The Tim Ferriss Show - #515: Chris Bosh on How to Reinvent Yourself, The Way and The Power, the Poison of Complaining, Leonardo da Vinci, and More

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

Chris Bosh on How to Reinvent Yourself, The Way and The Power, the Poison of Complaining, Leonardo da Vinci, and More | Brought to you by Tonal smart home gym, Theragun percussive muscle therapy devices, and LinkedIn Jobs recruitment platform with 720M+ users. More on all three below.Chris Bosh (@chrisbosh) fell in love with basketball at an early age and earned the prestigious “Mr. Basketball” title while still in high school (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. By the end of his basketball career, he was an 11-time NBA All-Star, two-time champion, and the NBA’s first Global Ambassador of Basketball. In March of 2019, Bosh’s #1 Jersey was officially retired for the Miami Heat. In addition to his basketball career, Bosh founded the community-uplift organization Team Tomorrow in 2010 and regularly speaks to youth about the benefits of reading, coding, and leadership. Bosh, his wife Adrienne, and their five children reside in Austin, Texas.His new book is Letters to a Young Athlete, which includes a foreword by Pat Riley.Please enjoy!This episode is brought to you by Tonal! Tonal is the world’s most intelligent home gym and personal trainer. It is precision engineered and designed to be the world’s most advanced strength studio. Tonal uses breakthrough technology—like adaptive digital weights and A.I. learning—together with the best experts in resistance training so you get stronger, faster. Every program is personalized to your body using A.I., and smart features check your form in real time, just like a personal trainer.Try Tonal, the world’s smartest home gym, for 30 days in your home, and if you don’t love it, you can return it for a full refund. Visit Tonal.com for $100 off their smart accessories when you use promo code TIM21 at checkout.*This episode is also brought to you by Theragun! Theragun is my go-to solution for recovery and restoration. It’s a famous, handheld percussive therapy device that releases your deepest muscle tension. I own two Theraguns, and my girlfriend and I use them every day after workouts and before bed. The all-new Gen 4 Theragun is easy to use and has a proprietary brushless motor that’s surprisingly quiet—about as quiet as an electric toothbrush.Go to Theragun.com/Tim right now and get your Gen 4 Theragun today, starting at only $199.*This episode is also brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs. Whether you are looking to hire now for a critical role or thinking about needs that you may have in the future, LinkedIn Jobs can help. LinkedIn screens candidates for the hard and soft skills you’re looking for and puts your job in front of candidates looking for job opportunities that match what you have to offer.Using LinkedIn’s active community of more than 722 million professionals worldwide, LinkedIn Jobs can help you find and hire the right person faster. When your business is ready to make that next hire, find the right person with LinkedIn Jobs. And now, you can post a job for free. Just visit LinkedIn.com/Tim.*If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit tim.blog/podcast.Sign up for Tim’s email newsletter (“5-Bullet Friday”) at tim.blog/friday.For transcripts of episodes, go to tim.blog/transcripts.Discover Tim’s books: tim.blog/books.Follow Tim:Twitter: twitter.com/tferriss Instagram: instagram.com/timferrissFacebook: facebook.com/timferriss YouTube: youtube.com/timferrissPast guests on The Tim Ferriss Show include Jerry Seinfeld, Hugh Jackman, Dr. Jane Goodall, LeBron James, Kevin Hart, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Jamie Foxx, Matthew McConaughey, Esther Perel, Elizabeth Gilbert, Terry Crews, Sia, Yuval Noah Harari, Malcolm Gladwell, Madeleine Albright, Cheryl Strayed, Jim Collins, Mary Karr, Maria Popova, Sam Harris, Michael Phelps, Bob Iger, Edward Norton, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Neil Strauss, Ken Burns, Maria Sharapova, Marc Andreessen, Neil Gaiman, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Jocko Willink, Daniel Ek, Kelly Slater, Dr. Peter Attia, Seth Godin, Howard Marks, Dr. Brené Brown, Eric Schmidt, Michael Lewis, Joe Gebbia, Michael Pollan, Dr. Jordan Peterson, Vince Vaughn, Brian Koppelman, Ramit Sethi, Dax Shepard, Tony Robbins, Jim Dethmer, Dan Harris, Ray Dalio, Naval Ravikant, Vitalik Buterin, Elizabeth Lesser, Amanda Palmer, Katie Haun, Sir Richard Branson, Chuck Palahniuk, Arianna Huffington, Reid Hoffman, Bill Burr, Whitney Cummings, Rick Rubin, Dr. Vivek Murthy, Darren Aronofsky, and many more. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode is brought to you by Tonal. That's T-O-N-A-L. Tonal is the world's most intelligent home gym and personal trainer. That's the tagline from their website, folks. So it gives you the one-sentence summary. By eliminating traditional metal weights, Tonal can deliver 200 pounds of resistance in a device smaller than a flat-screen TV. It mounts right on your wall with no floor space required. I've had one for a few months now after a number of close friends recommended Tonal to me, and it allows me to do things that I would normally need a huge gym for, like cable, chop and lift, or rotational exercises, and it allows me to do other things that are nearly impossible otherwise, like eccentric loading, which I'll talk about again

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this type of technology. So check it out. Tritonal, T-O-N-A-L, the world's smartest home gym for 30 days in your home. And if you don't love it, you can return it for a full refund. Visit www.tonal.com, T-O-N-A-L.com. And for a limited time, get $100 off of smart accessories when you use promo code Tim21. Like I'm ready for my first drink at checkout. That's www.tonaltonal.com. Promo code Tim21. T-I-M-21. Tonal. be your strongest. real things. That's why I use the Theragun. I use it at night. I use it after workouts. It is a handheld percussive therapy device that releases your deepest muscle tension. So for instance, at night, I might use it on the bottom of my feet. It's helped with my plantar fasciitis. I will have my girlfriend use it up and down the middle of my back, and I'll use it on her. It's

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So go to theragun.com slash Tim right now and get your Gen 4 Theragun today. Or you can watch the videos on the site, which show you all sorts of different ways to use it. A lot of runner friends of mine use them on their IT bands after long runs. There are a million ways to use it. And the Gen 4 Theraguns start at just $199. I said I have two. I have the Prime, and I also have the Pro, which is like the super Cadillac version. My girlfriend loves the soft attachments on that. So check it out. Go to theragun.com slash Tim. One more time, theragun.com slash Tim. I'm a cybernetic organism living tissue over metal endoskeleton. The Tim Ferriss Show. Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of

The Tim Ferriss Show. I'm nervous. I'll explain why I'm nervous in a minute. My guest, he's a very friendly fellow. He's not trying to make me nervous. His name is Chris Bosch on Twitter, at Chris Bosch. He fell in love with basketball at an early age and earned the prestigious Mr. Basketball title while still in high school. That was at Lincoln High School in Dallas, Texas, not far from where we are sitting in Austin, Texas. A McDonald's All-American, Bosch was selected fourth overall by the Toronto Raptors after one year of attending Georgia Tech. By the end of his basketball career, he was an 11-time, that's more fingers than you have folks, 11-time NBA All-Star, two-time champion, and the NBA's first global ambassador of basketball. In March of 2019,

Bosh's number one jersey was officially retired for the Miami Heat. In addition to his basketball career, Bosh founded the community uplift organization Team Tomorrow in 2010 and regularly speaks to youth about the benefits of reading, coding, and leadership. Bosh, his wife Adrienne, and their five children reside here in Austin, Texas. His new book is Letters to a Young Athlete, which includes a foreword by Pat Riley. Chris Bosch can be found in many places online. Twitter, as mentioned, at Chris Bosch. Instagram, at Chris Bosch. And Facebook, official, Chris Bosch. Chris, CB, welcome to the show. Appreciate it, man. I'm excited to be here.

I was looking at the copious notes in front of me. I was joking that I feel like the main character in Memento. I don't like to show how the sausage is made, but this is the first in-person interview since COVID for me, really, certainly indoors. And I'm looking at this bio and I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm looking. Did you ever go to the Olympics? I went to the Olympics, yes. I thought so. I may not be the best researcher, but I thought that. And how did things go at the Olympics? Amazing.

What was the outcome? You know, the Olympics were one of those things. I had the time of my life there. And when I mean time of my life, at that age, I was right where I was supposed to be. Back in 92, when they constructed the Dream Team together, I was just a little kid in Hutchins, Texas, watching TV. And I just thought it was cool that they had basketball in on the summertime on regular TV because, you know, you couldn't really watch TV. You had to have cable to take in as many games as possible and i was just one of those kids anything basketball i'm taking it in and i remember

just that time of the dream team watching them it was just incredible wait a minute michael jordan and magic johnson and all these guys on the same team that doesn't i was trying to comprehend it the x-men yeah you know what i? And that pretty much sparked the obsession. And so every Olympics, I mean, I would watch the Olympics. I mean, we'd watch gymnastics. We'd watch track and field. We'd watch anything to do with the Olympics. And getting to take part in Beijing was quite amazing. And, you know, just to be there taking part in the opening ceremony,

but most importantly, getting to have the experience of playing basketball for my country and being able to represent the USA and win a gold medal. I mean, that was everything. You know that you have a good bio, just for those who didn't pick up on this, when you can omit the Olympic gold medal from your bio. Just as a side note, that doesn't happen all too often. The reason I brought up the Olympics is because I had heard, I think it was, might have been LeBron James who mentioned this, but that while other people were killing time or doing A, B, and C, playing cards, you were trying to teach yourself Spanish.

And this is the type of anecdote that came up over and over again, whether related to craft beer collection and making craft beer. There were these parallel tracks. And I found that very interesting because sometimes it's the side notes that tell a lot of the main story,

even though basketball is the most obvious. Is that a myth? Is that true spanish does that probably true yeah i'm surprised that they would remember something like that you know to me that's you know that was when you had to like have the whole eight cd set oh yeah yeah you had a separate bag for it yeah you got to have a whole separate carry-on. I could see that, and I forgot all about that, actually. But yeah, I mean, language was always something that was just knacking at me, and I just had to do. And golly, back in 08, that would mean I had just started, and I was trying to put two and two together,

and I thought it was so cool that Rosetta Stone had a eight CD packet that you could take with you and download on your computer and all that stuff. That you could buy at an airport kiosk. You remember when that was a thing? Absolutely. And I thought that was so cool because I'm like, yo, I got that. But I remember taking it with me.

I was always, I always had a fascination with language, always trying to pick it up. And believe it or not, it actually getting drafted by Toronto in the beginning years for some reason I wanted I thought I could learn French like oh yeah I'm gonna learn French no problem no problem and I got up there everybody speaks English you know and so it's like you gotta watch TV and I was trying to watch TV it just didn't happen and it didn't make any sense And so probably a few months after that, I said, okay, I need to learn Spanish because more, there's more Spanish speakers in the world than there are French. So let's start there.

And yeah, I started learning Spanish and that was before I got a tutor. So I started with Rosetta Stone and you know, that was okay. And then I hired a tutor and then I ended up making the move to Miami eventually, which it helped me out quite a bit. Just in the reception. Yeah, Calle Ocho. You're shout out in Spanish. Hey, I'm their son, you know, and they really, really loved it. But just the culture that was down in Miami, it was just really just a perfect fit. And I don't know what

it was. I just had to learn languages. It's just one of those things that just calls me communicating with people, talking with people. And really, it was always beneficial because we would have teammates. I have had three teammates from Spain, two or three teammates from Spain. And you have guys coming from Europe and Africa and South America and stuff like that so you want to be able to communicate efficiently yeah with them and you know just learning different languages and stuff like that it has helped me quite a bit you can cover a lot of the globe of Spanish yeah a lot of places and it's a good beginning right that's a good Latinin base because then you can be like okay

portuguese italian you can hop around yeah you can hop around pretty not easily but it could happen so i heard you say the words in your i don't want to say last speech but uh when your jersey was put up into the rafters so for people who don't't know, and don't worry, folks, if you don't know anything about basketball, that's me too, because I have little squirrel hands. I'm very small. And during the winters when basketball was an option, I actually did not get accepted to the JV basketball team because as the coach put it, I dribbled like a caveman.

