The Tim Ferriss Show - #438: Coach George Raveling on This Unique Moment in Time, How to Practice Self-Leadership, Navigating Difficult Conversations, and Much More

Starting point is 00:00:00 At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. Can I ask you a personal question? Now would seem an appropriate time. What if I did the opposite? I'm a cybernetic organism, living tissue over a metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. Hello, ladies and gentlemen, this is Tim Ferriss, and welcome to another episode of The Tim Ferriss Show. This is a powerful and unusual episode featuring Coach George Raveling, who made his first appearance on the podcast in 2018.

Starting point is 00:00:37 Right now, I'm looking at a tweet from a listener, Ryan M., who called it his favorite podcast of all time. That type of feedback came in again and again. For me personally, it was one of the most impactful interviews I've ever done, and I came out of it walking on air, effectively. Coach Raveling is really much more than a coach of sports. He is a coach of life and has led many people through difficult decisions, difficult periods, difficult transitions. We covered a lot of ground in that first interview, including how Coach Raveling came to own the original copy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech, how his practice team ended up beating the 1984 U.S. Olympic Dream

Starting point is 00:01:16 team in basketball, how he helped convince Michael Jordan to sign with Nike, and much, much more. You can find it by going to Tim.blog forward slash George Raveling, R-A-V-E-L-I-N-G. I strongly encourage you to listen to that conversation when you can about coaches' life philosophies and lessons learned. I invited George back on the podcast to hear his thoughts on everything that is happening right now. These are obviously very difficult and uncertain times for millions of people, and my heart goes out to each and every person navigating the depths of sadness, anger, fear, and many other emotions right now. As you'll hear in today's episode, Coach Raveling has great hope. He's seen many changes in his lifetime, and we can all strive to be the positive change agents that he implores us to be. Before we

Starting point is 00:02:00 get to today's conversation, here's a very brief bio, which barely scratches the surface. Coach George Raveling on Twitter at George Raveling is an 82-year-old living legend and Nike's former director of international basketball. Coach Raveling was the first African-American head basketball coach in the Pac-8, now Pac-12. On August 28th, 1963 at age 26, while volunteering as security at the March on Washington, Raveling humbly became the guardian of what we now know as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s I Have a Dream speech. Coach Raveling has held head coaching positions at Washington State, the University of Iowa, and USC.

Starting point is 00:02:35 Following a prolific basketball coaching career, he joined Nike at the request of Phil Knight, where he played an integral role in signing a reluctant Michael Jordan. He's also been inducted into the Nismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame. Please enjoy this timely and very timeless conversation with Coach George Raveling. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot

Starting point is 00:03:05 what I would take if I could only take one supplement, and the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me on the road. So what is AG1? AG1 is a science-driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG1 gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel packs with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. Go to drinkag1.com slash Tim. That's drinkag1, the number one, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Last time, drinkag1.com slash Tim. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by Five Bullet

Starting point is 00:03:56 Friday, my very own email newsletter. It's become one of the most popular email newsletters in the world with millions of subscribers. And it's super, super simple. It does not clog up your inbox. Every Friday, I send out five bullet points, super short, of the coolest things I've found that week, which sometimes includes apps, books, documentaries, supplements, gadgets, new self-experiments, hacks, tricks, and all sorts of weird stuff that I dig up from around the world. You guys, podcast listeners and book readers, have asked me for something short and action-packed for a very long time. Because after all, the podcast, the books, they can be quite long. And that's why I created Five Bullet Friday. It's become one of my favorite things I do every week. It's free. It's always going to be free.

Starting point is 00:04:40 And you can learn more at Tim.blog forward slash Friday. That's Tim.blog forward slash Friday. I get asked a lot how I meet guests for the podcast, some of the most amazing people I've ever interacted with, and little known fact, I've met probably 25% of them because they first subscribed to Five Bullet Friday. So you'll be in good company. It's a lot of fun. Five Bullet Friday is only available if you subscribe via email. I do

Starting point is 00:05:05 not publish the content on the blog or anywhere else. Also, if I'm doing small in-person meetups, offering early access to startups, beta testing, special deals, or anything else that's very limited, I share it first with Five Bullet Friday subscribers. So check it out, tim.blog forward slash Friday. If you listen to this podcast, it's very likely that you'd dig it a lot and you can, of course, easily subscribe any time. So easy peasy. Again, that's tim.blog forward slash Friday. And thanks for checking it out. If the spirit moves you. Coach, I appreciate you taking time to record this follow-up to our conversation. It is June 7th, 2020, following the death of George Floyd. A lot is happening. How or where would you like to start?

Starting point is 00:05:53 I would like to start with a prayer. Please do. Dear, merciful God, we come before you on this day to request that you compassionately welcome George Floyd into your heavenly kingdom. Please restore his breath, his heartbeat, heal his wounds, allow him to live the life he was denied on earth. God, shower some of your richest gifts on the Floyd family. Give them the strength during these challenging times. Dear God, answer George's dying requests for his mother. Please, please unite them one more time. And finally, dear Lord, we ask you to bring comfort and understanding to the multitude of families who have suffered the loss of their own loved ones during these

Starting point is 00:07:08 times of social change. We make this request in your name. Amen. Amen. Thank you for that. George, I find myself in a very different place than I normally would in these conversations. I typically come in with a long list of questions. I've typically done a lot of homework on the person I'll be speaking with. And we've already had one very, very long conversation and covered a lot. But this is really an afternoon where I would like to do more listening than anything else. And I would just love to hear from you what you're observing or what you'd I have had what I call a stop strategy. And I've had this for years and years and years. And I feel it's so applicable to contemporary times and the things we're dealing with now. I think each of us are given one life to live.

