Speaker 1: People are always going to say something. Always they're going
Speaker 1: to try to have some type of narrative. But as
Speaker 1: long as you know what's real, I think that's what
Speaker 1: can help you keep your saying.
Speaker 2: The best selling authoring most the number one health and
Speaker 2: wellness podcast On Purpose.
Speaker 3: With Chris Paul On Purpose, thank you for being here.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: I am so grateful to you because you just said
Speaker 2: season finished yesterday. The next game is in six seven days,
Speaker 2: which we'll talk about. But the reason we're here is
Speaker 2: to talk about this incredible book that you've written, your
Speaker 2: memoir and ode to your Grandpa sixty one. I read
Speaker 2: the book cover to cover, and so what I want
Speaker 2: to say to everyone who's listening and watching, whether you
Speaker 2: know Chris on the court or off the court, I
Speaker 2: felt like you were personally sitting with me talking to
Speaker 2: me throughout the entire book. I literally felt like it
Speaker 2: was just me and you in the room. So I
Speaker 2: felt like I've already had this experience in a weird way.
Speaker 2: And what I'll say, Hey, everyone who's listening and watching,
Speaker 2: who's you know? I hope you're going to go and
Speaker 2: grab a copy of the book please. Is it is
Speaker 2: one of the most genuine memoirs that I've read like
Speaker 2: it felt it really felt like it was coming from
Speaker 2: your heart. And the best thing about it is you
Speaker 2: get to understand you on a different level to just
Speaker 2: the game. And so I just want to take a
Speaker 2: moment to say, man, that I think it was really
Speaker 2: well done. It was so personal, so real, and I
Speaker 2: literally felt like I was like, this is just my
Speaker 2: friend talking to me.
Speaker 1: Man, it's crazy, Jade that you say that in first
Speaker 1: and foremost thanks for having me. And you probably don't notice,
Speaker 1: but I think you probably the first person that's told
Speaker 1: me that you read it from beginning to end, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Because it's not even out like that. Now.
Speaker 1: I don't really get a chance to talk to people
Speaker 1: about it too much, but it's crazy to know you've
Speaker 1: written books or what not.
Speaker 4: This is the first one I've done. Children's books.
Speaker 1: Yes, never anything like this, And I have a new
Speaker 1: found appreciation for the process, for the entire process of
Speaker 1: the different versions. And the very first time, if I'd
Speaker 1: be honest, the very first time, when I got the
Speaker 1: first copyback, I was like, Oh no, this ain't it.
Speaker 4: This ain't it.
Speaker 1: And it was because I had someone who was helping
Speaker 1: me with it, right, But when you're talking about your
Speaker 1: own life experiences, you wanted to sound.
Speaker 4: Like you, you know.
Speaker 1: So when I read the very first version, I was like,
Speaker 1: this don't sound like me, you know, And I started
Speaker 1: from scratch.
Speaker 2: I could literally see the service station, like I can
Speaker 2: see the places the way you describe them, like the people,
Speaker 2: the characters. I literally felt like I was there. And
Speaker 2: I think that requires all that detail and that texture
Speaker 2: and the you know, it's your lived experience, and so
Speaker 2: I felt like I was living that experience with you.
Speaker 2: And so every question I ask you today is me
Speaker 2: wanting to know a bit more about you from different angles,
Speaker 2: different perspectives. Parts where I was like, I'm so lucky
Speaker 2: that I get to sit with you and actually ask
Speaker 2: these questions to you.
Speaker 3: So let's dive in.
Speaker 2: I want to start off with just setting context for people.
Speaker 2: Seasons just finished, you're heading it off end of the playoffs, Like,
Speaker 2: how do you prepare at this time to big your
Speaker 2: huge start for you? You talk about hard work, work ethic
Speaker 2: in the book all the time, but how is this
Speaker 2: different or how do you set yourself up?
Speaker 1: Yes, wow, this is my eighteenth season right in the NBA,
Speaker 1: and it's been been a lot, right, A lot of
Speaker 1: good things have happened, but a lot of unfortunate bad
Speaker 1: things have happened.
Speaker 4: Lost his injuries and all of this, and it's crazy.
Speaker 1: I usually have like this dead date, right, honestly, Like
Speaker 1: we usually have this dead date with everybody that works
Speaker 1: with me, where we'd be like, look, Chris will be
Speaker 1: doing meetings and all this stuff until this date and
Speaker 1: then we just lock in, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: But doing the book and everything, it's been cool and
Speaker 1: getting a chance to do this is really cool. And
Speaker 1: so when you lose it something right, like one like
Speaker 1: group of athletes I've always thought about is Olympians, right,
Speaker 1: Like the Olympics happened once every four years, right, and
Speaker 1: if you trip like in that race, that's it. You
Speaker 1: got four years till you can get ready for it again.
Speaker 1: We see for us, like when we lost last year
Speaker 1: in the playoffs, you know, you feel that heartache and hurt,
Speaker 1: and it's like I can't wait till next year. And
Speaker 1: now finally next year is here, you know, so we
Speaker 1: got five six days to get ready for our first game.
Speaker 4: But it's it's nothing like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the book, you said you think the game.
Speaker 2: And when I read that, I thought that was interesting
Speaker 2: to me. I've sat down with so many athletes on
Speaker 2: the show and behind the scenes as well, but I'd
Speaker 2: never really heard anyone say it that way.
Speaker 3: What does that mean today? What does that mean right now?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that means do you do anything? Do you like
Speaker 1: play cards at all?
Speaker 3: I used to? I mean I used to play so
Speaker 3: growing up. That favorite.
Speaker 1: But like even if it's soccer, if it's connected four right,
Speaker 1: like I played Dominant. Yeah, yeah, I play Ping Pong,
Speaker 1: I play I play any and everything. And in everything
Speaker 1: you do, you have to have a strategy, right, whether
Speaker 1: it's a card game or anything, and you just have
Speaker 1: to think different layers. You can always play right, just play,
Speaker 1: but if you can think the game too. And so me,
Speaker 1: like I was up this morning, as soon as I
Speaker 1: woke up this morning, before I call my kids, I
Speaker 1: was on YouTube, like looking at clips, Like I go
Speaker 1: to YouTube and I'll look at or I'll go to
Speaker 1: this website that'll show me every shot I've missed the
Speaker 1: maid since I've been in the NBA. So like I'm
Speaker 1: literally always watching trying to learn, trying to see how
Speaker 1: it can get better. So that's what I mean when
Speaker 1: I say I think the game Wow.
Speaker 2: So you literally go on YouTube, type in CRISP Paul
Speaker 2: Missus and then watch.
Speaker 1: This website actually called Second Spectrum that you can go
Speaker 1: do that. But I can go on YouTube and look
Speaker 1: at this particular game. So we're playing the Clippers in
Speaker 1: the playoffs, right, so I can go look on YouTube.
Speaker 4: They got everything on there. I'm sure everybody know that too.
Speaker 1: But you can go look at all of my shots
Speaker 1: that I played against the Clippers this year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you just study.
Speaker 1: Study it, study the game, study who I might be guarded,
Speaker 1: and study your opponent and all this stuff. So then
Speaker 1: in the game, of course, talent and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: but at some point you still got to be able
Speaker 1: to think and sort of everybody has tendencies. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: play eighty two games, right, there's certain things that guys
Speaker 1: do on a regular basis. So if I can learn
Speaker 1: that and figure that out, the better.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I love that, And I saw that in your
Speaker 3: book too.
Speaker 2: It's like it's almost like you're observing patterns, right, Like
Speaker 2: there's all these patterns, and that's what you're saying, Like
Speaker 2: there's patterns over eighty two games, and when you start
Speaker 2: spotting the patterns, it's hard for people to break them.
Speaker 2: And so they're going to keep repeating that.
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the things that you learned and all
Speaker 1: the experiences that you had, right, But you know there
Speaker 1: are certain things that are staple for people that are successful.
Speaker 3: Yes, right, yeah, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: You gotta work hard, you gotta have some type of discipline,
Speaker 1: right or else whatever you want to see come into existence,
Speaker 1: it's just not going to happen.
Speaker 4: It's like they always say, what is it.
Speaker 1: I'd rather be lucky than good or something like that,
Speaker 1: but you still got to have the work ethic to
Speaker 1: see it through.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what have been your Do you have like a
Speaker 2: set morning routine on game days and preath days or
Speaker 2: do you kind of intuitively figure it out?
Speaker 3: Like what are you like?
Speaker 2: Are you that disciplined beast that's just set up to win?
Speaker 4: Or you know what?
Speaker 1: A good friend of mine, JJ Reddick, he does a
Speaker 1: podcast now. He talks He was my teammate but he's
Speaker 1: retired now. Earlier this year he was talking about how
Speaker 1: sometimes a routine can drive you nuts, right, And I
Speaker 1: sort of got into that mode because I didn't played
Speaker 1: so long I didne felt like if I don't do
Speaker 1: this particular thing, I'm not sure what's going to happen tonight,
Speaker 1: you know, especially with how many games I play. Like
Speaker 1: I'm serious, I used to have so much anxiety, like,
Speaker 1: oh man, if I didn't do this before I run
Speaker 1: out on the court, got some injury might happen. I mean,
Speaker 1: I used to have this crazy routine for the past
Speaker 1: few years. Like I would get up, I would eat breakfast,
Speaker 1: go to the gym, shoot around, might be at ten.
Speaker 1: I might get there at eight fifteen, do all this stretching, workout,
Speaker 1: shoot and go home. I would get bodywork from like
Speaker 1: eleven fifteen, eleven thirty to like one o'clock, and then
Speaker 1: I would lay down, had to be at one, get
Speaker 1: up at three, shower, get dressed, eat, get in the car,
Speaker 1: go to the game. You know, it just made for
Speaker 1: a long day. Honestly, on a game day, it was
Speaker 1: a long day. And so I stopped doing necessarily the
Speaker 1: body work from eleven fifteen to one, just to give
Speaker 1: me some time to live, honestly, to just be maybe
Speaker 1: like watch a show for a little bit when my
Speaker 1: kids in town, chill with them, or whatnot, and it's
Speaker 1: actually been like liberating.
Speaker 4: But for so.
Speaker 1: Long you just like I gotta do this, I gotta
Speaker 1: do that, and it'll drive you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it sounds like that's the way of it though, right,
Speaker 2: Like the reason you can take that break now or
Speaker 2: what's that show or catch up with the kids is
Speaker 2: because of that investment you put in for like yeah,
Speaker 2: fifteen years, sixteen years, sure, for.
Speaker 1: Sure, but you also realize that sometimes you gotta break
Speaker 1: up the monotony of that routine or whatnot just to
Speaker 1: give yourself a break.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think that's going to help a lot of people listening,
Speaker 2: because I think there's so many people listening right now
Speaker 2: who are stuck in their routine and don't realize how
Speaker 2: much it'll.