So I ended up wrestling. That's going to be my excuse for not knowing much about basketball. But we will come back to the very, very, very, very building blocks of basketball in a moment. But because this is also not explicitly mentioned in your bio, could you explain for people how you came to retire or how your basketball career came to an end? And then we're going to fill in the in-between. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you're 13 and it was kind of like not a long drawn out process, but pretty much what happened is it started with a pulmonary embolism. I ended up having a pulmonary embolism. I had chest pains, back pains, all kinds of different pains,

had a collapsed left lung partially for a while and I was still playing. I chalked it up to something else happened. It wasn't definitely anything life-threatening and it definitely wasn't anything that would end my season, let alone my career. But I kept playing and we eventually, you know, it got so bad, I went to the hospital and I had to end up having to get a surgery. Let me see. I was in the hospital for close to two weeks. It was pretty much like solitary confinement. I didn't really think about it until it was over, but I didn't leave that room for a good

two weeks. I had two tubes in my chest right here on my ribs, on the side of my ribs, right below my chest. And I had to drag that around with me after surgery for a few days until you know it got all the the leakage out that took about a week and then after that I was able to recover was able to come back and play basketball and then that next year we found another clot and so pretty much when when you're in a situation with with blood clots and stuff like that if you have a second blood clot it's almost like you're radioactive

and so that pretty much was it it was uh during all-star weekend in toronto i was uh reshaping my game i'm a three-point shooter now i'm actually in a three-point competition. I'm looking forward to this, my career being revitalized and still being on top of my game, still being an all-star, still performing at a high elite level. We felt that we had a team good enough to compete for a championship that year. We were second or third in the East. We're ready to go. We're right there in the driver's seat.

And we unfortunately found another clot. It was a blood clot in my lower extremities. That was pretty much the end of the season. I continued to try to come back, but it just didn't happen. With doctors and things like that and teams and question marks, and we found out that it's not that much research. The research has been inconclusive about athletes' blood clots and things like that. And we tried, and I did try. I gave it the old college try to try to come back,

but it just proved to be too much. And I have a family, I have children, and I had to start thinking about that. It's like the easy, tough decision to make, right? You know what's right, but I just love basketball so much. And I just figured this was my time to really prove myself as for the umpteenth time to be an elite player in the world. And, you know, it was just that second act or third act rather that didn't happen. And was the cause ultimately, whether definitively or just tentatively, concluded to be a hereditary disease or was it? I did test to see if it was hereditary.

It's not. I don't have the genetic markers that would mean I just have reoccurring clots. When they said that, I was like, okay, well, great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It just seemed to have come out of nowhere, especially in a sport where trauma is pretty, you're getting leg trauma on a nightly basis. But it's just something that I had to move past eventually. And as tough as it was, I had to move on with my life and eventually figure out how to move past it and do something

else. We'll likely come back to that at some point. Just psychologically, philosophically, how you've navigated that. But as promised, I want to jump back to Lincoln High School. And we are going to, at some point, we, I'm using the royal we, I don't mean to embarrass my audience by including you in the questions I might ask about basketball. They're going to be very, very basic. But let me first ask, as we kind of segue into this, I just want to read part of this paragraph from Wikipedia because I have something related to ask about. All right. So the six foot 11 teenager, we didn't mention that yet. Six foot 11 teenager, teenager helped Lincoln High capture in this, again, Wikipedia. So feel free to fact check

anyway. Class four, a state title as he delivered 23 points and 17 rebounds to go along with nine blocks. Here's the paragraph that really caught my attention. All right. Bosch was subsequently named high school player of the year by basketball, America power, a player of the year in Texas, a first team, all American by parade, McDonald's and EA sports, a second team, all American by USA today and slam magazine. And it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and my question is what was it like for you at that age to get that amount of visibility yeah and that amount of suppose fame i mean this is later you'd be much much better known but at that age i think back to all the terrible decisions that i made

in high school all the terrible decisions i continue to make for a long time yeah and it was not in any way fueled i i wouldn't have had the opportunities afforded to someone with a tremendous visibility what was that like as a student in high school and was there a moment when you were like oh wow okay yeah okay things are going to be different. It like continuously happened like that. Yeah. The thing with me is I was lucky to find the thing, right? That thing that you love. Once I found basketball, and that's one of the things that I always encouraged, not only the youth, but people in general.

Find that thing that you love. And, you know, people can help you get there, but only you know. And only you know that feeling, whether it's sewing, knitting, architecture, it could be anything. But for me, I found basketball pretty quickly. And in my mind, it was all supposed to happen. One of the interesting questions I get is people ask me, well, what else would you be doing? That's kind of a hard question to answer because I didn't do anything else. So it was basketball, video games, and friends. And of course, schoolwork. Anything outside of

that, it really didn't get too much in my atmosphere. And so with that said, I was always able to go to practice or go to the gym or even play basketball video games or read the newspaper and see what the stats are and who's leading the Eastern Conference or who's leading the league in scoring, rebounding, and things of that nature. I never wanted to do anything else. Basketball was it. I grew up watching Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant and of, all the other stars too. But those two guys in particular, they were always winning. You know, as soon as I found out what basketball was, I knew who Magic Johnson, you know, was. And huge success in the 80s, five championships.

And then Michael Jordan is there. I watched him pretty much win six live. And then Kobe Bryant comes along and he was the dude that made it real because he was a teenager doing things that Jordan did. So once that started happening, it became more obsessive. Are you familiar with Slam Magazine? I'm not, but I can imagine the subject matter possibly. So Slam Magazine was pretty much like the basketball magazine.

And so that was like the internet. So you go get your Slam Magazine. And I started putting these posters on my wall of Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, all these guys, and just obsessively following the game. But they would also put in these articles with the high school talent. It was all basketball, high school, college, and pros. And so for me, with all the content I consumed, whether it was movies, whether it was watching Slam Magazine, these things were supposed to happen.

So when they started happening, for me, it was more like, okay, cool. I was still in my bubble did you feel in a way because of this extreme focus on basketball that you had identified it as like the path your path yeah that these things were sort of i don't want to say ordained to happen but you were like if i am in fact destined to be on this path like these are the following markers along that path. And therefore, when you show up yourself in Slam Magazine, you're like, yeah. So when I was in Slam, I'm like, okay. As it was written.

Full disclosure, I didn't like the Slam article that they made of me. It's like I finally got my half page. I'm like, that's the photo they chose. But, you know, yeah, it was kind of those markers, markers you know getting those markers pretty much from the ninth grade on and one of the things that was always interesting nobody fun fact in our yearbook i wasn't chosen because we had another we had other good players as well i wasn't chosen most likely to be in the nba so i was never like chris just like you were reading off yeah you saying usa second team is still like, ah.

Wins a little bit. They messed that one up. It's okay, USA today. But with that said, that was just always my mentality. I was not written off, but in my mind, it was always how it was supposed to happen. And I started growing. And then I guess once that notoriety came for me,

it was like, okay, yeah, about time. Yeah. But once I guess once that notoriety came for me, it was like, okay, yeah, about time. Yeah. But once I started getting that notoriety, I wanted to get in the gym more because it was working, you know? So from ninth grade, pretty much on every time I saw success or if I was in the paper or if the coach told me good job or something like that, I wanted more. It was always an emphasis on doing more work you know doing more work and you were like the recipe works let's crank out some more pizza pies with that you know what i mean it's going pretty good let's uh yeah let's make something out of this and and you know one of the interesting things and probably one of the things that lit a fire under me

was my dad you know we weren, we weren't the poorest kids. I would describe my upbringing as lower middle class, but he sat me down or we would drive all the time and ride everywhere. And he told me one day, like I was like 12. He said, Hey man, I can't pay for college.

So basketball, you love basketball. That's awesome. You can get a scholarship playing basketball and that's great because I can't pay for college. He kept saying, I can't pay for college. And I thought that was fascinating that you could actually, wow, you could go to college and play basketball. Okay. And I started, you know, that began an obsession with schools and mascots and learning the colors on top of all the stats and stuff, you know? So once I really started getting into it, I mean, it just grew and grew and grew. And as it grew,

so did the notoriety. So let's talk about making those pizza pies, the recipe that was working. I want to try to tease apart some pieces of that. So you mentioned a name, Kevin Garnett, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. Were there any players you watched and decided to emulate i had read that kg was one such player i don't know if that's true you can't believe everything you read on the internet of course so you can confirm or you can confirm or deny but were there players who you watched early on in your development as a player or as a player who you decided to emulate for one reason or another oh yeah kevin garnett and tim duncan all right more so kg but tim duncan of course too because he was right down the street and his nickname was the big fundamentals and every coach loved the way he played the game so i would play the power forward which is you know it's kind of a dying position now but it was

called the four and it was cool to be a four like oh, oh, man, early 2000s, late 90s, to be a four man, it was awesome. And so it was just kind of looking for guys that look like me. Look like you in terms of physical dimensions. Physical stature or lack thereof. But, you know, it's kind of, you know, growing up playing the game when you're skinny, when your mass hasn't caught up with your bones. Yeah. It's kind of, you know, people kind of be like, ah, you know, you hear all the skinny jokes and you need to eat something and lift some weights. I'm like, I am lifting weights, you know, but it was always this preconceived notion or this stigma that you had to have size to play down low.

And once I saw KG play. When you say down low, what do you mean? Closer to the rim. I see. You know, now the game is more spread. It's more around the three-point line. And the game back then was more people in the paint. So that's how the game was played.

Closer to the basket. A lot more physicality a lot of banging around you know and i'm sure a lot of people were worried for me but you know once i saw kevin it was one highlight in particular long and skinny he was a what all star when he was 19 20 years old he came straight out of high school in 96, no, 95. And he was long and skinny like me. And one of the things kind of you were joking and saying how your coach said you handled the ball like a caveman. He could handle the ball.

Yeah. That was kind of like a new thing. Not new all the way, but old school coaches would tell me, if you're tall, don't dribble. That was a part of the game. Don't put the ball on the floor. I saw him put the ball on the floor and rebound and block shots and play defense, and he had this intensity and tenacity to him. The way he played the game, it was just infectious.

And I was like, yo, I want to do that. And so I would imagine going to the park and imagine these moves and imagine myself doing, you know, I would visualize every day, man. And once I saw that, it was over. And I mean, he was cool, too. He had the swag, the young guy swag back then, had the look and, you know, had the off-court look in the slam. And it was just amazing to me. And I me, and that's all I wanted to do. I wanted to be. That's what I wanted to be, that right there.

