The Daily Stoic - Chris Bosh on Embracing the Process and Staying Present | This Cannot Be Allowed To Happen

Episode Date: June 2, 2021

Ryan reads today’s meditation and talks to Chris Bosh about his new book Letters To A Young Athlete, what he learned winning multiple NBA Championships, the importance of having a diverse range of interests, learning to live in the moment, and more. Chris Bosh fell in love with basketball at an early age and earned the prestigious “Mr. Basketball” title while still at Lincoln High School in Dallas, Texas. A McDonald’s All-American, Bosh was selected fourth overall by the Toronto Raptors after one year attending Georgia Tech. In March 2019, Bosh’s #1 jersey was officially retired for the Miami Heat. In addition to his basketball career, in 2010 he founded Team Tomorrow as a community-uplift organization. Bosh regularly speaks to youths about the benefits of reading, coding, and leadership. Bosh, his wife, Adrienne, and their five children reside in Austin, Texas.The Pod Pro Cover by Eight Sleep is the most advanced solution on the market for thermoregulation. It pairs dynamic cooling and heating with biometric tracking. You can add the Cover to any mattress, and start sleeping as cool as 55°F or as hot as 110°F. Go to eightsleep.com/dailystoic to check out the Pod Pro Cover and save $150 at checkout.Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit gomacro.com and use promo code STOIC for 30% off your order plus free shipping on all orders over $50.Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic to get a FREE year supply of Liquid Vitamin D + 5 FREE Travel Packs with subscription. LinkedIn Jobs is the best platform for finding the right candidate to join your business this fall. It’s the largest marketplace for job seekers in the world, and it has great search features so that you can find candidates with any hard or soft skills that you need. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit linkedin.com/STOIC to post a job for free. ***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@daily_stoicFollow Chris Bosh:Homepage: https://www.chrisbosh.com/Instagram: https://instagram.com/chrisboshTwitter: https://twitter.com/chrisboshFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/OfficialChrisBosh/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiWS1VEYfznFrWc8c9zeDsASee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace and wisdom in their actual lives. But first we've got a quick message from one of our sponsors.

Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. This cannot be allowed to happen. The true end of the republic did not come with the arrival of Julius Caesar. The sign that things had collapsed came years before, not once, but many times. The political process in Rome, which had never been perfect, broke down into throngs of violent street mobs. As Mike Duncan recently said on the Daily Stoic podcast and in his amazing book The Storm Before The Storm, it started with the crisis of the year 133, the first time

that political difference has escalated to violence. Over what? A land redistribution bill. The nobles and the aristocrats assembled behind a senator and launched an armed attack killing some 300 people. Rome had never seen such a massacre as Duncan writes, and it was one of the bloodiest days in Roman political history. This is why the Stokes were so routinely aghast at mobs, why they warned against anger and chaos and hatred, they had witnessed it firsthand. Not just the escalating violence that led to the collapse of the Republic either, they

were themselves the victims of persecutions, of philosophers. They saw how Nero, all too easily, was able to scapegoat the Christians, as employed to distract the Romans from his incompetence and evil. And so it goes in America and many other nations. It's why the horrifying murder of Armad Arbery can't be dismissed as just some crime that happened in Georgia. It's why violence against Asians and Jews cannot be tolerated, cannot be ignored.

David French, another guest on the podcast, recently wrote a moving piece titled, Can America Be America When Jews Are Beating In The Streets? No country can allow anyone to be beaten in the streets, let alone a vulnerable minority with a 2,000 year history of persecution, because when the wolves of hate are loose, no one is safe. We cannot allow this to happen. We cannot allow our political process to devolve any further,

to descend into open violence in the streets. We cannot dismiss these events as isolated instances. We cannot engage in what aboutism. Because if we do, if we do nothing, as Marcus really has said, we are not only committing an injustice by allowing injustice to happen, but we are ultimately imperiling ourselves, just as we saw in Rome, as we saw in Germany, as we have seen anywhere that mob violence is encouraged or allowed. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast.

My guest today is a two-time NBA champion, an 11-time NBA All-Star, and as it happens, an Olympic gold medalist and the author of a wonderful new book that I was very excited and honored to get to work on. With him, Chris Bosch happens to live here in Austin, Texas. We got connected. And he was thinking about doing a book. And I remember originally he was thinking, should it be a memoir, should it be a basketball book? And I was telling him about two of my favorite books,

letters to a young jazz musician by Winston Marcellus, and letters to a young poet by Rilke. I said to him, look, it's been weird how my books, which are ostensibly totally unrelated to sports in any way, have managed to make their way through all these locker rooms because coaches are looking for things that will improve their athletes, personally, professionally, mentally, spiritually. And I said, why isn't there a book of letters to a young athlete? And I said, there's so few people who are remotely qualified to do this book.

You've achieved all the great prizes in your profession. But also, and we talk about this in the interview, because basketball was tragically taken away from you early. You have an appreciation and understanding of the game, having had it ripped from your life, in a way that I think makes you uniquely suited to give advice to young athletes. I said, what are all the things that you wish that you knew when you were coming up in the league

and how can people benefit from your experiences? And so, I was lucky enough to collaborate on this book. It comes out this week. It's incredible. I was so impressed with Chris every step of the way he inspired me. I think he got great work out of me, or something we talk about. About how do you assemble a great team? How do you get the best of the people around you? How do you lead by example?

And we also get into it. In the interview, Chris is a big fan of stoicism. He shares the stuff from the Daily Stoke all the time. So it's just really great to talk to this magnificent athlete, this sort of renaissance man of an artist, an athlete, an entrepreneur, a musician. He does all this interesting stuff. I think this is a great interview as we begin with my first interview in person in this space, ever. And my first one since the pandemic began, you know, 15 plus months ago. So it was great of all the people to do in person.

It was wonderful to talk with Chris. And here's the new book, Letters to a Young Athlete. You got to read it. You can follow Chris at Chris Bosch on pretty much any platform. And of course, Chris Bosch.com as well. And you can check out his new record label, Daddy Jack Records. They're at Daddy Jack Records on Instagram. And enjoy the conversation.

Do check out the new book. I do highly recommend it, although I'm a little biased, but it's quite good. Check it out. Here's my interview with Chris Bosch. So this is my first in person. It's quite good. Check it out. Here's my interview with Chris Bosch. So this is my first in person. Have you did you did a few in person things? Yeah, I've not a few in person things. I think it started like a couple of or a few weeks ago, we did like family few. You did family few. That's amazing. Thank you to the week.

Did you win? I can't I can't tell. I can't I can't tell you can't know what is the the gap before air you sign stuff. It's crazy So like we played well we were on the game show and that was like I Guess the first In person kind of thing we went to and then few weeks before that like restaurants We were like okay, hey, let's go to a couple restaurants. We went to our, start going back to our favorite restaurants. So things are slowly getting, slowly getting back there. Yeah, it's weird. Even when you get the vaccine, you know you're good,

but then you were just so used to being careful for so long that it feels irresponsible, even though the facts have changed. Yeah, I think it's good to have, it's good to have that, that layer of protection for yourself to be like, hey, let's wash your hands. Yeah.

You know, because I know I'm a lot more conscious of how many times I touch my face and me just washing my hands and the mask. My thing is like, I traveled a lot in my past life, right? So we probably should have been doing a little bit of it, right? Totally. Why would we ever get in a thin metal tube with a bunch of strangers breathing the same air for like eight hours in a row? It's insane. You know, it's just a little layer of protection. And then you know, you could take it off once you know, it's just it kind of, it probably should have been that way. But you know, as we're

kind of getting back to whatever the new normal is, I'm still definitely very, very aware and very cautious of things. Well, because you have young kids also, so like the craziest thing for me the last year and half is like, I haven't gotten sick like one time. Yeah. Like, because when you have kids, you're sick all the time. Right. Because they're just like germ, magnets, they bring them home, they lick your face. Especially when you start school. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I remember when my Special start school. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when my son started school, it's like I was coming from road to baby.