Speaker 4: Drive you crazy.
Speaker 1: Especially in what we do now, there's certain things, like
Speaker 1: there's certain handshakes that's got to happen, Like a few
Speaker 1: things not going to change, right, Like when they call
Speaker 1: our name out for the starting lineups, I make sure
Speaker 1: I dip up all my teammates. Then I go to
Speaker 1: the little slat board. I make sure I put my
Speaker 1: foot on that three times. I make sure I get
Speaker 1: the chalk, rub my hands together, clap them together three times,
Speaker 1: hit the backstanchion.
Speaker 4: I got a lot of routine stuff that I do.
Speaker 4: I like, hit my chest.
Speaker 1: Then I look up and you know, say what up
Speaker 1: to Kobe, you know what I mean, and then we
Speaker 1: do the jump ball. Some of that stuff not gonna change,
Speaker 1: but some of the other things or whatnot.
Speaker 4: You have to look at your situation and realize, how
Speaker 4: can you be I don't know, intentional what you're doing. Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And do you feel like all of those things
Speaker 2: you just mentioned that aren't going to change? There were
Speaker 2: things you picked up along the way because of wins,
Speaker 2: Like where did those originate from?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it's funny. It's funny you asked that. And
Speaker 1: being on a team for all of my life, you know,
Speaker 1: I've been on a team since I was five years old.
Speaker 1: And so when you find these little things, they sort
Speaker 1: of just happen, right. So you're out there with your
Speaker 1: teammates and you come up with a handshake, and then
Speaker 1: somebody like accidentally do something and then you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 4: We're gonna keep doing that. We're gonna keep doing that.
Speaker 1: So all these things just sort of get added along
Speaker 1: the way, you.
Speaker 4: Know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So like before, before I leave the locker room, I
Speaker 1: also do like a one, two three, and a bunch
Speaker 1: of our team trainers they yell it with me. I
Speaker 1: do one and they yell two three. You know, So
Speaker 1: that stuff just sort of picks up and you keep
Speaker 1: doing it.
Speaker 3: That's amazing.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: One of the things that comes through your book is
Speaker 2: you talk so much about hard work. Confidence, you know,
Speaker 2: seeing your own potential when no one else sees it,
Speaker 2: being able to bet on yourself, having that confidence, and
Speaker 2: even today I can tell this. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: with that confidence, there's this humility in your book too,
Speaker 2: because you talk so much about the teachers and the
Speaker 2: coaches and the mentors, and you talk about this idea
Speaker 2: about how no one's really self made, right, and so
Speaker 2: you have this great balance between this confidence and this humility.
Speaker 2: I wonder, what was something that you were insecure about
Speaker 2: as a kid. Was there anything in your life that
Speaker 2: you weren't confident about or things that made you doubt
Speaker 2: yourself at all?
Speaker 4: All types of things.
Speaker 1: I mean I was small, right, Well, some people will
Speaker 1: still say I am you know what I mean in
Speaker 1: my profession, but I mean I was a little brother, right,
Speaker 1: So I had my older brother and all his friends
Speaker 1: would pick on me.
Speaker 4: You can't do this, you can't do that.
Speaker 1: I played football, I mean I was on my AAU
Speaker 1: basketball team.
Speaker 4: I think I talk about this in the book.
Speaker 1: And everybody on my team was on varsity except for me, right,
Speaker 1: and so I was a little bit slower, right than
Speaker 1: some of the other guys. I mean, one of the
Speaker 1: most embarrassing things was back then, our team used to
Speaker 1: run out for warm ups and back then, like our
Speaker 1: parents had chance and all these songs they would sing,
Speaker 1: and as my teammates we ran out to the court,
Speaker 1: everyone would run and smack the backboard, right, everybody, everybody
Speaker 1: smacking the backboard. I couldn't touch the backboard, so I
Speaker 1: would have to run by the backboard and just get
Speaker 1: back in line. So I just had this conversation with
Speaker 1: my son the other day because I told my son
Speaker 1: he's gonna be vertically challenged just like me, and so
Speaker 1: one of his biggest goals is to be able to dump. Right,
Speaker 1: So he asked me, when did I dunk for the
Speaker 1: first time. I was a junior, I think in high
Speaker 1: school when I dunk for the first time. So he
Speaker 1: was like, I'm a dunk before that. I'm a dunk
Speaker 1: before that, And I told him I'm cool and fine
Speaker 1: with that, but I also want him to develop the
Speaker 1: actual skills of like playing the game. I feel like
Speaker 1: so many times now kids just want to be able
Speaker 1: to dunk instead of learning actually how to play the game.
Speaker 2: How did you make that difference for yourself growing up?
Speaker 2: Because I feel like kids are always kids, right, right.
Speaker 2: You grew up watching Jordan and you want to you know,
Speaker 2: so I feel like everyone who grows up watching anyone,
Speaker 2: we all want to stand that way imitate, right, And
Speaker 2: so how did you stop yourself as an athlete when
Speaker 2: you were coming up to refocus just as you're encouraging
Speaker 2: little Chris to do?
Speaker 4: It was just different.
Speaker 1: And I say different because and it may be because
Speaker 1: of my circumstances in my situation, right and seeing my
Speaker 1: grandfather right, so, I saw how my grandfather provides it
Speaker 1: for my family in so many different ways, especially financially,
Speaker 1: and growing up the way I grew up, I always
Speaker 1: wanted more, Like I wanted more, not just like financially,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to see things, and I wanted my
Speaker 1: family to see things. And I don't know, I've just
Speaker 1: always been very competitive, and my brother helped make me
Speaker 1: that way. But I just, I mean still to this day,
Speaker 1: like I really don't take no for an answer, right,
Speaker 1: Like there's got to be a way, There's got to
Speaker 1: be a solution, and if you tell me I can't
Speaker 1: do it, then we're gonna see about it, you know.
Speaker 1: And so it was it was a drive about it,
Speaker 1: and it was a drive to just want to be
Speaker 1: better and the curiosity and I don't know, like I said,
Speaker 1: it was almost subconscious watching my grandfather work.
Speaker 4: Right, So I played football. My coaches were.
Speaker 1: Hard on me, you know, and I just knew if
Speaker 1: I wanted to do so, I had to work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that work was just obvious through your grandfather who.
Speaker 3: Just lived it every day. And you know when you
Speaker 3: took the.
Speaker 2: Kids back to see the service station in the space,
Speaker 2: that part of the book is really special because you
Speaker 2: reminded me so I was. I was nine years old
Speaker 2: when my dad took me back to the home he
Speaker 2: grew up in. And my dad's home was probably as big.
Speaker 2: His home was as big as this room. Like cut
Speaker 2: off that part as well, like none of that alway,
Speaker 2: So his whole house was this big, and it was
Speaker 2: in India where he grew up, and so he took
Speaker 2: me there and I remember like walking outside, there was
Speaker 2: a lot of like trash on the floor. There were
Speaker 2: like rats running around, there were cockroaches inside this big
Speaker 2: bat floor on my face like had my Batman moment,
Speaker 2: Like I was like other nine year old kid did
Speaker 2: this back floor of my face and it was disgusting.
Speaker 2: My dad put it out my eyes and then we
Speaker 2: went in this house and it was literally this big,
Speaker 2: and I remember my dad was telling me how they
Speaker 2: shared like a toilet with like thirty families, like he
Speaker 2: grew up in, like you know, immense poverty, and it
Speaker 2: was just one of the best experiences of my life
Speaker 2: going there as a nine year old. So when I
Speaker 2: was reading about you taking your kids back to drop
Speaker 2: our service station in the space you grow up, I
Speaker 2: was like, I know how formative that's been for me.
Speaker 2: Walk us through what their reaction was. Yeah, your reasoning,
Speaker 2: Actually everything that you just said is so valid.
Speaker 1: And if I be if I'm gonna be very honest,
Speaker 1: like when you're a kid, you only know what you know, right,
Speaker 1: And so the times that something was going on and
Speaker 1: I seen my grandfather pour that wad of money out
Speaker 1: of his pocket. I used to start tripping. That's a
Speaker 1: lot of money to me, to anybody. And so like,
Speaker 1: as a kid, you want things. I mean when we
Speaker 1: was in the car and we went to McDonald's or something, right,
Speaker 1: or say you went to Wendy's.
Speaker 4: I don't care where you went.
Speaker 1: Like if you went to Wendy's, we want the biggie
Speaker 1: size fries, right, like we want the extra large fries
Speaker 1: and the extra large self. We couldn't do that, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying, Like my parents just wasn't doing
Speaker 1: it because we didn't have the money to do it.
Speaker 4: And as a kid, I watched movies too. Did you
Speaker 4: ever see Richie Rich?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Right, so you see Richie Rich? You see that movie?
Speaker 4: What was it? Blank Check? You know what I mean.
Speaker 4: As a kid, it's like, dang, I'm trying to see
Speaker 4: what that be like? Right, And so of course you
Speaker 4: want things, you want things.
Speaker 1: But the biggest thing that I learned is when I
Speaker 1: got to the NBA, right, and you can get those things,
Speaker 1: they don't complete you at all, Like they don't. But
Speaker 1: what you start to realize is that with the money
Speaker 1: and the finance, at times you have an opportunity to
Speaker 1: change other people's lives. So that's when the work really
Speaker 1: just sets in and it's like, all right, I want
Speaker 1: to keep working because I want to keep providing, helping
Speaker 1: others or whatnot. So when it came to my kids,
Speaker 1: they live a totally different life than me and my
Speaker 1: wife ever did, right, And so this is so crazy.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm picturing these real conversations that I have with
Speaker 1: my kids because for me and my wife, like I
Speaker 1: wanted something different from my parents, right, And the hardest
Speaker 1: thing is trying to figure out how to get my
Speaker 1: kids motivated because they can't get me at my wife
Speaker 1: a new house, you know what I mean, they just can't.
Speaker 1: And so it's constantly just making sure that they have
Speaker 1: their own motivation. What's going to motivate them? So I
Speaker 1: wanted them to see why I am the way I
Speaker 1: am because sometimes they just see mom and dad or
Speaker 1: they just see me, but they got a chance to
Speaker 1: really go see why I get mad if the trash
Speaker 1: ain't taken out, you know, because growing up, I was
Speaker 1: having to cut the grass, we were having to fold clothes,
Speaker 1: wash clothes, do all these different type things. So that's
Speaker 1: one of the challenges as a parent of how do
Speaker 1: you instill some of these things in your kids.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and throughout the book you see just how conscious
Speaker 2: and intentional you are about the kids. And again, I
Speaker 2: think there's this healthy balance where like there's a lot
Speaker 2: of love for them and you get that it's not
Speaker 2: their fault that they didn't have that experience. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: at the same time you want to help them. And
Speaker 2: I think that it's it's such a it's such a
Speaker 2: hard balance to do, but it sounds like because you
Speaker 2: and Jada are taking it so thoughtfully and intentionally that
Speaker 2: I I just see it all the time, Like the
Speaker 2: amount of celebrity create kids who also feel the pressure
Speaker 2: a to be like their parents in their field.