Starting point is 00:08:30 And each of us have a fundamental responsibility to protect that life and to protect ourselves from death. And when I have conversations with myself, I say to myself, I must never forget this reality. I am black forever. And my number one goal is to stay alive. You know, I'm an 82-year-old black man, and I drive a black Lexus SUV. And thus, I feel I have to have a stop strategy. What do I do if I'm pulled over by the police? I've got to turn off the motor. I'm going to turn on the phone so I have some overt evidence of what took place. I'm going to roll the window down. I'm going to put my hands high up on the steering wheel so that it'll be obvious that I don't have anything in my hands.

Starting point is 00:09:51 I'll be polite. I'll be overly polite and I'll say yes sir and no sir or yes ma'am and no ma'am. And if there's a request made for my license, I'll ask for permission to reach into my pocket and pull it out. I'll give them my driver's license, and I'll also give them an old faculty ID card that I had from when I was coaching at USC, and then I'll pray.

Starting point is 00:10:24 And at that moment, I only have one objective, and that is to stay alive. And Tim, I don't know, it comes a time when you're, when you, you being a black person, we have to be confronted with this reality. And that reality is that we're black forever. But you know what? The burden of being black is something that I welcome.

Starting point is 00:10:57 And hopefully it'll bring out the best in me. The very best in me, the very best in me. And when all is said and done, the only true validation I seek is my self-validation. I've grown to understand that it's just senseless for me to struggle for America's validation. If I do that, Tim, I'm always going to be chasing the ghosts. And so that's why as an 82-year-old black male,

Starting point is 00:11:40 I understand the importance and relevance of having what I call a stop strategy. And have you ever had to use that or have you used it outside? Do you have other stop strategies for outside of the automobile? What other strategies have you carried with yourself throughout life as a black male? Do any come to mind? As it relates to being stopped by a policeman, that's as simple as it is. I've been pulled over on times and to be totally transparent, if I ran a light or I had a speeding ticket, I clearly understand that. But I also recognize that there's a protocol that the law enforcement has to engage in. And so I'm not going to ever assume that my life is not at risk. And so I want to be prepared if something like that happens.

Starting point is 00:12:55 Sadly, I feel like I've reached a point in life where I have to live my life on defense. I've got to worry more about someone else's deportment or behavior than my own. And I realize that, as I said, I'll forever be black. So I have to expect that there's going to be certain preconceived ideas about me as a black male. People think they know me, Tim, but they don't really know me. and I can honestly say to you in my lifetime that most people have never really tried to know me. They have a surface impression of me, and maybe one of our challenges is to try to better understand each other.

Starting point is 00:14:02 I don't put an indictment on people, but I feel I'm guilty of that. I think I need to know people better. I need to feel their pain. I need to understand that they're carrying somebody else's cross. And you mentioned impressions, misconceptions. I want to mention for people who perhaps didn't listen to part one, because I imagine a lot of people will jump to this very timely, at the time of recording, conversation we're having now, but you own probably more than $100,000 worth of black collectibles, including figurines, books, postcards, first edition of Uncle Tom's Cabin. And some of these are very derogatory.

Starting point is 00:14:46 A black person eating watermelon with a smile on his face on a postcard, for instance, and some of the notes themselves written on those postcards are very derogatory. And I remember from our first conversation, you started to build this historic collection so that you could have a legacy for your children and their children. Why is that? I think that, one, they're historical. Two, I need a constant reminder of times gone by and how we arrived at where we are today. I used to go to postcard and antique shows, and I would go and search out the vendors who sold postcards. I have over a thousand of them. And back to the point, Tim, when you even have to put a stamp on them. And the one

Starting point is 00:15:47 common denominator of them all is the derogatory pictures of black folks eating watermelon, big lips, smiling. The subtle references or influences that, look, they're happy. They're not bewildered. Look,

Starting point is 00:16:09 look, look, we, we treat them good. Look, they smile. And, and they remind me also to tell a story of this long journey of inequity and,

Starting point is 00:16:23 and injustice. And so I, I've collected the cards. I mean, if you, long journey of inequity and injustice. And so I've collected the cards. I mean, if you were to read some of the messages on there, they're abominable. But it reminds me of the long road we've traveled and the long road that we still have to travel to become who we say we are. I say something to you Tim that's been a little bit surprising to me And it's somewhat of a personal phenomenon. But as of this moment that we speak, I can report to you that 85% of my white friends and associates have not called me. And so I think it begs some questions. Do I think they're obligated?