Yeah. And I mean, I was sick all the time. I didn't even tell if it was me making him sick or him getting me sick. I couldn't tell anymore. Well, that's what's so weird to me. Yeah, even like in the NBA, right? Like they have like all the protocols now. And then if you, you know, a certain percentage

of the team is vaccinated, then they can relax them. But it's like, you basically have all these million dollar race horses, right? That's what professional athletes are, like the finest specimens. And it's kind of crazy that there was no protocols before. Like this Yankee coach, he came in the office, he ended up giving everyone COVID, but he's like, oh, I, he came in the office, you ended up giving everyone COVID,

but he's like, oh, I thought I just had the flu, right? Like, you're like, why would you go, why would you bring flu into this finally, you know, into this finally calibrated environment? Like, why would you do that? And anything and anything will throw the whole business off. One loss can, yeah, not to be too dramatic, but you have that one bad stint

can just mess up a whole season. Yeah, I was talking to an NBA coach once and he said that the team had like a day off in New York City. So they did like a family day where they all went to like the natural history museum or whatever. And so he said all the players, you know, like they don't usually get to take their kids to museums

because they're on the road. So they took them and he said, the next day, every player was sore because they weren't used to carrying their kids around and he was like, these are finally tuned machines. And then we put them through this unexpected, like motion and then we had to like compensate for it so they didn't pull my stuff. I mean, they could have, could have, well, you know, it's easy for me to say, right? They could have sought it coming. I'm only saying that because I have carried my kids to museums and stuff like that. No, you're just like, I don't have any weight of your back hurts.

I've done the summer trips. You know what I mean? And it's just, it's a lot of frustration there, you know? So I wouldn't, I probably wouldn't do the family thing. I would probably do like a family park kind of situation museum. Whoo boy. My kids don't want to go to a museum. I don't care how it is. And, and if you do get them to, to say, man, that's cool. They'll pick that one thing that you'll be like, no, no, no, guys, check out this exhibit. No, no, no, I want to go over here. So I mean, I see no neither here nor there,

but I'm sure I'm sure they got something out of it. Well, that's been weird to me, you know, sort of following, you know, some of the vaccination troubles with teams where it's like, these people will do anything for an advantage in the game. And then they can't get everyone on board with not to forget like a life saving, like the element of the vaccines.

I think it's like, imagine if you just have to miss a playoff game because you're in protocols, but like, so it's been weird how this pandemic has sort of challenged us rationally. Like things that if you ordinarily said, hey, here's this medicine that will prevent you from having to miss a game for the following reasons. They'd be like, Sure, I'll do that in two seconds. Yeah. Or, you know,

here's this chemical compound rub on your body and you'll bounce back fast. They do in two seconds. Then the lack of vaccine. No, no, it's definitely, I guess a stigma out about vaccines. It makes people, it gives people the willies. It does. It's crazy. I was thinking about you though, because you, so 2020 through like a bunch of people for a loop, right? It's like we thought the year was gonna be one way. Right. And then all of a sudden it was not that way

and it'll never be the same again. And by the way, you're spending a lot more time with your family than you ever thought possible. That strikes me as eerily similar to the journey you went on a few years ago when you suddenly get, you know, a blood test back. Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's a very good, very, very good analogy, man.

It was, I guess for me, and I kind of think about this all the time, doing one thing, like I was watching, I've been watching them the playoffs playing games and all that stuff and it was it was an instance where they were talking about the age of Clay Thompson and Kevin Durant James Hardin Steph Curry the greatest players now and their 32 33 and I said wow I was done playing by now by that time in their career now, I wasn't playing basketball anymore.

So that was just kind of a crazy thing. And then one of the things that I always kind of come back to is how casual it was in everybody's response. I'm not playing back the sport that I love, everything that I've done. And people were so cavalier with everything like, Oh, Chris, you'll be fine. Right. That's good. You're you're good. You off. Man, early term, like, you know, I'm turning 32 and I don't know what I'm going to do. I'm going to

get back in the league. I thought I was going to still play at that point in time. And I hadn't come to certain realizations yet. You know, but like just kind of Going through that process of getting first trying to find out what you're gonna do trying to have some sort of voice Sure And then adjusting to the new world and then I was joking with people like man Last three years have been crazy. It's kind of been a bit of a kick in the nuts for me Not you know not to put everything on me. We all go through stuff, but, you know, I couldn't play anymore. And then, you know, my brand new father again, I've got twins now. And so there's, there's a new adjustment to that in the household. And then I'm not playing anymore. I don't know what I think I got it. Now the pandemic happens. You know what I mean?

And it's like, guys, I've been thinking for like two years. Oh, man, I've got this idea. I'm telling you, I bought a whole bunch of equipment. I was going to make like this, like a content creation center. So I bought like a bunch of electronics, like a place where I can create content and some of my friends can. You know, just around the clock. Pandemic happens. It's like, oh my goodness. So, you know, in which all of us had to do that, right? But, you know, just kind of going through it,

it is very similar in just saying how you have to, you're doing one thing and how you're used to it. And then next day, next month, this totally different has changed. Yeah, there's that expression, man proposes, God disposes. You know, we have our plan and then life's like, nope. It's not how it's gonna go. It's a good plan and it would have been a good plan.

It's still probably a good plan. I mean, this bookstore, right? This was supposed to open exactly a year ago. And life was like, no, you're gonna to sit on it for a year. And every single day you're going to wake up and go, was this a huge mistake? Is this ever going to happen? But that's, you know, that's like how it goes. Yeah. And that's, it's kind of, you know, it's playoff time. So I get, I start reliving my playoff life when I was playing basketball. That one of the key things that we always said was stay with it.

You know, that's one of the things that will separate a good team from a great team. Because when you're a good team, you can win a couple games. It's great. When you're on top, it's great. But great teams, even when it's looking bad, they continue to stay with, they stay together, they stay with their game together, they stay with their game plan, they stay with it. So you just got to say, hey, you can't be foolish or anything like that.

But if you believe in your plan, if you've been working in your fundamentals, and it's like, no, we've got to, hey, this is the plan, let's stay with the plan and keep going. Yeah, the Stoics kind of talk about this like rhythm. Marcus says, when you're jarred by circumstances, which is what happens, you have to come back to the rhythm. And I'm sure it's like that. And basketball, it's like, you know,

you're pretty good from the three point line, but you miss three, four in a row. Right. Now all of a sudden are you, but that's your shot. Right. But statistically, you're gonna miss some sometimes, you know? And so you have to be able to go, okay, it didn't work for the following reasons. But I'm not going to throw out everything I prepared for. I have to, I have to re-center. And as you said, I have to stay with it. Because

that's exactly what my opponent wants. My opponent wants me to be rattled by things not going my way. Not getting the calls, me being tired. Yeah, hoping wasn't, I'm applauding. No, you're thinking about something else. You're not thinking about the next evolution. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? That's always the most important thing.

Well, think about trash talk too. Like why do players talk trash, right? Yeah. It's because they want to get in your head. They want to rattle you. They want to upset you. They're trying to provoke a reaction. And I kind of think like life is kind of trash talking this too.

You know, like life is trying to distract us, upset us, throw us off our game, and you have to be that person who they can just like lock in and tune it out. Yeah, it's funny you say distracting and trash talking. The first thing come to my mind, not so much about life trash talking me, but like KG We were just in a springfield talking about it for the Hall of Fame thing for the Hall of Fame and It was this one instance where we were playing each other and he he was a average trash talk. Yes, and and not only do they use it to get in your head, but it's it's almost like

only do they use it to get in your head. But it's almost like just something thrown out to where if you give it attention, now they're hyped up too. Now, what are you talking to? Who are you talking to? I'm, you know, it kind of starts going, right? And so I took the bait. I took the bait this one time.