Speaker 3: That's already a pressure.
Speaker 2: Second of all, there's a feeling which I don't think
Speaker 2: a lot of people realize, but there's a lot of
Speaker 2: feeling of guilt for kids to be like, well, I
Speaker 2: didn't deserve this, or my friends don't have this, or
Speaker 2: like I didn't do it. And then on the other side,
Speaker 2: which you get, is the entitlement as well.
Speaker 1: So it's such so much, so much to deal with it,
Speaker 1: so much that goes into it. Man and I think
Speaker 1: the only thing for us that we've always tried to
Speaker 1: do is at least communicate with them and don't make
Speaker 1: them guess or try to figure it out on their own.
Speaker 1: And even oh, I'm here somewhat giving advice or whatnot,
Speaker 1: or talking about my memoir, I'm always looking for advice
Speaker 1: some of the people that I've looked to as mentors
Speaker 1: or whatnot. Most of our conversations have been on parenting
Speaker 1: because this thing don't come with a manual, you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't. And I'm constantly learning, adapting, trying to adjust
Speaker 1: because kids, for sure will will will like test you,
Speaker 1: you know, and I think it's been the best test
Speaker 1: that I've ever had because they show you how to
Speaker 1: love unconditionally and.
Speaker 4: It's the best ride.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the part in the book that really got me
Speaker 2: was when you're because I don't have kids yet, and
Speaker 2: me and my wife have been together for around ten
Speaker 2: years now, and we moved from London to New York
Speaker 2: to LA and now we live in LA. But the
Speaker 2: last seven years have been moving around and you know,
Speaker 2: in our own way. Obviously I'm not moving how you are,
Speaker 2: but still kind of that feeling of not having a
Speaker 2: home right now we know we're living in LA and
Speaker 2: we're happy, but I often think about, like how my
Speaker 2: kids will have a different life to the life I had,
Speaker 2: even in so that the protram picking out of your
Speaker 2: book is when you're leaving LA and you're talking to
Speaker 2: little Chris about it and he's really upset about it,
Speaker 2: like because he's made his friends and he's going to
Speaker 2: miss him and and you can relate to that as
Speaker 2: a kid. It doesn't matter who your dad is. It's
Speaker 2: like as a kid, it's like your friends are everything.
Speaker 2: You're scared about what it's going to be like going
Speaker 2: to a new school. I think that's when you're moving
Speaker 2: from LA to Houston and you're just you're feeling this discomfort.
Speaker 2: And I love what you say to him where you're like,
Speaker 2: I need you. And I thought that was amazing to
Speaker 2: hear a dad say like I need you. It wasn't
Speaker 2: like you need to do this for me or you
Speaker 2: got to you know, just just fix up and be
Speaker 2: strong and man up. And how did you recognize that?
Speaker 2: That was the conversation.
Speaker 4: Jay.
Speaker 1: I'm very visual, so even when as you're talking to me,
Speaker 1: like I'm envisioning when it happened and we were in
Speaker 1: my office in my house in Calabasas, and I'll never
Speaker 1: forget his face.
Speaker 4: Ever. It was tough.
Speaker 1: And like I said, I grew up around the same friends,
Speaker 1: right like me and my brother got a group chat
Speaker 1: with our homies back home that we grew up with.
Speaker 1: And that is probably one of the coolest things about
Speaker 1: my childhood. Whereas I know, to each his own, some
Speaker 1: people moved around a lot, and it gave them the
Speaker 1: ability to be flexible to different cultures and this and that.
Speaker 1: But it was cool having a home base. And so
Speaker 1: when we left and Chris said that it was hard,
Speaker 1: it was really hard, which is why we ultimately made
Speaker 1: the decision when we went from Houston, OKC to let
Speaker 1: them stay in LA And it's always going to be hard.
Speaker 1: That's what you understand is that there's no perfect life,
Speaker 1: there's no perfect family. Because in trying to give them stability,
Speaker 1: now the last four years I've been without them, you know,
Speaker 1: So I think what always ends up happening is somebody
Speaker 1: got a sacrifice, right And if anybody gonna sacrifice as
Speaker 1: far as my family go, I'm gonna make sure it's me,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 4: And that's that's how we got to where we are.
Speaker 2: Now, and how do you stay strong in that time?
Speaker 2: Because I get that too, Like my wife and I
Speaker 2: end up spending a bit of time apart every year
Speaker 2: as well because her family, both of our families are
Speaker 2: from London and they live in London and aniece and
Speaker 2: nephew are there, our sisters are there. So my wife
Speaker 2: misses family a lot, and her family's like her her
Speaker 2: like fuel, right, and so we end up spending quite
Speaker 2: a few months apart every year, And I wonder, how
Speaker 2: do you stay strong, how do you kind of like,
Speaker 2: what do you work on to make sure that you're
Speaker 2: filled up as well? Because like you said, it's a sacrifice,
Speaker 2: but at the same time, you have to take you
Speaker 2: have to be the.
Speaker 1: One I'm looking for tips and advice every day. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, it's so hard. And I tell you, I
Speaker 1: think that the the biggest thing that I try to
Speaker 1: do is make sure that I'm not not too emotional
Speaker 1: in front of in front of my kids, right, because
Speaker 1: my kids are spell like my son is so thoughtful,
Speaker 1: you know, and my daughter is the same way. And
Speaker 1: it's so different, right, My childhood was my dad was
Speaker 1: coach and all that my mom was a team mom,
Speaker 1: so my parents never missed anything. I think probably one
Speaker 1: of the coolest interactions was we played in La maybe
Speaker 1: like a week and a half, two weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: my family came to the game and my kids were
Speaker 1: standing outside the locker room. And I had no clue
Speaker 1: they did this, But when a few of my teammates left,
Speaker 1: they saw my daughter and they was like.
Speaker 4: Cam, we be watching your baseball games.
Speaker 1: We'd be watching your basketball games because because I can't
Speaker 1: be there, I'll literally be in the locker room before game.
Speaker 1: My iPad is set up, my wife is video in
Speaker 1: the game, and I'm doing my stretches and exercises before
Speaker 1: the game, and anybody is in the locker room, they
Speaker 1: can hear. They can hear my daughter's game going on.
Speaker 1: So to see my wife told me how much my
Speaker 1: daughter like. She just lit up, knowing you know that
Speaker 1: I'm not there physically, but I'm always, you know, at
Speaker 1: least watching and trying to when I came.
Speaker 2: I feel like kids feel that presence, you know. I
Speaker 2: always felt like my parents didn't have a lot of
Speaker 2: time for me. They were both immigrants, working hard, trying
Speaker 2: to put food on the table. But I always felt
Speaker 2: their presence because when I was with them or when
Speaker 2: they did see me, there was a real connection there. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I didn't need like eight hours a day, ten hours.
Speaker 2: I didn't have that luxury. They didn't have that luxury.
Speaker 2: But even if it was for those couple of hours
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 4: I say that all the time.
Speaker 1: Man, I'm so aware and conscious that like kids, my
Speaker 1: kids now thirteen and ten, they're very smart.
Speaker 4: They're very aware that if you was.
Speaker 1: To get them a gift, say you're a big time
Speaker 1: person or something, you get them a gift, and somebody
Speaker 1: works for you got them to gift your kids, you
Speaker 1: can't fool them, you.
Speaker 4: Know, But they would much rather have that time.
Speaker 1: So when I'm in town or whatnot, if I get
Speaker 1: a day off and I go home, the best time
Speaker 1: for me is taking my kids to school. Right that
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five minute drive to school. And then even
Speaker 1: the fact that my daughter still lets me walk her in.
Speaker 1: Those I think are the most priceless moments because one
Speaker 1: thing that I learned during quarantine was that was the.
Speaker 4: First year that I lived away from my family.
Speaker 1: Right I was in Oklahoma and then the shutdown happened
Speaker 1: and we all went home for a while. And it
Speaker 1: was just crazy because even though my kids might be
Speaker 1: doing their own thing, they felt comfort. And I was
Speaker 1: like on zoom trying to set up the bubble, right
Speaker 1: because I was the union president.
Speaker 4: Of the town.
Speaker 1: But they felt comfort in doing their own thing. But
Speaker 1: they knew if they looked out the side of their
Speaker 1: eye that they could see me in my office, right,
Speaker 1: So just the awaring it. You might not necessarily be
Speaker 1: right there next to them all the time, but just
Speaker 1: the fact that they know you're there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well said, well said. And going back to
Speaker 2: one of your rituals, I was just thinking about this.
Speaker 2: You said, you right, can't give up now, yeap on
Speaker 2: your shoes before you go out to play a game,
Speaker 2: And I was thinking, like, what is that? You know,
Speaker 2: eighteen years is a long time to dedicate professionally and
Speaker 2: then what to speak of all the prep and and
Speaker 2: everything else that goes into it. But what does it
Speaker 2: feel like to get traded, to feel down and out,
Speaker 2: to feel like it's not going in the direction you want,
Speaker 2: and then to.
Speaker 3: Can't give up now?
Speaker 2: Like I find that that kind of pivot for some
Speaker 2: people it breaks them, and for some people it makes
Speaker 2: them and for you, any sort of pivots have only
Speaker 2: taken you further and further and further for you to
Speaker 2: perform and pursue at a higher level. What is that?
Speaker 2: Because I think people look at you and even when
Speaker 2: I read your book, I was just thinking, you're working
Speaker 2: really hard at basketball, You're really working out of your family,
Speaker 2: You're working out of being a dad. I'm like, this
Speaker 2: guy works hard on every area of his life. Like
Speaker 2: there's not.
Speaker 4: Such you're trying to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I respect that you don't come across as you're
Speaker 2: perfecting it, but there's this energy of like thinking about
Speaker 2: how'm raising my kids and thinking about my relationship. But
Speaker 2: then when the career part is having its hiccups and
Speaker 2: slip ups and whatever else in the past, what did
Speaker 2: you find when you get that call give up? Now?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: Where does that come from?
Speaker 4: So I'll tell you where that came from.
Speaker 1: Was when I got traded from Houston to Okce Like
Speaker 1: to be, I was mad, like really mad because I've
Speaker 1: been told one thing and another thing happened. And when
Speaker 1: I went to Houston, we moved like fifteen people to Houston,
Speaker 1: right so to not know and to know that I
Speaker 1: was going to Oklahoma city.
