Speaker 1: The ego can be debilitating. It's that I first mentality
Speaker 1: is not keen, is something that I feel a lot
Speaker 1: of people it can derail them because they'll be thinking
Speaker 1: about themselves and what they feel that they need to
Speaker 1: feed something that won't even help at the end of
Speaker 1: the day. Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great tinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true, and yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Chris Bosh,
Speaker 1: NBA Hall of Famer, eleven time All Star, two time
Speaker 1: NBA champion, and Olympic gold medalist. Chris had his playing
Speaker 1: days cut short in their prime by a freak medical condition,
Speaker 1: but hasn't let that stop him. Today, Chris and Eric
Speaker 1: discuss his book, Letters to a Young Athlete. Hi, Chris,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be here. It is a pleasure to
Speaker 1: have you on. I don't pay attention to sports much,
Speaker 1: but there is one sport I do care about, and
Speaker 1: it's NBA basketball, and you were one of the greats.
Speaker 1: You're actually slated to be on the vote for Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, right, yeah, I am. My fingers are crossed.
Speaker 1: So hopefully, um, we'll be hearing some good news within
Speaker 1: the next few days, I hope. So. Also, we're going
Speaker 1: to get to all that in more in a moment,
Speaker 1: particularly talking about your new book called Letters to a
Speaker 1: Young Athlete. But before we do that, we'll start, like
Speaker 1: we always do, with a parable There is a grandfather
Speaker 1: and he's talking with his granddaughter and he says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred.
Speaker 1: And fear, And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second, and she looks up at her
Speaker 1: grandfather and she said, well, grandfather, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that parable means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. Well. One of the things that always found
Speaker 1: that helped me be successful was working backwards. So I
Speaker 1: would see myself being successful. I would visualize it, you know,
Speaker 1: in in this case, it would be playing basketball in
Speaker 1: the NBA, and I would do everything that I could
Speaker 1: to help aid that. And yeah, there are a multitude
Speaker 1: of things that you can get into, both good and bad,
Speaker 1: but you always want to make sure whatever you're doing
Speaker 1: in your day to day actions should be going towards
Speaker 1: that pinnacle goal that you have, and if you don't
Speaker 1: have it, you should, you know, start searching and looking
Speaker 1: for that. But I always felt that, yeah, just kind
Speaker 1: of like the parable says, whatever you feed, that's what's
Speaker 1: gonna get stronger, that's what's gonna have the most energy,
Speaker 1: that is what is going to be the dominant force,
Speaker 1: and whatever it is you're thinking about and I think
Speaker 1: it's easy to kind of, you know, say those things,
Speaker 1: but you have to back it up with action, and
Speaker 1: you have to feed the good wolf even during bad times.
Speaker 1: And I think that's, you know, the most important part
Speaker 1: that we all skip sometimes or that can be the challenge,
Speaker 1: but whatever the wolf that you feed will be the
Speaker 1: one to win. And I like that comparison because you
Speaker 1: don't want to be something lesser than you want to
Speaker 1: be that forced to go after things with vigor and everything.
Speaker 1: So I like that spirit of the animal of the wolf.
Speaker 1: But like you said, it can be good and bad,
Speaker 1: and I always try to make sure that I'm putting
Speaker 1: things into something that I want to see positive results
Speaker 1: out of, you know. So going back to that analogy
Speaker 1: of being that kid wanting to make the n B A.
Speaker 1: You know, sometimes there will be parties or something like that,
Speaker 1: or a social gathering or friends going here after school,
Speaker 1: which all of the times wasn't the best place or
Speaker 1: the best things to be doing for adolescent kids. I
Speaker 1: would rather stay in the gym. I would rather dream
Speaker 1: about basketball, pick up a basketball. I would be in
Speaker 1: the courtyard dribbling on concrete. Even if I didn't have
Speaker 1: a gym, you know, it's feeding that good wolf in
Speaker 1: the hopes of one day it paying off and me
Speaker 1: being ready for whatever that test will be in the future. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think there's so much in what you say there,
Speaker 1: and so much of your book I think actually ties
Speaker 1: back to this parable, which we're going to get into.
Speaker 1: But I want to start with the title because the
Speaker 1: title is called Letters to a Young Athlete, and it's
Speaker 1: based on two other books that you've read, one of
Speaker 1: which is one of my favorite books of all time,
Speaker 1: which is Letters to a Young Poet. Rilka's book Letters
Speaker 1: to a Young Poet has been a favorite of mine
Speaker 1: since I was probably eighteen years old. I go back
Speaker 1: to it again and again. And that's one of the
Speaker 1: books that inspired you for this. But tell me about
Speaker 1: the other one. The other one is Letters to a
Speaker 1: Young Jazz Musician, some kind of in that vein of
Speaker 1: the letters. Another one actually that is slipping my mind
Speaker 1: right now, the letters that Seneca wrote to his protege.
Speaker 1: I've always been an avid reader, pretty much my first book.
Speaker 1: I read my first novel when I was in the
Speaker 1: eighth grade and completed it in I felt so good,
Speaker 1: and really ever since that day, I've always tried to
Speaker 1: consume more information, and I like the curiosity in people's
Speaker 1: eyes when you know, you tell them, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 1: read that book or I read a book you know
Speaker 1: that was always very fascinating. So it maybe want to
Speaker 1: consume more information, and it became a pastime for me.
Speaker 1: And so those are you know, the top heavy inspirations.
Speaker 1: But you know, I drew inspiration from so many sources.