And I had one, not the worst game of my career, but I remember it, that's how bad it was. And he, you know, he gets into his zone and he pretty much dominates me. And I'm like, I'm tired. They win the game on the last second shot. I'm embarrassed. I was talking trash and I wasn't in shape

because I didn't have a whole, it was crazy, man. And I remember just like losing sleep, like having sleepless nights. Like, he got the best of me. He called me a momma's boy. And I lost it because you know that piece of trash talk it really gets you if it's true, right?

Right, yeah, that's right. Right, right. They're throwing a bunch of stuff out there and one percent of it's true. That's the only thing you would hear. But we had a good laugh at it. But, you know, that's, that was, I learned two things. I'm not a trash talker. And, and, and, and, and, and, and in someone or something is trying to get, get you off of your game. Just, just stay, just do what you do. Be the player who you are, because, you know, that, that's where the ego can kind of get involved and say,

oh, well, I'm cool too. And I'm going to say something to you. And they say something back. And it's a good one, you know. And then I think I score like seven points. It was, it was bad. I was out of, I wasn't a shape yet. It was, I learned that there was another level

that I had to get to to be successful, you know. No matter how much I thought I was cool. You talk about this in the book a little bit, right, which is like, especially for kids, you might not be up against Kevin Renette, but, you know, at any time you can log on to social media and find somebody who has an opinion about you, of course. Right. Of course. And I find that it's like sometimes, sometimes you can, I think sometimes you crave it, right?

Like, you know, like, hey, I gotta focus on this stuff, I gotta do what I gotta do. But then you also know, like, if I pull up the internet, I can get lost. It's like you can, you know it's gonna make you miserable, but you do it anyway. Yeah, it's like that indulgence, right? Yeah.

It's like your poison of choice. Yes. I was doing the same thing when I was a kid. Of course, social media wasn't as prominent, of course, but I had a desktop. Yeah. And it was a website, oh man, Texas Hoops, Texas Hoops, Texas Prospects.com.

Something along the lines of that. Sure. And I would click on it and I would be in the comments section. Even back then, you know, just reading stuff and people would be talking trash and getting after it. But yeah, it's like I had to look at it. I didn't learn until later on in my career. Of course, you know, when it's a kid, it's not threatening, it's fun,

but, you know, by the time I got to Miami, you know, in that first year that we got together, that was kind of when it reached its tipping point for me and I was okay with it, I said, okay, I need to, this is like, this is ruining my day. This is the craziest feeling right now. I shouldn't feel like this one day, you know what I mean? this is ruining my day. This is the craziest feeling right now. I shouldn't feel like this one day. You know what I mean?

And I start. I don't think I've ever logged on to social media and then left and been like, I'm so glad I did that. You know, I feel better as a person. That's crazy, right? That's crazy. But then we do it anyway. Yeah.

I think you have to find that sweet spot. But yeah, you definitely, and I've kind of been very much aware of this too, just, you know, one of the things I've learned from this pandemic, it was kind of like me watching the news. Yes. I, it locked me in for the good four years, five years, and I was watching it every day, but then the insurrection happened. Then after the election, and then the insurrection is like, man, I can't do this anymore.

I can't do it anymore. I have to be more aware of what I'm taking into my brain, because this is crazy. Well, that's even the defense of some of the people who are arrested at the insurrection. They're like, you know, they're like plea or they're, their, their defense is like, you don't understand. They've watched so much news. It's broken their brain.

Yeah. And I think that's what it does. It breaks your brain. It can. And I mean, and I mean, think about that. That's just a news aspect. How many, how many levels and layers of information are on social media and on the internet? So, you know, anytime I'm like anything I'm consuming, whether I'm watching it, you know,

I'm, I'm very aware of it. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. back to the show, stay tuned. the build up, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans form the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling

parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or The Wondery App. So let's go back to what we were talking about earlier, which is like life throws stuff at you. To me, the definition of stoicism is that,

you don't control what happens, you control how you respond. And that's what you have to do as an athlete, that's what you have to do as a parent, that's what you had to do the last year in the pandemic, which is like, how do I figure out how to make the best of it? Cause you can't quit. Quitting is not an option.

I, that, that's one of the, the, the, sayings I like to say is that, you know, failure is not trying. Yeah. You know, not even trying, just saying, I, you know, whatever excuse, you give yourself not to, not to try every anything you go after You're gonna take some loves you're gonna take some punches. You're gonna get knocked down, you know, and I Didn't understand that at least for me until you know Losing in Dallas in 2011, which was crazy. It's 10 years ago almost to the date and

was crazy, it's 10 years ago almost to the date. And I wise Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant every year. They make it to the finals all the time and they win. Yeah. So when you get to a point where you think you have some immunity because of whatever accolades you've racked up in the past or because you're a professional basketball player on this level, when we lost, it really clicked in for me and just said,

wow, okay, because sure I was dealing thing with things off the court as a person. You feel that's not fair. And then all these other things that happen and that's not fair, at least we could win, right? This dumb championship, then we lose it. And it's like, ah! How devastating is that?

It's like a loss in the family. It's like it's a sudden loss. And especially when you put yourself, you put yourself in the state of mind of visualizing yourself doing it for months and months and months. And then for me, it was especially tough. It's my hometown team.

We're planning a Mavericks. I'm watching, I'm watching my ex-class mates wear Mavericks jerseys and shirts. It didn't watch that stuff. Nobody wore Mavericks stuff back in the day. Now, everybody's rocking the championship gear. It was devastating, but it made me realize how I understood right away of, you know, Jason Kidd, Derrick Navinsky, Jason Terry, those guys went through pain, losing back in 2006, Jason Kidd back in 2003. And again, in 2004, you know, it's just, or in 2001, 2002. But imagine how devastated Jason Terry would have been,

because you got that tattoo. Remember, you got that in advance. Hey man, hey, and I learned something from that too. I remember that, because I remember looking at it, like, who do these guys think they are? Hey man, you gotta get it added on you sometimes. It's like failure is not an option. And understanding that, I understood after pretty much just coming

up short and kind of having that pie in the face moment and knowing that I have to rebuild from that and hopefully, hopefully get back to that level the next year, but accept whatever consequence comes. Yeah, I was talking to Manage Nobly, and he was telling me that the pivotal moment for him was going up for that rebound with you. He said, he told me that he should have fouled you, is what he said.

But he was saying, so he goes up for that, they end up losing the series, he comes home and he's like, I've never been more unhappy in my life. They never lost, they had never lost. Yeah, never lost. And what he was saying though, is what struck him was he was like, I'm living my dream, I'm one of the best people

in the world at what I do. I gave my absolute best. If I'm not having fun and enjoying myself while I'm doing it, like I'm gonna regret it forever. So did you come out of losing with a better appreciation for the game and for, like you quote Kipling in the book, you know, like to treat winning and losing

as the same imposter. You know, you know, were you able to come out of that a little bit closer? After the loss. Yeah. Yeah. For sure. You, um, I hate the, the term losing bills character, but it kind of does. You just don't want to make it a habit. Yeah. You know, you just don't want to make it a habit. Yeah. You know, you just don't want to make it a habit. But having those, yeah, show me a good loser

and I'll show you a loser. You know what I mean? So just like in that context, you think about the things that you could have done better. You think about maybe that day off where you're like Let me just kind of close today or that that moment even if it was just for a minute that you kind of lost focus in

In what you do and that time where you say man I should have been having a little more. I should have been enjoying myself a little more because we lost anyway You know at least could have had a good time. There's a fine balance in both. And I think for me, my personal journey with that was just understanding that it could happen to you. Understanding that, just because of the level you're at doesn't make you impervious to these things.

