without potential. And so the only people in my life who gave me that sense that I was remarkable with my family members, especially my mom, and it's from her. If you'd have, she's passed away now many, many years. If you'd have met her, she was the kind of woman that when she looked at you, it was like on a lovely, like, cool day in California, for example, closing your eyes and looking towards the sky and how the sun almost like illuminates your brain,

that's what it was like talking to her. What a radical representation of kindness and being seen. And okay. So do you come from that place, like when you and I were just talking? Is that the place you're coming from? Yeah, almost always. The thing that makes me feel resilient and even in a world that feels chaotic and challenging and toxic sometimes are these memories of times with my mother, especially, but also other people. And it does make a difference for me.

It makes me, it's a resource for me, it's what it is. It's a proper resource. And when you bring up the love of your mom right now, where is that? that sit inside of you? I'm bathed in it. Yeah. It's just... So does it move to the surface, or is it like a large, strong mass in the center? Like, and the reason I'm asking is because I know how emotions work for me, but I don't

really know how they work for other people. And I actually think most people don't really know how they work for themselves. And so, like, I think it's a worthwhile discovery to bring to the surface, so to speak, how emotions work another. So you're in it right now. I can see it. Yeah. Yeah. So how is it working for you in this moment? Um, I'm trying to contextual. I suppose it's, it's the gravity around which the me of me rotates. It's, it's, I don't know if it's the sun at the center of my personal solar system or something like that. But it is, the thing that interests me is that when you say, where is it right now is that I do know that when I speak to certain people or certain audiences at certain times, there are moments where it feels really

appropriate to push it towards that person. And so I can utilize it in that way too. Without ever losing it, in the last book that I wrote, The Promises of Giants, one of my students who were forced to read it, she was a young woman from China. And she said, I need to tell you something about your book. You're not the star of your book. And I was like, okay, provocative. He said, your mum's the star of your book. And again, I was at a speech in Oxford the other day where one of the comments that I saw on LinkedIn afterwards was this idea as it's as if you and your mom were both in the room. And I think that's the best way to contextualize what she is.

So let's stay here for just a moment. Let's speak to mothers. Like, what did your mom do that maybe others can learn from? She was an incredibly busy physician, doctor, who was not around a lot of the time. But when she was around, she was fully, present and engaged. We were also the kind of family that could do stuff together, but silently, and feel very

connected. We were a family that read together, but separately. We'd all have her own book, and we would sit around and read together. And even that, when I reflect on it, felt like proper community, not just like read your book and stop being a bother. Her ability to scoop you up in her attention was unmatched. This idea that when in her presence, it was like she was holding you with her attention, a loud bang could go off in a corner, a phone could ring,

something else could happen, but you and her would in this thing, but not in a way that felt constricting, just felt really enabling. You also work with images in your mind, and those images have a contour of emotion with them, right? You are not working from a spreadsheet in your head. Is that right?

That is for sure. Yeah, yeah. So you're available to the emotions, you're using words that have imagery connected to it, and feeling associated. All right, so mom was able to hold you in a place of importance, even when she was not speaking to you.

All right, that created a connection and some safety in a world where you were, as you just reported, made fun of, bullied, you stood out for the wrong reasons, where there could have been a lot of swallowing of that pill that maybe I am not good enough. So mom was a counter-rotation to that. It was. Sorry.

No, no, go on. How did you work with, let's say mom was one of the strategies or one of the core pillars for you to be who you are today. But how did you work with when somebody would say, ah, look at him, or whatever the words were? I suppose there's two forces pulling at the same time, one that I have a great deal of faith in and one that I find hard to ignore. So I know, because I could, I remember with great clarity the way my mother would look at, me, for example, when I was reading books, she would look at me and I glanced up occasionally and look at her face, and I knew in that moment that I am her clever boy. It is an unassailable truth. I know that to be true. It is very protective, but at the same time, I will leave this

studio and I will pass TSA offices and I will pass regular people in the nice lounge that I'm where to be able to go to because of the privilege I now enjoy. And they will not look at me as if I'm a clever boy. I have known since I was probably 11 years old that I'm a monster. I'm very clear on this. For folks listening, six foot 10, 300 and many, many pounds. I don't know what it is in pound. I'm about 150, 160 kilos. So enormous. Yeah, you're large, I'm a unit. Um, is, is the best I are describing it, right? Well, I'm going to interrupt because this is um this is to be noted and i want to come back to the experience of walking around as a unit in your intro in the book i read it three times is i thought for sure i was missing something which

was you describe who you are eloquently it's a clever way to do a brag because you listed it all the i was like i'll take a page i was cool bold brag yeah it was really good but but you did it in a way that was like i think i knew what you were doing when you're because i had to read it three times. You didn't mention that you played in the NBA for a long time. Six, six, ten. Oh, how tall are you? Right, right, six. I'm getting shorter in my old age, so six eight now is probably accurate, yes. Okay. I hope it doesn't happen to me too, because I don't have much to afford. Right. I might be able to fit into regular clothes by the time I'm finished. Okay. You don't mention that you played in the NBA. Most people probably in the U.S., I would imagine, look at you and would

say, oh, he's an athlete or former athlete, is to you get that. You get that. They do, absolutely. Did you play ball? You must have played ball. Wow, you're big. You must have is the one I always find most intriguing. Like, asking if someone played ball can be almost innocuous, but you must, I don't think people realize the magnitude of the words.

You had no other options. You must play basketball. I mean, because what it really means is all I can conceive of you being good for is, especially because I've had literal encounters with people leaving Boston a few years ago, maybe five or six years ago. I still had a big white beard. I still had more of a belly than any basketball player currently playing has. And the Pfizer tenants was like, oh, you must play for the Celtics. And I was like, no. I mean, just like, no, right, no athlete, no NBA player looks like me now. Yeah, right, right. And I was like, no, I'm a psychologist. And she did one of these. She looked at me with a head kind

of cropped, right? And then walked back, talked to her colleague. And they came back and said, yeah, you know, you must, you're an athlete, right? You're an athlete. It's an enormous psychologist. And they just, they wouldn't. They couldn't see it as a thing. It's so corrosive, I think, to have your mindset that way that when you look at people, you talk to them and you're telling them what you think they're good for.

Goodness. Okay. Nice segue back into, you know, when you're in the lounge and when people are up to, you know, come up to you. So what is that like for you walking around as a very large human? I always feel like I have to do the full caveats. Like I'm really privileged. There's lots of great things.

But it is, it does feel assaultive, right? It feels, it's annoying to know that I'm about to have to prove that I'm not what people assume that I am to kick off with. It's an interesting framing, which puts you on alert a lot. That sounds like,

you know, your cortisol levels are kind of percolating, right? Not maybe boiling, but percolating if there's such a thing for cortisol. one of my friends he was on the podcast dwayne brown he was if there is a left tackle in the NFL and you could prototype kind of the body the intelligence the the agility the the the arm length of a left tackle he's like he's got and he's got this incredible personality that pulls people toward him so i was asking like okay so this was during when was this

This was probably early 2000. So there was a bunch of upheaval in the U.S. around race. And as if it's gone away. And so I said, so how is it for you? And he goes, you know what's like, Mike? Did I walk into Whole Foods? It's a nice kind of grocery store. And he says, when I'm walking to Whole Foods to go grocery shopping,

and I hear all the car doors lock, and I hear people double check to make sure their car is locked, and people kind of hurry up and run into their car, like to close it. He goes, I don't know if they know it, but like I feel it. You know, there's like, I'm like, there's a danger to me. Yeah. It is a micro assault. That is, that is something harmful to other people and careless and thoughtless by them.