KG, not only tall, ball handling skills. And a lot of people don't know this. A lot of people don't know this, but that was actually my nickname. I haven't told anybody. They called me KG in high school. In summer league, like, KG, that's how bad I wanted to emulate his game and make it to the NBA. People were calling me KG in high school in summer league, like KG, that's how bad I wanted to, you know, emulate his game and make it to the NBA. People were calling me KG. All right. So, so this is, this is the intended segue into all sorts of terminology that I'm going to need your help with, but let's,

let's talk about Tim Duncan just for a second, because the big fundamentals, the big fundamentals, man, that's a cool name. Now, what did the coaches like about his playing style? You said they all loved his playing style. What were the ingredients that they loved about his playing style? He had that stoic demeanor. He was never just, he brought the intensity and he played hard, but it wasn't anything extra. Wasn't flashy. The opposite of flashy.

But like we were speaking of playing down low closer to the basket his moves that he used were very basic but devastating sometimes when you're dealing with younger players that are good at the game the simplicity can get to them so they want to show that they're good by doing something fancy and then usually you're messing it up right but Tim he made his career off of establishing position basic stuff establishing position getting your move technique you know playing within the system and he was unstoppable I mean he was he was MVP of the league and perennial all-star you know and the best four man to ever play the game you had to put him in that same context if you're trying to be successful and by playing within the system do

you mean within a coach's prescribed system like a set number of plays like basketball is a fast moving game and it can look like guys are just out there or girls are just out there just running around and not really doing much but there is a method to the madness method to the madness you're supposed to be in a certain position even if it's within the flow of a game so you know when i say system that's what i mean by that if he was at the top he knew exactly what to do if he's down low he knew exactly what to do and that added on top of the talent yeah they could have given it to him and say okay bring us home big fella and that would have worked but he added so much longevity on his career by playing within the system in my opinion and and i mean that made it more dangerous because you have to worry about all

of these other things happening. If you're defending him, it's for other people out there that you have to worry about. But then he's hitting you on your body down low, getting the ball. And he was incredibly strong, too. Okay, so this is fun for me as a basketball illiterate to begin to sort of piece this together in my own mind because you have the big fundamentals who's playing with within the system not in a negative sense but meaning he he understands how to play with and synergize with the other elements on the team absolutely he is not doing anything fancy for fancy's sake right so as we were talking about

before we started recording how like morgan spurlock once told me like once you get fancy fancy gets broken right that's a good one i'm yeah that's a good one and fancy can work but you better have the fundamentals first right so he's devastating within the system which is a possibility and then you have kg kevin garnett who is in some ways violating the expectations of him, not because it's impossible to do so, just because there isn't much historic precedent for somebody his size also having the dexterity to handle the ball really well. Especially in the mid-90s. Right, which later you would also receive that compliment quite a lot. And I want to go to Power Forward and is it Four Man?

Yeah, the Four. All right, this is the Four. This is where I'm really going to Power Forward and is it four man? Is that right? Yeah, the four. All right, this is the four. This is where I'm really going to embarrass myself. Here we go. So I'm going to make a confession. I was reading through the research. I was reading about your bio. I was watching videos and I thought to myself, this might as well be in Greek. I can't even begin to imagine what these terms mean, half of them. So I went to, people are going to love this. So I went to Wikipedia and I looked up basketball. I was like, let's just start there. And just to be clear, I do watch basketball. I appreciate, I mean, I clearly don't follow it very well, but I can appreciate the athleticism. I understand

what a three-point shot is. I understand what a jump shot is, layup, slam dunk, et cetera. Some of these terms I actually do know. But I realized that I did not know the positions whatsoever. And so I just want to read something, and then we can dive in. So this is from the Wikipedia entry on basketball, folks. Yes, feel free to laugh. All right. So first of all, if you didn't know this, five players on each side, each side it turns out all right so the five players on each side fall into five playing

positions the tallest player is usually the center second tallest and strongest the power forward a slightly shorter but more agile player is the small forward and the shortest players are the best ball handlers are the shooting guard and the point guard who implement the coach's game plan by managing the execution of offense and defensive plays in parentheses player positioning informally players may play three on three two on two one on one and then i'll just add this because i was like what really invented in in 1891 by a canadian american gym teacher james nysmith or naysmith naysmith in springfield massachusetts united states basketball has evolved to become one of the world's most popular and widely viewed sports. So number one, 1891, not that long ago.

Not that long ago. That's crazy. Yeah. That is insane. That is just, that's like wheels on luggage where you're like, really? It took us that long? Wow. And they started with a peach basket.

Did you get to that point? No. So back in the day when they made the game, they had to have something to do in the wintertime in Massachusetts. So they put the peach basket up there. And when you make a basket, they had to get a ladder to climb up and take it out. It wasn't until later that they cut a hole in the peach basket. The climbing up and getting it out, not as compelling for television. Yeah, yeah.

No, it's not. It's like, oh, good shot. Okay, let me go. Hold on, hold on. Give me a few minutes. So you know the game will be two to three or something like that, you know. Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors, and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Jobs.

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the right person to help you grow your business. And your first job post is free. So just visit linkedin.com slash Tim to learn more. Again, that's linkedin.com slash Tim to post your first job for free. Terms and conditions do apply. So I just want to kind of run through this again and then get your commentary just as to how to think about the game now also understanding the game is not static right and how the game is played changes especially now especially now so we can take these rules and then we're about to break them okay all right so not to say you have to comment on what i just read because obviously you're much more qualified than the 37 people who put that together. How should we think about the positions of basketball?

Like if I were an alien, which might as well be the case, and I'm looking at this and I understand what I said I understand, but I'm like, all right, how are the jobs and responsibilities separated out here? How should we think about that? Well, you know, with those positions, with all those positions, with that said, it's been totally. Yeah.

And each of those positions is numbered, therefore, power forward it's been totally yeah and each of those positions is numbered therefore yeah power forward yeah the one the two that's like when you get into it like oh yeah play the two that's when you're super cool yeah you know what i mean like i'm at the five the shorthand yeah i'm at the five all right one two three you know you have your positions but with that said the game has changed so you have one through five the one is the point guard the two is the shooting guard. Three, small forward. Four, power forward.

And the five is the center. What has happened in the last few years is that it's become more of a spread game because mathematically, people that do data eventually said, hey, let's shoot more threes because these shots, we don't like these shots. We like these shots. Oh, that's interesting. So let's spread at the floor so is the so is the reason sorry to interrupt but i'm gonna do it a lot um so the is the reason that the three-point shot has become more and more prominent that was driven by kind of like the

sabermetrics equivalent it came from the data wonks not from the player side there were some players in particular me and shane baddier we would talk about my good friend Shane Battier. We played together in Miami during the championship years. We would talk about this. We had just got him. He had played his career in Houston and Memphis. And Houston, it's a guy by the name of Darrell Moore. He's the president for the Sixers in Philadelphia right now. Big stat guy. Loves stats. I mean, a number cruncher. And so they had a certain team, and it was a whole culture of stat-driven guys. Shane came from that. And so that's where we would kind of talk, and we would talk about threes and contested twos and just different shots that you can take. What's a contested two?

So if you're within the three-point line right or a contested shot is if you're shooting and i just put my hand up trying to defend you right trying to deny you from actually putting two or three points up and so it turns you're pretty good at denying other people for sure yeah you know i've seen that link i've seen these so like it came to be that uh the worst shot in basketball is they contested to 15 to 18 19 20 feet away from the god just statistically when they look at like the statistically it's terrible you know and so people took that information and said okay hey we need to play faster we need more points big fella you need to dribble so now now it's, you want everybody to handle it. Interesting, so all of a sudden, that thing that you were not supposed to do

became an asset. Everybody should do it. And it's like, wow, you play the game. Everybody should be able to do the basic fundamentals. But now it's opened up to where now you have guys like Nikola Jokic. Probably never heard of him. He's a big man that plays in denver

one of the best players in the league he's a five man but he handles the ball you know which is a five man again the center okay thank you so to confuse you more yes please now you have a thing called the point center okay all right that's if your big fella can bring it down but the evolution of the game you've had guys like, you know Magic Johnson then LeBron James comes and he's very tall but he can handle the ball and you have Ben Simmons Giannis Antetokounmpo These guys who are very tall Seven feet six eight to seven feet who back in the day you could say, okay Hey, you're a four or a center or something else they've totally

transformed the game because they're the guys bringing it up the floor and they're getting the team into offense so they're doing the job of the point guard so now it's more of uh the term positionless when we were playing when i was playing it's crazy to say the last decade early in the 2010s that became kind of one of our words to say positionless disruption. That's the word I'm looking for. So, you know, basketball has been disrupted. What we thought was the game has been cracked open and now it's just become not just it's become a faster pace, longer shots, more athleticism and not so much the cookie cutter approach to where someone should be on the court because of their size or lack of size you know it makes me wonder about adaptability and the adaptability of not just some players and i'm sure there's also just

a selection bias that changes with respect to who is drafted and how and just the entire feeder system into the NBA. But also coaches, even more so coaches. If their entire career has been predicated on a system of a certain type, I mean, I'm not asking you to name names, but have you seen certain coaches who've been really able to adapt to this new style of playing others who are like i don't know i don't get it well the ones who say i don't know i don't get it they don't have jobs right yeah and they get weeded out quickly yeah one of the guys of course you know my ex-coach and uh eric spolster he i remember him he he was having the vision of having that positionless type of basketball and that faster pace which I didn't like at the time because that would means I would have to play

the center as opposed to the power forward and I didn't want to do that but just taking advantage of the speed why didn't you want to do that because I was banging up against guys bigger than me so usually in the NBA my playing weight was about 235 240 if i'm playing the five i'm banging with guys that are 280 270 and on a weekly nor nightly instances oh man it gets brutal but you know it did work as far as you know using the speed to get around the bigger defenders so essentially playing i guess if you were a fighter, going to class up in weight. Because you're quicker, you can hit them more. That was pretty much the philosophy. One of the other guys who I think have done a great job is Greg Popovich.

He's in San Antonio. He's done a wonderful job because they run the same place yeah they just extend them oh interesting okay could you could you expand on that because i remember yeah watching the last dance and watching this segment on the the spurs yeah and sort of their i don't want to say playbook but sort of systematic approach and some of the debate around that right because there are other players who are like that's not fun to watch right like they should do abnc instead because it beats you it's not fun watch your team getting beat you know so can you expand on what you mean by that so they had the same fundamental system but they expanded it so it's kind of um the best analogy i could put to it is um you know i don't want to expose their system but everybody knows their system it's predicated

and i might i might be saying this wrong but but it's two two plays that are the base in their system weak and strong i can't remember which side of the court if you're on this side of the court is weak on another side of the court. If you're on this side of the court, it's weak. On another side of the court, it's strong. But that's their base of the offense. Like I was saying earlier, the game a few years ago was being played closer to the rim. There was nowhere to go. There's no space. Even if you want to get your best player attacking into the paint,

if there's eight other people in there it makes it a little more difficult traffic jam traffic jam so you can take those same plays in basketball and just tell your players hey all these things from the heat days are going to come into my head but pace and space i can't believe i'm saying that i like it but that's what you know the space was very particular because you want to be able to see what's going on and to attack the rim. Get closer to the rim for easy buckets. All you have to do is, hey, if you're in the paint, I want you to get out there. We're going to run the same place, but as opposed to being six feet away from the basket, get 16.

I need you in this 12 to 16 area feet right here because usually bigs they wanted to keep them we call them bigs the fours and the fives bigs we want to keep you as close to the basket as possible but that was clogging it up

for the smaller guys to be able to attack so you would tell to be able to and they want to keep the bigs close to the basket not to state the obvious but so that you can receive a pass jump up

done be tall rebound do all the things yeah the tall things Bigs close to the basket, not to state the obvious, but so that you can receive a pass, jump up, done. Be tall. Rebound. Right. Do your thing. Yeah, the tall things. Do all the things that tall people do. Well, if you spread the court, that makes it a little tougher to guard.