You're human. You're gonna have to go through this process. And sometimes you're just gonna get beat up. What are you gonna, like you say, what are you gonna, how are you going to react? How are you going to be the one to challenge the way that you think in getting better after this? Are you gonna get better?

Are you just gonna kind of sit around and complain? Because after a while, you know, that's only going to get you so far eventually, which for most of us was right away. But like, you know, I got back on the horse and, and, and, you know, got to a point to say, man, I'm not going to let it beat me next time. There's, because there's some ego in it too, right? Is this quote I love. It's the first sign of an impending nervous collapse is the belief

that your work is terribly, terribly important. And it's like, what you do is important. I like, I care so much about my books, but then, you know, like one of the things that's great about having kids is like, they don't care at all. You know, like it's, it's nothing to them. It's a book. You might as well be in insurance sales, right? Yeah. And it helps put it in perspective,

which is that it's important, and excellence is important. And as you said, you don't want to make losing a habit. At the same time, if you think that it's a matter of life and death, it's probably actually a bad strategy over the long term. Yeah, you don't want to, like fight or flight is there for a reason right?

Yeah. You want to fight or fly. If you're having those feelings and you're not fighting or flighting, I don't understand, you know, and it's especially if we're putting sometimes you can't help it. Yeah. You're going to have your reaction. If you're putting in like you say, those life or death situations, I've known people. And I've done that for myself as well. Yeah.

Life or death just came as you know, sometimes you use it to kind of psych yourself out. But yeah, after a while, you've got to be loose. Yeah. You know, you have to, you have to have a flow to things. You have to, you just can't be rigid. You know, that was one of the things I learned playing the game too. You know, in, in, in losing that series against Dallas, we were just so uptight. Yeah.

Oh my gosh, man, just too tight. Nothing was loose. We weren't trusting the work that we had put in up into that point. And we were just kind of beside ourselves a little bit and not concentrating on playing. We were concentrating on mistakes or making it life or death or saying, oh my God, we lost a game. Okay, we got to win the next one then.

Goal is a good metaphor, I think, and that, you know, like the harder you try, the worse you are at it. Like you still have to be good. You still have to train, you know, you still have to know your fundamentals, but like in Buddhism they talk about willful will. You have too much willful will.

If you're trying to force it too much, that's when you, and you mentioned sort of tight loose. Like that's what a trainer wants you to be. They want you to be loose. If you're tight, that's when you hurt yourself. For sure, that's when you hurt yourself. That's when you start pulling stuff. And you know, in plan for different coaches you know the greater coaches

they they emphasize being loose you know as a team you know you might do something instead of practice today let's watch a movie yeah you know let's watch he got game or something like that you know and let's discuss it or let's do things to make sure that we're loose, we're good, let's not be in this tension of life or death for the whole time, because, you know, we're human beings, we pick up on those things, pretty good, and if it's like that collectively as a group, if everybody's tight,

and, you know, it's really not gonna work. I think that's like, for instance, the unfair advantage that Tom Brady has, right? He's been there so many times. He can be like, when, and when you watch him when he's up against, you know, like a Jared Gough, who's the first time he's been in the Super Bowl, like, by definition, who's loser, the guy who's been there, like, a dozen times? You know, the guy who's not only been in the Super Bowl, but been down by 25 points in the Super Bowl, you can be chill because you're like, and we talk, you and I've talked about this where it's like the difference between ego and confidence.

Confidence is loose. Egos like, my identity's riding on this. Everything can, but confidence is like, I've been here before. Yeah, hey, I've been here before. remember that time we discussed if we're down 25 at halftime. Yeah. This now is a time to implement those things. Good thing we've talked about this because these are the packages we need to run. Yes. And I mean, even if I'm in Jared golf situation, being a young quarterback, getting to the Super Bowl, you know, golf, Tom Brady.

Oh my goodness. You can get into all that stuff. I found that game fascinating because Tom knew like, okay, I'm just, we're just going to grind these guys into the ground. We're going to make it close because I know they're a little tight. Yeah. If it's a third and four and they're down three, they're gonna feel a little bit different

because they're used to their offense running at a certain level. And if it's not running at that level, they're gonna fill it a little bit. So it's just kind of, you gotta train, man. You have to identify what those things, that first what you wanna do, and then work backwards from there and say, okay, hey, I want to be a really good basketball player or we want to win a championship as this team.

All right, cool. These are the things that we need to do. We've got to communicate good. We've got to make sure we're practicing and putting the work in every day. And we have to make sure that we're together and, and, and we know our stuff. So when it hits the fan because it will, when you know, we, we don't, we stay together, you know, and make sure we're, you know, doing the things that we always practice. Well, that, that goes back to what you're saying earlier about staying with it. If you've been there a bunch of times and you know, like, we're going to win this game. We don't care if it's sexy, if it's exciting, like, complete. Bella checking Brady, like, this will be the most boring fucking Super Bowl in history. We don't care. But, but, but, but God, it's like, I got a reputation for throwing it. I'm not being able to throw it. People are, people are going to blame this on me.

You know, all those things running through your head, they make it hard to stay with it. And I think, you know, in this situation for like a Jared God for even my homes, you know, having that, you know, he's running from defensive line and for the whole game, you know, you have those moments and say, okay, cool. You remember the whole, everything that was running through your head, and I, even for myself,

you know, don't get too high, don't get too low, right? Yeah. We were, when we were playing in the finals, we win game one. You're obviously about to win a championship. Lose game two, embarrassingly. Oh, our game two loss, we gave up a 12.4th quarter lead.

Late. Oh, man, so embarrassing, bad. Then we get in the game through, we win that one. Yes, we're about to win it again, we back on top. And then, you know, then after that, we fell off a cliff. So like, that was my experience. Should have been straight the whole time. Because regardless, the game is gonna have a beginning and end.

You know, you're gonna have to go through the motions of this game. But like that helped us when we played the spurs because it's just like one of those things. You flinch for a minute, you lose. So you have to kind of go through the process. Each game, good, bad, and different. You know, and regardless, you try to do better the next time around.

Well, you have a chapter in the book about leadership. And I think people think leadership is, you know, Tom Brady must have gone in the fourth quarter of that game. They're down 28 to three, and given the most exciting speech in the history of sports. You know, like, he's Churchill, you know, like, we're gonna fight the Nazis on the beaches. That's what you expect. But I think you know, like, we're gonna fight the Nazis on the beaches. That's what you expect.

But I think actually leadership is like, a Tom's not rattled, you know? Like, Chris doesn't seem to think we're in any trouble. And that, especially for the younger people on the team, to be able to look to the leadership and go, these guys think we still have a chance. That's what leadership is. Like, you know, they say calm is contagious.

For sure. So it was hope, so it was confidence. All those things are contagious. One of the things, speaking of Tom Brady, you're saying that part. That was the year before that, but the main thing that I watched to where leadership was that nobody really even talked about was last year, as soon as he got signed with the books, they're out on the field.

Yeah, like a high score. Running around, out on the field in the heat. I'm sure football players, oh my God, I'm sure. For so many people, yeah, you know what I mean? I think that one over so many people's head because people only think about the speech that he might be giving right now or why is he back here again and they'll show them raising the trophy on replay. I only remember it being in the moment them running them rouse. That's those are the highlights they need to show. You know, because there's a reason why they're cool, common, collected, because they've gone over and over and over and over and then,

so when you're in these situations and you're a leader, you know, you're looking to them, well, first I've put the work in with this person, so I feel comfortable. You know, hopefully they've had a few meals together and they had some good time. So just like, you know, to your point, if they're not rattled, okay, now I will go with this person and lead them because, you know, if you're being a mean person and nobody likes you, or you being a, you know, asshole and adventure something, you know, people won't follow you to that part.