It happens. So I work a lot in the city in London and also Canary Wharf, which is another kind of office area, really, really tall buildings. And I'll get into a lift with somebody. and if it's a man, I will watch as they kind of cross their arms with their hand over their pocket of the complaint. Oh, the wallet. Yeah. Oh, the wallet. Yeah.

And I'll watch women take their handbag from the shoulder closest to me and put it on the shoulder furthest away. And it's remarkable because I usually am working with the most senior people in that organization, the one they're wearing the lanyard of. They are imperilling themselves if I was so minded to report, oh, you. Yeah, Jane and Jim did this to me.

Yeah, crazy. Which I haven't and wouldn't. Yeah. But it's crazy to me that I have to endure that, especially because the reality of it, in my mind, as we're going up, what feels like two minutes in a lift. And I'm thinking, you're trapped in a steel box with me. Why would you antagonize me?

Because although I'm not minded to violence, I am enormous. And if I wanted your wallet and if I wanted your handbag, I would have your wallet and your handback. And there'd be nothing you could do about it. And it's so... And you said, look the size of your hands. And you could never do anything. I'm so interested that people talk to me about, why don't you say anything?

Why don't you react with anger? It's like, because you can't do the thing that tells them they are exactly who they think you are. You can't become the monster by raising your voice, even if it's justified, because you then become the very thing that made them close their card door in the first place. finding mastery is brought to you by branch basics one of the fundamentals of mastery is alignment alignment in thoughts words and actions and for me this also includes the environment that i try to create for myself and others that reflection turned into a question are the products in our home aligned with how we want to live that search led us to branch basics their premium starter kit helped my family simplify the way we clean at home with one powerful concentrate that

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And use the code finding mastery to get 15% off your first order. Again, that's fatty15.com slash finding mastery. And the code, finding mastery for 15% off a more resilient future. How long did you live in the U.S.? A long time. I went to university. I went to high school here in Toledo, Ohio. And what brought you to? In 1989. And what brought you to basketball? And you came from a small town, as you mentioned, you know, and how often did you get the statement, oh, you're, you're going to play basketball? Oh, in England? Yeah. Never. Never. Never. I was, I thought for sure you would have had that. no i was every third conversation don't get me wrong i was a monster but basketball was a non thing it was a very niche community i can't think of a parallel of a sport in this country that's that

small if you're thinking football um soccer soccer way too big right way too big in this country that's nothing like it it would be it would be an obscure like there were more people playing lacrosse in england than they were playing basketball my producer emma is she's loving this now because we've been debating how many people in your hometown said you got to go to the United States to play ball nobody and indeed anybody I told when I told people I was going to go because I didn't say I was going to go to America and play basketball I said I was going to play in the NBA and that's why I was going to America and the number one reaction to that was laughter and mockery I wrote it in my school yearbook I'm going to go to America to America I'm

going to play for an NBA team and make a lot of money I was 17 right it was not the most profound promise I may but I wrote it you had an idea early though I started playing 17 I decided when I was 17 well 45 minutes after the first time I picked up a basketball I told the first person I was going to play in the NBA oh so right away yeah yeah yeah I went to a practice with these with these guys who were amazing in in the UK in the UK I went to a practice in a gym that smelled like urine with the the rain just tippling down outside I walked into this place these kids ran towards me, grabbed me, and they're like, he's on our team. It was the most amazing feeling I'd ever had.

I had never felt so welcomed. And when people looked at me, I could see in their face, envy. I wish I could be like you. That never happened, right? I was the hunchback of Notre Dame when I walked through the streets. Here, I was something amazing. And I loved it. I loved it.

At the end of the practice, we sat down, were taking off our shoes. and they start talking about this thing called the NBA. I said, what is that? This is where the best people in the world play. It's in America. And I knew America, and I knew that in America, the sun always shines. Because what I knew of America was the A-Team and Night Rider, and I knew that the sun always shines, right?

I didn't know about cold places. So I was like, what if I could have this feeling with these guys, but in a place where the sun always shines? And that's why I decided to play in the NBA. It makes perfect sense. Yeah. Well, I mean, the idea. I didn't know, by the way, what the NBA meant for another good three or four weeks.

What do you mean? National basketballs this year. Oh, you didn't know what that meant. No idea. Just knew it was the NBA as where the best people play. It's good to be a kid sometimes. Right. Yeah.

Okay. So you uproot your family. You come to the States. Not uproot. Just me. Just you? Mm-hmm. Okay.

So got it. You left your family, came to the States. By yourself? Yeah. How did you high school? I went to high school for one year. I was put up by a family. who had a kid on the team.

I stayed for about half a year, after which point I started to get attention from scouts, mostly just because I was tall because I was very bad. And when I started to get attention from scouts, that family was upset about it. They thought it was taking away attention

from their son. And so they kicked me out, and I ended up with the son of one of our assistant coaches. He and his wife took me in and took care of me. Very cool. Play college ball.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, so found you right in college, got recruited your sophomore year, junior year? No, I went to my, it was my senior year. Senior. Yeah. Okay. What was it like when you were, you know, entering the hallways of your first NBA team?

I weirdly don't remember very much about the kind of behind the scenes part of it. Like, what I remember is walking into a practice on the main floor at Gundarina, which is, I know it's not that now. it's called something else but in Cleveland and I'd been in big arenas before I played in the big 10 right but it would this was different this was different it was different for a number of reasons one my mother had passed away a few years before so she never got to see me do this she didn't remember to see me be in the league but also I realized that I'd done the thing that I'd set out to do and so there was a sense of completion and terror because it's It's like, I'm here, but now I have to stay here, and that is often the most difficult part.

You know, there's lots of people who play in the league for a year and then disappear. Looking back, now you know yourself really well. Looking back at those kind of first beginning phases of being in the NBA, dream is coming true. You're there. You feel some pressure that I've got to keep it going. There's a sadness mixed in there somewhere that mom didn't get to see this. At the same time, when I'm most interested in, how well did you know yourself at that point? Because I spent so much time alone and in books, I did very little other than think about me and my circumstances and kind of meta-analyze, think about the thoughts that I was having. And so I spent a lot of time doing that.

I think I was well-examined. Being a gay person also meant that there was a lot of analysis to do there about your own feelings, about your world, how appropriate those feelings were, what would be the consequences. of those feelings. So there were lots of things that forced me to think. Plus, I was studying psychology, and while it's not perfect, as you know, and often quite perfunctory, I think, in its early stage, especially undergraduate, it puts you in a cycle where, even when you're talking about abnormal psychology over there, it forces you to think about your perspectives on why is that abnormal, and do I have any of these characteristics? So I think I was well, well examined, but I don't know if I'd pull all the threads together to make sense of it. Were you clear

that you were gay at that time? I was clear when I was 11. Oh, so you knew at a young age? Oh, yeah. Oh, I didn't put that together. Yeah. No, nobody ever asked, I suppose. Nobody, people, I think there's something intriguing to people about the idea that

you, the revelation comes as you're making a jump shot or something. But it's like, no, I knew for a long time, and I was really resolved around it. And also, I think it's important for people to know. I was out to, in the way that gay people are out. You were. Yeah. So you didn't announce it until, yeah, publicly announce it until you retired.