Starting point is 00:17:29 Absolutely not. Am I mad at them or disappointed? No. Do I think it would be helpful? Yes. So then the question is why? I think it's another overt example. In my opinion, it's because people don't know what to say. I get it. good at having real conversations. We're not good at having difficult conversations because real conversations challenge us. Real conversations and

Starting point is 00:18:21 difficult conversations, in my opinion, they make us stand in our own truth. And they teach us that we have to be truth tellers. And we've got to listen to learn. And not only that, I think we have to learn to ask intelligent questions. We are two-sided. We are the problem and we are the solution. You and I have chatted recently and you've mentioned the importance of honest conversations. And one thing you've mentioned to me that I'd love to hear you elaborate on, as you said, honest conversations with others

Starting point is 00:19:13 and honest conversations with ourselves. What do you mean by that? Well, first of all, Tim, when someone says, hey, Coach, or hey, George, I want to meet with you. I'd like to talk to you about something. So immediately, I go and start to have a conversation with myself. And the first thing I say to myself, is this going to be a conversation or is this going to be a debate? Because it's

Starting point is 00:19:48 totally different. You know, some people, they frame it as a conversation, but it really becomes a debate. Because if it's a debate, it's about winning and losing. It's about right and wrong. And I surrender right from the beginning. I'll gladly say, you're right. I'm wrong. Because you get in this conversation and the person's sole intent is to prove to you that they are right and you are wrong. Or hopefully they can get you to be who they want you to be and to think like they want you to think. I think to have a real conversation, the first thing a person's got to do

Starting point is 00:20:36 is they've got to have the willingness to stand in their own truth. And they've got to be willing to tell the truth. And I believe people have to listen to learn and to understand. God knows if there is ever a time in our lives when we need to listen to learn and understand, it's at this time right now. And another thing that I think to have a real conversation is we've got to govern our talk to listen ratio. And to go back to put more clarity on the question that you asked,

Starting point is 00:21:17 I think some of the most important conversations we can have each day are the conversations that we have with ourselves. There's basically two conversations we engage in, the conversations with others and the conversation with ourselves. And I do believe that probably the most important conversations we have are the conversations we have with ourselves. When we listen to our inner voice and we talk, in many ways, I believe right now two of the most important words in the English language are we and us. As a society, I would really like to see us have more conversations about life and death and right and wrong. I really think we do ourselves a disservice when we don't deal with the fundamentals, the fundamentals of life. And there's nothing more fundamental than a life. And what gives one human being

Starting point is 00:22:27 the audacity to think that they have the right to take someone else's life? What is it that would make one human being totally devalue and disrespect the life of another human being totally devalue and disrespect the life of another human being, regardless of what color they are. It's just human arrogance that one could be so disrespectful of the greatest gift of all, the gift of a life. And why don't we have conversations around that fundamental aspect and why is it that we don't have meaningful discussions about

Starting point is 00:23:12 right and wrong I think in some ways Tim I think each of us tend to see the world through our own lenses I don't know maybe I think each of us tend to see the world through our own lenses. I don't know, maybe it would be helpful if we would attempt to see the world through the lens of others. I know one thing for sure, and I think it also, making an attempt to do that, can defuse some of the reactivity or emotion that can escalate things and cause greater problems. And one thing you said to me in our last conversation was that, and I'm paraphrasing here, so please feel free to correct, but it relates to what you just said. You said if you start with white and black or white versus black, black versus white, immediately many people on both sides are going to be in the defensive and it's going to become, like you said earlier, a debate. And would it not be more helpful to try to go to a higher level where you can find some shared experience or shared important questions to at least begin the conversation

Starting point is 00:24:29 so that not everyone is in debate form and reactive. So I just wanted to sort of echo that because it came to mind as you were speaking. A hard call reality is this, that many days we spend more time talking to the screen than we do face to face with a human being. And I've kind of grown in the latter years of my life that I'm a product of an educational system that was based on telling me what to do and what to think instead of teaching me how to think. And so, so much of my time now is spent trying to teach myself how to think.

Starting point is 00:25:32 There's so much time that I have to make up because of the fact that I didn't ever really understand the relevance or importance of being able to think always someone telling you, we know what's best for you. If I don't know what's best for me, then how the hell can somebody else think they know what's best for me. If you flash back to the civil rights movement, for people who may have jumped ahead and skipped our first conversation, you own the original copy of what later became known as the I Have a Dream speech. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. handed you this speech himself as he came off of the dais

Starting point is 00:26:44 because you ended up through an amazing story, which people can listen to part one for, you ended up working security as a volunteer and were handed this speech. So you've been in the thick of so many defining moments in the history of this country, certainly as it relates to civil rights. What are some of the differences that you see or commonalities that you see when you look back at your experience in the civil rights movement and you look at what's happening right now? I think that I keep going back every day

Starting point is 00:27:21 and I have these inner conversations with myself about life and death. And that's one thing that hasn't changed is for a lot of us it's still about life and death I remember watching a documentary on television

Starting point is 00:27:50 and it was about the lunch counter demonstrations in Greensboro in years gone by and the leader of the demonstrators,

Starting point is 00:28:06 they were having a meeting in church. And at the end of the meeting, the leader said to the demonstrators, he said, before y'all leave, I need you to do something. I need you to do something. I need you to hug everybody in this room and tell them that you love them. He said, and I want every one of you to do it. No matter how long it takes. And I want you to tell him goodbye.