But, you know, doing those small things of when, when the situation starts instead of looking at the grand picture right away, saying, okay, we want to get there, this is what we got to do, we work on our fundamentals. We've got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show, StayTude. I've raved about athletic greens before, with all the things we've all got going on, trying to work, stay healthy, stay strong, work out.

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and get your free year supply of vitamin D plus five free travel packs today. Yeah, there was another story that I think also got looked over. Where he accidentally went in the wrong person's house. Did you hear this one? So he thought he was going over to one of the quarterback coaches house to pick up some plays.

And he was new in. He was new in Tampa and he went in the wrong house. And it was a story because like it's the middle of the pandemic and some guy just looks back and Tom Brady's in his house, And it was a story, because like it's the middle of the pandemic and some guy just looks back and Tom Brady's in his house, like looking for a binder, whatever. But what I loved about that is you have the greatest quarterback of all time,

you know the greatest, one of the greatest athletes of all time, go into his coaches house in the office and to pick up a binder of ways to study. You know, like he could have got a PDF, he could have said his assistant, he could have said his assistant, he could have made him come to him. But to me, that's also embodying good leadership,

which is like, nobody's too big to learn. Nobody has it down. Like, you gotta put in the work and you put in the work before the season even starts. For sure, man, for sure. I think so many people could really, really benefit from that because there's so many too, too many times when I, you know, the media they have their job to do is time,

when it's time to pump it up, it's time to pump it up. But if you were, you know, trying to go after something, it's a process and you cannot cheat it. That is one thing you cannot do. You can't cheat the process and then even then that doesn't guarantee you anything. You have to have your stuff together because you want to win. That doesn't guarantee you win, right? You just have to make sure you're doing your process. I had the chance to have a conversation with Kobe. you know, of course, you know, we're friendly and, you know, we'd have dinner, we'd try to have dinner once a year. And he, he, he, he always talked

about loving the process of what you do. That's like, that's important. You have to love what you do and love putting the work in because some days are going to suck. It's always going to suck to go into the gym and shoot 10,000 free throws, right? And then me everybody's like, oh, Colby, this is amazing. He's like, yeah, that's cool, but think about my day. I get up at 4.30, take my kids to school. I lift ways, I go to practice, I pick them up for school, then I've gotta do treatment,

cause I'm 35 years old in the league, so then I gotta do treatment, and then by the time I finish all that stuff, the day's over. I don't do anything. And then by the time I finish all that stuff, the day's over. I don't do anything else. This is all I do. And if you take on that approach, to something that you love, if you can stick with it, even in those tough days, those are when that's where you want to be.

Well, I think people miss this. I forget which writer told me this, but they were saying, you know, there's a difference between writing and publishing. Publishing is fun, right? Playing in the finals is fun, right? Playing in the NBA is fun. Practicing in the NBA is not as fun. Right.

You know, like me sitting up in my office, I'm working on this book right now. I don't know what it's going to be. Like I haven't cracked it every day. I wake up and I'm not making any progress or doesn't feel like it's gonna be. I haven't cracked it every day, I wake up, and I'm not making any progress, or it doesn't feel like I'm making progress. You actually, you have to love the painful part. For sure.

And then the other parts extra. For sure. You know what I mean? The grind. Yes, you have to love the grind. You got to love the grind, man. And just speaking to what I was saying earlier, that's the part I always like to think of.

Anytime something gets hard, if I'm pursuing a goal, and I want to I want to quit. It's going to come. It's going to come. It's okay. Right. How many people would quit right now? You know, that's the first thing I think about then I keep going. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Because I'm like, okay, I'm not going to let this drop me off, you know, and just just keep me away from what I'm doing. And I think that's fascinating. You having that problem right in the book, because I'm sure pretty sure people are like, oh yeah, one's a nice book coming out soon, huh? You know, it's hard work and kind of stuck,

but it's cool, you know, we'll be fine. Well, if it was easy, if there was no wall around it, right? Not only would everyone do it, but then everyone would do it, and there wouldn't be any money in it, right? Not only would everyone do it, but then everyone would do it and there wouldn't be, there wouldn't be any money in it, right? I know that sounds craft, but like, there wouldn't scarcity is what creates value. So if everyone could do what you did, and if it was fun from beginning to end, there'd be a million people doing it, and nothing would break through the noise, right? Like, yeah, lots of people wanna be in the NBA, but there can only be 500 of the best players

in the world at one time. And so the people who, but if there could be 10,000 players, like it would be cool. It would be cool. It changes the whole game. So I always go like, it's good that it's hard, right? If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it.

And this would be a minimum wage job, you know? It would just be spread. Okay, everybody gets to, you know, spread, but I mean, it is what makes it special. You know, it is what makes things special. It's, it's rising to the occasion when it's time, you know? Yeah, it's like a moat keeps people out or a moat is keeping you out, but you want to think like it's also keeping everyone else out.

So it's like, you can get across this. You've got, you've got to bear your, it's like, it's preventing you from getting in, but once you get over, it's keeping everyone else out too. That's a great way to look at it. Yeah. So there's a book behind you I was just thinking about when I think you one of my favorite books range. Have you read range?

I have not. Oh, so it's the subtitles, how generous, triumph and specialized world. What's interesting is like obviously to be great at the MBA, you have to, any professional author, you have to be super specialized, right? Years and years, 10,000 hours of practice. But at the same time, you're not one of those guys who, as Kobe was, Kobe's all basketball. You were not all basketball.

You had a range of interests. And you explored those. I'm curious how guitar, music, language, reading, all the other things that you did. How is that, and how did that make you a better basketball player? And how is that sort of informed, even now when you think about with your kids? Yeah. I always I always had other things, you know, language, guitar and music came a little later. I had given up. I gave up on it in my mid 20s early 20s. That's why I, you know,

went back to it. But I always wanted to do some things to take my mind off of basketball. Sure. It's a lot of flights, a lot of bus rides. So you need some hobbies. I didn't think of it this way, but I had a friend that told me, hobbies lead to greatness.

And I always thought that fascinating and just that made me look back on things. And I did these things just to kind of get my mind off of the game. Sure. Because, you know, I was all in the basketball. That is all I did, but I also had other interests. And one of the things that I found was when I'm like, so for instance, during the playoffs, I would cook. The day before a game, I would cook dinner

because you have to concentrate on the meal or it's gonna suck. Right. You know, so I'm looking at the time, I'm checking the meat, I'm making sure I don't burn, boil the water over. It's the thing that I have to focus on. Sure.

You know, because if I don't, my brain is going to start going and then we're going to start thinking about tomorrow and I'm going to be back in that rabbit hole. Right. It's fine. Sure. You don't want to be there all the time. And one of the things I found is that once I start relaxing in my cooking or in me playing the guitar or in me studying for something in language, I see some weird connection to where I think about basketball. But it'd

be like, okay, I could put that to the side. It's like, it was this crazy thing of no, you know, no, no judgment. Wow, I never thought it at before. This is the move I'm going to do tomorrow. I got it. Right. Yeah. Sometimes when you're thinking about something else, you create room for your brain, sort of subconsciously solve some problem that we talked about will for will, you know, if you're, I got to solve this, I got to solve this, I got to solve this, you're not going to make any progress. Yeah. Yeah. And I think I'm bred something somewhere like I, I, I, it's not played the violin. If if he if he ran into problem. He just played violin for days weeks hours. How whatever it took.