Yeah, because I think the fat bloke in Road 2A didn't necessarily have a connection to me that made him worth telling, right? It just, it's like, I don't know you except that you yell at me occasionally when I miss a shot. Why would I tell you? Random fan from another team. Why would I tell you? Teammates who got to know me and cared about. me. They asked and I told, there's only one person who ever asked me and I didn't tell him

at the time. And that is Greg Ostertag who asked me as we were walking out on the court in a game. Surround it. This is not the time for this conversation. So he pulls you aside and he says, hey man, I heard you're going. Didn't pull me aside. We were walking out. We were running out onto the court. Yeah. I was like, this is not a good time for this. Yeah, good. I had another teammate who came to me on a plane, obviously at the behest of the rest of the team, and was like, so you don't talk a lot about girls? And I was like, indeed. Is that how you said it? Yeah, indeed. And he's like, cool, just wanted to check. And that was it. That was done. And okay, so, so I've been pro sport a long time. I haven't seen that in a locker room. So,

how'd you do it? I think people are still afraid now. They are rightly afraid. Yeah. Like with their teammates even. I think there's a couple, there's a couple folks that might know and da, but it, yes.

I haven't been on a team where the team was very clear that there was a, and I'll be clear that this is, I'm speaking about the NFL right now. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And so I haven't seen it. It doesn't mean that there's,

it's not happening. It's not, you know, part of the relationships that people are, you know, whatever, but, like, it's, I don't know for some reason, it's not making the surface. It's a danger. That's why. Keep going. It's a danger. If you're in a sport, especially like American football,

the the absence of one block can end your career. Oh, I didn't even go there. That's it. That can be it. So you're saying somebody could... A slip, a fall, and suddenly a gap appears and you're exposed or... It's like a nasty retaliation.

All of a mission, if you will. Yeah. And they're all defensible. You know, I probably, in the last two days, I went to a cigar bar in West Hollywood and it has football playing. I've seen more football in the last two days than I've seen in my entire life. But you watch that and you instantly realize every moment is a critical, physical, opportunity for death, right?

There's a number of ones. Right? So that is something that's real. But then you also look, who are the owners of these organizations? They are some of the most conservative people. Is it small C or large C? I'm not sure, but they're some of the most conservative people in the world. My owner with the Orlando Magic wrote numerous books about conservative causes and the cultural problems with the society.

So when you made the decision to say, you're right, you know, when your teammate asked you, like you don't talk about women, you were not afraid in that moment. Oh, totally afraid. You were afraid and did it anyways. Yeah. You were afraid that they would, like, get you out somehow? I didn't know what the result would be. Yeah. But I just knew that many of the, if you just kind of extrapolate out from this moment,

many of the options that might appear would be negative. I didn't know how negative, very or not very. I didn't know how catastrophic they might be. But I also knew there was a chance that nothing would be the response. Why did you tell the truth? principles aren't principles until they're dinged a little bit, right? Until you have to earn them. Until you realize that there might be consequence from it.

But also, there is something important about not denying who you are. Oh, foundationally. And people cover things up for, to avoid the dangers and to avoid one of the most dangerous things. I think there's lots of dangerous things. But one of the most dangerous things is the opinions of others, is the potential and or actual rejection, private or public, is a very, very, very biologically sound danger mechanism that's deeply rooted, because we're kicked out of the tribe. It's a near-death-ins. Yeah. So it's still alive with us today. Yeah. I do think, I mean, again, this is one of those

places where I would say, if you are the kind of person who's in an environment where you think it is so toxic and dangerous that coming out and revealing anything about yourself, whether it be your working class background or your immigrant status or whatever else, would cause you real harm, that I'm not here looking for martyrs, right? I was already in a previous position. I was starting on that team. I know that there was genuine care from these teammates for me. And so in that context, I made a much safer decision, even though I could see the number

of different ways it could go poorly. It still was done with enough information to know that I would be safe. And also, I was on multi-million dollar contracts. with the MBA, unlike many people who are working hand to mouth. And so do not, your principles are not worth being destitute in that type of environment. I used to give this really plain. And I think lots of LGBTQ activists do this too. They just say, yes, everyone should just come out.

I think that the bodies would be laid waste in so many environments. And I'm not willing to, I don't have enough room in my house to take everybody in. And I don't have enough money to make everybody able to eat. And so I just can't offer that kind of advice to people. How do you help people when they, whatever it might be, being gay or anything that they're struggling to bring forward, how do you help them figure out how to do that? Is it leave the environment? Is it, is it build relationships and start small?

Is it know who you are and make a decision? And these are all viable options in some tone. But how do you play those notes? The first part is knowing who you are and having a really resolved picture of it. It doesn't mean it's the final picture. But having an understanding of it for you, what does it mean for me? What am I looking for from this? Because not everybody is looking to the same thing when they understand their identity.

Then I think finding someone, I talk a lot about having a cabinet. I think in political terms, that's rather a spoiled term now. But ideally, it's the idea that you find people with different perspectives and expertise who are also deeply invested in you and some particular outcome. And so find, start gathering these people proactively. You know, is it one of your sisters first that you can talk to?

Is it a parent that you think would be the right person? Is it a lifelong friend of yours? Who is that person? Is it a coach that's always adored you? Who is that person that you think might be the one person to start with so that the burden that you have is shared a little? What if that one person,

up saying what you what oh my i mean that there's there's a great risk always in that you know so how do you know you don't you can gather as much evidence as you can and and walk me down that path how do you gather some evidence i watch people and i encourage people to watch people and what they do so there are correlations right i like what you're doing here i don't know if you've written about this or not or spoken about it enough, but I think you're on to something. I'm super intrigued on how you're going to do this because I think you walked it and lived it. Again, you're grounding it into some science around humans and psychology. So I interrupted for a reason to say, I like where this is going and I'm really interested to see where you take it. Yeah, there are

correlations that you can look at, right? There are certain things. This is extreme, but if you find somebody who thinks the earth is flat, you can to a large extent, find out on which side of the political spectrum they exist, even if you can't say the party, you can say where that party will be on the political spectrum. It is just a reality. And so what you can do is start to watch people for the constellations of things that show the kind of empathy required. Is this the person who still doesn't know the name of the person who brings them a coffee every day? Because if they still don't know, after six weeks or six months, this person doesn't have a certain type of empathy that is required for you be wary i love that you took it to empathy that was it

like a i didn't know you're going to go there so you're watching for empathy i'm watching for empathy i'm watching for critical thinking i'm watching for beyond empathy a type of proactive duty of care that might be evident for them with other people that might suggest they're capable of it Because not everybody is capable of a duty of care. Finding Master is brought to you by Square. One of my favorite local surf shops here in Southern California, they started really small, just a few boards, a tight-knit team, and a vision. And over time, they've grown into something really special.