Starting point is 00:28:50 He said, because tomorrow night when we meet, some of y'all ain't going to be here. And it goes back to that same thing, our lives. And to this day, I'm so startled at the courage that those students had. I don't know when I was 18 or 19 or 20 and I was a student at Villanova, if I would have had the courage to put my life on the line and know that tomorrow night I might not be back. And Tim, so much of this we would like to think it's about black and white, and it is.

Starting point is 00:30:00 But it's about life. It's about human life. I don't know if I could have done it. I don't know if I had to. I'm sure I would. Martin Luther King used to say, if a man or woman hasn't found something in life they're willing to die for,

Starting point is 00:30:19 then maybe they're not fit to live. And there comes that seminal moment every one of our lives where we have to say to ourselves, do I live or do I die? And so it's tough. You know, something just popped into my mind. You were asking me about the collections and that, and something popped in my mind.

Starting point is 00:30:49 I think if we don't understand our past, Tim, and our present, then there'll be no future. And so there's symbolic evidence of the past. But if I don't understand my past and my present, I have no future. And when you think about building a future and crafting a path towards a future that is better than today, one distinction that you've drawn in our previous conversations is group leadership versus, I think you put it as self-leadership. Could you speak to what that means? In the middle of the mirror, in the main bathroom is probably six feet. Well, maybe not six feet, maybe four feet long. And it's very rectangular. And in the middle of it, I have a sign up there.

Starting point is 00:31:58 And I scotch taped it. So I have to see it every day and every morning and every evening and times throughout the day and the sign simply says practice and then underneath it has two statements self leadership and self discipline and I don't think that there's any more relevant or important time

Starting point is 00:32:31 to practice those. We say, and rightfully so, that we're lacking in leadership. I've asked numerous of my friends over the last few months, Tim, this question. Tell me who you think are the five greatest leaders on the globe right now. And none of them can be a corporate executive. And I have not had one single person who could get past three names. And so I say that's overt evidence that we are in the go to a library in Congress and look up books on leadership, there would be over 3,000 books written on leadership.

Starting point is 00:33:32 But those books all speak to group leadership. There are three or four books on self-leadership. Robert Greenlee's book is probably the most prominent. This is The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Green? No, not Robert Green. This is a book by Greenleaf. And it's on self-leadership. So to me, if you can't lead yourself, how in the world are you going to lead anybody else?

Starting point is 00:34:09 And for many of us, the only person we're ever going to get to lead is ourself. And so I can continue to say we have bad leadership or we lack in leadership, check. But I have a responsibility to lead myself in these times of turmoil. And then the second part of that sign says to be self-disciplined. So I think if nothing else, I have to serve as a overt example of someone who recognizes the need for leadership and recognizes that I can control my self-leadership, that I can exercise my self-discipline. And so, but so much of my life has kind of never changed, Tim. Most of was born in the basement of a segregated hospital in Washington, D.C. And they gave that baby the name George. And he was born in the basement of this segregated hospital called Garfield.

Starting point is 00:35:58 And it was at 11th and Florida Avenue. And blacks were only could enter the hospital from the back and they had to go down to the basement. And so the first breath as a human being that I breathed was the air from the air of segregation. And from that moment on, I've had to figure out how do I survive? When I was growing up in Washington, D.C., the city was 73% black. Today, it's 45% black. Today, it's 45% black. It slipped under 50% for the first time in 50 years. When you hear people use the connotation chocolate city, Washington, D.C. was the original chocolate city with 73% of the population. And so this black boy, child, George or Adam, he lived over a meat market and over the meat market on the second floor,

Starting point is 00:37:18 there was three apartments and none of them had a bathroom. There was a bathroom at the end of the hallway that had a commode, a sink, and a tub. And the three families who lived in those apartments, we had to learn to be self-disciplined. We had to practice self-leadership. We had to figure out how three families could use one commode, one sink, and one bath. But we made it.

Starting point is 00:37:59 We made it work. work and we lived on the corner of Florida Avenue and New Jersey Avenue and you could walk from there to what is now Howard University but at that time when I was a young boy Washington had a baseball team called the Washington Senators and people were fond of saying, first in war, first in peace, and last in the American League. But they played their games in Griffin Stadium, and I could walk to Griffin Stadium from where I live. And so I used to walk up there, and I got a job selling scorecards.

Starting point is 00:38:48 In the old days in baseball, you didn't have the technology and so forth. And so the fans would have a scorecard and they would keep the data and the score on a scorecard. And so what you did is you stood outside the stadium and you sold scorecards and pencils. And I also tried to deliver or did deliver newspapers to make some little extra money. In those days, Tim, if you were black, you didn't have the luxury to dream. Some people say, when you were a little kid, did you ever dream you were going to be a culturedist?

Starting point is 00:39:32 Dreaming for a black person in those days was a luxury. You got up every morning and you looked out at the world in a tiptoe stance and you tried to figure out, how can I survive? You had no dreams, you had no hopes. It was literally all about surviving from day to day. And here I am at age and I still grapple with the same thing. How can I survive and how can I thrive? Here I am and the reality is this. I'm an 82-year-old black male, a former basketball coach. And so the challenge for me is, how can I remain relevant in an ever-changing world?