It takes bodies away from the painted area. You know that area where the paint. Yeah. That's what we call the paint. Harden the paint. Harden the paint. If people have wondered what that term refers to, as my girlfriend told me, I was like, what?

Oh my God, I never knew that. It's going harden the paint, man. You can have the same type of offense, which is nobody is reinventing the wheel here. But what's happened is the game has become faster and more spread so that more offensive opportunities can happen so you have preemptively developed ball handling skills which lo and behold now are this huge asset yeah as the game evolves but you get put into center where you're basically running into freight trains uh-oh it was a part of my whole career it would happen in toronto i'm not saying a bad thing

yeah but but initially you're like i don't want to do it i don't want to do it uh and now again based on just the the homework that i've done i mean you you seem to be also very very well known as a rebounder and one of the questions that comes to mind for me is if suddenly the bigs, is that the term, are expanded out further away from the basket, does that not make it harder for you to utilize one of your superpowers? In a ways, there are certain things that do get taken away. In our case, it was a little easier to make that sacrifice because we had Dwayne and Wade and LeBron. So if it's saying, hey, Chris, we need you to get out the paint and spread the floor, yeah, your offensive rebounding opportunities are going to sink quite a bit.

But it's better if we get those guys attacking. So you need to be out here. And one of the things that kind of developed was having a more sound defense. Okay, instead of crashing the boards, just get back. Yeah. Because the defense especially, if the defense gets the rebound, now they're on offense.

If they're running, if they're a fast team, you want to mitigate their opportunities for easy baskets. And that can be a stat too which i'm pretty sure we uh we dug up that we did dig up that stat what's the percentage of you getting an offensive rebound versus not getting a stop because of that so question for you on the stats and maybe this is getting too too nerdy but do all the teams have equal access to data? And it's just a matter of analyzing it more effectively? Yeah. Oh, we can go on NBA.com and get all the stats right now.

Wow. So that's hard. Like everybody has, it's an open book. Right. It's an open, it wasn't like that before. And the way you crunch those numbers is not an open book. So everybody gets the data, but that's all it is is just data it's just telling you what happened the last game or over the course of the game it's on the teams

to kind of take that and utilize it if they want to now some people do overdo it in my opinion you can kind of get some people like yeah you know it's the way we want to play okay kind of tie your shoes with the left hand first but there's still you know in my you know in my case it's still some fundamentals to the game that you know you can't really get around you mentioned uh eric spolstra if i'm getting the pronunciation right our mutual friend ryan holiday had given me a bullet which was related to books that eric had given you what books did he give you that come to mind he would give books every christmas to the team so there were quite a few quite a few and i read all of them i was probably the only dude to read all of them it was even kind of funny because one time

we were cleaning out their lockers and our lockers and said you know somebody won't name who but somebody grabbed the book from their locker oh man sp, Spoh, thanks for this Christmas gift. It's in June. We're blowing dust off of it, you know? But when we first met, I had just signed to Miami and I was always reading. I was always been an avid reader since I was a kid. And I just fell into reading books. I would always read books, especially on the road, before naps, before games. That was my thing. And he knew that about me.

He had heard that about me. Him being a good coach said, hey, I'm gonna get him this book. I heard he's a reader. He got me Outliers by Gladwell. And I said, okay. You know, he gave it to me and I took it. Oh, that's cool.

I read that book. And he just kind of looked at me like, what? And then ever since then, he would, I guess, I hope that I pushed him to do more research in his book buying. But yeah, he would get us books every Christmas. Were there any that stood out to you? One in particular was grit because he used that term all the time. The author slipping my name, Angela Duckworth,

Angela Duckworth. And you know, he, he got us that book and he would always use these phrases. And so grit was a huge, huge, huge word that he used that I'm sure he still uses to this day. But that book in particular,

he bought for the team. And I read that one. I do remember that one. And then it's another one that's slipping my mind. But I remember specifically, we were having a conversation and it wasn't an easy conversation. Usually when you're a coach, you're having tough conversations 24-7 with your players because everybody wants the ball. I was having one of those conversations like, hey, give me the ball. you know? And it was one chapter in particular that was saying push versus pull.

Some people you have to push, some people you have to pull. Another chapter that said, you have to have an open mindset or a closed mindset. You don't want a closed mindset. You want an open mindset. The book will come to me in a minute. I had to like, you know,

challenge him on having an open mindset. book will come to me in a minute i had to like you know challenge him on having an open mindset hey give me the ball yeah have an open mindset coach you know remember that book you gave me and i always love that one because it's the book that he gave us and i had to use it you know to kind of try to get my way. But I always, I want to say it's good to great, but that's probably not the one. But those, good to great is one of them. Those books in particular, and I mean, like I say, throughout the whole time, throughout the whole stint in Miami,

he gifted us books, and I'm pretty sure he gifted us The Obstacle is the Way. I want to say he did. I'm pretty sure he gifted us The Obstacle is the Way. I want to say he did. I'm pretty, pretty sure. But, you know, I just thought it was fascinating just a coach taking the time to think of his teammates and give them food for thought, something to think about. And I always enjoyed that, and I would read it, and I felt like I was getting inside his mind and the minds of others reading these passages and kind of taking and know and interpreting it for myself right before the game you know it was always great wow so you would read right before right before playing oh yeah i would uh it was uh funny pat riley he told me he's like

you like kareem kareem abdujabar he would sit there and read the whole time and a couple of my young players when i was the old grizzled vet they they told me like i would just sit there reading and you know i'm oblivious to this stuff i'm just getting my mind right you know this was i read because this was my relaxing time because it's about to get hectic yeah so you're not reading like blackhawk down you're reading maybe maybe okay i might yeah but if i'm reading Blackhawk Down it's the playoffs yeah you know it's winning time but you know I always tried to give myself that peace of mind it was like I felt like it was my time and granted we're in the locker room it's media everywhere and

people it's like the buzz of an NBA game about to start and I would sit there and they told me man when you close that book it's like all right he's ready let's go yeah yeah I would sit there and they told me, man, when you close that book, it's like, all right, he's ready. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. I would read and all the way up until coach is about to start talking. It's like, all right, cool. Let's go out here and do it. Are there any books that you've reread multiple times that come to mind? I mean, or was it always a new book that you would read? I always read a new book, but the book that i read all the time which you i know that you're a connoisseur of japanese culture is uh the way and the power have you heard of that book no so it's a book called the way and the power um i had a buddy of mine who was a uh kenpo black belt

many times over he gifted me that book it pretty pretty much was breaking down the way of the samurai. And it was two books into one, The Way and the Power. Strategies, the power is more so like strategies for a master. Distancing, confusion, how to handle conflict, things like that. The way is more so shaping the body and shaping the mind to become a samurai so the exercises that one has to do to get to the point to start mastery before you can even think about it you know you need to be here you know one of the passages said you have to look successful you want to be able to look good so I took all these principles and applied them to

basketball so what they meant by looking good was saying hey shirt tucked in regulation everything is good to go my shoes are tied I don't have to worry about them because I have this knot that they won't come loose so I'm not worried about my shoes while I'm playing it also says you know exercise must be vigorous people need to tell so you have that strong spirit you know when you're showing up before you even play my muscle definition is good i'm ready to play because we've been working hard we want to feel that you know it's uh feeling the spirit before you even start playing the game working on your key things like that huh yeah the way and the power the way and the power i think you'd enjoy it cool check it out cool title and it's got japanese and you know i'm into it they don't

translate the words so for instance one of the principles is called motion that really resonated like no no mind no mind so you attack with no mind i don't think about everything we've done all the studying i filled myself with my opponent and i'm attacking with no mind because i've done all the training that is super cool that's ah you know that that's yeah so you read that and be like oh yeah that's cool yeah no mind or uh this this this character shin which is also kokoro yeah uh is is also used for heart but it's it's like spirit heart and mind all wrapped into once culturally super interesting yeah it's very fascinating and i mean they yeah they don't change they do not translate because some of them have no translation right yeah so they have the like motion for

instance it's called motion then they do english but the title the principle is all japanese so you mentioned the not having the right knots you're not worried about your shoes i might be misattributing this i don't think i am but even though i know very little about most sports i'm fascinated by consistent top performers because it's like once you're lucky twice you're good like for a decade okay yeah there there there is some method and i recall reading this story about john wooden famed i guess ucla coach book too and i recall reading a story i'm sure i'm gonna get the details wrong but when he would meet a bunch of new players sit down and he'd walk them through

tying their shoes and and they'd be like why does this matter and he'd be like the little things matter because if you mess this up you're gonna get irritated yeah then you're gonna get a blister and then you're not gonna be able to move properly, and that's going to cost you points, and that's going to cost you the game. Yeah, man. And I was like, oh, so good. So good. Pyramid of Success. Pyramid of Success. Pyramid of Success by John Wooden. You can check that one out.

That pretty much describes that. So he had a pyramid of success, and that's one of the myths or stories or whatever. They pretty much owned the 60s and 70s. You know, UCLA basketball, they built it to what it is, you know, historically today. And not only did he get the best players and great players, Abdul-Jabbar being one of them, he had the best teams. And coming in to play for a great coach like that, it's like, okay, first day of practice. Oh, I can't wait.

What are we going to do? And he's showing them how to put on their socks and shoes, you know, practically and perfectly. And that was the first day of practice. So, you know, just. I'm just imagining the faces. Could you imagine that? Like, we about to, oh, what offense are we going to run?

This is going to be the best. And, you know, we about to, oh, what offense are we going to run? This is going to be the best. And if you read, there's an actual pyramid that he built and constructed. And tying shoes and socks was at the very bottom of the pyramid of success. And he'd do this every year. Every year, that would be the first thing that they would go over. And then they would build on top of that. And you know he was testing and tracking and keeping notes it's not accidental that that ended up at the bottom of the pyramid of course of course

but that makes sense right yeah if you get a blister you know especially back in those days everybody's playing in chuck taylor's oh that's important yeah that's important man you've got a hey let's this is important stuff and you know I was alluding to earlier, that's the challenge with younger players, right? They want to go right to being the master, doing the things that you think that a master is supposed to be doing when we need to do this first, the basic, basic fundamentals. That way, when it's winning time, we can be healthy. It's kind of like many sayings out there, but you have the bit in the horse and the shoe.

If that nail isn't right, then the horse, you know, it's all these catastrophic events that could possibly follow if this one basic thing is not correct. You've spent a lot of time as a leader with other leaders, whether players, iconic players, coaches, whole broad spectrum, are there any particular lessons or stories related to leadership that stick out to you, things you saw or absorbed from anyone in particular? My high school coach, Leonard Bishop, he talked to me one time, and as much as I became more social later in life, this is me at 17 years old, 6'11". All the accolades are possible, and they can possibly come. He called me in his office, and he told me, you don't have to be loud to be a leader. You can lead by example. And you

know, we always hear the thing lead by example, right? You will hear that all the time, but what does that even mean? Right? And he told me, he explained it to me. He said, you know, you can lead by putting your work in, being on time, being dressed and ready to go. It was time to practice, staying after practice. Your teammates are watching you all the time. So if you do these things and lead by example, never giving up, never quitting, playing hard, these are the things that could be infectious.