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compassion it's awesome compassion people are dope they they feel what you you must be going through and they take action to help yeah duty of care is the kind of of thing that means that with someone else, you cradle them, even if the circumstance that they're in is one born of reasons that you might not understand or agree with. It is simply your responsibility to do that. I meet lots of people who've ended up in very difficult situations, usually in work environments, but sometimes in relationships. And I can at once still have a duty of care to them. you cheated on your partner, that person is mad with you now and you aren't living with them for the moment. I can empathize with the pain you might feel, even without kind of absolving

you of the choice you made to cheat. There's a duty of care, partly because of my position as a psychologist working with them, but also just as a human being. And I'm not approving of it. I'm not absolving them of it. So you can imagine if you saw that kind of behavior, you'd imagine that even if they were someone whose religiosity put them in a position where they thought you were bad and sinful and wrong and whatever else comes with it, that duty of care might be something that would suggest that this person could still hold you in a way that was respectful and dignified. Very cool. So that's you trying to sort out safety, partnership, you know, like if someone's going to be

in the relationship, no matter who I am, and I feel like they would want to know all of me or more of me. Yeah. Yeah, there you go. Cool. So your teammates knew. The rest of us didn't because you're like, it's not your business. It's my teammates, but it's the people I'm in relationships with and I want them to know.

And when you did decide to make it more public, what went into that decision for you? So originally, I retired between Christmas and New Year's of 2005. That's when I got a call from Jeff Van Gundy, who told me I've been traded to New York. my family was in the car my sister and a couple of friends were in the car on speakerphone as I was told

I was traded and the car was silent and I rode along and I was like I am I am done with this my body hurts and I am done with this I'm done with the eternal proving

of this and I'm ready for the next thing so I retired and I came back to England and I had no plans of engaging with America again, really, other than to visit. And then I went to Manchester Pride at the LGBTQ Pride Festival in Manchester. And Sir Ian McKellen was the Marshal. And I was watching it from the Cathedral Gardens just to stay out the way. Again, so many people, I just didn't want to be in it. But I wanted to see it. So I'm in the Cathedral Gardens and I think I'm alone

until I look over my shoulder and there's a kid, I don't know, 13, 14, 15, I can never tell how old young people are nowadays, but crouched behind Tombstone, watching the Pride Parade. And I felt sad about that,

but also gray, right? You get to see this. Ian McKellen's doing the thing, waving from side to side. He weighs in our general direction, and this kid rises as if lifted from behind a tombstone. And I must have made too much noise because he saw me and then scuttled off.

And I was like, but how awesome is that, right? A wave from a stranger from a distance. I was like, shit. Now I've got to. And again, I understand I'm not Ian McKellen, nor his status, right? I'm not overselling myself. Wait, you had that thought. But I have a dimension.

You had that thought in a minute? A wave from a stranger from a distance. A wave from a stranger from a distance. Are you kidding me? that that is like psychology a word yeah that's right from a danger yeah across a table yeah that that's as like this is amazing I but this was exacerbated wow okay away from a distance made a change yeah and you said to yourself I was like damn it now I've got to now I've got to come out in America and again for me it was because because you were waving to you were waving to

all the little kids boys whatever that were like humans that were like thinking, is it okay to come out or not? And you're like, if I can wave. But also a different, like, nobody, my blackness overwhelms my gayness to the public gaze, right? When people look at me, they do not conceive of me as a gay person.

Because that's the narrow stereotype that people have, right? Yeah. I thought that there's something powerful about the idea that seeing this image of what a gay person might be might be useful, not just to other gay people, but to straight people who haven't really wrapped their head around this very cleverly. And for them, people like Sir Ian McKellen are acceptable, palatable, gay people, whereas somebody who might look more like them might be a less palatable version of that. And I thought it would be useful on many fronts. Also, I mean,

I'm big-headed. I wanted to believe that it would be useful on many fronts too. So it was also, I don't know that I could have done it if I didn't think it was going to be useful on any friends. So you wanted it to be benevolently useful for others. Yeah, there's no, this was not useful for you. I'd, well, I mean, I wrote a book and you know as well as I do, books, unless you're J.K. Rowling, and let's not talk about her, they are not much more than a calling card, right? And so, you know, people please buy my books, but that wasn't the reason for it. I just wanted one place where people could say, this is the account that I want you to have. I wanted to have an account that wasn't just about me being a gay person, but included that.

I'm annoyed to this day, and I think I'm allowed to be, that there's one player in the history of the NBA that has started at the age of 17 and six years later been starting in the NBA. One player. That is me. And why is that annoying to you? So it's annoying to me that the thing that I didn't choose, though I'm quite good at, in being gay, is the thing that people want to remark about, not the fact that this kid, came from Stockport at 17, and in six years started in the NBA. That is, nobody else has done that.

That's a remarkable thing that's about effort and choices and a real drive. Those things are important. Yeah, because I'm thinking through for me, I'm much more interested in the courage, to be honest, than I am in how well you can shoot a ball or how fast you got to the league. I know it takes an exceptional set of circumstances and hard work with a genetic coding to make it to the league. You got to work hard, you got to have some genetic gifts, you have many, and there's some circumstances that go into it.

So it's interesting, because me on the other side of the comment you made, I'm like, yeah, I am more interested in the courage to be oneself. That's the difference, though. You are actually interested in the courage, if that's what it is, to be myself. I'm not disputing that dynamic. Oh. What I'm saying is that people are interested in the fact that I happen to be gay, not anything else about it, just, oh, to be known as the gay NBA player. Is that your... Yeah, if people know me in sport at all in this country, it is that is what they'll know about me.

And you would want them to also know... I wouldn't, I wouldn't care. I just wouldn't want that to be the only thing. What else would you want to add to? I really enjoy the fact now that the vast majority of my clients don't know that I ever played. Well, this, in your intro, it's like, wait, what? I love it. I had, I had, I thought that I had you wrong.

Like, did I get this wrong? Yeah. Because it's not in the intro at all. It's not useful information. Well done on the book, by the way. Thank you. Yeah, well done. It doesn't help you understand me.

Knowing that I love Star Wars is a better access to who I am as a person than knowing that I played basketball. It's just better. You know, it's interesting. What I really want to understand is the process to get clear and then from from that clarity how you build the and you're walking me through it like the relationships you're tuning safe safe safe oh empathy duty to care you know like intelligent discernment oh like these are my people and then so that feels like an unlock for me and so I'm way more interested

in the listener right now knowing who they are dressing accordingly and fighting the good fight for them from clarity to conviction is a path that we can all walk yeah and you are an emblem for that it just so happens that you play a sport that lots of people watch and so now i get to know your story is any of that offensive or too too narrow-minded or too shallow in response to what you're saying i think one of the things that people most people can embrace is the idea that their identity is seen in proportion i don't know components are seen in proportion So the proportion that's important to me, and I would hope other people would kind of embrace, is stories about my mum, is the real transformative power of presence as it's, and some technique through psychology. But when you look at the research, every psychological intervention is equally unsuccessful.

No one part of this, no one new, oh, it's this, is this technical. this week is that they're all the same, that the real factors that make a difference, does this person care about me in a way that is tangible, practical, and felt? Does this person have a scheme that I can believe in? That scheme doesn't have to be real, believable, make any sense at all. If you buy into it, it will work. I love, this is the stuff that excites me. I love being utterly wrong nowadays.