Starting point is 00:40:51 And what is it that I don't know, but I need to know to stay relevant? So there's different times and different faces in different places, but the fundamental hasn't changed. How do I survive and how do I thrive? And you are a voracious reader. I mean, your nickname, which people might remember from the first conversation, is the human Google. I mean, you have read thousands upon thousands of books. And just to clarify, you mentioned the name Robert Greenleaf. Is that the book? I just pulled it up here. Servant Leadership, subtitle, A Journey into the Nature. And the subtitle is A Journey into the Nature of

Starting point is 00:41:28 Legitimate Power and Greatness, which has been a classic, it looks like, for 25 years at this point. Are there any other books that have helped you in developing your own ability to self-lead or to improve self-discipline? Do any other resources or practices come to mind that you found particularly helpful? One of the books that I found helpful, and when I say helpful, if I read something in a book that causes me to change my behavior, then I feel like I've really found something unique and special. I read a book many years ago by Mark McCormick called Things They Don't Teach You at Harvard Business School. And it's always been one of my favorite. The True Believer by Eric Hoffer was another book. There's tons of books I could name.

Starting point is 00:42:29 I tell you this, Tim, a book I'm reading right now, I would ask all of our listeners to buy this book. And it's called Tell tell me who you are. It should be mandatory reading for anyone who wants to understand why we are in the situation we are today, not from the pandemic, but in all of the other, uh, areas of inequity in our social system. I don't want to talk too much about the book. It's written by two women. It's an extraordinary book. And I thought I knew a lot about racial injustice. I thought I understood a lot of things about the least of God's children.

Starting point is 00:43:29 But when I read this book, it's very hard for me to read more than three pages and I don't start to tear up. But if you buy this book, buy it with the intent to learn and understand. Otherwise, if you're just buying it for entertainment don't buy it it's a book that's going to cause you to have difficult conversations with yourself it's it's a book that's going to reveal what i call the other America. There's a, actually was a book written that was the, the,

Starting point is 00:44:06 uh, emphasis for the war on poverty, but there was a book written called the other America by Michael Harrington. And, uh, so I borrowed that phrase, the other America, there's an America out there that we don't know about,

Starting point is 00:44:22 but we need to know about. I don't know the two young ladies who wrote the book. I'm not trying to promote or sell books. I'm just trying to tell you, if you really, really want to understand and you want to learn, you've got to read this book. And you don't have to read it all at once, because it's going to be hard to do, because you're going to cry. You're going to feel guilty. You're going to say, wow, how could one person treat another person like this? The Tell Me Who You Are is by Winona Guo,

Starting point is 00:45:06 G-U-O, and Priya Vulture. I'll certainly link to that in the show notes for this conversation as well. So people will be able to find that at tim.blog.com slash podcast and just search your name. The question I'd love to explore with you, George, is what you would say to people right now who are really angry. Because as you said, some of these first-person accounts, certainly many people have had personal experiences that are just reflective of such

Starting point is 00:45:40 gross injustice, such mistreatment. And you have a lot of people right now who are angry of all different colors and creeds. What would you say to people who are feeling consumed by anger at the moment? I would want to ask questions and I would want to listen. I would want to understand in greater depth why they're angry, because I don't want to assume the obvious. The obvious is never the obvious. The problem is that we think it's never the problem. Once you attack a problem, what you thought was the real problem was never the real problem. Once you get going, you'll discover the real problem. So I want to listen and I want to understand and not assume that I know why this person is angry. And I think in many ways, all of us need to be angry and we need to be befuddled in that because I truly

Starting point is 00:46:48 believe that we live in a country and we live a lot. And what I mean by that is if you pick up our paper currency, it says United States of America. If you go back to the framer, the framers say we the people. But in many ways, we're living the lie because we're not who we say we are. We're not united.

Starting point is 00:47:24 And it's not about the people. And these lies, Tim, they're just going to hold us in hostage. But the truth will free us. And to me, the system is built to separate us. Not just by race. The system is built to separate us, not just by race. The system is built to marginalize us. We talk about red States and blue States and foreign belt and Russ belt and Democrats and, and Republicans and conservatives and tea parties and rich people. And we all have these boxes that someone wants to put us in.

Starting point is 00:48:11 And all these labels. America leads the world in labels. Everything's got to have a label on it. And so my fundamental question is this. Why does there have to be a box? Boxes have four walls. And at some point, they fill up. With four walls, it limits my movement.

Starting point is 00:48:41 So why do I have to operate from a box? The first thing intelligence tells me, if I'm in a box, it impedes my ability to reach for my outer limits as a human being. So if we allow people to keep us in boxes, how will one ever reach their outer limits? How will one ever be able to answer the question, who am I? If I don't get a chance to explore my outer limits, how do I know who I am and why I'm honored? And what is it that I'm capable of being? So in many ways, in this country, we're living a lie. We've got to get back to a point

Starting point is 00:49:31 where we are who we say we are. We're either united or we're not united. It's either about we the people or it's not about we the people. As the common language of America became not in English but money? Our language cannot be the language of money.