Speaker 4: I was hot.
Speaker 1: I was in Augusta, Georgia, and I didn't know what
Speaker 1: that meant, right, I didn't know what that meant. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what was next. It was the first time
Speaker 1: I had been blindsided with something like that. It's a
Speaker 1: song by Mary Mary Right. It's called I Can't give
Speaker 1: Up Now. Because, like I said in the book, I
Speaker 1: grew up in church. I was in church four or
Speaker 1: five days a week, and I remember listening to that
Speaker 1: song and like getting emotional and it was like, look,
Speaker 1: the trade didn't happen to ESPN, everybody talking about it
Speaker 1: or whatnot. I learned this a while ago in the league,
Speaker 1: is that ain't nobody gonna feel sorry for you? And
Speaker 1: like you said, I've learned that too in this business,
Speaker 1: that there's two different type of people. People who gonna
Speaker 1: feel bad for themselves and just salt, and then there's
Speaker 1: other people who gonna get to work.
Speaker 4: And so that was my that was my mindset.
Speaker 1: It was like, all right, I think I'm done, all right, cool,
Speaker 1: I got I put my head down and do the work.
Speaker 1: And so that was, you know, my whole energy going
Speaker 1: into that.
Speaker 3: How do you differentiate between.
Speaker 2: Well, the media is building is a narrative versus your narrative, Like,
Speaker 2: how do you I find like athletes? That's what makes
Speaker 2: the athletes job a million times harder than even playing
Speaker 2: the game, especially now with social media where there's so
Speaker 2: much chatter, so much conversation. How do you keep your
Speaker 2: focus around this is reality?
Speaker 3: And that's just.
Speaker 1: Crazy you said that because I learned something about myself
Speaker 1: even a few years ago. I can't have that clutter right.
Speaker 1: And when I played back in LA I think I
Speaker 1: said this in the book too with the Clippers Doc Rivers.
Speaker 1: He used to talk about getting rid of the clutter.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So when you get home from a game, if your
Speaker 1: team lose, everybody is with your family and all that.
Speaker 1: What they're gonna do if y'all lost the game, what
Speaker 1: they're gonna say it was everybody else's fault.
Speaker 4: Right. If you lose a game and you.
Speaker 1: Get home, everybody in your family gon, they're gonna be like,
Speaker 1: this person wasn't doing that, that person wasn't doing that.
Speaker 1: They ain't never gonna say nothing about you, right, And
Speaker 1: so that's literally clutter right, And the same thing I've
Speaker 1: learned years ago in the playoffs, Like in the playoffs,
Speaker 1: you got to win four games out of seven, right,
Speaker 1: And I don't care what anybody says about social media
Speaker 1: or whatnot. But if you win a game in the
Speaker 1: playoffs and you go on the social media and you
Speaker 1: had a great game and everybody talking about you like
Speaker 1: you the best thing since payings with pockets, then you
Speaker 1: might let your guard down, right.
Speaker 4: And the same thing.
Speaker 1: If you don't have a good game and you go
Speaker 1: out there and everybody's talking about how sorry you are,
Speaker 1: you might lose a little bit of confidence.
Speaker 4: So for me, I try to block out all of
Speaker 4: that noise, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: So that's like when the playoffs start, I don't want
Speaker 1: to see what ESPN talking about. I don't want to
Speaker 1: see what bleacher. I don't want to see what none
Speaker 1: of them talking about. Because you got to just stay
Speaker 1: locked in and stay focused. And as long as you
Speaker 1: know what's true, you know what I mean. People always
Speaker 1: going to say something, always they going to try to
Speaker 1: have some type of narrative or whatnot. But as long
Speaker 1: as you know what's real, I think that's what can
Speaker 1: help you keep your sanity.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think that's one of the hardest skills
Speaker 2: for anyone. Let learn, someone who a lot of people
Speaker 2: in the world are talking about like that's you know,
Speaker 2: I can imagine that affects kids today. I'm sure kids
Speaker 2: feel at school and you see that with them at school.
Speaker 1: And see, this is the thing I tell you. And
Speaker 1: I'm not a parent, coach or anything like that. I
Speaker 1: can only tell you my experience. But what I've learned
Speaker 1: with social media with kids, right and having a thirteen
Speaker 1: and a ten year old, is that when I was
Speaker 1: growing up, if a girl didn't like you or something
Speaker 1: like that, you dealt with it at school. Right once
Speaker 1: you went home, you didn't have to deal with it, right,
Speaker 1: you just saw her at school.
Speaker 4: The next day.
Speaker 1: Now, with phones and social media and all that, one
Speaker 1: thing I know is that these kids are dealing with
Speaker 1: things all day long.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: It could be on Snapchat, it could be on Instagram
Speaker 1: or whatnot. And if us as adults, if we can't
Speaker 1: handle that mental capacity, Like I said, I can't handle that,
Speaker 1: Like I'm on Instagram, but I'll go weeks without even
Speaker 1: looking at it, you know what I mean? Just because
Speaker 1: I feel like, you know, with our stories and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Now we ask people how they're doing, we
Speaker 1: already know what the hell they didn't did for the
Speaker 1: last three weeks, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: So that's just me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, there's I want to shift here because there's
Speaker 2: what I found was really special as someone who was
Speaker 2: reading your book and just again, like I said, learning
Speaker 2: so much about you. It was like you said that
Speaker 2: your grandpa, you know, used to encourage you to listen
Speaker 2: to obituaries and when they came on and you'd he'd
Speaker 2: tell you more about that person too, like yeah, this
Speaker 2: amazing memory.
Speaker 4: Weirdo. It was.
Speaker 1: It was weird and kind of strange because like it
Speaker 1: wasn't no like iPhones with the alarm went off and
Speaker 1: he knew to do it. It's like everybody would be
Speaker 1: working and my granddaddy would just be like cut on
Speaker 1: obituaries and as soon as somebody hit the little radio player,
Speaker 1: the song would be playing. It's like kind of morbid,
Speaker 1: and they would just start naming off the people who
Speaker 1: had died, right, And I mean everybody out there working
Speaker 1: and you might hear mister Ulysses or Bow or somebody say,
Speaker 1: oh such and such die, you know, they didn't know,
Speaker 1: and my granddad might start talking about one of them.
Speaker 1: But because I talk about my grandmother dying when I
Speaker 1: was seven. That was my first time, you know, being
Speaker 1: faced with death. And then it's crazy. It was a
Speaker 1: funeral home in our hometown called Russell's Funeral Home. Like
Speaker 1: once every like two weeks or whatnot. They would bring
Speaker 1: their fleet of cars up to the service station because
Speaker 1: they had like a it's crazy to think about it now,
Speaker 1: they had a business account right with my granddad's service station,
Speaker 1: and so just it was a lot.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 1: That's why I still don't deal with death. Well you
Speaker 1: know what I mean to see the hearses pull in
Speaker 1: there and I don't know it was it was different.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's you said that with your grandmother's past and
Speaker 2: you were like, I never really got over that, like
Speaker 2: and I think that's that's so real for so many people.
Speaker 2: But like you said, like people often say like, oh,
Speaker 2: I know how you feel, but no one can know
Speaker 2: how you feel because they didn't know that person. They
Speaker 2: didn't know your connection to them, that experience. Like you,
Speaker 2: you dealt with that so early on at seven, and
Speaker 2: like you said, you didn't you never really got got
Speaker 2: over it. Now when you look back on it, is
Speaker 2: it something you even want to get over or is
Speaker 2: it something that just stays with you at it.
Speaker 1: I think it just stays with me because I tell you,
Speaker 1: like writing this book was also like therapeutic because some
Speaker 1: of the stuff I never talked about, and so might
Speaker 1: have been. A week or two ago, I was talking
Speaker 1: to my parents and was just asking them like I
Speaker 1: was like that, I was like, when was the first
Speaker 1: time you dealt with death?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 1: Because my kids are thirteen and ten and they haven't. Right,
Speaker 1: the only person I think that they've seen pass away
Speaker 1: wood is my wife's grandmother, right, And so obviously the
Speaker 1: less you have to deal with death, the better. But
Speaker 1: I mean, as soon as I go to a funeral, right,
Speaker 1: all those emotions from when I was seven, you know,
Speaker 1: they come right back, they come right back, and it's
Speaker 1: something about the closure aspect of it and somebody not
Speaker 1: being there anymore. I'll tell you something really cool. When
Speaker 1: I grew up as a kid, videoed everything. Every one
Speaker 1: of my games was vhs, all of that. My dad
Speaker 1: found a bunch of those tapes and he had them
Speaker 1: converted into DVDs, and so recently, maybe like three weeks ago,
Speaker 1: he sent the DVDs to me.
Speaker 4: He hadn't even watched him, and I put one of
Speaker 4: the DVDs in and I was watching it.
Speaker 1: And we used to have events all the time at
Speaker 1: this place up the street from my house.
Speaker 4: And I was looking at the video and I was like,
Speaker 4: what is this? And I kept.
Speaker 1: Watching it for a while, and my granddad walked in.
Speaker 1: It was actually a video from his sixtieth birthday, right
Speaker 1: literally just three weeks ago. Came across this and it
Speaker 1: was like emotional watching it, and I started filming some
Speaker 1: of it because I hadn't heard my granddad's voice in
Speaker 1: over twenty years since he passed away. I took a
Speaker 1: video of it and I put in our family group chat.
Speaker 1: My mom called me. She pulled over to the side
Speaker 1: of the road and she was crying because you don't
Speaker 1: think about stuff like that, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: My kids they know the story of my grandfather, they
Speaker 1: know all of that, but they had never heard his voice.
Speaker 4: My wife, I didn't know. She had never heard his voice.
Speaker 1: Right, So to have this footage now and my brother
Speaker 1: talked wishing him a happy birthday. And I'm anxiously watching.
Speaker 1: I'm like, man, where am I?
Speaker 4: Where am I?
Speaker 1: Because you see everybody setting up and then you see
Speaker 1: somebody say all right, everybody be quiet. He about to
Speaker 1: walk in because it was like a surprise. And so
Speaker 1: when I heard somebody say that, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I must be bringing him in to surprise because we
Speaker 1: used to be together all the time. And then he
Speaker 1: walks in and out, I don't see myself, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: where am I in this video? And as my brother's
Speaker 1: giving his happy Birthday speech to my granddad, he says,
Speaker 1: if Chris was here, he would have said the same thing.
Speaker 1: And then I like just this whole feeling came over
Speaker 1: me because I wasn't there, and I called my mom.
Speaker 4: I was like, Mom, where it was? I? Where was I?