I remember when I first got into, you remember the Goldman days, when it was the emotional literacy. Daniel Goldman was the, right? And I learned all about that first one. Emotional intelligence. Just loved it, right? Just loved it. And I thought, right, I've got it down now.

It was in early days and I just was stupid about it. I didn't realize you have to evolve when it changes. Then somebody started talking to me up with the four-branched method of it. And I was like, I don't know that. And now I feel really stupid. And now I just love the fact that every day I'm going to read something. I've got this amazing, some amazing people that I follow on TikTok, who are scientists and nerds and bring that's where you're getting your science now huh

some of it is amazing listen i'm joe i'm a half joking i also i also get some good cats and dogs like each other a lot which is gray but there are some brilliant people some one of the chapters is led by this phrase a phatic expression which i learned off ticot just today i wrote a piece that was based on watching a video on ticot about how clownfish become immune to the anemones and i made an analogy about it's not important but there's great stuff you can learn. And now I'm excited about how can I be wrong today? Because I feel like it bolsters my defenses.

I feel like it makes me smarter, cleverer, more able to then use this stuff with the people that I meet. Whereas if I just stayed in that same place, imagine, and maybe for you, this is really something you can wrap your head around. Imagine only knowing what we knew when we first learned it. Imagine how useless we be. You know, in light of that, I feel. find myself attracted to psych 101 books, going back and reading those kind of foundational

theories with 20-some years of other theory. And I go back and I look at them again, I'm like, wow, that, like, so rudimentary. But wait, hold on, this piece here. Yeah. Now that I read that with the stuff that I've come to learn, holy moly, like that you or she was on it. You know, And so I'm attracted to the foundations again. But, all right, go back to the thing that I really want to understand. Clarity to conviction is this arc that I'm super attracted to. You need some sort of courage or community to be able to support and challenge you to keep going. When you made the decision, the little boy sounds like he was, you know, when he jumped from behind the tomb, so what a great image.

You're like, he was your muse in some kind of way. Like that, okay, if I could do that for many people. like happy days. But when you came out, I'm sure that you didn't get amazing. Oh, this is so great. I'm sure it was a, what was it like when you came out? It was a mixture of things. But first to say, when I saw this kid do that, what was amazing about it was,

I didn't think if I can do this for lots of people. I just thought if I could do this for one person. It felt like that would really be worth it, right? That would be, especially if it was one person who wouldn't have done that same response to an Ian McKellen or somebody else. So when I came out, the reaction was my family was so afraid. My sisters were afraid. One of my sisters sent me a mixtape.

They were old. Sent me a mixtape that she did. They included, I think it's the red hot chili pepper song. I'm so scared for you. We were terrified. Bodymaster is brought to by Remarkable. As we head into the holidays, I'm reminded of the power of presence, with family, with ourselves, with the work that matters.

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it matters, head to live momentous.com and use the code finding mastery for 35% off your first subscription. Again, that's live momentous. L-I-V-E-M-O-M-M-E-M-O-M-Mentus, live-Mometus.com and then use the code finding mastery for those who are in it for the long game. I was really scared the day before I flew to America because Americans have guns and that makes that makes me afraid and so when I got there and it really started to hit

I realized that there was about a 20% group of people who were warm and supportive and some part of that number were grateful and that there was a 5% group that were

vociferously hateful they hated me I had more death threats in that period than you can imagine I have letters still that were sent to my sister's house in England to get to me

telling me how they were going to kill me and how it's terrible that I was allowed to exist and then in the middle was this 75% who you might think were neutral but in cases of human dignity neutrality is complicity right and it was this group of people who were like it's really too early for it we shouldn't be talking about this right now

or this is not the right time for this or how can this be the priority right now It was a group of people whose apathy was really hurtful because it seemed to amplify the noise made by that 5% who were so loud. Yeah, it was a hard time. Again, privileged individual. Lots of things were, lots of support in my team.

Check, check, check. How did you, not to be insensitive, but how did you, not insensitive to the context of the affordances that you've earned and been given some respects. How did you manage that time when you have, had that level of vitriol pointed at you. I curated a group of people around me in every location I went. So when I spent a lot of time in America, I had a group of people here who had been my

friends, my friend Ryan, who lives in Utah. These people had been my friends, even while I was in the league, and were there now. They would just show up. They would just show up. Not without, not with, by being summoned. They were just, you're in L.A. and they just showed up. and they both distracted me from the moment, chasing me at times when I had a particularly good experience

and felt a bit too big for my britches, but also reminded me of who I was and brought me stories of impact that was more positive than negative. How do you think that that process has helped you in the work that you do now, helping others become their very best? I don't believe I've ever been asked that question before.

How does it help now? I think my life is a sequence of interactions and events that require great boldness and great vulnerability in concert. And I suppose that, I mean, it became a chapter of a previous book, that very notion of boldness with vulnerability paired, which seems so juxtaposed, but is so important. That's something I tell leaders now who are so used to the idea that success comes through omniscience, knowing everything, invulnerability, not in any way being able to be harmed. And I'm like, no, no, no, no. Real success comes, anything that's going to bring people in, draw people to you from

Utah to California, from England to New York. The only thing that draws to people to you like that is the authenticity that comes with boldness and vulnerability. What is the cost of being bullied? How does that happen for you? What was the dark side of that for you? It made me very shy and hesitant to interact with human beings. I still don't much nowadays.

I have a small group of close friends. I have a partner. And outside of that and family members, I don't interact much. Given a choice, even on a road trip like now, I'll stay in a hotel room rather than leave the hotel room. At home, I think my partner says, homebody, which I think is a generous way of saying, I would order in and never leave the house

unless I have to, in part because you just, this is the way you can avoid the interactions that might be otherwise caustic. They might leave a ding in your door, if you like. I don't feel like you have much violence inside of you, but there's a response that other people have that it could be. Are you internally angry or violent or like pissed off about how the early life went or the current conditions that you experience are not about the early life because i again every time i think about that i can smile because for every negative interaction there was sunlight right so kind of balanced by mom it was just yeah anything done by these people just pales in comparison to the memories i have of her so it's not about that but now

the idea that we're in an environment that is so anti-science, the idea that we're an environment that is that regards evidence as optional and equivalent somehow to opinion, the idea that we're in this place where we can deny pernicious bigotry in the name of something else, or just deny it in a kind of dissonant kind of way, is infuriating, going through the Black Lives Matter moment, going through the Me Too moments and knowing that they were moments from the very beginning,

knowing that there would be no enduring change because of them. Yeah, it's enraging. It's, you have to be careful. That's why I go to therapy because containing that amount of rage is unhelpful. Yeah, and the rage is directed. Yeah, how do you work with that? And I say that, like, I don't think I have a way of knowing. it's the bad actors increasingly i've been moving from this space where i think it's just

charismatic individuals who are somehow intoxicating their followers and i think that we have to be more honest about it and the fact that there are a large group of people that because of one or two key principles will allow horrors to occur if you tell them their taxes will be lower they will allow horrors to occur if a person will promise them that one thing if you tell them that in Britain brown people won't be coming into the country as much they will sacrifice the NHS they will sacrifice their personal wealth they will sacrifice the ability to travel across europe for free they'll sacrifice that if you just promise them less brown people in this country and i think there's a point now where we have to stop imagining that is simply the magnetism of one or two charismatic figures

and rather the undeniable part of human existence, which is the desire to embrace comfort, avoid discomfort, and avoid blame for their circumstances and their generic external circumstances that drive people to allow megalomaniacs to do awful things. So you're inviting a step deeper analysis saying that it's not one charismatic that is wooed people. You're saying that there's

a selfishness in the crowd that is creating actually the stage for the one charismatic person. Yeah. And that selfishness is if that person will publicly do the things that I'm afraid to do or that I selfishly want

done for me, then I'll do whatever. And so just one thing. I'll look up blind eye. Just one thing. That's what makes it so awful. Although many of these individuals we might look at, often, individual tent posts, if you like, that are notable, clear things, signals that they give. All it takes is one of those things.