Starting point is 00:49:58 I say to myself that I do really believe this at 82 years old. I finally got my freedom. I'm free to do what I want to do when I want to do it and how I want to do it. I'm free to try to discover my outer limits. I'm free to be who God meant for me to be. I honestly and truly believe that the last couple of years of my life that I can honestly kind of feel what Martin Luther King said when he spoke at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Starting point is 00:50:51 Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last. It's the first time that in my existence on this planet that I could authentically believe that I'm a free human being, that I can pursue my outer limits. What changed? What was the catalyst or the realization? The realization was that the system is built to create average people. You go to school, you get an average education, you get an average job, you live in an average neighborhood, you live an average amount of time. And the world is populated with average people.

Starting point is 00:51:54 And I'm so glad that I lived long enough that I could feel the necessity to be uncommon. In some ways, maybe I was born as one of God's, the least of his children. But I've been truly blessed to try to reach for my outer limits. And to explore that phrase a bit, exploring your outer limits, I mean, it seems to imply to me both an awareness of the box that you've been put in or put yourself in, and then a willingness to try to transcend that. What does that look like? Does it look like broad reading? Does it look like uncommon action? For you personally, what has exploring your outer limits looked like? It's all built around a fundamental question that I have to ask myself time and time again. What is it that I don't know, but I need to know?

Starting point is 00:53:22 What is it that I don't know, but need to know. What is it that I don't know, but need to know? When I was a student at Villanova and I was on basketball scholarship, our coach said to us one time, and he left an indelible mark on my brain with this quote. He said, the first sign of intelligence is to admit that you don't know

Starting point is 00:53:46 something. So I'm trying to find out what it is that I don't know, but I need to know so that I can have a relevance on the remaining time I'm here on the globe. And that's the simple process is you've got to take the fences down around you. Because as long as people can build fences around you, they can keep you where they want you. And they want you to be average. And I don't want to be average. I want to be uncommon. Is part of, and this is a leading question, but I'm curious, is part of keeping those fences down, not applying too many labels to yourself? I just think, I'm thinking back to the list that you gave earlier, you know, liberal, progressive, this, that, A versus B, C versus D. Because I don't think I've ever heard you use any of those labels applied to yourself, at least in our conversations that we've had. I don't know if that's just because of the nature of the conversations that we've had, but are there other ways that you keep the fences down?

Starting point is 00:55:08 Yeah, because the first thing is to recognize that there is a fence. People don't examine. When someone is quick to put a label on you and encourage you to live in this box, the first thing that I really start to do is start asking you to have a conversation with yourself and start asking questions. And so to me, I'm aware of these fences and I refuse to allow someone to build a fence around me because intentionally or unintentionally, I'm about to come to a standstill because the more people that are in that box, the less my mobility is.

Starting point is 00:56:00 And I think we also, the thing that I've been telling myself about what is it that I don't know, but I need to know, I've come to recognize that I need to develop 21st century skills. It's kind of strange when you get to be 82 and you start thinking about this. But once again, when I ask that question, how can I stay relevant? If I'm going to be relevant, I've got to be able to develop 21st century skills. And I'm going to anticipate you saying, well, coach, what are 21st century skills? I think you have to develop a skill set that are transferable and sustainable in the 21st century. There's so obvious leadership and communication and just not oral communication, but written communication, relationships. As long as we live, there's going to have to be leadership.

Starting point is 00:57:12 We're going to have to communicate. We're going to have to have relationships, problem solving, decision making, information, literacy, critical thinking. We go on teamwork teamwork analytical thinking so what i try to do is take one of those and for six months read as much as i can about one of them so that i can better understand how i can equip myself because i've got to take the fences down. I got to have, I got to either pull them down or, or, or I can, or I, and I, and once I pull them down, I got to get rid of them forever. And so once I take those fences down, I can't pop the cork and think I won. All I've done is free up my ability of movement. And so now I've got to equip myself with these 21st century skills, particularly at 82 years old.

Starting point is 00:58:20 Because the last thing I want to be is a relic. And to protect myself from becoming a relic, I've got to be able to compete in the 21st century. I've got to be able to compete with young people, not just old people. I need to compete with young people. I need to understand young people, not just old people. I need to compete with young people. I need to understand young people. These young people are our future.

Starting point is 00:58:53 And I feel bad for our young people because they're the ones that are going to inherit this mess. And they're the ones that are going to have to fix it. And I feel so bad for our, our, our grandchildren and children and, and general these young people, we're leaving a mess on and they,

Starting point is 00:59:19 and they're going to, they're going to have to excel in these skills because they're the ones who are going to have to figure out what to do with this mess that we left on the doorstep. One of the things I enjoy about our interactions, George, is that you're a man of ideas and concepts, but you're also a man of action. You do a lot. And it's informed action.

Starting point is 00:59:50 There are millions of people right now, I'm sure probably tens, hundreds of millions, who are unsure of what to do and perhaps also afraid of doing the wrong thing. And I'd be curious to know if you have any advice for people who are feeling a need to do something but don't know what to do. Of course, we've seen a lot of statements that have been issued. If you have any thoughts on statements, what form they should take, if any, I'd just love to hear your thoughts for those who feel like they should or need to do something but are unsure of what to do. Well, two things. One, what can one do? Just be simple. Just let it start with yourself. Start with you and do your part. I'm going to come back to this public statement thing.