Speaker 1: And she was like, you had to be at an
Speaker 1: AU tournament. And so it was crazy, like I was
Speaker 1: getting emotional again because I was like, damn, that's sort
Speaker 1: of been the story of my life is missing stuff,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. But it's crazy, Like I said,
Speaker 1: death and all this stuff, you just you never get
Speaker 1: over it and you're not reminded of it until you
Speaker 1: face with it again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for sharing that story, man. I mean
Speaker 2: that's like the oh I mean to be reminded of
Speaker 2: being absent because you're pursuing your dream, but then you
Speaker 2: know the stuff like you said sacrifice, You said, something
Speaker 2: has to be sacrificed. But I can't imagine what it
Speaker 2: felt like to, you know, reconnect back with that memory
Speaker 2: through finding an amazing tape but then feeling like you know.
Speaker 1: This, especially at this time with the book coming out,
Speaker 1: to finally see that that was really cool and I think,
Speaker 1: I mean, I got my little cousin a j and
Speaker 1: Takoya who like twenty nine and twenty seven, they had
Speaker 1: never heard aj had but they were kids or whatever
Speaker 1: when he died, so they hadn't heard anything.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, what do you think was a lesson? There's
Speaker 2: so many lessons in the book that you learned from
Speaker 2: your grandpa, and that are you know. I think people
Speaker 2: should read the book for it to learn the depth
Speaker 2: of it. But what's the lesson that you think you
Speaker 2: carry in your heart, the most that stays with you
Speaker 2: right now till this day, that you feel lives with you.
Speaker 1: Man, it sounds so generic, but I say the work ethic, right,
Speaker 1: But it's crazy because I could sit here and say
Speaker 1: you gotta work, you gotta work.
Speaker 4: It's the work ethic. But I will also say it's
Speaker 4: the balance because It's.
Speaker 1: The one thing that I also learned about my family,
Speaker 1: and my mom said this, and I never even thought
Speaker 1: about this. Aspect of it was that my grandfather worked
Speaker 1: so hard, and I think I said this in the book,
Speaker 1: that that was all he knew. So he never actually,
Speaker 1: I don't want to say, enjoyed our family, but he
Speaker 1: never like went on vacation, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: And I'm not saying and you gotta go to another
Speaker 1: country or something like that, but just try to make
Speaker 1: sure that there's balance and make sure that of course you.
Speaker 4: Gotta work work, work to provide.
Speaker 1: But make sure at some point you take some time
Speaker 1: to enjoy the people around you and your family. Because
Speaker 1: my mom said that the one time that my granddad
Speaker 1: actually went on vacation was when my grandmother was about
Speaker 1: to pass away. And so it wasn't until he's seen
Speaker 1: that he was gonna lose my grandmother that he was like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I need to do something with her.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you talk about how like you used to
Speaker 2: finish work at like seven am to seven thirty and
Speaker 2: then he started ending at six yep. And you were saying,
Speaker 2: like to some people that may not be a big thing,
Speaker 2: but in your family.
Speaker 3: That was huge.
Speaker 4: I was huge because all you.
Speaker 3: Saw him do is work.
Speaker 1: I always saw him. I always saw him do his work.
Speaker 1: And when my grandmother died is when anywhere he went.
Speaker 4: I tried to go with him. I try to go
Speaker 4: with him. And it's it's tough, man. Like I like,
Speaker 4: I keep.
Speaker 1: Saying, my mom is unbelievable because I mean, I'll be
Speaker 1: thirty eight in a few weeks and I still got
Speaker 1: mom and dad. And it's not till I got older
Speaker 1: and I started like I was like, man, mom, you
Speaker 1: lost mom and dad? You know, so I can't imagine that.
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And how did they process it? Because you say
Speaker 2: in the book, like how you know, we don't always
Speaker 2: do therapy, We don't always talk about it. Like have
Speaker 2: you helped them with their grief while you help yours?
Speaker 2: Do you find it useful as a family to connect
Speaker 2: or is it?
Speaker 1: You know, it's crazy. I don't think my parents have
Speaker 1: read the book yet. I'm so excited for him to
Speaker 1: read it. I want them to read the book, but
Speaker 1: I also want them to listen to the audiobook because
Speaker 1: I did the audiobook so they can actually hear my voice.
Speaker 1: And I think when they read it. They probably gonna
Speaker 1: learn some stuff about me that they probably don't know.
Speaker 1: And I know my family's extremely emotional and a lot
Speaker 1: of times we're all working, we're all on the move,
Speaker 1: we're all.
Speaker 4: On the go. But I think it's going to be
Speaker 4: so cool to talk about once they read it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you think is going to shock them
Speaker 2: the most, to surprise them the most, or or something
Speaker 2: you think that they're going to be maybe even is
Speaker 2: there anything that would make them money easy?
Speaker 3: What do you I don't.
Speaker 4: Think anything's gonna be uneasy.
Speaker 1: Some of it probably be funny because I talk about
Speaker 1: some of me and my brothers, like childhood growing up,
Speaker 1: my parents never talking to us about sex, all this
Speaker 1: different type stuff. But it's gonna be real cool and
Speaker 1: I think they'll probably I mean, I try to tell
Speaker 1: my parents how much I appreciate them all the time,
Speaker 1: but hopefully they get more of a feeling of that
Speaker 1: through the book too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you think you're talking about the hard work
Speaker 2: and the balance and it's such a It's something that
Speaker 2: I think all of us who are ambitious or obsessed
Speaker 2: with figuring out right, you want to put everything into
Speaker 2: the thing you love, the thing you were born to do.
Speaker 2: And at the same time, you realize it's meaningless if
Speaker 2: the family, the relationship, the friendships aren't there.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: We always hear that to them, like no one wants
Speaker 2: to be low at the top or it is lonely
Speaker 2: at the top. Right, And so do you think that
Speaker 2: that makes you sacrifice success or do you think that
Speaker 2: it is success is to be able to have buzz?
Speaker 1: It depends, it depends if you can have both, then
Speaker 1: that's probably the ultimate goal, right, to have both, to
Speaker 1: have that success and have that balance. But the thing
Speaker 1: that I'm always battling with, right is that eighteen years
Speaker 1: of my life I've been in the NBA, and that
Speaker 1: is a blessing.
Speaker 4: Right. I want to be there. I want to be
Speaker 4: there for my kids' events.
Speaker 1: I want to be a dad just like my dad
Speaker 1: was to me, because I'm not where I'm at without
Speaker 1: my dad sort of cultivating that and being there. And
Speaker 1: then there's this other side of it too, whereas if
Speaker 1: I was to retire, right and stop playing, knowing that
Speaker 1: I still got a lot left in the tank and
Speaker 1: still got the passion and whatnot, would I be this
Speaker 1: amazing dad that I want to be if I gave
Speaker 1: gave up my own passion, right. So that's the hard decision.
Speaker 1: That's the hard decision that everyone has to make all
Speaker 1: the time. And I constantly have those conversations with my
Speaker 1: kids and my wife about it, and you know, we
Speaker 1: ultimately sort of decided that they wouldn't like the person
Speaker 1: that's at home if I stopped playing prematurely.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's so real, man, I think that's like the
Speaker 2: that's that's the biggest realization, is like, how if you're
Speaker 2: not living your purpose, the person you become is like
Speaker 2: a figment, like a little tiny piece of who you
Speaker 2: really are, and then everyone's getting that leftover version.
Speaker 4: Of you exactly.
Speaker 1: And so it's crazy. You just never know it's you know,
Speaker 1: that time. You know you won't get that time back.
Speaker 1: It ain't like you can stop playing and then called
Speaker 1: the NBA in four or five years be like yo,
Speaker 1: pick me back up, you know. But also you don't
Speaker 1: get that time back with the kids. So that's what
Speaker 1: we all trying to figure out.
Speaker 2: If you were in that tape, if you're there at
Speaker 2: that bus day, what would you have said?
Speaker 1: Oh, man, I'm sure it's a tape somewhere from one
Speaker 1: of those other birthdays, But I know I would have
Speaker 1: just talked about how my granddad was my best friend,
Speaker 1: you know, and how I was happy for him to
Speaker 1: be there, and I probably would have said something about
Speaker 1: him not having his teeth in you.
Speaker 4: Know, in that video. In the video that I seen
Speaker 4: of him, he didn't have his teeth in his mouth.
Speaker 1: So as soon as I seen him walk in and
Speaker 1: his whole face was closed up, I was like, where
Speaker 1: is my granddaddy teeth at?
Speaker 4: But I don't know?
Speaker 1: And it was crazy for me because, like I said,
Speaker 1: I'm watching his video not knowing what it is, and
Speaker 1: then when I see it's his sixtieth birthday, knowing that
Speaker 1: he died literally the next year at sixty one, it
Speaker 1: was it was crazy. So I would have definitely just
Speaker 1: told him, you know how much I love and appreciate him,
Speaker 1: and probably try to get him to move in with
Speaker 1: us again.
Speaker 2: What do you think is a lesson that if he
Speaker 2: was here with us today that he'd still want you
Speaker 2: to learn or something he'd be poking at you at?
Speaker 2: Oh man, what do you think he'd be coaching on
Speaker 2: right now? Probably all the texts that I get my temper?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, probably, But I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think the biggest thing that my granddad would be
Speaker 1: proud of if he was still here was just that
Speaker 1: our family is still together, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: I think that's the biggest thing that he'd be proud
Speaker 1: of because he had he had my mom, and he
Speaker 1: had my aunt Randa, right, and so the fact that
Speaker 1: even in La that's where my wife and kids lives,
Speaker 1: where my brother lives, that's where my aunt Ronda's kids,
Speaker 1: Aj and Koya live, like all the holidays, we all
Speaker 1: still get together, even after all this time. And uh,
Speaker 1: I think that's what he'd be most proud of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's like when I'm reading
Speaker 2: the book, I had the the buds, I viewed note
Speaker 2: of what had happened in your experience, but then to
Speaker 2: read it and to get the real context of the
Speaker 2: depth of your relationship with your grandpa, which then when
Speaker 2: you read about what happens, you're like, you know that
Speaker 2: that like it gets it gets you, right, like it
Speaker 2: gets me. I wasn't close with my granddad at all.
Speaker 2: I never I barely met my dad's dad, and I
Speaker 2: was never really that close to my mom's dad, and
Speaker 2: so I didn't I don't have I can't even say
Speaker 2: I know how you feel because I don't even have
Speaker 2: that context. But I felt close to your relationship with
Speaker 2: your granddad because of how you describe him, and then
Speaker 2: I mean, there's no words to describe it, for it
Speaker 2: to happen, just in the most tragic way that you
Speaker 2: could lose someone you love, and the way you find out,
Speaker 2: the way you rush over there, Like, yeah, that whole
Speaker 2: moment when I'm reading it, it was like, I can't imagine
Speaker 2: how tough it is to relive that for you as
Speaker 2: you're writing it out. And why was it so important
Speaker 2: to share that piece and why did it mean so
Speaker 2: much to you to share that piece?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it was important for me to share
Speaker 4: it just.