Oh, 2%. You offer me 2% tax? I'm in. You do awful things. I'd be afraid to have you around my daughter. The lightning rod for that person. A lightning rod for something else. It could be another one thing you're suggesting.

So you can create a remarkable coalition of people who might ordinarily never tolerate each other's company. Huh. It's amazing to think. How do you make sense of people that think differently than you? They see it very differently. Yeah. Do you mean in this particular context or broadly? Yeah, let's go to this context.

Because, I mean, I think what's happening in the U.S. is like, we don't really understand what another person is thinking, you know, or how they could so easily align with something that the other person sees and feels to be offensive. So I think there are lots of elements, whether it's politics or. business where I can say it is reasonable for us to disagree. I love peanut butter and I do not like anchovies. And you're, do you say anchovies? Antichovies. No, how did you, how do you say it? Oh, did I see now I'm confused. I'm not. I'm not sure I say anchovies, but you said it. Antchavies. Okay, got it. Okay, got it. Yeah. I don't mind people who say anchovies. So there we go. And these are the types of things. And I'm sure there are more seminal things as well,

They're more important things where I can just say, I don't see the evidence for it, for starters, but also this is the kind of thing we can have opinions about, right? You like beach holidays. I like remote forest holidays. You like holidays. I don't like holidays. I can say, I can respect and embrace that and also not insist on what I love for you who do not. What I find intriguing is that we've taken this a step further now where there are knowable facts that are no longer.

knowable facts. They are now matters for debate by people without expertise. And again, I'm not telling you that everybody with a PhD is the know-all. But I worked for a time with some of the scientists at CERN. And there just is a part of that where I have to say, I know psychology stuff about helping you team better. But when you start talking about Higgs-Boson, although I find it fascinating, I just can have no opinion on this. And it feels like, like we're in a world where that's shifted and many things that we should agree should not be agreeable, the abuse of people, the manipulation of people, the cruelty towards people, unnecessary often, cruelty towards people. I thought these were things that we had debated

and decided upon. Apparently not. Yeah, yeah, especially in America where so much more is codified. Because in Britain, we don't have a bill of rights in the same way. We don't have We have many protections, right, especially those that came from the EU, frankly. But we don't have it codified in the same way. Habeas corpus and things like this should be, I thought they were done deals. And yet here we are with them being stretched and deformed, malformed. When you think of being relational, what are the key components to somebody to have that type of approach in life? I think you started off talking about it.

If you don't know yourself, there is very little of importance, very little unique and challenging you can achieve. To me, the analogy I always use is that we love the idea of GPS nowadays, right? We take it for granted, it's on our phones. And people think it's amazing that in this age we can find anywhere and we can find it and put a pin in it. But the real reason that GPS works is nothing to do with your destination. It's to do with your starting point. The whole reason it works is because you know where you're starting from. You can have a map that shows you where, I don't know, Trenton, New Jersey is,

but you have no way of getting there, no matter how close you are to that pinpoint. If you don't know where you are now, and I think that, it comes back to it, is fundamentally the essence. Do you know yourself? Have you developed some rudimentary at first, but then more nuanced and complex interpersonal skills that allow you to navigate the frictions and tribulations of human interaction. And have you then decided to develop some skills that enable you to influence, even where you don't have direct power in organizations,

whether that be a household, a community, an academic environment, or a business? What are some of those skills that you're more interested in, those interpersonal? The interpersonal, well, presence, for one. I love the idea. It is a tool or a weapon, your presence. And you're not talking about being present. You're talking about the way that you hold yourself in the present moment. Yeah.

The way you, so even the way you orient your body, the way you focus your mind to envelop people, that is the image I have in my head whenever I know I'm going to have a consequential interaction. And that is most interactions for me. Really? It just is. It's incredibly energy expensive, which is why as an introvert, I crash a lot after interactions. Right. You've got to recover probably.

But that's the image I have in my head. Oh, who's joined? Oh, somebody's just joined from the side. And my mind is like, yep, and I'll reorient myself. It's like, yes. Because acknowledging that you exist and that you're part of this is something I think that's powerful in and of itself, because we all know what it feels like to be ignored. So we know that presence is important because the idea that somebody walks in room and says

hi to you and hi to you and high to you and not high to you is a way that they tell you that you're not important. so that alone is a huge thing if people realize that that's a relational approach yeah that is foundation to including not not this idea of inclusion but it is like i see you and our our collective relationships are stronger than the one hero that can get it done yes you're worth it to you're worth it to extend some energy to you're worth it to avoid some distractions for it's a difference between you bring value to a circumstance, your value is not earned from the circumstance. It's our job to bring our value to.

And I love, I love, like, let's say I'm in a conversation. I've missed somebody in what you're talking, or my cadence between the five people is like, I ping, ping, back to ping, but I've missed a ping on a person on frequency. And I love when that person goes, hey, hold on. I'm like, oh, yeah, shit. Like, yeah, yeah, right? Like, I love partnering with those types of strong, you know, that they know themselves, they know their value, they know that their ideas could be right or wrong, but they're

interesting, you know, to bring forward. So the relational piece, you're saying you've got to know yourself and then find what's interesting in other people, like by including in the conversation, what else when you think about being relational comes to mind? One thing I want to add to the previous before I move on is just the idea of, I don't know that I include people because I think what they add might be valuable. keep going i include people because they are present and they want to engage yeah cool and i just think there's a difference there are times when i think somebody's contribution is not viable

and i may i may talk about that but i just think if you only ever include people who are potentially valuable that isn't relational it's transactional yeah there you go i think it's problematic that's not relational other things that i do that are relational i tell people what i stand for all the time. I just think it's an important thing for people to understand. Finding Mastery is brought to you by AG1. One of the through lines and high performance is consistency. Finding routines that support your mind and body day in and day out.

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That's Lisa, L-E-E-E-S-A.com. The promo code is Finding Mastery for 20% off, plus an extra $50 off on us because great sleep, it's just too important to leave to chance. When new people join my organization, they have a conversation with me that my team calls the fence conversation. And so I'll talk to them about, the first thing I think is important for leaders

is to recognize it is our job to flex. I believe. There are people who've got this idea that they've been so subject to the whims of tyrannical leaders through their junior career that when they come to the top, like, I can, I'm going to do stuff my way. If this is how I give feedback best, you better get used to this. If this is how I talk best, you better get used to this. If this is my style, you better get used to it. And I think that's a ridiculous thing for a leader. You're already at the top. You're already supposedly the best and the smartest. It's your job to flex so that other people don't have to as much. So I say that first. And you're not saying flex your strength. You're saying flex and agility. Right. So why not look at a person and say, well, actually, I prefer to give direct feedback. By the way, almost everybody I hear say that is a dick.