So I always thought I thought that pretty fascinating. And that's kind of what I started using my hobbies for. Because the grind will grind you down if you don't have anything to refresh all the way down. You can stay in it. and to refresh all the way down. You can stay in it. And you can, you know, I was working with this, um, with a video game team, um, in the Overwatch League. And it's these Korean kids, you know, living in LA, competing, and they weren't doing too good. They're supposed to be the best team in the world, and they weren't doing too good. They're supposed to be the best team in the world and they weren't doing too good. And their thing is to be like, okay, 18 hours a day. Okay, video games playing video games. Like, hey guys, you know what, sometime you'll go to the park.

Yeah, sometimes you just stink. Yeah. Sure. I've been there plenty of times. Sometimes you just need to go in there and be like, yeah, get out of here. Go for a walk, go eat a delicious meal, go do something else, get out of here. You know, there is, you know, a lot of something

to take from from just taking time off there. That is, you know, you do need time to repair your brain and your body to be able to compete at maximum level. I bet that made you more resilient when the game went away too because so many people that their whole life they're a whatever than they retire and they're like who am I? You at least knew you had other things you like to do. Yeah and it was still tough. I couldn't imagine like not having anything to go through a whole career and say, well, I didn't do anything like anything else.

I mean, I didn't watch TV. I didn't do anything. You know, and, you know, as difficult as it was, you know, I did some writing and I did, you know, music and I, you know, learned a couple languages. And I was just always open to, you know, going to on vacations with my wife, she, she be on me as soon as the season ends. You go, hey, come on, let's go, let's go, let's go. Because she knows, she only got me four months.

Right. So I mean, we would, you know, take the kids and we be in Europe and, you know, take those vacations and really just take in other cultures and stuff like that. And then even after that, even after me losing my career in basketball, it was still difficult. You know, but I had something to say, okay, well, let's go watch a film or let's go on vacation. You know, I could, you know, luckily I could afford one, you know, but like, you

know, you just get, it's these avenues. You don't know what they're, what's down in, but. Sure. I'm gonna go down and see what's here, you know, it makes me feel good. Yeah. I asked Doug Christie, who's one of my heroes

growing up as a basketball player. I asked him what I should ask you. And he said, because he knows you're sort of, an intellectual guy you're always trying to learn stuff. He was saying, is there anything that you've learned since you stopped playing, but you wish you knew while you were playing? I would say like getting more into the body

and treatment and stuff like that. Yeah. If you have a chapter about that in the book, like how much you have to invest in taking care of yourself. I wish I would have done a little more. Really? Yeah, a little more. I was kind of, I was into it quite a bit

because being around LeBron and DeWane, seeing the level that they were at, I said, okay, I got to get to this level and I was getting better and better and I was getting older. So you get more into the technology. I wish I would have just taken a little bit of time to even back then just take, you know,

the hour, two hours a week, you know, just squeeze it in there. And I would definitely like learn more about money. Oh, interesting. I would just, just the fundamentals, just take, you know, take the time, one hour every other week, nothing crazy, but just have someone walk me through these things so that I can understand it because you can kind of get to a point where it's like,

yeah, you're just, I'm under a mountain and I don't know, yeah, sure, I don't know what's going on. I can relate to both those things, you know, obviously for an athlete, like your tools or your body. But I'll find this, every once in a while, I'll be like, I like to write in Sharpie. And Sharpie start to get to all. And I'll be like, I'll just be using this Sharpie,

and I'll be like, why am I using this old Sharpie? Sharpie is, it's weird, we know businesses are supposed to invest in themselves, right? They take the profits, they put it into R&D, tools, they hire good people. But then when it comes to us, especially if you work for yourself, you know, you're like, okay, this is the best,

I don't know, physical therapists in the world, they cost $200,000 a year, something. Like that sounds insane. But like if it had given you a year more of playing, that would have been the greatest investment you could have ever made. You know, if this sharpie, if because it's not working,

I don't write something down that ends up being a chapter in my book, like, you can't. It's hard to calculate what stuff's worth, but like, you can end up sheeping out on things that are where you should be investing the most time of money. Right. And I mean, that's a, that's a hell of a thought.

Like, and, you know, young athletes, they're coming from a position where, you know, nothing to then your cash and the spotlight. And, you know, that's the, I mean, I guess that's just life. Yeah. How could you know, you know, yeah, now you're a fortune 500 company. Now you got to run it. Don't mess up. Yeah.

And don't go broke. That doesn't even make any sense. The kids 18. Yeah. And then there's this narrative of saying, oh, well, I've at least going broke. Yeah, you know, there's no tools that we're given. You don't even go to a workshop. You're just like, all right, cool.

You're working now. And this is what you do. You know, so it can be in a point of being overwhelmed, but I find myself in a position now of really understanding more about teamwork, more about investing in those things that could help you out. And looking for talent and making those close connections with people to hopefully help you, or you could help each other achieve greatness. Well, and when you're young, there's obviously genetics that whatever makes you tall

and a good athlete, but then there's also just the fact that like you are used to just being able to treat your body like crap. And then as you get older, you realize like, oh, to get the same gas mileage, I have to put in better fuel. You know, you know, you go eat some crap every night. You know, I love McDonald, but I had no some guys. They had a bag coming into the, I'm not going to say a bag full of wood,

but just the bag coming into the game. You know, but those are those, you know, just things of people coming from where they come from and just not having the tools to learn more. And, you know, hindsight those are those, you know, just things of people coming from where they come from and just not having the tools to learn more and, you know, hindsight is always 2020, right? But, you know, those are definitely some of the things that I wish I would have known that's why, of course, writing these things, right? You want those people to benefit from your experience.

Yeah, here's now stressed. Now, man, why not? LeBron stressed. I didn't. Yeah. Would you, I remember when you asked me to work on the project with you, I remember you had a call with me and the marketing people and the publisher and the editor and all these people.

And you said something that really stuck with me as good as your point about teams. You said like, how can we make this a championship team? And it struck me that, like, as, because I don't think about what I do as a team sport, because it's usually not. But you coming from a team sport, you realize the team's not just the four other guys

in the court with you, but then the people on the bench and the trainers, the person who books the flights and... Like popcorn man. Yeah. She's the lady at the parking. Yeah, everybody. Well, actually, I remember I went to a game once and I was going up in the elevator and I saw that the elevator guy had a ring like a championship.

And they were like, they gave everyone in the building a ring. Yeah. But I got to imagine you, you, you understand better than most that success is a team effort. Yeah. And you got to figure out who you want on your bus. To get where you're trying to go. Man, that is one of the main lessons I learned

after I was done. So, you know, in this mode of reinvention and rediscovery and finding out who I am as a person, that's what I tell, if we have any retired athletes watching this, you have to learn who you are. I'm still learning of course, but. Sure. It's a lifelong journey.

Yeah, you know, you try to go into things, you know, that's the time for focus, concentration, like, okay, what, you know, what's in here? You know, I'm sorry, I forgot the question. I just wanted to say that. No, it seems for it. You were saying that you forgot. So like after, after coming right out of that and in my self-discovery, you know, I try to do some things or we try to do some things in the house and it's just hard.

Because somebody used to take care of everything, right? Yes, my, you should take care of those things. Then it's like, okay, those people that we could call, hey, I'm gonna be real. If I'm on, they don't pick up as much, or it's not ringing as much. You're not on the forefront of people's head. So that made me understand even more so how important teamwork is.

And how important. And one of the things that I thought was fascinating in my musical journey, just doing music, you know, sometimes people get very, you know, with art and music and stuff like that. People get very protective of their of their IP, right? Yes, they should be, but like, once he Jones, when he did Thriller, he got the baddest people on the planet, you know, the engineer, the trumpet player. And, you know, of course, it's the greatest album of all time, but he didn't do it on his own, you know.