Starting point is 01:00:45 But what I would like to ask, and this is a partial answer to what can we do, I would like to ask each of those who are listening to this interview to take a pledge. I would like you to write this down and take this pledge. If you want to know what you can do, it's this. And the pledge is I encourage, I'm going to encourage each of our listeners to do this. And the pledge is I will fully commit to being a positive change agent, a positive difference maker. And in many lives, it's possible.

Starting point is 01:01:41 It doesn't take money. It doesn't matter what race you are. It's just a simple pledge. It's got to start. Correct. I will fully commit to being a positive change agent, a positive difference maker, and end as many lives as possible. You don't have to be rich. It doesn't make any difference if you're poor. It doesn't make any difference if you're black or white. You can control this. Nobody can take this away from this. Nobody can take this commitment away from you to be a positive change agent, to be a positive difference maker, to be kind to people. It might not change the world, but if you save one life, that one life will have a rippling effect and it'll save another life and another life and another life.

Starting point is 01:02:52 And before you know it, we'll wake up one morning and we will have made significant change in the world and in this place we call America. That's what I would like to do. As you say, what can a person do? That's my answer to that. The public statement thing, honestly, I've kind of grown weary of corporate and organizational speak. I don't know. In my opinion, most of it's insincere anyway,

Starting point is 01:03:21 and it lacks in substance. How many of these statements are really solution-based? And the so-called statements to me in many ways are over-evidence of our inability to tell the truth. What do you mean by that? There's a difference, Tim, between a statement and a message. See, that's the thing. Everybody runs around. I can't believe how many corporate executives and organizational people feel like they have to make a statement. I've had friends call and say, hey, I've got to make a statement.

Starting point is 01:04:00 What should I say? And the ones who've asked me that, I said, the first thing is don't make a statement. Make a message. Messages tell a story that resonates with the listeners. Messages are a commitment. You know, ultimately, when it's all said and done, our words must be manifested in our behavior. Anything shorter than that, and we're living a lie.

Starting point is 01:04:40 And I just think at some point, we can make all the statements we want, but the reality is that we have to rise to a higher moral level. And if corporations today, I don't know, me personally, I appreciate their paper currency. But what I really think that society needs from our corporations is their intellectual currency. I think history is replete with evidence that throwing money at the problem is really going to be the solution. One of the questions I have with this money part is how much of it will be specifically used to enrich the lives of our young people and their futures? Because we're leaving them a mess to clean up. I think that what I would like to do is to tap into the intellectual currency of corporate America. And they've got some of the most elite thinkers on the planet in corporations.

Starting point is 01:06:31 And so a group of corporations come together in a collaborative manner and create programs to help enrich the lives of our young people and help prepare our young people to successfully deal with this mess that we're leaving them. So can corporations create mentor programs? So somebody's going to raise their hand and say we have one. Can they create intern programs? Can they utilize their intellectual currency to help young people develop these 21st century skills? Can they provide technology and the technology tools such as laptops and computers for young people? Can we teach young people how to think? God knows if there's ever something that we could do that would help young people is to teach them how to think. Stop teaching them what to think. Teach them how to think. We've got some of the greatest minds

Starting point is 01:07:34 on the planet housing these corporations. And I just think that they have a moral obligation to target the least of God's children. I think our young children out there are pregnant with possibilities for greatness. But we got to help them discover it. Tim, in my lifetime, and this is not an indictment on my parents, there was never a time in my life when my mom or my dad or my grandma ever said

Starting point is 01:08:13 to me, George, when you grow up, you're going to go to college. Hell, they never finished school. How hell are they going to think that their son, I mean, their child is going to go to college? It was, black people couldn't dream like that in those days. But we, there's so many undiscovered young folks out there.

Starting point is 01:08:40 They need somebody to say a simple phrase to them. I believe in you. You know how many kids have never had a human being say to them, I believe in you? Corporate America can put together all these elite thinkers. And they don't just have to say, I believe in you, but they can put the programs together that allow that person to believe in themselves. I will never fully buy into throwing money at it. It's the answer.

Starting point is 01:09:23 You just made me think, George, that if I try to canvas everyone I've interviewed on this podcast, close to 500 people now, I would say one of the commonalities would have to be that at some point, someone said, I believe in you. Maybe it wasn't in childhood, but at some point, some mentor, some father figure or mother figure or supporter said, I believe in you. So it raises a lot of questions and also brings to mind a lot of possible actions for, as you said. And Tim, it's not sufficient to say, I believe in you,

Starting point is 01:10:10 and then your behavior has to reflect what you just said. I believe in you. There's depth and dimension of goodness and intellect in all of us. But Kim, until I got to Villanova, it wasn't until I got to Villanova that I found myself intellectually. I didn't know who I was. I didn't even really understand how important it was to be at Villanova and to be a student and to learn. I can remember this so vividly. By the sophomore year, because when I went to Villanova, you had to wear a shirt and tie to class, and you had to sit by an alphabet. That's how they kept it for all.