Speaker 1: Selfishly for me too, you know, to talk about it,
Speaker 1: and also to show why I am sort.
Speaker 4: Of the way I am and why I'm wired the way.
Speaker 1: I am, and I don't know, keep learning little things
Speaker 1: like throughout the book. Throughout the process of writing a book,
Speaker 1: I was having to call and ask like my mom
Speaker 1: some questions, right, Like that's how I found out my
Speaker 1: granddad's name was.
Speaker 4: Chili, Like we called them pop out Chili, but.
Speaker 1: Called my mom Luckily, my granddad still has a few
Speaker 1: siblings that are still alive, and that's why it's so
Speaker 1: important to ask our grandparents and things like that questions
Speaker 1: so we know our history. And I don't know, I
Speaker 1: think it was just great for me. Obviously, I want
Speaker 1: a lot of people to read it. But sometimes I
Speaker 1: was almost in the book just talking to my family
Speaker 1: because even being away from home, right, I haven't lived
Speaker 1: in Winston Salem in eighteen years, and that's where all
Speaker 1: my family is, like you were saying, your wife, like
Speaker 1: London or whatever.
Speaker 4: I grew up around all my family.
Speaker 1: So in some parts of his memoirs, me talking to
Speaker 1: my family back home that I've been away from from
Speaker 1: a long time and just letting them know how much
Speaker 1: I appreciate him, how much I miss him through a lot.
Speaker 4: Of these experiences too. It's taught me.
Speaker 1: I really treasure the relationship that my kids have my
Speaker 1: parents and my wife's parents, right, because my dad, my
Speaker 1: mom and dad, they are not the same people to
Speaker 1: raise me, right, they are not the way they be
Speaker 1: so nice to my kids. And you know, my son
Speaker 1: in the backyard shooting basketball when he was younger, and
Speaker 1: he bricking left and right and my mama just yelling
Speaker 1: good job, baby, No, that is not what you're supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing. But there are times when my kids
Speaker 1: will do something and I get on them, and I
Speaker 1: see my dad them like be easy on them, and
Speaker 1: I like, you wasn't easy on me. But because of
Speaker 1: my grandfather and that relationship, I get it, like I
Speaker 1: get it when my parents would get mad at me
Speaker 1: or I get my butt whoop.
Speaker 4: The first person I called was my granddad.
Speaker 1: So I'm grateful for that because those relationships are really important,
Speaker 1: and I want to make sure that my kids have
Speaker 1: that bond that I had.
Speaker 4: Too with my granddad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, And that's I'm so happy to hear that.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to hear you feel that your kids
Speaker 2: have that video parents and Jada's parents, because yes, because.
Speaker 1: When they wake up, when my parents are in town
Speaker 1: and my kids wake up in the morning, they run
Speaker 1: in their first, they running that first, and I see
Speaker 1: the way that my parents light up, and it seriously
Speaker 1: like I literally look at my parents and I think
Speaker 1: back to my granddad and how he must have felt.
Speaker 1: It's so crazy. What's is twenty twenty three. My dad
Speaker 1: is sixty two now and so when my granddad, I mean,
Speaker 1: when my dad turned sixty one last year, it was
Speaker 1: like crazy emotional for me because I was like, man,
Speaker 1: this is how old my grandad it was when I
Speaker 1: lost them, and it's crazy to see like my dad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, and for them to have him in
Speaker 2: health and greatness. It's I think the part that really
Speaker 2: blew my mind is you saying how you found a
Speaker 2: way to have empathy and you know, some sort of
Speaker 2: like forgiveness for the four individuals that assaulted your grandfather.
Speaker 2: And I think having to relive it again when the
Speaker 2: case gets opened up again and you know, you know,
Speaker 2: to deal with it up until twenty twenty one, I
Speaker 2: think it was like, you know, it's like that having
Speaker 2: to go through it is the worst thing anyway, and
Speaker 2: then to have to leave, relive it again, and for
Speaker 2: it to be opened up, and for innocence to be
Speaker 2: the topical conversation, and for then again for it to close.
Speaker 2: Like but for you to be in a place where
Speaker 2: you said, it's taken you a long time, but you
Speaker 2: feel like there's a certain level of empathy, I'm like,
Speaker 2: that is I mean, it walk us through the journey,
Speaker 2: not the end, because the end is the hard part.
Speaker 1: But yeah, the journey is tough because in the immediate reaction,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Like I said in the book, I had
Speaker 1: some family members who was gonna handle it, handle it themselves, but.
Speaker 4: It was I don't know, it took a while.
Speaker 1: But then you start to realize, no matter what happens,
Speaker 1: he's not coming back, right, I couldn't get him back.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it was just getting older
Speaker 1: or the way that I like watch shows. You start
Speaker 1: learning about the prison system and all this different type stuff,
Speaker 1: and you just start realizing that people make mistakes, sometimes
Speaker 1: bigger than others. But being incarcerated for that long of
Speaker 1: a time, you know what I mean, If you can
Speaker 1: show that you're remorseful and everything, that everything has happened,
Speaker 1: that's when I definitely think you need a second chance
Speaker 1: at this thing.
Speaker 2: Did you ever receive any remorse or apology or any
Speaker 2: sort of thing from them or that never happened?
Speaker 4: No? No, never.
Speaker 1: And what's crazy is, like I said, when that case
Speaker 1: got reopened, that was one of the first times. It
Speaker 1: was the first time that I actually started finding out
Speaker 1: details about the case. Because you think about, like I said,
Speaker 1: I was in college and my.
Speaker 4: Parents wouldn't let me go.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't let me go to any of the court
Speaker 1: hearings or anything like that. And over the years, I
Speaker 1: tell you, my aunt Ronda, she'd have wanted to be
Speaker 1: on top of everything. And it was a few times
Speaker 1: that I used to ask her. I used to be like, Auntie,
Speaker 1: show show me what the boys looked like, you know,
Speaker 1: and she would like pull up a picture or whatnot.
Speaker 1: And that was like hard to even look at because
Speaker 1: you started questioning asking why, like hell, why would you
Speaker 1: do this? But as time goes on, you just you
Speaker 1: just try to heal.
Speaker 2: That's that's huge man, to hear the apology and remorse
Speaker 2: and to almost to accept an apology you never received
Speaker 2: in order to rise above. I mean that that's like,
Speaker 2: I mean, that's I mean. I was gonna ask you,
Speaker 2: what do you think is the toughest thing you've ever done?
Speaker 2: I'm like, that sounds like the toughest thing anyone's ever
Speaker 2: had to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, it's definitely one of them. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I think it was the unexpected situation as far as
Speaker 1: my granddad and in the book, like I really like detail,
Speaker 1: you know, when traumatic things happen you sort of tend
Speaker 1: to remember everything down to I remember scuffing my Jordans,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, right there about the gym, and.
Speaker 4: It was crazy.
Speaker 1: It was just a whirl when how everything happened that
Speaker 1: went from the best day on the fourteenth seriously like
Speaker 1: a movie. The fourteenth signed my letter of intent to
Speaker 1: the fifteenth that happened. You start to realize that, I
Speaker 1: don't know, like I'm right here thinking about it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I love that when people when people call you sometimes
Speaker 1: now whatnot? Like you always hope for the best, but
Speaker 1: expect the worst. You know, when somebody says, yo, do
Speaker 1: just happen?
Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: Even though that one situation happened, it sort of almost
Speaker 1: gets you on edge whenever something happens.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, well, I think that the book is genuinely like
Speaker 2: it's a beautiful dedication to your grandpa, Like it is
Speaker 2: like I can't imagine anyone in the world who wouldn't
Speaker 2: be super proud to be honored in that way. Like
Speaker 2: it's such a beautiful honoring of a person that you loved.
Speaker 2: And I don't think I've ever read a memoir that
Speaker 2: felt like an honoring of someone else.
Speaker 4: Man I appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really mean that.
Speaker 2: It's like I was reading it, I was like, you,
Speaker 2: you know, obviously you shared you do share so much
Speaker 2: about yourself, but so much about yourself is in him
Speaker 2: for sure and from him, and so you know, to
Speaker 2: read something with someone honest, like almost offering your life
Speaker 2: as an honoring to him, is to do that in
Speaker 2: a memoir, it's very very special. It's like very special.
Speaker 4: How many books have you written?
Speaker 3: Ran not too?
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, this is one.
Speaker 1: And that was that took a while because, like you said,
Speaker 1: I wanted you to be able to feel like what
Speaker 1: I was experiencing and what I was going through. And
Speaker 1: it's cool, it's really cool. It's really cool to hear
Speaker 1: that you you read it.
Speaker 4: All.
Speaker 1: That sort of made me nervous when you said that too,
Speaker 1: because because it's probably not always going to be.
Speaker 4: The best or whatnot.
Speaker 1: But if somebody can draw any experience from it, right,
Speaker 1: any experience from it, and I think then that was
Speaker 1: a win.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I didn't mean to scare you. I just wanted
Speaker 2: it to know, you know. I just I feel like
Speaker 2: when I when I started to dive into you and it,
Speaker 2: I was just like I just needed to feel like
Speaker 2: I had a real grasp of what you've gone through
Speaker 2: to honor you in this way as well, Like sure,
Speaker 2: when I sit down with someone, I feel like I'm
Speaker 2: trying to to some degree appreciate and honor their life
Speaker 2: because it's my ability to also capture your you as
Speaker 2: a as a human and even the name Like I
Speaker 2: remember when the book first came on my desk and
Speaker 2: I was trying to figure out like I didn't get
Speaker 2: the physical version, but the digital version. When it first
Speaker 2: came to me, I was like, sixty one interesting, and
Speaker 2: I started diving into everything around it, and what did
Speaker 2: it feel like when in that game, you you know
Speaker 2: when you talk about all the feelings that rush through
Speaker 2: ahead of like, oh, that's the record of Jordan at
Speaker 2: sixty seven, and you know, I feel like when you're
Speaker 2: in that place, so many things are flashing in between
Speaker 2: your eyes, like just walk us through that.
Speaker 1: It was crazy because, like I said, the high school
Speaker 1: that we played against was my mom's old high school, Parkland,
Speaker 1: and the most I scored in the game up to
Speaker 1: them might have been like thirty four or thirty six.