It takes a team effort to achieve greatness. Got a quick message from one of our sponsors here, and then we'll get right back to the show. Stay tuned. To me, the most beautiful part of the book is the conclusion. You say that idea, it's like, look, one day you lace up your shoes.

That's crazy. And it's the last time you're going to lace up your shoes. Basically that life is fragile, stuff changes. You never know when the last time you get to do something. And you really felt that in a way, much more, everyone has a last game, but, you know, Kobe got a farewell to it.

Right. Right. You know, they know it's their last season. You didn't get that. That man, I've read the book 12 times. That's like, well, 13 including the audio thing. And the last time I read it, that was the thing that struck even me. Like reading the conclusion over was like, wow, and please read the conclusions. I can't say that I always

read the conclusions, you know. But it's just kind of kind of understanding that and knowing and saying, man, like, yeah, it was just all over one day. Like, it wasn't, yeah, it wasn't a farewell tour. My good friend, the way in way, they had the world tour. Yeah. Had T-shirts. Doc Rivers, you grabbed the mic and you was, you know, dirt. Yeah, I'm out. You know, which is classic dirt, right?

But like, you know, just having the chance for those moments, it made me realize how unique and how special those moments were and to be happy for those moments. It made me realize how unique and how special those moments were and to be happy for those guys. But just what normally happens. I had another friend who he just got hurt. There's nothing wrong that he did. He just kept breaking his foot. And you know, we could argue of whose fault it was. It wasn't his fault because he just wants to play between doctors and teams and trainers. The ball was dropped. And people were blaming him. And then he's not in the league anymore just because of an injury.

So it made me realize how real the situation is, of what we're really talking about. Like, yeah, it could be over one day. So make sure you're taking these moments now, stay in your moment and, you know, just enjoy it. And make sure you're enjoying what you're doing because it was just a regular game. And that's what I have come to understand is that, man, I like how it ended, you know,

Da Vinci, most of his paintings were unfinished, right? His masterpieces were unfinished. to understand is that man, I like how it ended. Da Vinci, most of his paintings were unfinished, right? His masterpieces were unfinished. That's how my basketball career is. It was just a day. It would have been too much pressure to say, this is the last game. Let's make everything perfect for Chris.

It was just coming to the game. The announcer announced it. Popcorn people passed out the popcorn. We announcer announced it. Popcorn people, you know, passed out the popcorn, we enjoyed the show, you know, and I played, I had a dunk, you know, man, Chris Weber called my game who is going in Hall of Fame with me, you know, it's just kind of hindsight, of course, looking back on and I appreciated,

but yeah, that conclusion is powerful, it's really powerful, I hope people really, really understand that. Yeah, like DaVinci's, you know, journals, is like, you know powerful. I hope people really, really understand that. Yeah, like Da Vinci's journals, he writes in these notebooks, he's doing a drawing in his last words, his last creative words were like, I gotta go, the soup's getting cold. And he's like, he had no idea.

But that was gonna be the last thing that he wrote in his journal, he thought he'd come back and do a thousand more pages. For sure, for sure. You gotta live it. That's why I tell people, it has to be a part of your lifestyle. You have to live it. So, you know, if it's if it's a part of the repetition that you do, it's a part of your life. It won't be this unnecessary pressure using that fight or flight for something that doesn't exist. Well, to me, the ultimate metaphor of sports, and I'm stealing this from someone, which is that, you know, it's like the life cycle of a person's sped way up. Yeah.

Like, for sure. I'm now, the athletes that are now my age are now like old and retiring. Yeah. Like the people that I remember being a year older than me, you know, like I remember, and they're all out. And so you're watching life's sped up, you know, and you see in an athlete, the aging process faster, right? You're like, oh, you know, he's a savvy veteran. It's like he's 27, you know? Oh, that was vintage. I think I read something. D-Rose wrote a piece on it. I think somewhere I read it somewhere,

but he said, yeah, what does that even mean? Vintage, what? So I'm successful and I can run all over the place when I'm in my early 20s. And I'm successful and running all over the place in my third and you say it's vintage. Yeah, it's some weird thing. But then the kicker is, you know, you'll be old.

Yeah. In the locker room and everybody, oh, oh, man, then you retire and you come in the life. Hello, young man. Yeah. Oh, you don't know nothing. Right. Yeah. You know, or you're trying to have one thing, like, you know, I can afford to take my

kids to private school and put them in private school. All of my friends are 50. I'm with the dads. They're in their mid 50s. Lawyers and doctors and stuff like that. It's just like kind of this, you know, it's two different worlds, you know, but you have to get used to it

and you just gotta stick with it. It's, it's, well, we'll come back to that, but there's something that I experienced too, because I like dropped out of college, I was successful young, and I remember I was talking to this movie producer who was like 26. I was like 19, he's 26.

So he seemed so old. Do I remember? I was like tell me what you've learned. You know, he's like give me this wisdom, you know, because we'd been on similar tracks and he's like look, he's like when you're 20, when you're 21, you're successful. Everyone's like very impressed.

He's like all my friends thought I was so cool. I was a movie producer in my 20s. He's like now I'm 26, all my friends have now graduated from medical school, they're doctors, right? Like, they caught up, right? You know, everything regresses towards the mean. So I bet it's probably humbling too,

where like you take your kids to private school and you're just another rich guy with kids in Texas. That's so funny. Like we were at this art, my wife went to this art exhibit and like that's where everybody knew me from. Yeah. Oh yeah, the Carpool line. Yeah.

Hey Chris, how's it going? Right. He's in my carpool. Yeah. You know, that was the funniest thing because that's where everybody, you know, I recognize you from and you can, you know, it's the thing we have to fight.

You know, that ego keeps knocking at you. No, I'm special. Yeah. I'm a special. I did something special. No, you don't know back in my day, you know, that ego keeps knocking at you. No, I'm special. Yeah. I'm a special. No, no, no, you don't know back in my day, you know, I didn't wait in lines. Yeah. You know, it was so funny. And what was interesting for me, I was not immune to these emotions.

Yeah. I'm like, okay, now I understand what the old times go through. Yeah. I get it now. Let me make sure I'm humble in all of these things that I'm going through and make sure that I understand that it's a phase and we'll work through it. I'm going to stick with it and I'm not going to let it get to me too much because the feelings and emotions like you'll watch the game.

Ah, they're not that good. Where did that come from? Oh my goodness, listen to myself. You know? One of those powerful parts of meditations to me is Mark's realist goes, he's like, he starts naming names. He's like, Vespassian, Octavian, Hadrian.

He's naming the emperors. And you probably, like of the three I just named, you probably heard of like one of them. That was like the most powerful person in the world. And he was like, even then, like, you know, there's only like three emperors behind him. They're gone. Nobody remembers. And so you get inducted to the Hall of Fame.

That's incredible. You're the 0.1% of the 0.1%, but some kid just getting to leave today is like, Chris Bosch, who? He was okay. If he's heard of you at all, I try, like I try to think about, you know, I read a lot of old books, you'll get some old book, and you'll be like, you never heard of, you know, like winner of the Pulitzer Prize. And you're like, what?

This part of you, I've never even heard of it. Crazy. And it came out in 1997, you know, like. And think of what if that person was just dragging, just banging their head against the wall to get that prize. And this will justify me and everybody's gonna know me. How 25 years later, they're irrelevant. So if you think, you know, if you're,

if you're intention of being good at what you do, you talk about finding your why in the book. If you're intention is to be the most famous, the greatest in the world, you might get it, but it will be unsatisfying because it's not gonna give you what you think you want. Marcus, in meditations, he says, Alexander the Great and his Mule Driver, they're both buried in the same ground.