Starting point is 01:11:01 And so I graduated with a BS in economics, but it wasn't until my sophomore year that I started to find myself intellectually. I'd hear guys say, that guy's really smart, man. You should get him to help you. And there would be a number of people in my classes that people would identify as being really smart. And so I would listen to them and I would observe them. And honestly, Tim and myself talked.

Starting point is 01:11:32 There were a number of times when I said, hell, I think I'm as smart as him. And that was the beginning of me trying to discover myself intellectually. I didn't have a frame of reference. No one ever told me that I was smart. No one ever told me that. The only way I ended up in college was because of basketball and the scholarship. I didn't really understand it all.

Starting point is 01:12:02 If I had to do it all over, I honestly believe I could have been an honest student. I didn't understand it all. And if I had to do it all over, I honestly believe I could have been an honest student. I didn't understand it. I didn't know that education could take me to places it did and help me learn how to be a better human being. It took a long time. I've kind of been running from behind most of my life. A guy told me one time, if a man gets behind in a race, he must forever remain behind or run faster than the man in front. And man, I've been on the sprint for about the last 40 years.

Starting point is 01:12:37 It's an incredible life story. I mean, I don't know how you have managed to cram so much into your lifetime, which, granted, is 82 years thus far, but it's still a blink of the eye in some respects. It's really just incredible. listening who are, say, parents of kids in difficult circumstances. Maybe they themselves don't have many resources. Aside from the I believe in you and behavior to support that, besides the pledge, which you mentioned earlier about being a positive change agent and positive difference maker, would you have any advice for those parents, for people who are trying to raise their kids and enable them in the greatest way possible?

Starting point is 01:13:35 I think it's so difficult to be a parent today because at one time I used to think it was a black problem, but today I think it's a societal problem. We live in a society today where most of the young people are raised in a single-parent household. My nine years at USC, I only coached two black players who came from a dual parent household. So the first issue is the parent. And when we say is usually going to be the mother, because of our judicial system, the courts usually award the child to the mother. And so those mothers are true so-called American heroes. They work two and three jobs. Most parents will do things for their children they would never do for themselves.

Starting point is 01:14:44 And so it's such an enormous challenge now to raise a child. I think that you just have to try as hard as you can to provide the best for your children and to teach them a sustainable value system of right and wrong, of perseverance. I don't know. I mean, I don't know if I'm equipped to say because I'm still trying to raise myself. Hmm. What are your hopes for what could come of this turbulent time, these turbulent times, I should say, certainly, that are really sort of exhibiting and showing to us ruptures that have existed for a long time? What are some of your hopes for what can come out of this? And what are some of

Starting point is 01:15:38 your fears of what might come out of this, if you have any. My hope is that we will be who we say we are. All of us that, if we are the United States of America, then we need to start to live it and not continue to live a lie. That is my hope as we proceed that, as I said earlier in the conversation, we're the problem and we're the solution. Yeah, we are the problem and we are the solution. Well, George, I want to be respectful of your time. We've covered a lot. I'm not in any rush. I can continue to go as long as you would like to go.

Starting point is 01:16:33 But is there anything else you would like to say or share at this point? No, I think we've touched a lot of the sensitive nerves. And when we conclude, I would just like to conclude the same way we started, but maybe there's some things that you think merit some discussion. I'm open to it. I think we've covered a lot of ground. I think we've, and by we, I mean you, I think you have offered some direction, a lot of recommendation. You've offered resources like Tell Me Who You Are. Of course, we'll link to all of these things. You mentioned Robert Greenleaf and servant leadership. As far as resources go, many different

Starting point is 01:17:20 takeaways that people can, I think, apply or at the very least think about. But as you mentioned, if we put words into our heads or out into the world, what matters is the behavior that follows those and the practice like you have on your bathroom mirror of self-leadership and self-discipline, since you need to lead yourself before you can hope to lead any type of group. And I think we're at a good place where we could end the way we started for now. So I would just like to conclude with the way I started with the prayer.

Starting point is 01:18:03 And my prayer is, dear God, please help us unite as a nation. Please help us be who we say we are, a United States of America. Amen. Thank you so much for taking the time to share the breadth and richness of your life experience and also the insights that you've come to after 82 years on this planet. I really appreciate you taking the time, George. Thank you, Tim, and I appreciate the opportunity. And more importantly, I appreciate your friendship. Thank you so much. And you are such a positive change agent. And I think as you said, if you save one life, that has ripple effects. I think your positive impact on so many people has a real incredible ripple effect. So I would just say,

Starting point is 01:19:05 please keep doing what you're doing. I really appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. And to everybody listening, we will have links to everything that we discussed in the show notes. And you can find that as always

Starting point is 01:19:18 at tim.blog forward slash podcast and simply search for George's name. And in fact, what we'll do is create a short link, which will just be Tim.blog forward slash George. And that will take us all to the resources specifically for this episode. And until next time, thank you for tuning in. Be kind, be safe, and always strive to be the person you say you are. Thank you. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is five bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun for the weekend? And five

Starting point is 01:20:03 bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends,

Starting point is 01:20:27 for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up, I hope you enjoy it.

The Tim Ferriss Show - #438: Coach George Raveling on This Unique Moment in Time, How to Practice Self-Leadership, Navigating Difficult Conversations, and Much More

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