They mean they're a dick. They don't mean direct. They mean this, this, this, what is called brutal candor thing. It feels to me like everybody who talks about that is much more interested in the brutal than the candor. Because candor can be delivered directly but thoughtfully. And that's what I think is, is how you're powerful, right? I'm really disappointed. I saw your output yesterday,

and I know you can be better than that. But more than that, you've really let us down right now. And that can't happen again. I can't emphasize enough. Why not that? Instead of, that's ridiculous,

you're awful, you're the worst person. There's a way of doing this. But, so I'm willing to flex, and then I say, but there are some things I don't flex on. And here they are. And they're in lots of different dimensions,

timeliness. Your first principles of the line will. timeliness. Showing up on time and respecting other people's time is really important. Like attention to detail stuff for me is it lights the fire in my brain. I hate it when people don't pay attention to details because it's something we can all do. It's not about your intellect or intellectual horsepower. It's about whether you're willing to tolerate the mundanity of checking and rechecking, which I think is a key to success broadly in life. But then there are other things that live in the space of human dignity. And I'll say, you know what? This is where the fence

conversation come as like here. Right here is misogyny. Here is the fence and I am not on it. I am here. But I'm not here hoping that Mike or somebody else will sort up misogyny. I'm here with fire figuring out how to destroy and sterilize this. This is who I am, but not done. Racism, Islamophobia, anti-semitism, homophobia, trans. It doesn't matter. Like literally any instability that would impugn human dignity. It's here. Here's the fence. I'm not on it. Here. not laxadaisical, not relaxing, not hoping somebody else will do it, fire. And that's who I am. And I need you to know that.

And that will be the truth if we are together as a team. It will be the truth if we're together with a client. It'll be the truth if we're in a car on the way back from a vent or on a plane heading to one. When somebody knows their first principles, like you've just shared, and they sit in the strength of those first principles, there's a safety in that. Agreed. Because now we know.

Now we know exactly, you know, where you're going to get lit up, where you're going to get animated, where you're going to get, you know, pissed off. So it's really safe in that. And the most dangerous people are the ones that play this second game. They're having second conversations. There's a second thing that's happening. So you and I are having an interaction. And let's say I'm nodding my head.

head to the things you're saying and then I go over as we're both nodding and then as I go over as this conversation ends I go have a second conversation with somebody else in disagreement or I playing a shadow game it's a very dangerous person to be in this relationship because you don't know what you're going to get yeah I think it's an advantage for my safety if I can create enough of the aperture to be open to to know people now now I'm better situated because I know not to twist somebody in the win so that we can partner properly to the shared vision or the shared mission that we're on. You know, so there's, this is not a contouring.

This is like an alignment one and one equals 11 once we know what we stand for. First principles is foundational for them. And do you have a process for helping others understand their first principles? I try and help people to, listen, what are the things that make your ears hot in a kind of, in the vernacular, right? For me, a lot of the times I can tell because I have a physiological response to the thing that I'm witnessing, whether it's videos I'm watching online or whether it's politicians I'm hearing talk or business folk, I hear talk. And is there something about that that gives you a visceral reaction? Because that's an easy first place to start with the most obvious stuff that's going to trigger you.

And you're going to the direction of like if you hear something that makes you hot, meaning that your skin crawls where you're like, there's something wrong. Any strong reaction, even huge agreement. Yeah. So you're saying that is a, I'll go back to the lightning rod as a. Yeah, yeah. It's a little bit of a lightning rod moment. So you're saying, tune to the way your body responds when you hear something, because there's probably something in that.

Yeah, absolutely. I was in a, obviously, it's part of this kind of tour and running around America. And I was in a podcast studio the other day. And there are very big podcast, apparently, and lots of, lots of listeners. and I did not organize this, but I certainly didn't do my due diligence on it. And I was listening to the show that they were doing before I was going to be on.

And it was like every hot-button thing that I find indefensible was there. The misogyny was there. The racism was there. The kind of everyday casual sexism, I suppose, was there. The homophobia was there. And I was just like, I sat there.

And I was like, oh, I'm supposed to be here. My team's expect. to me to be here. The production team for this is also the production team for another show that I'm doing later on in New York. And there's real consequence for that. I got up and I walked outside and I got looked at my phone and I sent a quick message to somebody and I went back inside. I sat down and I was like, I've got to go. It was so, I felt awful because I knew that there would be consequences. That thing again where I could see from this moment there's big and small, maybe none, but there's an opportunity for there to be consequences here.

I spoke to the producer and I said, look, I'm, I'm not the guest for you. I've been listening to the show. I've been watching how they interact and who they're talking about. I'm not the guest for this show. You've hit three or four of the things that I just, I can't be a part of, racism, sexism, and misogyny and as an homophobia, and I'm just going to go now. And the guy looked very flummoxed and I walked out. they would have known

they would have known what you stood for you've written about it eloquently and they wanted you on the show apparently you've done it twice in our conversation where I've said something and you're like wait hold on let me go back and fine tune that and clarify

so I don't find I wouldn't imagine it's a better way to say that you would get run over in an intellectual conversation about a topic so you didn't want to go fight that fight. No, I don't debate people who won't change their mind. It's not a debate then. It's not a debate. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody who says that is casual, right? I swear a lot, and not on

here, but it's just one of the things I really enjoy. I like swearing, and the people who I'm around, I like swearing too, and it's the one thing in our company policy that doesn't exist anymore. We're like, we don't swear at each other. That's different. But color, but color, Swearful swearing about stuff is allowed. And I swear a lot. It's who I am. But this was, this was not just colorful language. This was the denigration of people, the list of people they wanted to attack that day happened to all be women who were black Congress people. And I'm like, in what world should I go? But if you're doing that, you're not going to change your mind because I'm here, because some, what do you think would have happened? I think I would have gone on there. And I'm

am afraid what would have happened is that we would have talked about my book. And what I'm afraid of is that people would have listened to the broadcast before it and then listen to me not address what I'd heard, which is not possible as a leader. How could I possibly witness that? And then not, as the first part of the conversation say, hey, I was just in, I was in Paris with a client of ours and I'd listened to the whole, I've been asked to listen to the whole day of the conference before I spoke. And so I threw my speech out of the window and just addressed what I'd heard.

I'd send a message to my team immediately afterwards. Look, I may have screwed things up with this client because I told them what I think based on what I heard, which is as a consultant's not always the thing that you're supposed to do. She was to ask them what time it is borrowing their watch, which is like, gross. But this is what I'd done.