You don't have to be the guy giving the win one for the gipper speech. You can go out there and you can be yourself. And that was so comforting to me. I remember that conversation we were having in his office and i said wow okay that gave me so much more confidence because i could be myself because on the court i'm gonna yell and scream and do all that stuff all day i'm not i wasn't always the player to always talk during the game at that age but if it's getting hype and screaming and yelling i was basketball was always my release to do that it was comforting to know i could be myself and still bring the leadership qualities to that team and you know that always stuck with me

what are some of the things that people don't know or don't see that you think are important about some of the, the, the big names you've spent time around, whether that, and you can take your pick, could be anybody, could be, could be a player, could be a coach, could be an owner, could be anyone at all. Somebody not on that list because people see you on TV. Maybe they followed you for a long time and they, maybe they think they know what makes you, you, and they might have a few things, right. But they probably have a whole lot of things wrong. And that would also, I assume, be true

for many of these big names that you've spent time around. Are there any particular ingredients or special aspects of some of these folks that come to mind that you think are maybe less appreciated or less obvious to people? One, being human, humanizing the people that can kind of get lost in translation when you're on TV. So remembering that there's a human element, these are people with families and feelings and emotions. And on top of that, I think the work

that is being put in to anybody who's elite at their craft or even professional at their craft. I mean, it's in a ridiculous amount of work that's put in to even be in the league you know and right let alone on the short list of people you know and even on the short list man they're working hard you know and um I don't know like the the first thing that came to mind when you said that was like you ever I say you ever watch a basketball game but well I have basketball I have you have watched basketball so i've watched let's say i understood all the finer details yes so have you ever watched it when they say okay they've got two days off until their next game yes that is not true yeah right right not true practice

treatment appearances the professional aspect that it takes to be able to perform because usually people just see you on tv and see you doing your thing okay two days off no we do not have two days off there are no such thing as weekends if there's a weekend maybe we play at eight o'clock as opposed to 7 30 like usual that was the only cursor for me that let me know it was the weekend. So just trying to remember, and you know, it's really for all people who are good at what they do. If you admire that person, remember that there's a human element, that's a human, they're probably going through it or maybe not, or just whatever comes with life, they're dealing with it. And the tremendous amount of work and focus that it takes to be able to do that, you know, to be able to, to say, Hey, I'm, I need to put this to the side to be able to

perform. It's happened many times in my career. You know, you go to funerals, you have things you have to fight through and then you have to play and you're still expected to win, you know? So just remembering those, those things, just remembering that when you're still expected to win you know so just remembering those those things just remembering that when you're watching your favorite player or your favorite author or favorite engineer whatever that is the tremendous amount of work and dedication that it takes to get to that level that's what i would like people to to really remember and understand i have watched maybe not not enough basketball but i have watched basketball. And in fact, at one point, not to say I ever got particularly good at it, And so I actually practiced quite a bit with the help of a few people, sort of technicians who were trying to help me understand basic principles.

And part of the reason for that is that I have been just dazzled by, say, three-point shots. Because as someone built like a small Flintstones character myself, I watch people who are jumping over the rim and performing these incredible feats of athleticism. I'm like, well, I can't even imagine myself doing that. The physics are just not there. My bones never caught up with my mass is the problem. It's the other way around.

Plus my vertical jumps, like somewhere between half an inch and an inch at best. So, so those are things I just can't even imagine myself doing. And I think people might be, I'm not saying that this is everyone, but people might be inclined to say, well,

he's six 11. Right. So like, of course you can slam a basketball, but it's a lot harder to use that justification when it's a three point shot. Right. It's like, no, actually, actually, like, of course you can slam a basketball, but it's a lot harder to use that justification when it's a three point shot. Right. It's like, no, actually, actually like you short guy.

Yeah. Tim, that's you. I'm talking to you. You should technically like you have the physical capability of doing that. So I would just love to hear, and this might be getting too into the weeds, but how you improved your three point shots, because it's not just repetition in the weeds, but how you improved your three-point shots. Because it's not just repetition in the sense like you can make the same mistake over and over and over again. And I've read about you doing video review, watching games six to eight times and so on.

So I know that you are methodical about reviewing your own performance, but how did you improve something like a three-point shot? I didn't start shooting threes consistently until about my third year in Miami, second or third year in Miami. I shot them in Toronto a little bit, but like I said, it still wasn't, we were talking about the game earlier, it wasn't that widely accepted in the game. Big men shooting threes, handful of them. Now you have a handful that don't. We got to Miami and my position or my responsibilities changed. So I wasn't getting the ball closer to the basket anymore. That was my job in Toronto, to get the ball as close to the basket as possible. That's where we function. I was pretty good at it. And then the team would go from there

and we would distribute and kind of base our game off of, I guess, my success or lack of success down low. I was telling you earlier that in Miami, I had to get out the way. That was my sacrifice in particular with that team so that LeBron and D could penetrate and get into the paint and do what they're best in the world at doing as we continue to play I had coach when me and Shane

Battier we would talk all the time about it but then I had a you know have discussions with coaches as well and somebody says someone day said hey man just take a step back take one step back shoot the same shot but just take a step back. Take one step back. Shoot the same shot, but just take a step back. Because I was always an avid worker on my jump shot. I was pretty good. I was lethal from mid-range. That was my thing. I always worked on it and worked on it.

So it's the hundreds of thousands or millions of reps that I have shooting the ball. I know I have a touch anyway. It was just extending the range so it's kind of um one of those things that if you're good short range and mid-range hell you practice your long range you can be pretty good too but getting those fundamentals of the you know the shooting motion the arm snapping your wrist following balance, all these different fundamentals that you learn and what goes into a great shooter, going and seeking that advice, learning from other shooters, always kind of taking in information, but relying on my own information.

I think you have to have a good foundation in what you've done already by yourself, even if it's in the weeds or in the dark. And then you have hopefully someone that can refine what you already have or say something to you to say, hey, man, take a step back. You can shoot threes. And then I started shooting threes. And then as I became more consistent, you know, I found more success. And it's funny to watch the game now because I'm like, man, I could still be playing, you know. I'm 37. I saw myself playing into my, you know, I found more success. And it's funny to watch the game now because I'm like, man, I could still be playing, you know.

I'm 37. I saw myself playing into my, you know, 37, 38. And I started practicing more threes because I saw where the game was going. I said, okay, yeah, they're shooting. There's more threes. Me and Shane have talked about this. Three is more than two. Okay, I'm going to start shooting more threes.

And that, in my last year in the league, I had a higher frequency of three-point shots. And, you know, I was seeing threes. And that in my last year in the league, I had a higher frequency of three point shots and, and, you know, I was seeing some success. So that was exciting, but that was like the part of my career that I never really got to crack open. Yeah. Yeah. With three pointers, when you're watching other players make three point shots, are their styles dramatically different or are the good three point shooters? Do they all have the same ingredients? I think all have the same ingredients i think there's the same ingredients i mean you're always going to get different flavors but um it's

the same ingredients uh to me it's always followed through one fluid motion and good balance if you have those things you can shoot the ball and i always it's kind of funny you learning to shoot free throws i would always tell people i give my friends pointers so i have a few buddies that you know they're producers and songwriters they always play yeah in rec league games i won't give away your sauce dude don't worry i won't give away your position but i would uh i just give them like pointers and say you know like hey man can you help me with my shot and i just look at them shoot a couple times and give them corrections and then they see instant success. But that's just elbow in, follow through, one fluid motion, boom.

You have a better – you just wanted to go straight. You can get super deep into it, trajectory and all that stuff, but that's when you see it's good to get into the fundamentals of where the ball is supposed to go and how you're supposed to hold it but one of the things that we always do is just start with one hand shooting i don't know if they had you doing that right under the basket this all day get a lot of repetitions and that build that muscle memory and then you can start stepping back as you get better yeah the the thing that kind of blew my mind also,

which I hadn't thought about at all, because why would I? I hadn't had any exposure, was I was just missing, missing, missing. I was like, oh, for 20, even at a close distance. One coach, I'm blanking on his name, I want to say it was Rick Torbett, but he did an eye dominance test,

and he's like, oh, you're right-handed, but you're left-eye dominant and he's like, Oh, you're right-handed, but you're left eye dominant. He's like, yeah, shift it like an inch over. And then the whole thing changed. I was like, wow,

wow. That's a thing. Okay. That's pretty good. And, uh, well, maybe someday I'll,

I'll pick up a basketball again and have to confiscate all phones and cameras first. So be critical to myself. Close your right eye and shoot it what did it feel like going from and why did you go from toronto to miami yeah because like you were king of the hill yeah it was mr canada yeah you're mr mr canada yeah you know it was uh it was a tough decision i loved toronto and toronto loved me and it was great tough decision. I loved Toronto and Toronto loved me. And it was great just to be able to compete and put a city or a country on your back and just hope for the best.

And just go out there and work hard every day. And, you know, I just felt like a pillar of the community. I wanted to do it so bad for Toronto. You eventually get to a point in your career where you have to make a choice and I went to you know I talked to many people it was a dilemma I didn't know what to do and if you're familiar with popular culture or maybe not that year in 2010 there was a that was like the first mega free agent everybody who was agents, it was about eight or nine free agents that's like, okay, they're the best eight or nine guys in the world. Right now, they're ready to go.

Things can and will dramatically change. That was the atmosphere that was coming, and I knew that was coming. I had tried everything. I tried everything in Toronto. I tried to recruit. I tried to push myself, push my team. And, and, you know, we weren't even scratching the surface. And one of the tough things dealing with it is seeing the early success of my peers. I wanted to win. I've always wanted to win. And I've always wanted to put in the work to be able to do that and compete and hopefully gain glory in that way. I talked to a lot of older players. About what to do.

About what to do. And older gentlemen as well. And the thing that I kept hearing was that you want to play on the stage, man. It's about going for it. It's about competing for a championship. You want to play on that stage. That's the phrase that stuck with me. And I had an opportunity to play with that stage. That's the phrase that stuck with me. And I had an opportunity

to play with two other great players. And we had known each other since we were teenagers. I've been knowing Brian since we were 16, 17 years old. I knew Dwayne since we were 19, 20 years old. And it just fit. And it was a possibility to be like my heroes. I told you, I idolized Jordan and Kobe. And it was right there to be able, the calling happened. And I wanted to play on that stage that I was talking about. I was telling you, since I was a little kid, I was watching Michael Jordan. I distinctly remember.

And even the moment I found out about basketball was because michael jordan was playing on tv all the time i mean even um we would go to dayton ohio my dad he drive us is crazy 18 hours and in a single cab pickup truck 84 f-150 man and we he drive us from Dallas to Dayton and drop us off. And every summer, 91, 92, 93, for sure, the night that we got to my grandma's house, the Bulls would be playing. And it's winning time. It was in the finals. And I understood after a while, after they get the trophy, I'm like, oh, wow, this is amazing. And I wanted to do that, man. And I couldn't even tell you what happened the rest of that summer.

I couldn't tell you what happened that night. I couldn't even tell you who was around the TV. I know I was. And I was just taking it all in. And every year I would watch it and watch it and watch it. And that's all I wanted to do, you know, aspire to do. And at that time, that situation was right there in front of me. It was right there in front of me to take.