Speaker 1: And I know that when death happens or things happen
Speaker 1: for me. A lot of times I get quiet, right,
Speaker 1: and a lot of times that's because I'm just trying
Speaker 1: to collect my thoughts or trying to breathe, or I
Speaker 1: don't necessarily know what I'm always thinking. But I knew
Speaker 1: that I wanted to try to honor my granddad somehow,
Speaker 1: some way, and I didn't want everybody to know, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm one of those people to just like try to
Speaker 1: get it done right, get it done. And when it happened,
Speaker 1: and I had fifty nine and I drove and I
Speaker 1: scored the sixty first point. I think about it, that
Speaker 1: was twenty years ago, right, twenty years ago, So I
Speaker 1: couldn't foresee that I would be in the NBA all
Speaker 1: this different type stuff. But that was the highlight, right,
Speaker 1: And I just never forget being so tired and exhausted
Speaker 1: because emotionally I'd been drained, right, had literally been drained,
Speaker 1: and seeing my dad over there on the bench and
Speaker 1: my brother what not, just made it that much more emotional.
Speaker 1: And I knew, like right then that all my family
Speaker 1: was in town or whatnot, and that's something that would
Speaker 1: always connect us for the rest of our lives.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think for so many people went through something
Speaker 2: like that twenty years ago. It's easy to for all
Speaker 2: of us on the outside to look back now and
Speaker 2: see how incredible it is. But for so many people
Speaker 2: that would have been a very valid reason to give
Speaker 2: up on their dream or for it to not happen,
Speaker 2: because you know, it derails you and it can derail
Speaker 2: your life, and that would be completely valid. But to
Speaker 2: actually look back at it now and go, this career
Speaker 2: is dedicated to this person through your lens, it's remarkable
Speaker 2: to think that you can find the courage to step
Speaker 2: up again and go from that.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think what's even crazier for me, probably at this
Speaker 1: point in my life, is that I've actually been without
Speaker 1: my grandfather longer than I was with him, right, And I.
Speaker 4: Never think about that. You sort of just live or whatnot.
Speaker 1: But there is literally almost nothing that I can do
Speaker 1: on a daily basis that I don't think about it,
Speaker 1: you know. And what's crazy is in the book, I
Speaker 1: think said something about one of his favorite scriptures being
Speaker 1: Philippians for thirteen.
Speaker 4: I can do all things through Christy strength is me.
Speaker 1: And that video I just found when he's standing up
Speaker 1: thanking everybody for coming to his birthday thing. He says that,
Speaker 1: and it gave me goosebumps, he says that in the video.
Speaker 1: So one thing about it, I'm gonna tell my daddy
Speaker 1: to keep finding videos because this is it's really nice
Speaker 1: to have.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's not the watch though, that's a different one.
Speaker 1: No, it isn't the watch. But Vacheron right, this is
Speaker 1: the two two two.
Speaker 4: I literally got this watch because it looks looks like
Speaker 4: the one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the way you described was like, yeah, yeah, this.
Speaker 1: Watch looks like and I mean I think I talk
Speaker 1: about how strict my parents were growing up. There was
Speaker 1: no earrings, no nothing like this or whatnot, no tattoos
Speaker 1: or whatnot. But last summer I got this this tattoo
Speaker 1: right here with your chevron logos right yeah, for my
Speaker 1: brand there.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love getting to do this because I even even
Speaker 2: just singing with you right now, I'm like, I'm thinking,
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful that I came out today to sit
Speaker 2: with you, to have this opportunity, because you know, it
Speaker 2: takes a lot of courage to sit with someone and
Speaker 2: for them to open up in this way, and obviously
Speaker 2: you have a book to do it. And I was
Speaker 2: really fortunate to have the same experience to sit down
Speaker 2: with Kobe in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 3: Twenty nineteen, yeah, twenty nineteen, it would have been.
Speaker 4: It was.
Speaker 2: It was literally like two months before his tragic accident.
Speaker 2: So I got to interview him and we didn't we
Speaker 2: didn't know each other in the same way we don't
Speaker 2: know each other, but I felt like there was a
Speaker 2: real connection. It was such a such a gravitas and
Speaker 2: such a presence when he spoke, and just his demeanor
Speaker 2: with the team and just everything. And even today, like
Speaker 2: you know, I think when you talk about not being
Speaker 2: able to play with someone but knowing what could have been,
Speaker 2: but you again, even today, you were like you look
Speaker 2: up and you know on him in that way, like
Speaker 2: how do you navigate what ifs in your career? I
Speaker 2: feel like that again, as an athlete is such a
Speaker 2: scale because there's so many what ifs, like what if
Speaker 2: I did that, played it that way, played with this,
Speaker 2: but like you know, and so talk us through that
Speaker 2: because I think even in life, like that's what your
Speaker 2: whole book about, just for everyone who's listening. Chris's whole
Speaker 2: book is about what his granddad tore him off the court,
Speaker 2: which applies on the court, and then on the court
Speaker 2: lessons that apply off the court, right, And there's this
Speaker 2: beautiful synergy. But I think there are so many people
Speaker 2: listening and watching right now who live their life and
Speaker 2: what ifs. Yep, And You've had a lot of what ifs.
Speaker 2: That's the big one you call out in the book.
Speaker 2: How do you breathe and live through that?
Speaker 4: You know what?
Speaker 1: It's twenty four chapters in my book. You know what
Speaker 1: I mean as a tribute to Kobe, You know what
Speaker 1: I mean. And I was actually on the phone with
Speaker 1: Adam Silver yesterday and I brought up a Kobe quote
Speaker 1: talking to him, and I actually talked to Vanessa every
Speaker 1: now and then too. That's probably one of the coolest,
Speaker 1: if not the best award that I've gotten since I've
Speaker 1: been in the NBA. Was a year before last they
Speaker 1: started a Kobe and GG Award and I was able
Speaker 1: to get the first one that they did. And so
Speaker 1: Cod was just different, right, and the way he approached things,
Speaker 1: but the way we competed against each other. And I
Speaker 1: think in the book, what I keep talking about when
Speaker 1: you say the what ifs, right, I always say, if
Speaker 1: there was one thing that I could change, in my
Speaker 1: entire career. It wouldn't be wins and losses. It would
Speaker 1: be how I rehabbed after my very first surgery.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So, I had surgery on my moniscus back in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine, right, and I was so young and
Speaker 1: nine twenty ten, and I was so young at the
Speaker 1: time that it was like, all right, they did the.
Speaker 4: Surgery, Okay, I'm gonna be fine.
Speaker 1: Right, didn't really take rehab that series because I was
Speaker 1: just so young. It was like, Okay, they fixed it,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be fine. But because of that, I've had
Speaker 1: so many different things over my career, different hamstring things
Speaker 1: or whatnot. And me and my agent was talking about
Speaker 1: it the other day, but sort of the story of
Speaker 1: my career has been the different situations that have happened
Speaker 1: over my career how I've learned from them.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: So, an injury that I had, right, it taught me something,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, I'm gonna figure out how
Speaker 1: how it's gonna make me better. Right I get traded
Speaker 1: or whatnot. Okay, they feel like I ain't performing well enough,
Speaker 1: I'm not playing enough games.
Speaker 4: Houses gonna make me better?
Speaker 1: So every time something has happened, right, you know, I
Speaker 1: gotta talk about in the book. The craziest thing, probably
Speaker 1: one of the crazy things in my career, was that
Speaker 1: injury in Houston when I got hurt and we were
Speaker 1: a game away from going to the NBA Finals.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 1: Had that not happened, had I not hurt my hamstring
Speaker 1: that year and then heard it again next year, I
Speaker 1: don't think I still would be playing in the league
Speaker 1: right now. Because all of that stuff was a wake
Speaker 1: up call to me. It was like I got to
Speaker 1: change something. I got to change something, I got to
Speaker 1: figure this out. And once all that stuff happens, all right.
Speaker 1: So if you if you if you sit around and
Speaker 1: I'll tell you this, if you sit around and dwell
Speaker 1: on that, what if too long somebody gonna pass you by?
Speaker 1: You know, So if you're sitting over there trying and
Speaker 1: figure out, what if somebody else over here gonna take
Speaker 1: your job?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And that's and I love that idea.
Speaker 2: If this happened, what can I do better? This happened?
Speaker 3: What can I do better?
Speaker 2: That That mentality is like continuous improvement and rededication as opposed.
Speaker 1: To exactly instead of what if it might be, what's next.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, because yeah, you can sit
Speaker 1: back and chill and me and Cob every now and
Speaker 1: then be like, man, we play together, we play together.
Speaker 1: Yeah whatnot? But everybody can't do it. But I can
Speaker 1: compartmentalize that. I can talk about this what if. But
Speaker 1: I'm still you know, I still got my eye on
Speaker 1: what's what the goal is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think I think a lot of us
Speaker 2: live in what if, but we all have to learn
Speaker 2: to live in what is and then what's next, as
Speaker 2: you said, because that that's what we have.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 3: And I love hearing that. It's great.
Speaker 2: But what I appreciate is it's a nuance. It's really
Speaker 2: subtle what you just said there, And I want people
Speaker 2: to appreciate it because what you're saying is I can
Speaker 2: feel this way, I can compartmentalize it, and I can
Speaker 2: move on. And I think that's super healthy because I
Speaker 2: think a lot of us pretend like we don't have
Speaker 2: what ifs, right Like it's easy to and I love
Speaker 2: what you just what we do injury, it's a lot.
Speaker 2: It's very easy to walk up like I've got no regrets.
Speaker 2: I know what ifs in my life. But the truth
Speaker 2: is we all have them, and if you don't address them,
Speaker 2: they're going to come up somewhere exactly, but you're saying, no,
Speaker 2: you have it, compartmentalize it, and then focus on one.
Speaker 1: Next you're going to be sitting around telling them high
Speaker 1: school stories or whatnot that don't nobody care about.
Speaker 4: No more.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that and that happens to all of us.
Speaker 2: We can all live in nostalgia and walk down memory lane. Chris,
Speaker 2: this has been such an honor to say with you.
Speaker 2: Is there something that I haven't asked you, something that's
Speaker 2: in your heart and mind right now?
Speaker 3: Before?
Speaker 2: I have a couple more questions, but is there anything
Speaker 2: that I haven't asked you, something that's in your heart
Speaker 2: and mind right now that you really want to share
Speaker 2: that you feel like I haven't touched on.
Speaker 1: No, just the appreciation for this and being able to
Speaker 1: talk and tell my story through the book, and I
Speaker 1: hope people can really feel.
Speaker 4: That it was really about that.
Speaker 1: It was about letting people understand and know about me
Speaker 1: and make sure that people understand that, Look, my family,
Speaker 1: like anybody else, has got their issues. Everybody isn't all
Speaker 1: like loving and all this stuff on each other at
Speaker 1: all times. I mean extended family or whatnot. But at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, it's my family, you know.
Speaker 1: And as long as you, you know, try to work
Speaker 1: through different things with you and yours, I promise you,
Speaker 1: you know, you'll appreciate it.