You know, like the guys that you beat out for roster spots in high school, college, pros, now both have something in common, which is that you don't play basketball. Man, I was speaking with a friend of mine. He was a guy that we had him at a few of the heat camps. And you know, he was in that tough spot of, you know, G league overseas. Yeah. Maybe a few games in the league. I'm gonna get her and a tough schedule, man. Right. And he's in a position where he's, you know, thinking about retirement. And it's like, wow, he called me up. And it's like, wow, isn't this crazy? We're just, you know, in the same spot, I can hear the kids in the background, you know, it's the great

equalizer. We're trying to figure things out. And it's like, wow, you know, how many, I'm just glad I was a nice guy back then. And, you know, cool to talk to because, damn, what if, you know, it's good to like, and now that I'm done playing this interesting because like I walk in the room, people, hey, man, how's it going? It's cool to see people smile, you know, because it could be the opposite. Sure. And for him to reach out and say, yo, I'm going through this, I'm going through that. It's like, wow, this is crazy. How about this? We're, we're retired guys now and, man, my buddy's getting, I have a friend, he's getting married in October. Yeah. You know, it's like, wow, this is crazy. How about this? We're retired guys now. And man, my buddy's getting, I have a friend,

he's getting married in October. Yeah. You know, it's like, wow, I'm gonna be in his wedding. And we're just, you know, doing the things, you know? Well, it's like, like, who was runner up for the MVP three years ago? You know, like, or who is Ronald Reagan's vice president? Right.

You know, it gets equalized real fast in that long of a time. Yeah, this is very short, man. I mean, it gets equalized real fast and not that long of a time. Yeah, it's very short, man. I mean, it's very short. And I mean, I get to, you know, I've lucky enough to get to live over and over in that tape loop of an NBA champion, which is great. But, you know, knowing that, what we're talking about, I've, you know, moved on to other things. And I still love breaking the game down, talking about it, but when I look at it,

it's a moment in time and it's in the past. You know, now they're showing KD and Kyrie, and you know, it's a new big three, man. You know, it's newer, it's younger, it's cooler, and we're the old tape that they're showing. Hey, remember this? You know, we're the remember when guys, which is great, but you know, you always have to

have that, you know, you don't have to know what you're doing, but you have to have those things that you enjoy spending your time doing. Well, that was my last question for you. So you have this, I think it gets overlooked because it's like, oh, the result is that Chris can't play anymore. Yeah. But it was like, Chris can't play anymore because he might die if you. Right.

Right. So you had like a real up close reminder of this idea of Memento Mori like life is short. Yeah. You could go at any moment and now you got to figure out. Yeah. You know, you still have this gift of time, but you don't know how long here's your four. Me and my wife, she's challenged me,

being a basketball player, having schedules, which you have to have a schedule, I believe, and do all these things. But she's given a challenge to me, which I've accepted months ago, was to be more present, stay in the moment a lot more. Even if I'm at my desk writing, or making voice memos

or trying to produce some music and get emails out or read these things that I need to read. When it's time to go with the kids, I put it up and it's time to go with the kids. If I'm walking back to the office and I see my wife sitting by the pool and she's answering some emails too, hey babe, let's come out and have lunch.

Right. All right, cool. I used to be in a point where I'm like, babe, let's come out and have lunch. Right. All right, cool. I used to be in a point where I'm like, no, no, no, I have to go back here and I've got to go back to the thing. You know, I'm working now, I'm working on, you know, just being more in the moment and appreciating those things. And it's crazy. My work has gotten a lot better.

It's been insane. Well, I struggle with that too, right? Because to get good at what you do, you have to be driven and you have to be self-driven, right? Like, you don't become great because the coach wants it for you. You have to want it more than the coach wants it. But then it's really hard to turn that off. So yeah, it's like, I like to get up early

and I like to get to work. But then it's like, you know, it's 803. And I'm like a jerk because I gotta get here. And it's like, who's watching? You know, like, if I got there at 815, just stay 15 minutes later. You know, get the work done. But like, you can't sack,

like you're rejecting this present moment, which could be five minutes with your kids, could be a nice conversation with a wife, could just be watching the sunset or the sunrise. For sure. But you're, I think what I realize about the Stokes, the Stokes are saying like, where are you rushing towards? You're rushing towards death.

Right. For sure. You're trying to get this over with. You'll be hurrying and then hit the bump and then, no, you don't, heaven forbid, you know. Well, you're, no, but also it's like, if you, once you get it all done, what happens? Like, you finish this, you finish this, you finish this, what's the last thing that happens? You die. Yeah. So why rush? Like, you should be, you finish this. What's the last thing that happens? You die. So why rush?

Like you should be present, you should show up, you should experience it because you only get to do it once and it's almost arrogant to try to get this thing over with so you could do this thing. When I put my kids down, I go, you know, it's like taking too long, you know, they're saying, never wanna go to bed. I'm like, what am I gonna do? What am I gonna do when you know, it's like taking too long, you know, there's a never want to go to bed. I'm like, what am I going to do?

What am I going to do when you go to bed? Right? Like answer email, watch TV, smash. Right. You know, nothing. I'm not going to do anything that's more important than this. Yeah. And I kind of have that same mentality, you know, we've learned to coexist in the house, you

know, a lot of the times. You don't have to travel 42 nights a year. Yeah. to coexist in the house, you know, a lot of the times. You don't have to travel 42 nights a year. Yeah, you know, so I'm gonna have my child coming in while I'm trying to do my work and say, that come here, you gotta see this, that. Let me show you something. Yeah, let me show you something.

And I'm gonna have to walk across the yard because they want me to show me something. And it used to be like, oh, no, no, no, no, but now I'm saying, all right, cool, yeah, come on. But just having that moment for them to say, wow, they now I'm like, all right, cool. Yeah, come on. But just having that moment for them to say, wow, they don't care about all that stuff. What is important to them is that, hey, that came with me to look at my stick. Yeah, look at my pat rock. Oh, it's crazy, bro. You know, it's just, but having those moments and staying present with that,

you know, it's definitely giving me more of an appreciation for things and how they happen. Because this definitely is a great metaphor of that conclusion of saying, okay, man, you know, man, and I've had my peers a few of them going. Yeah. You know, so let me make sure I'm enjoying today. Let me make sure if I'm working on something, I'm working on something I wanna work on.

You know, and I'm not being a mean person and even if it's a rough day, man, come on kids, let's go for some ice cream or something, go for a walk or something, but just to do something or be open to the flow, taking you somewhere else. That was one of the most beautiful things I read in an article about Kobe a couple days before he died. Some reporter was like, Hey, I want to interview you for this like 20 year anniversary. Some, some big ESPN piece and the text and I mean, just text

it back. Nah, I got my girls. Yeah. You know, like, he didn't know that he only had him for three more days, right? But like, and how long could that interview have taken 10 minutes, 15 minutes? But that's everything. Yeah, that's everything. Yeah, that's everything. Cause he knows like I'm a getting mamba mola and I'll be over here. No, no, no, my girls. And you know, my kids are very much the same as well.

They're like, Hey, Dad, what are you doing? Oh, another interview. Oh, you know, they want to watch cartoons or we have garden and bees now and stuff. You're raising bees? Yeah, we got some bees, man. We wanna go see those things. They wanna get their hands dirty and have experiences and activities and this, through that,

I've gotten to live through them and with them and say, wow, man, look at all this stuff. It's so cool just to smell the dirt and the air and stuff. You know, that's a great thing to be present for. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Check out the book. It's very good.

Thanks for listening to The Daily Stoke Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in The Daily Stoke Store. You can get them personalized. You can get them sent to a friend, whatever you want. We'd love for you to have a copy. I know I love sign copies of some of my favorite books.

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