So I took it. And that was only a chance. You know, this is just an opportunity not to even say that you're going to have success, but this is your best chance to go for that right now. Now, did you feel 100% confident when you made that decision and in the weeks and months following? Or were there any points where you're like oh man oh yeah there's always going to be those points right i don't know i don't know yeah there's those points you

get to those points but i had gotten used to that by then and you know for whoever's listening sometimes it's just going to be yeah like that you're supposed to feel it right you're supposed to is a major leap of faith yeah and if you're making that leap of faith yeah there will be some questions but i always that was part of my mental training like yeah they're just questions that's okay let's let's just keep going forward logically it makes sense it sounds and then yeah when the emotions come in and yeah you get those feelings like i don't know if i can do this and and we came together in such a way to where it was explosive and pretty infamous. So that comes into it as well. Yeah, you start having self-doubt. And that's one of the things we eventually got to with talking with the Heat. That self-doubt is going to come and doesn't make you any less of a competitor or a person. It's just a part of the process. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so glad you're mentioning that. I remember not too long ago, I was talking to a really, not on the podcast, this was a private conversation, but an extremely famous investor

who from the outside looking in, I'm like, okay, this guy's balls are bigger than my house. Like, I don't know how this guy, I don't know how he does what he does. I would not get a second of sleep. It's just the risks that I perceive him as taking. And we were talking about self-doubt and second guessing. And he goes, oh, just to be clear, he's like, no matter what, you're going to have some regret. He's like, if you buy something and it does really well, you're going to kick yourself for not having bought enough why didn't i buy enough if if you buy something and it does really poorly you'd be like why did i invest in that he's like oh he's like no either way he's like you're gonna have second guesses he's like just accept that as like part of the game and i was

like oh it was actually very stress relieving i was like oh yeah i'm fighting myself all this time man like oh okay yeah because a lot of people, they get that. They think something's wrong with them. Yeah. Or they think something's wrong with the situation, or they'll pull out. Yeah. And say, hey, no, no, no. I always kind of think of one of my favorite books was Blink.

Blink, yeah. By Gladwell. And just talking about the gut decision, threshing your gut. Then we talk ourselves out of it. We knew the answer. Yeah. then we talk ourselves out of it. We knew the answer when we talk ourselves out. Talking yourself out of it, that's a part of it. It's going to happen, but just stay with it. Stay with what you said you were going to do, what you're meant to do.

Sometimes self-doubt comes. You just got to be like, shh, shh, shh. Hold on. I'm working now. And it's okay to dismiss that voice. Yeah, totally.'t doesn't mean you're uniquely flawed it does not mean that at all when you were reviewing footage of yourself could you give an example of if one comes to mind of when you did that and then once again like how

do you watch like what are you looking for and what are you seeing because you Because someone was asking me as I was preparing for this, they're like, well, have you watched basketball? And I said, I think I've seen basketball. I'm not sure I've watched it because, for instance, I mean, there are sports I know a lot more about, like wrestling or boxing or these things. And I can watch and I see things that some of my friends won't see just because I know the technical underpinnings.

Absolutely. So when you're watching footage, if you can think of any examples of reviewing your own footage, why did you look at it? And then what were you looking for? What types of things did you pick out? I think naturally every player will start on offense. They want to watch themselves on offense and it can easily turn into just a highlight tape. The Instagram of your own mind. You know what I mean? Your highlight tape. And I would look for mistakes. I got to the point

where I was looking for mistakes. Did you do that consistently? Did it start at a particular point? Was it always? No, not always. Like I said, highlight tape. It started off as highlight tape. So you just want to see yourself doing good, but then you get to a point to where you're looking for the inconsistencies. Or if there was a game, certain particular game that you were unsuccessful, I'm looking at the whole game to see what exactly, why, what happened, what I can do to get better. What is this team team doing they might have had some success against me defending me so what one of the things I would look for I would look it's so hard to describe but I would look for everything all and once you get to the point where you're looking for everything but the main main main things were defense and offense my positioning on offense I would always look at my teammates characteristics characteristics, seeing what they're doing, see what the scouting report on them is.

They might do a certain particular move every single time in this play, and you have to watch film to know that. It would help build continuity. And we talk about it too, like when you're doing that, I want you to zig instead of zag, you know, and it's having those discussions. You watch the video with coaches, with teammates. Everything by myself, with the team. We always started practice with half an hour of film.

Oh, you did? Yeah. 45 to an hour of Spoh felt long winded. But yeah, we would. That was game footage. Mm hmm. Yeah. Pretty much usually the night before looking at all the mistakes.

And then I developed the habit of going home and dissecting other players so in particular uh was Dirk Nowitzki three-point shooter seven feet late 90s early 2000s this is when it was you know he was shooting threes back when you know it was very taboo I guess for a big to be doing all that stuff. But he revolutionized the game in that aspect. We lost against them in the 2011 finals. Terrible, terrible tragedy, right? But one thing it inspired me to do, he did these certain particular moves within the system that you couldn't stop it. And I had to figure out what it was he was doing. So I watched a tremendous amount of film on him in particular, but what happened in our losing effort, but what happened was you start seeing, like you're saying, you start seeing other things. So what I started doing was I started

compartmentalizing the film and I would say, okay, I'm going to watch what Atlanta, or I'm going to watch what the Lakers are doing on offense. It became this thing of, okay, I've got my offensive system down. I know my game. Now I will watch film on the other team. I just want to get inside the mind of the other team. I want to know all their plays. I want to know their best players, best moves, so we can take all those things away.

So that's what it became. I would study to take the top two high percentage things away from a team or a person. I have to imagine also that with that amount of footage and also just that amount of time on the court practicing, playing, that you're almost certainly absorbing a lot more than you're consciously aware of. For sure. You know what I mean for sure absolutely and and what it's what starts happening is not that it happens on tap but you can start anticipating what's going to happen on the court so things will just come to you and be

like i'm going to run over here because i'm going to be wide open or i'm going to crash the boards because i'm going to get a dunk huh and it happens. Yo, that shit is crazy. You know, it's crazy. But, you know, the more it just becomes a part of you, the more that you watch it. And I was having those second guesses and doubts and stuff the other week. I was talking with my buddy, and I said, man, I could have done more, man. He said, okay, stop. You watch more film than anybody I know. Because, you know, film is more of a thing, a football term.

So it's kind of like the quarterback in football. They have to watch a tremendous amount of film because they have to. It's really anticipation. They have to anticipate. They have to look where they're looking and say, okay, this is what they're doing. If you watch enough film, you'll pick up on people's tendencies and you know what they're about to do before they do it. Because he's leaning a little. Those subconscious things that you pick up on. Yeah tendencies and you know what they're about to do before they do it because he's leaning a little those subconscious things that you pick up a little telegraph you know like i say you would be surprised how much success you have as a defender if you take the best move away

yeah every day i watch film whether it's the team or the player and be like okay take away that for him he goes right every single time He's got to go left today. And if he scores 30 points going left, hey, I'm going to tip my hat to him. But percentage, that's where we would mess with the data. We would play with the numbers. We'd twist the numbers a little bit. Team-wise and individual-wise, you develop a repetition for knowing the team's plays. That's the biggest thing, right?

That's got to really mess with people. It does. You know, if it's two minutes in the fourth quarter and they call a play it's like he's going right there a lot of people look at lebron and be like oh my god you know these were the discussions we were having yeah every day lebron james shane battier ray allen duane wade richard lewis myself we're talking about i guess a master class every day and how to stop people or how to be successful. Take away one leg of the stool.

If they beat us with two legs, then hey, man, that's a good job. But probably not. The footage is so important in the fight game too, whether boxing or MMA, same story. Also because I guess like many sports, if you have person a versus person b and a beats b and b beats c it doesn't automatically mean that a is going to beat c right for sure matchups yes styles and you know and styles and another component to that is

you might play a team like san antonio which we were duking it out with them for a couple years, and they'll run certain plays against certain teams. They have certain set plays against you that they think are successful, and you have to crack those codes and figure that out on top of the individual tendencies for Amanu Ginobili, for Tony Parker, for Tim Duncan, for Danny Green. You have to know their individual tendencies on top of the team tendencies. So it can get pretty deep. You know, like you were saying, get in the weeds. You can be in the weeds.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Manu is such a sweet guy. Yeah, he's close to here. Lives nearby. He'll dunk on you too. Definitely dunk on me. Even now.

That was the thing about the Spurs. They were like, man, nice guys. Well guys well you know he's elbowed me in the face a few times so you know the nice guy you know gentlemanly elbow yeah he's a hell of a competitor yeah yeah let's talk about letters to a young athlete this is your new book why books are hard books are hard yeah books are hard you know how did this come about so i was uh i was just in a place i got the news the unexpected news that i wouldn't be playing anymore and and i was just kind of in a place and i was just not wandering around but reshuffling the deck yeah you. You know. That's a great way to put it.

Getting used to being a father in the household, being a husband in the household all the time. I never knew how much time that I had given to basketball. People think things are easy and be like, because you should write a book. I remember people were saying, you should write a book. Like, what am I going to write about? I didn't even know what to even think about. But I just put it to the side and really didn't think too much of it. But always being an avid reader, I guess it was somewhere in the back of my mind. I continued to think about it. And I was in a period, whether I liked it or not, of reflecting. I had never reflected on my career.

You're too busy playing. Yeah, you're just in it. You're too busy playing and going to the next thing and going from A to Z. And I find myself just reflecting on the journey and how that child from Hutchins, Texas was able to actually jump from lily pad to lily pad and make it to the NBA and actually be successful. And thinking about those who helped me along my path and all the coaches who said the wise words to me, friends who helped me out, my family, of course, that helped me out, my wife. And I was in deep reflection. And then, you know, the opportunity came.

We just kept talking about it. Kept talking about it. I have agents and they were like, yeah, man, you know, just keep talking about, yo, think about it. And yo, you should meet Ryan. We should meet Ryan Holiday. Oh yeah, I've read a few of his books, man. That's cool. So we met right down the street here in Austin and we hit it off. We had like a three hour lunch just sitting, talking and, and, you know, shooting the shit. And we had a great

time. And, and then I said, okay, great, let's figure this out. And there's no reason to talk to anybody else. He was the first person that we interviewed to help us out. And from then on, we just were bouncing ideas. It took months and months and months just to even figure out, you know, what are we going to write about? But sitting there and being open to thinking of myself in that position of not being a player and thinking of what would be the book that I wanted to read before a game if I were a younger player today. So this is kind of that book that I wanted to read. And one of my favorite parts about books like that is that they always translate it. Whether you're an athlete, whether you're a CEO, a leader, a follower, a librarian, a teacher. We wanted to have those basic principles that apply to everything, whether you're a young athlete or an old athlete.

We wanted to have those lessons from myself that have actually helped me and worked. And, you know, from people that I admire tools that have gotten them through challenges. I think that's the biggest thing. There are challenges every day. Everybody goes through challenges and this is a book to give you those tools to hopefully rise to the occasion when it comes. Yeah. Who are some of the people you admire whose advice you have featured in the book? Spoh, of course. Eric Spolstra is in there. My coach Leonard Bishop, we talk about some things like that. One of my good friends is Candice Parker. She's in Chicago now, getting ready for

her season. But she's such a tremendous athlete and a person. And we were having a particular discussion one time just about, and really just a female player, what they have to go through. We were in Beijing and the whole female team after winning the squad, they have to go to their respective places to go start the season. Not in the States, not home. They're going to Russia. They're going to Spain from Beijing, China. And they just finished playing a whole summer or they'll finish the season in WNBA and then go right back to it.