Speaker 4: And there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love that. Well, Chris.
Speaker 2: The end every on Purpose episode with a final five
Speaker 2: and these ones have to be answered in one word
Speaker 2: to one sentence maximum. But I always change the rules,
Speaker 2: so we'll try. Chris, what's the best advice? And I'm
Speaker 2: guessing it's going to be from Grandpa, But what's the
Speaker 2: best advice you've ever heard or received?
Speaker 1: Never delayed gratitude? I was actually from my college coach skript.
Speaker 3: Process walk us through that. Actually I want to hear them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, never delayed gratitude, and that means, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're grateful or thankful for anything, be sure and tell people,
Speaker 1: you know, be sure and tell people like I don't
Speaker 1: care where I'm at, what's going on. Whenever I get
Speaker 1: off the phone with my parents, my wife, my kids,
Speaker 1: or whatnot, it's always I love you.
Speaker 4: You know those.
Speaker 1: Times when you say you're going to tell somebody something
Speaker 1: in the morning or something like that, like you just
Speaker 1: never you absolutely never know what's going to happen.
Speaker 4: So never delayed gratitude.
Speaker 2: And that was a coach you said that to you,
Speaker 2: How did how did that apply to sport? And how
Speaker 2: why did he introduce because that's so interesting to get
Speaker 2: from a like a basketball coach.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I talk about coach process a lot yees.
Speaker 1: Because he's one of the three most influential men in
Speaker 1: my life. And he just had all of these sayings, right,
Speaker 1: never delay gratitude. If you can't be on time, be early.
Speaker 1: Don't be a two to four guy, be a four
Speaker 1: to two guy. And it was just all these different things.
Speaker 1: And the reason that never delayed gratitude thing how it
Speaker 1: related to sports, was it's hard to win a game, right,
Speaker 1: It's hard to win one game, let alone make.
Speaker 4: It to the playoffs.
Speaker 1: Like I coached the other night when we clinched to
Speaker 1: make it to the playoffs. In the locker room, he
Speaker 1: just told everybody, he said, listen, I'm grateful for you guys.
Speaker 4: We always talk about gratitude.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of teams that's going home and going
Speaker 1: on vacation, but you know, don't take it for granted
Speaker 1: that you get a chance to play in the playoffs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome, man, I love that, and I think
Speaker 2: a lot of young athletes are listening. If you have
Speaker 2: kids who a young athlete like, that's great advice because
Speaker 2: often that kind of softer touch is missed, like you
Speaker 2: don't think it's there.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But when I say never delay gratitude also mean for
Speaker 1: like kids to your parents. Like when I'm at my
Speaker 1: basketball camps, I always make all the kids stand up
Speaker 1: and turn around and tell their parents thanks because, like
Speaker 1: I said in the book, my dad spent his entire
Speaker 1: four one k on me and my brother playing travel basketball.
Speaker 1: So that's where these kids they get to go do
Speaker 1: all these camps and all this stuff.
Speaker 4: And don't delay gratitude. Tell your parents thank you, because
Speaker 4: every kid is not getting that opportunity.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Actually I want to I want to take a
Speaker 2: side note on that because one of the things I
Speaker 2: was blown away by in your journey is just how
Speaker 2: much purpose and giving back in service is such a
Speaker 2: big part of how your your foundation, the way it's
Speaker 2: set up your when you walk through the you know,
Speaker 2: the the murder of and the death of George Floyd
Speaker 2: and Black Lives Matter, and then how you're dealing with
Speaker 2: it in the bubble, and of course with your role
Speaker 2: at the time, and you talk about how like you
Speaker 2: changed the messaging three times. They went from peace, yeah,
Speaker 2: I forgot with the other.
Speaker 4: One say their name, yes, say I think it was equality?
Speaker 2: Equality yeah correct, yeah, yeah exactly, and you shift through it.
Speaker 2: And I was just thinking, like, there's just so much
Speaker 2: intention in your life with all the work that you've
Speaker 2: chosen to do. What's been kind of like a meaningful
Speaker 2: fruit or result that you've seen that as Really.
Speaker 1: It's a lot of different things, and I'm fortunate to
Speaker 1: have an amazing team that works with me or whatnot,
Speaker 1: because obviously I'm dealing with a lot of different things
Speaker 1: on a given day and trying to be the best
Speaker 1: athlete that I can be. But they're constantly bringing different things, saying, hey,
Speaker 1: would you like to support this or could you do this?
Speaker 1: And I'm always trying to as much as I can.
Speaker 1: And I think the most valuable thing that I have
Speaker 1: is time. So even if it's before a game or
Speaker 1: after a game, given a young kid an opportunity to
Speaker 1: watch me warm up or taking a picture with him
Speaker 1: and just giving them your undivided attention for five minutes
Speaker 1: is one of the most valuable things that you can
Speaker 1: do with anybody.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And I just I want to read this out
Speaker 2: because it's so it's so powerful. So last March, Chris
Speaker 2: was the only athlete appointed to President Biden's Advisory Board
Speaker 2: on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. And that's been I
Speaker 2: mean that, that's incredible that you've become a spokesperson and
Speaker 2: a champion for that. Is there some of the work
Speaker 2: there that's resonated or some stories that you think, oh man,
Speaker 2: it's probably so many. Yeah, I mean, well we got
Speaker 2: a lot of different things. What we've done is me
Speaker 2: and my brother a few years ago and then Carmen
Speaker 2: actually did it too. We went to this business class
Speaker 2: at Harvard with Anita Elbers, a bim's class Business Education,
Speaker 2: Management Sports I think. And after going to that class
Speaker 2: at Harvard, we were like, why isn't this curriculum of
Speaker 2: course offered at HBCUs. And we got to work and
Speaker 2: Anita helped with it, and now we have that had
Speaker 2: a few different hbcusow right, So just always trying to
Speaker 2: figure out how we can make some type of impact.
Speaker 2: Equality again exactly equal as equal access to education, it's incredible.
Speaker 3: I'm glad. I'm glad we went there.
Speaker 2: Actually, Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever
Speaker 2: heard or received?
Speaker 4: Worst advice? That cheese tastes good Jesus disgusting.
Speaker 1: Like, seriously, I've never had a cheeseburger, macaroni and cheese,
Speaker 1: none of that disgusting.
Speaker 2: I thought, you do my cheeses and money. Literally yeah, literal, yeah, literal, Okay, literally,
Speaker 2: So you don't like.
Speaker 4: Cheese at all at all? No evenrom pizza, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 4: I'm cool. No cheesy fries. Okay. My brother when we
Speaker 4: used to get home from school, he used to go
Speaker 4: in the refrigerator and get the block of cheese. What
Speaker 4: is that?
Speaker 2: That string cheese? Kind of like I think I know way.
Speaker 4: Too, I don't know. He used to have to take
Speaker 4: plastic off the saturday. Yeah, I'm doing that. Put muc
Speaker 4: it's all in his body.
Speaker 2: And now, oh so question number three, how would you
Speaker 2: define your current purpose?
Speaker 1: You know, basketball and athlete, that's what I do, not
Speaker 1: necessarily all of who I am, but just trying to
Speaker 1: help make a difference in different aspects of life, whether
Speaker 1: it be HBCUs, whether it be health and wellness, I
Speaker 1: think that's been a big thing that I've become passionate
Speaker 1: about the past four or five years, is trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to make some of these health things
Speaker 1: more accessible, right, and make people more aware, like I'm
Speaker 1: always curious about this.
Speaker 4: That, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: I'm so curious about water and the things that people
Speaker 1: are eating and all these different type things, and trying
Speaker 1: to make sure that other people become.
Speaker 4: Aware like I am.
Speaker 1: And the other biggest purpose is whatever I have to
Speaker 1: do for my family, whatever I have to do do
Speaker 1: for my family, especially my wife and kids. Is just
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how I can continue to pour
Speaker 1: into them.
Speaker 2: Question of before what's your reaction to the title point God?
Speaker 4: Oh man, the point god thing has been.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. I don't even know when it started. I
Speaker 1: don't even know when it started. But it's a privilege, right,
Speaker 1: like an honor basically that people see you playing.
Speaker 4: The game the right way. Now.
Speaker 1: It ain't some like worshiping thing or whatnot, but I
Speaker 1: get really like kind of shying back for when people
Speaker 1: say that or whatnot. But it's it's cool to be
Speaker 1: even in that consideration and playing for as long as
Speaker 1: I played.
Speaker 2: Fifth and final question, if you could create riositas to
Speaker 2: every guest who's ever been on the show, if you
Speaker 2: could create one law that everyone in the world had
Speaker 2: to follow, what would.
Speaker 4: It be one all everybody in the world, in the
Speaker 4: world had to follow.
Speaker 3: What would it be?
Speaker 1: And take you to Oh that everybody got to get
Speaker 1: them guns up, man, everybody.
Speaker 4: Everybody come turn them in. Everybody, come turn them in. Everybody.
Speaker 4: So we got some beef for something like that, or
Speaker 4: somebody got to do something. You got to fight it out.
Speaker 4: You got to fight it out. Oh no, that was
Speaker 4: the first thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Chris, Paul everyone Chris incredible memoir sixty one.
Speaker 2: Make sure you grab it. We're gonna put the link
Speaker 2: and the comments and the captions across the board. I
Speaker 2: wanted to go read this book. If you're already a
Speaker 2: fan of Chris, you're gonna love it. If you're learning
Speaker 2: about Chris through this, you're gonna love it even more
Speaker 2: because it's it's truly a remarkable story of love, of sacrifice,
Speaker 2: of connection, of generations passing on beautiful lessons. You've got
Speaker 2: like four or five generations in the book being talked about.
Speaker 2: So I hope you go and grab a copy of
Speaker 2: sixty one. Chris Paul. It's been a pleasure. And honestly,
Speaker 2: you're you're you're a real one man. This is like
Speaker 2: this has been one of my favorite interviews. Honestly because
Speaker 2: you're so present. When I was sitting with your book,
Speaker 2: it felt that way. And to sit with you and
Speaker 2: to what you thinking and to what you visualize it
Speaker 2: and to what you telling it from memory, and then
Speaker 2: for you to share that story about finding that tape
Speaker 2: or your father finding that tape, I mean, just really
Speaker 2: grateful man.
Speaker 3: Thank you for this.
Speaker 4: I appreciate you. Jay, thank you, thank you, thank you man.
Speaker 2: If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with
Speaker 2: Kobe Bryant on how to be strategic and obsessive to
Speaker 2: find your purpose.
Speaker 4: Our children have become less imaginative about how to problem
Speaker 4: solve in parents and coaches have become more directive and
Speaker 4: trying to tell them how to behave orsus teaching them
Speaker 4: how to behave