And it worked out quite well. They responded to it, but that's what I'm supposed, to do. So how could I go on this show and not address what I just heard? I'm interested, though, because when you told me that, I was like, oh, cool, you stood up and got out, forget about it, takes courage, takes clarity to be able to do that. And then I'm thinking, wait, you could bring the fight to an audience that is confused or that is seeing differently, or like, I'm wondering about that piece. And then I think what I'm understanding, you're saying is like, yeah, but you know what, he wasn't going to change. And now I'm in a position to be like,

That's how I'm trying to figure out. So there's something incredibly generous about your use of the word confused. There's a difference. And again, not to flatter you or your audience, but I imagine that people listen to you and the people you bring on, in part because they are as excited as I am, at least in some small part to be like, oh, shit, I didn't know that. I've got this new thing that I knew and it throws out old information and brings in new information that I still may want to go down the rabbit hole a bit on, but not every audience is that

way. And I think we, part of the reason we are where we are politically, not just in America, but in Britain, across Europe, especially Eastern Europe, is because we pretend that the reason that this group of people are following these singular figures, whether they be podcast hosts or politicians, is because they're confused and they're not confused. They listen to this podcast because they trigger one of the tent poles, one of the lightning rod things that they approve of. So there's a collective confirmation that's taking place. They're pinging something that's already alive in them.

Yeah. And so if I go on that show, I could be as eloquent as possible, but the reality is what I'm doing is disassembling one of their lightning rods, which feels like an attack. And they're not going to tolerate that. Yeah, 100%. So that was a potential, the juice was not worth a squeeze.

Potentially dangerous? Yeah, but no, it's not even dangerous. The thing that I was most afraid of was that we were just going to have a nice chat about my book. I was like, if we just have a nice chat about my book, I'm an awful person. There it is. How can I understand.

Just having a nice chat about my book. I'm selling my book. Because a first principle of going to buy my book because I didn't challenge the 10. Because your first principle is like the fence conversation, but the principle is actually I fight for what matters. It just happens to be these. Yeah. Phobias that I mentioned earlier. But the first principles, I fight for what matters. And you were going in that conversation and potentially not fight. Yeah. Because of what you just heard. Now I understand. To sell a book. I mean, that's the definition of a shill right there. Yeah. Of a definition of a what?

A shill. Is that you are. That I be willing to completely ignore what I just see in order. Oh, yeah. Some people who I know the second they read the opening chapter and learn who I am will now hate me. A book that will never be opened, never have an opportunity to change your mind. Yeah. Oh, my goodness. No, I'd be awful. I couldn't. How does playing in the league inform the way that you lead others or guide others? I think.

And I'm not a warm and fuzzy psychologist, but I see more potential in people because of my journey to the NBA. My mother told me when I was a child that the most unlikely of people in the most improbable of circumstances can become extraordinary, and I believed her. And I believe her now. And part of the work that I do, even with this book, the idea of ordinary skills

that can help you be extraordinary, because it's not manifesting. I'm not manifesting. I'm not one of them. Oh, yeah, just think it. It'll happen. No, no, no, no. Build some ordinary skills,

and you can do remarkable things. And so I think I see that differently now. What's one ordinary skill that you think is a kingpin for the others to fall into a place? People have amazing experiences that they, that sit, never reflected upon, under-examined, and the utility, the lesson, the brilliance of that experience is just gone. And one of the things that I talk about in the book that I think is really important, it happened this morning. I wrote a piece about clownfish tied to this concept.

that I'd spoken about yesterday to somebody about, it was actually about people who have an identity, who align themselves with people who hate that identity for their own convenience, but they're protected from him through proximity or privilege. And I was writing about that, the idea of that's... That's the clamfish. That's a clamfish.

What clamfish do? They allow themselves to get stung so they can build up a resistance and then be protected by the very thing that other clamfish, if they've not built up resistance, will be killed by. And that happened because every experience that I have, every interaction, this conversation today will be rich with them, right? I'll go away and say, ah, shit, I should have said that, or what did he mean by this, or now I'm going to re-examine that. But every mundane interaction I have with somebody, it sits in a place where I just, I come back to it.

But, no, I mean, the mundane ones. You re-examine your day or your interactions and conversations. Constantly. So that's the self-discovery, deeper examination. The lessons jump out or the connections between two random experiences, 10 years removed from each other. They just, they create this richness that helps me explain complex stuff to people. So that's how you do, are you doing one-on-one therapy? Yeah.

Are you? Yeah. So that's how you're doing therapy is you're pulling forward the uniqueness of the person, helping them make sense of their inner life and then develop a handful of skills on top of it to go fight the good. fight in life, whatever it is. Does that sound like that? The fight that heads them towards something meaningful to them. Yeah, that's right. Not just fighting. Yeah. Not just, wailing against a world that seems unfair broadly, but to think, what is it you want to achieve

and why? And is that going to be meaningful in the end? How do you get an OBE? Oh. There's a few things that you have that I, I'm not six, ten, so that's kind of, I can't play in the NBA, you know. So you've got a few things. Now you've got an OBE as well. Yeah. know, so maybe for folks that don't know what it is, of course. Officer of the Order of the British Empire. It's actually a reasonably controversial thing for a black person to accept in Britain because of empire, because I'm an officer of the Order of the British Empire. The British Empire, for those who didn't know, was a fairly abominable thing, right?

Yeah. There is a big movement now to try and change the name of it to the Order of British Excellence, right, which is a more appropriate thing because this award is given to people for excellence, MBEs, the member of the Order of the British Empire, are given to people who've done remarkable things in their community. These are people who have been relentless in the thing that they've done. Maybe they've been at running a soup kitchen for 30 years, and nobody, not the local council,

or anybody has noticed, but somebody's decided to say, this person deserves recognition, and they get it. And that recognition, because of the nature of class and status in Britain, will enable them to do more. more people will be attracted to them, more sponsors perhaps would come and support them. And my OBE is for services, volunteer services, to sport, and for being a nerd, apparently. So, meaning the science. Yeah, meaning the science part. So I built a community center in Manchester that had upwards of

3,000 kids a week going through its doors. I mean, I'm not associated with any more, but it's still going strong. And, yeah, that's how you get an OBE or an honorific. Somebody has to nominate you. You can't nominate yourself. And then you go through a process and somebody judges you worthy or not. That's the, that makes my skin crawl. Right. Yeah, but I understand it. Yeah, I understand it. Okay. John, what a fun conversation. Thank you for the way that you showed up. Thank you. Yeah. I really appreciate the conversation, the depth, the clarity, the fun, the first principles, and where you're pointing for people to be better is to go inward, develop some clarity and some skills, and then do the thing that matters most to you. Thank you so, so much for everything. This is really cool. And I might have a UK project for us

to work on together. That would be fantastic. Yeah. So help me in. Yeah. All right, mate. Thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah. Next time on Finding Mastery. We're joined by Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft's chief strategy and transformation officer, someone who's helped lead one of the most meaningful culture shifts in modern business. In this conversation, Kathleen and Mike get honest about what it takes to guide people through big change, how empathy, curiosity, and simple human skills can make all the difference. If you're craving a little clarity or just want to feel steadier in the chaos of work and life, this one will really land.

Join us Wednesday, December 10th at 9 a.m. Pacific. I want to take a second here to tell you about a morning routine that I've been using for years. For me, it's a great way to switch on my mind, to ready myself to take on the day. So before I check my phone, my emails, mark it. updates or text threads, I choose how to start my morning. That's always in my control. That's always in your control too. This is the same morning mindset routine that some of the world's top performers across sport, business, and the arts are using. The best part, it only takes about 90 seconds to do. So just head over to finding mastery.com slash morning to download the audio guide for free.

Again, head to finding mastery.com slash morning to get your morning mindset routine. Thank you.