So they were summer, spring, fall, winter. They're playing year round and they don't even get the credit for that. That was just so inspiring to hear because, you know, it's like Ali Candice, man, man you man you really it just doesn't stop it never stops I know it doesn't stop for me and I know how I feel how do you you know how do you feel and just kind of um you know hearing her story and how she gets through that she I don't think she does it anymore I don't think she plays in Europe anymore but when she was just you know hearing those stories and how to actually get through that and be successful and still be the MVP and still compete for a championship in both leagues. That was tremendous.

And of course, Pat Riley, he's always been a great motivator and mentor for me. And we had a discussion with him kind of jumping back to the book thing. He was one of those uh encouragers too he said you should write a book and he said yeah you don't have to think about it now but just think about it you know this is what i did when i wrote my book the winner within i was going through this and yeah it's a good thing you should you should check it out and you know this was the casual lunch in malibu you know i really didn't think anything of it but he's always been uh you know that person to really uh be an example and um you know he's one of my heroes and you know he read the foreword too

it's so cool yeah it's really amazing turns out he's like a huge writer he he empathized with me quite a bit because his career like mine whether it was because of other people's opinion or professionally being able to withstand the athleticism that the new league was coming or whatever, his career just abruptly ended, just like mine. And, you know, he is a writer as well. And he told me about his writing experiences. And, you know, he's got a few books out there. And he's even wrote screenplays and stuff like that. So it gave me the openness to accept other things and say, well, OK, just get the wheels turning. Well, if I were to write a book, what would it be about?

And two and a half year process, man. Before you know it, two and a half years later. Two and a half years later two and a half years but going and looking within to to try and find those stories and those principles to what has made me me you mentioned pat a few times what do you think his superpower is or superpowers motivation yeah and excellence so a lot of people try to be motivating yeah right that's so he's good? So he's good at it. He's good at it. Why is he good at it? Well, the experience.

Yeah. Like what's the experience? He's got the experience. I think when you're in team sports for so long and you've seen every level, whether that's good or bad, and everything in between, I think you can kind of start collect things that work and things that don't work. And, you know, in the NBA, you're around each other every day. And I'm sure there have been plenty of things that he said that didn't work. Those get left on the cutting room floor.

Yeah, it's like, yeah, okay, that's okay. That's fine. But, you know, his experience being – He's like, crickets? Okay, we're going to cut that one from the next page. I remember that one. Yeah. They didn't care for that one in practice. So we'll, you know, move on from it, but he's an extensive note taker. I know that the voracious reader and, you know, talking to people, I think that's one of the biggest things actually having that relationship and having those conversations and sitting down to talk with a person. Because

if you come in just trying to be a motivator, why? You have to have a why in things that you do. And sometimes it can backfire. If you're trying too hard to be a motivator, it can come off as phony. And people are very smart. They can pick up on those things. Pat, he's always had that open-door policy. He's always been one of those guys you just knock on his door and talk. It can be intimidating. A lot of people don't do it. It can be. It's like going to the principal's office.

But he has always been open. I mean, you know, many dinners, lunches, talking, dissecting the game, and he wants to be great. I think a lot of people can work on their appetite to be great, and that doesn't necessarily mean having a bunch of money or having a bunch of tremendous amount of success. That could be, man, I'm coming here. I'm being consistent.

I'm working every day. I'm putting in the work. My mental preparation is good. I'm ready to carry out this task for this goal, having this unified goal and going after it. I think sometimes being as simple as that can be a tremendous help for a lot of people. But with Pat, once he identifies a goal, I mean, he goes after it passionately and wholeheartedly. And that's when you get into the teeth of it when you're in the foxhole that's when the passion comes out you know you can't really motivate someone and you just met him or it's going good yeah that's right naturally going

you want to motivate somebody when it's tough and you have to be in there with them suffering yeah the shared privation not to be too dramatic but yeah you gotta you gotta take part in the suffering to get over the hump this is gonna be a strange segue but i'm gonna do it i'm gonna i'm gonna strong on this one we'll probably um go for just a few more questions true or false i read that you are a fan of leonardo da vinci i am okay please please tell me more why how did that come about i can't remember how it really happened of course everybody knows the mona lisa and uh and the famous uh inventions and things that he had i got my hands on one of the books about his notebook and i read it it was amazing i love Italy I we went to Rome we took a

early went to Rome pretty early in my career around 2007 2008 somewhere in there and so the fascination is already there I got to see the Colosseum and I was already infatuated with those things and I got to see that one way or another I start yeah reading books and I read the biography walter isaacson wrote oh that's great that's a good one it's amazing but i guess you know you were kind of alluding to learning to learn and the pushing the human mind and all that stuff i was just always fascinated by that so naturally he just became a person to you know emulate the polymath of polymaths i mean there's the the breadth of his fascination yeah it's just fascinating and and also and i and uh i know that you know this but if you look at

the entire pie chart let's just say of his completed works or actually i should say his works and the percentage that were completed versus incomplete. Very high percentage incomplete. For sure. And that's kind of as a perfect segue, actually. I kind of had to come to appreciate that because one could consider a lot of his unfinished work to be a masterpiece. Yeah. And that's kind of how I look at my career because it was, in my opinion, it was unfinished it's finished but it was still an unfinished painting in my opinion and that kind of gave me a little

little confidence too like yeah he didn't even finish all his paintings you guys you know that was the vinci people yeah you know what I mean and you know one of the cool things uh me and my wife we love to vacation getting to see those things in person I mean I'm an avid note taker and I doodle and draw and you know have sketchbooks all over the place so that was a natural connection right there but then seeing actually seeing the paintings we saw the Mona Lisa in person we saw the Last Supper in person which they were so nice and gave us a private tour Milan and when you see it, have you seen it? I have not.

It's bigger than the size of this wall. People can't see it, but I thought it was like more of a... Yeah, yeah, arm to arm. Like a Tim Ferriss arm to arm. Man, that thing is huge. It's the whole side of a building. And it was just breathtaking and just got away. But seeing these relics and all of these things that still stood the test of time and is still actually here today and just seeing that, it was very inspiring.

I was always fascinated in the Renaissance, you know, in the Renaissance period and knowing that the houses were right down the street. So you could go and go study under Michelangelo and be a sculptor yeah and you could go under da Vinci and be a painter and it's right all right there in this small little space outside of Florence or in Florence or whatever I can't remember yeah but just just thinking of the density is crazy crazy you know so it showed me that things are possible that you could do was just through his observation and extensive note-taking and curiosity. I try to embody those things. Yeah. And he had also these incredible inventions. And part of the reason this is

reasonably fresh on the mind is that I've interviewed Walter Isaacson a few times and interviewed him about his Da Vinci book. And some of his inventions were just these prescient, accurate predictors of the future, like hundreds of years later. And a lot of them were terrible. Like they never would have worked. You would not want to be wearing his mock-up for bird wings and jump off a cliff.

And I think that's also very inspiring in a way, because he had these masterpieces that were masterpieces despite the fact that they were incomplete. Maybe in some ways that makes them even all the more interesting and he also had misfires right so it's like it's like if if leo is allowed to have both of those maybe we should be allowed that's okay we could have them and i'd love to hear your thoughts and i apologize if you've been asked this a million times, but I think for people listening, your story has many different points that can be inspiring. The one that I think everyone can identify with, certainly,

is points in life when you realize that certain things are within your control and certain things are outside your control. In fact, a lot of things. And so you have this pulmonary embolism. And for reasons or for causes, perhaps partly known, partially unknown, that marked the beginning of an end of a career. Are there any particular books or resources or advice or anything that helped you through that period? I mean, what was it like emotionally when you realized, okay, I can't actually forestall this any longer. This is it. It happened in stages. I knew I wasn't going to play again for sure all the way

when a player by the name of Gordon Hayward, he's still playing to this day. Thank goodness. He dislocated his ankle. I hadn't played the year before, and I still had dreams and aspirations of playing in the NBA. And I mean, that took all the wind out of my cell. First game of the season, first five minutes of me watching that season, I was like, man, let me watch basketball.

I'm going to get back into it because I'm playing this season. Somebody's going to pick me up, and that's a dislocated ankle. You know? In that you know in that game in that game i hadn't watched basketball in close to a year first game that i watched guy dislocates his ankle and i mean whatever motivation that i had instantly went away and i said oh man that could be me oh boy those workouts just weren't as intense after that. In the midst of figuring these things out,

I can't remember what I read, but it was pretty much trusting everything that I read. And all of these books that say, find what you love to do. You gotta love it. And it sounds great until you're put in that position, right? And so I found myself kind of asking, well, what do I love to do? Basketball. Okay, what else?

I had to answer that question. I didn't know anything else. And I had to deal with the preconceived notion that I guess people think I'm smart, which is great. Like, oh, Chris, you'll be fine. You'll figure it out. But in that moment, you still have to figure it out. And so I said, I would find myself sitting around. OK, let me answer this question.

What else do I love doing? And that's where music came in. And I always wanted to learn how to play an instrument. It was one of those things where I gave up like two or three times in my teens and 20s. So I said, man, you know what? This time I'm going to pick it up and I'm not going to put it down and I'm going to learn how to play. I'm going to learn how to play an instrument. Which instrument?

The guitar. I started with the guitar. Let me ask a really naive question. I'm just looking at the size of your hands compared to my hands. Is it harder for you to form chords on a on a on a standard guitar yeah it is a little hard all right the things you have but you gotta figure it out I'm thinking maybe bass all right I got I've recently which is the same not chord structure but it's the same string string patterns and everything the notes it's all

the same system so you know yeah I've recently gotten into bass in the last few weeks and months but yeah i mean i wanted to learn how to play the guitar man and i said man i've always i never stopped does it make any sense of course it doesn't make any sense but i love it this is i love it i was watching the rolling stones was on TV playing. Doesn't need to make sense. Well into their life, and they're still doing shows. I said, I want to do that. I do that for free.

And then I found myself, my wife and I, we were already avid music lovers and stuff like that. We cranked it up a notch. We went to rock festivals. We went to Coachella, Glastonbury, Bonnaroo, going to see certain shows, you know, meeting all of these cool musicians and just doing something different. And I mean, it was just, it was amazing. And I started getting magical feelings and those things, that magic that you want to pursue. It didn't make any sense at the time. I just knew it felt good. And so that opened up a new world of possibility

to me and you know i started making uh more friends making um great connections music is one of those things that really do bring people together and it's a live element to it it's a recorded element to it it's just all these different elements that you could put together or keep separate and just really enjoy it. And so then I found myself, you know, OK, playing the guitar. Then I wanted to make beats. Then it just went out to full fledged productions and writing sessions and stuff like that. But continuing to go on and meeting great people. Rico Love is a great friend of mine.

Miguel, the artist Miguel, is a great friend of mine uh miguel the artist miguel is a great friend of mine meeting billy corbin meeting collective soul having beers after their show you know and and just hanging out there's some atlanta georgia boys you know we're connecting with so many different people in so many different ways was was really really cool and especially here in austin it's been great you know gary clark we met him a few years ago but just i was just so enamored by how they could play the guitar man yeah and just do all these cool things so that's just really been a thing that has actually turned into something but has been great for the spirit what would you aside from trying to find the thing that lights you up inside because i'm sure you had some dark moments too i would imagine sure

for sure for for sure. For someone who's going through an experience like that, maybe there's something they had planned that they no longer can pursue. Yeah. Maybe they had a career or a relationship or something end and now they just feel this void and they just feel directionless,

not necessarily hopeless, but just really unsure of what to do. What advice might you give them or what would you say to them? Be open. I spoke with a friend. I won't name who they are. I was having one of those days, right? Just in the dumps. And I was taking this trip and I was doing some work. And this particular person was running a network and running a company, the CEO. And I was feeling all bad and stuff. And I said, man, how do you know? It's a brilliant person.

I want to get some insight. The first thing that person said was, well, I was a child with cancer. And when you really do go through a situation to where you're going to wear hair or no hair, you truly do find out that it is up on you to make a choice to enjoy it or be happy or attempt to get yourself going. And when they said that, I was like, man, all these problems that I feel that I have, and this person just told me they were a kid with cancer. So that kind of made me realize like, OK, put everything to the side. This person just told me that it is really our choice, not necessarily that bad things won't happen or life won't throw curveballs or things happen or you won't be in a rut.

It's just that when you're in this rut it's on you to get out of it and to actually have confidence now people can help you but one of the things that we always said in basketball if you were like on a shitty team one of the worst experiences to have because you know you're losing and then you're feeling bad inside, but then you're making money and it's good money. And people are like, oh, you're fine. Which is like this paradox. But like,

we always used to say, Hey, look, nobody's coming through that door. If you're waiting on that perfect person or that perfect utopian moment to come, it's not, you got to start putting the work in now pick yourself up

self-motivation right yeah you got to get yourself going and then you'd be surprised things start happening yeah but you can't sit in the bed feeling sorry for yourself that's like one of the toughest things to do sorry with all these basketball analogies but i think it's you know five game losing streak one of the hardest things to do is to bounce back and actually win a game because it's hard start watching basketball watch a bad team play they have a chance to win the game they're in the game one bad thing will happen and they just oh the body language the shoulders start slouching people start no no keep playing yeah okay you you know there's a couple things that hurt or it's a couple things that hell it sucks let's get that out the way it sucks right now but we're not gonna no pity

parties you know that that becomes becomes being old very fast. And you do see success. That's not going to take away the challenges. You know, you're still going to be faced with challenges daily. But if you get into the mindset to where you say, okay, hey, problem, solution, look in the mirror. What am I going to do right now? Because I'm going to stop feeling sorry for myself because it's so easy, right? You could just, oh, man oh man you know the coach oh they they did it oh man I after a while it gets old yeah and

I assume if someone's listening to this now even if they're in a place where they don't want to be and frustrated with it it's a daily grind but it's not gonna happen tomorrow you got to make that decision start focusing start visualizing and start working toward that goal and know just because you had this moment of thought and say okay i'm going for it the seas aren't gonna part you know it's just not gonna just open up for you and say okay chris great yeah this is what you wanted why did you ask it's not like that you've got to, be diligent, and just know that the challenge is going to come. And when these things arise again, I'm not going to feel sorry for myself. We're going to win this game, even when it gets hard. And then we're going to do it again and again and again and again.

And just, you know, get to that point. That's a great story. It is. When you had that conversation with this, I guess, network exec, do you recall what the next thing was that you did when you were like, oh, wow, okay, that puts things in perspective? I stopped complaining. I didn't know I was complaining, but I heard myself. I heard my language. Sometimes you got to listen to yourself. And this was me after me promising myself that I wouldn't complain after I came from Africa I went to Africa we went to Joe Bird we went out to Clint town and Soweto and saw real poverty yeah once in India speaking of being the NBA global ambassador we went to places and we have seen real poverty you know that make the projects looks like a five-star hotel and so when I saw those things and you take in all that stuff it's

like man it's heavy what have I been complaining about I haven't been complaining man I've been complaining a little bit when she said that I instantly stopped feeling sorry for myself and said okay at the end of the day yeah 13 years in the league and i've got a shot at doing something else that's all i need i don't need the like i say that leader to come by and say no chris let me tell you something kick the door in and just get me going that right there was kind of like oh man i felt bad you know for even having not weakness not points of weakness but just like having those thoughts and just saying like what do people say when if you think you've got problems where everybody put their problems on the table you'll pick yours back up real quick never heard that that's great it's kind of that's

pretty much what it was like okay i got some problems with man okay i'll take those back wasn't that bad how you feeling fine i'm doing great oh i'm so glad that they were having this conversation it's so easy to complain and i feel like i've been complaining a lot in the last handful of weeks and it's it's socially reinforced you will find somebody if you go searching who's going to encourage you oh yeah you're right to feel that way oh that's terrible and then how do you feel right how do you feel when you're doing and that's for people listening to you know make you look at who's around you a little more yeah it's because it's like yeah yeah it's tough and it sucks and it's been like that for years but aren't you tired of it yeah you sick and tired of being sick and tired yeah right after a while it's not going to

change yeah these habits that you're building you going to change yeah these habits that you're building you gotta think about the habits that you're building what and i tell people to be conscious of what you're consuming especially nowadays you know i tell my kids that i try to you know even for myself you know just with everything you can consume it's a lot of bs yeah you know so just be aware of what you're putting into your mind what you're thinking about and yeah birds like a feather right if you're you find yourself complaining and yeah you people say pity you can have pity party but after a while they're gonna get tired of you complaining complaining about you you know so it just you just get to a point where it's like okay hey man

let's talk about solutions yeah you know let's talk about solutions how do we get out of this rut or how do we find that next thing to do for me music and writing i would have looked at you like you had eight heads five six years ago music maybe five years ago not so much writing yeah i always did them but just thinking of that i wouldn't have even come close at that time but going through challenges and situations you want to you want to come out better right you don't want to still be holed up talking about what could have been or why it didn't happen that gets old after a while so ladies and gentlemen if uh chris bosch can have these days you can too but it's about what you actually do in response to those days and you know a long time ago you're inspiring me i'm going to do it again i read a short book it was called the 21 day no complaint

experiment written by a pastor will bowman i think is the name and it's just a commitment to not complain for 21 days and it had a huge impact i gotta read that and uh i'm gonna do that because like you said if you were to put your problems on the table with even a small subset of humankind you'd be like i'll take those back yeah thanks thanks no nobody take my problem cookies. I want those. I'm going home with those. And it really does make a tremendous difference. And I think that letters to a young athlete is going to do a lot of good. I'm very excited about this. I am thrilled you took the time to do it properly. Two and a half years. When I hear people go, yeah, we started writing three months later, we were done. I was like, don't send it to me. And hey, hey look would i had preferred it to be one one and a half sure we had the intention but you know the the process is the process right you have to process

you go through you know and we've been hands-on yeah from the jump this has been so special to me but it's like i was joking the other day uh you in, in writing about a book, overcoming obstacles, we had to overcome obstacles, writing the book, you know, that was, you know, that was a good one, man. And it was, it was such a, it was a tremendous process. And I think a lot of people will really, really be able to take something for themselves, no matter what they do, they'll be able to take something for themselves because, you know, it's been a team effort through and through it's been one of those things to where i'm talking about people that i admire and situations that i admire from my own life that was like oh yeah in the moment you're just doing it but then reflecting on it it's like

oh yeah that conversation that i had with my coach back when i was 21 that was set off these ripple effects set off the ripple effects so i wouldn't freak out yeah yeah it's uh it makes me happy you took the time i remember somebody said to me at one point i was struggling as i do with any writing and i was struggling through book and they said, oh, you're 90% done. Congratulations, you only have 50% left. And I was like, oh. 90% done, 50% left. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. They're like, oh, trust me. That's some different math, man. And they're like, yeah, you'll see what I mean. You'll see what I mean. Yeah, no, that's great. And I think athlete is an interesting term. And letters to a young athlete, you might even say letters to a young competitor and people

might be inclined to say well i'm not a competitor and i would say you are even if you don't compete with other people there's a competition like we've been discussing between your lesser selves and your better selves absolutely so you go yeah we're all in the game. Everybody's in there. And, and, you know, it's, it's, you know, like I said, giving you the tools and teamwork is definitely one of, uh, one of the main tools, of course, mental preparation, self-motivation, getting yourself ready and going, but teamwork, working with others, learning how to coexist with people going after that goal. Definitely. I think that's a huge, huge important thing that we definitely, definitely talk about because going to Miami, playing with the best two players in the world.

So my ego had to take a backseat. I came in thinking I was going to be the number one scorer in the league. Definitely in Miami, only because I said, man, they can score score but I can score too and they're going to be making plays for me that was in my head but the math doesn't work you know you're going to have to learn how to coexist within this structure being the third peg on the stool nothing wrong with that but fighting that notion that that actually means something putting the team before yourself and you know making those tough decisions that you have to make because it doesn't feel good but the team is done so hey chris you need to play at the center guard these bigger dudes because you're the only one that can do it rebound the ball and get it to these guys like no no no i

want to score you know you give me the ball no no you must have it wrong you give me the ball and everybody else get out the way that's how we did it and it's not necessarily the case if you want to be successful so that's like always kind of a thing that always took very importantly and took the heart if you're going after a championship or legacy or greatness or something like that and you're part of a team the team has to come before the person and what's best for the team you know might not be best for your ego sometimes and you have to be okay with that you got to tell your ego take the back seat let yourself take the back seat we're going to be champions man yeah sometimes that's what it takes

yeah man if you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go together and together man chris bosh at chris bosh on twitter also on instagram at chris bosh official chris bosh on facebook the new book is letters to a young athlete i've really enjoyed this conversation it's so nice to meet you same here nice meeting you and is there anything else you'd like to to say to the audience any other requests comments questions anything you'd like to add before we before we wrap up oh man I just love starting a discussion I think that's what the future is really going to be about so I want this book to be a discussion and really you know all books and just be a civilized discussion where we can see where each other's coming from.

Because I think nowadays, you know, things get polarized and kind of either taken out of context or being too much. I want everyone to know how important this book is to me. But with that said, we want to start the conversation of how to be great, breaking those things down, how to constantly great, breaking those things down, how to constantly get over those challenges, like I keep alluding to that are coming and to have those open discussions and just continue to push the boundaries in a positive,

great way. But let everybody know they can do it. If they have that thing, do it. Don't wait. And you can do it. Look in the mirror. Don't complain. Man, problem and solution. Look in the mirror. Don't complain.

Man. Problem and solution. Look in the mirror. Problem and solution. Letters to a young athlete is the book. And I'm excited for you. That's a, it's a big accomplishment.

I know how much effort goes into it. And I'm, I'm thrilled that people will get to learn. Also the principles, right? You'll have stories, but also the principles that you've applied, not just to one thing, but to many things, even though you are best known for one thing. And I think, you know, in a way, the obstacles that you've faced within the context of a book like this are a tremendous gift because there are battles everyone is fighting that we know nothing

about you've had to face and overcome obstacles yourself and i think that is incredibly humanizing also so absolutely and that's what you know we like to call the pillars of getting through things you know the pillars of success that's kind of like my work entitled for it, is perseverance, mental preparation, rising to the occasion, teamwork is a huge of them. Visualization is huge because I feel in my life, everything that's happened, I always saw it in my mind's eye first and did hours and hours and hours of imagining. And then it's time to put in the work after that. And you can't just sit there and dream about it. You just got to go out there and do it.

And work be calculated. Of course, you just can't go out there with no goal and just run around like a chicken with your head cut off. But you can identify that goal and then work backwards and say, okay, what do I need to do? And work hard at those things. Yeah, one step at a time. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time.

Thank you, man. I'm so glad to be on here. It's great. I've been listening for years and it's great to be on here. Really cool. I hope it fits. Yeah, it does fit. It's great to spend some time together. And for everybody listening, we will have links to everything, including letters to a young athlete in the show notes at Tim.blog forward slash podcast. Easy to find. And until next time, thank you for tuning in. 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

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