Speaker 1: I mean, you talk about a lot of books under
Speaker 1: the sun and authors and people trying to help aid
Speaker 1: people to you know, accomplish their goals or get through
Speaker 1: a tough challenge or a tough situation. I read a
Speaker 1: lot of those books, and I just wanted to pretty
Speaker 1: much write something that I felt I wanted to read,
Speaker 1: you know, kind of fill in those blanks. This is
Speaker 1: like the book that I wanted to read before again,
Speaker 1: because I read before games and after games, you know,
Speaker 1: my whole career. This is pretty much the book that
Speaker 1: I would want to read to help me get ready
Speaker 1: and focused for the task ahead. Excellent. I want to
Speaker 1: move to a line that comes from near the very
Speaker 1: end of your book, but I wanted to start there.
Speaker 1: You talked about starting with the end in mind and
Speaker 1: working backwards. So I'm gonna do the same thing here.
Speaker 1: And it has to do with the way that your
Speaker 1: playing career ended. And I'll let you tell that story
Speaker 1: in whatever way you want. But you say that stepping
Speaker 1: away from the game challenged me at the soul level,
Speaker 1: but it also opened up my soul in new ways.
Speaker 1: Just share a little bit about that well I played,
Speaker 1: you know, my whole career, just trying to aspire to
Speaker 1: be better, wanting to be an All Star, wanting to
Speaker 1: win a championship, and really just wanting to compete. You know,
Speaker 1: basketball has been my life, and up until that point
Speaker 1: it was. It gave me shelter, um help me travel
Speaker 1: the world. I am the person I am today because
Speaker 1: of the game, and that's both on the high level
Speaker 1: and the lower amateur levels. I mean, I made some
Speaker 1: of my best friends, ain't basketball. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: some of my best summer days were on the road,
Speaker 1: A bunch of boys in one room playing PlayStation and
Speaker 1: we've got a game tomorrow. Those are some of my
Speaker 1: fondest memories. You know. For all of that to come
Speaker 1: to an end, a lot of people forget I've been
Speaker 1: removed from the game for five years now. Or so,
Speaker 1: and a lot of people forget I was trying to
Speaker 1: reinvent myself in a different fashion. I was at that
Speaker 1: point in my career where I'm young but not that young.
Speaker 1: I'm old but not that old, you know, right there
Speaker 1: in the middle, but still able to kind of draw
Speaker 1: that elite performance out of myself and and you know,
Speaker 1: still trying to prove that I'm one of the best
Speaker 1: in the world at basketball. And then all of a
Speaker 1: sudden I couldn't play the game anymore. It wasn't a
Speaker 1: dramatic instance. It was just a doctor saying, well, you
Speaker 1: can't play. And you know, I had had so many
Speaker 1: great feelings and all these wonderfu things that the game
Speaker 1: have given me, and I'm back on the top of
Speaker 1: my game. And this is after and we'll get to that.
Speaker 1: This is after coming out of the hospital and proving
Speaker 1: that I can still you know, compete at an elite level.
Speaker 1: After getting out of the hospital and having surgery and
Speaker 1: being in there for two weeks, I was still able
Speaker 1: to get back to that point. And then one day
Speaker 1: I couldn't play the game anymore. And that was the
Speaker 1: challenge at the soul level. You know, Um, if that's
Speaker 1: all you've done. I felt it wasn't fair. It hurt tremendously,
Speaker 1: and I had never given any thought to what my
Speaker 1: life would be without playing the game. You know, usually
Speaker 1: in your mind, you think you'll have more time, right
Speaker 1: those who are listening or any sports fans, you've got
Speaker 1: that cliche, the idea in your head of the old vet,
Speaker 1: you know, having that one last lap or that one
Speaker 1: last game, or that one last season. And I obsessed
Speaker 1: over those things just like anybody else, just like I
Speaker 1: obsessed over winning a championship and being successful in the
Speaker 1: n b A. And not only was I not even
Speaker 1: going to get close to that it ends today, you know,
Speaker 1: and try for almost two years trying to get back
Speaker 1: into the game, but it just didn't happen. It didn't
Speaker 1: go that way, and I had to eventually be open
Speaker 1: to exploring other avenues and thinking about other things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that will take you in new directions. But it strikes
Speaker 1: me as for somebody who never contemplated what to do
Speaker 1: after the game, you were remarkably well prepared for a
Speaker 1: life post basketball. Given so many of the lessons in
Speaker 1: this book that you talk about, and I think the
Speaker 1: first one I want to start with because I think
Speaker 1: it ties directly to this is letter number two, which
Speaker 1: is about you have to find your why. And you
Speaker 1: have a line in there that ties directly to what
Speaker 1: we were just saying. Is you say you're what can
Speaker 1: be taken away from you in an instant. Your why
Speaker 1: can outlast that. So share your career ending in context
Speaker 1: of that line. We'll paint a better picture so that
Speaker 1: people understand. I was playing with a pulmonary embolism. I
Speaker 1: don't know how long I was, but I definitely played
Speaker 1: with a partially collapsed loan for about a month. Two months.
Speaker 1: Shouldn't have been playing, but you know, like I said,
Speaker 1: I was trying to prove myself to be the best
Speaker 1: in the game, and I was so driven that I
Speaker 1: was kind of even blinded. Even pain wouldn't stop me.
Speaker 1: I ended up having a pulmonary embolism was very severe.
Speaker 1: I eventually had to get tubes in my chest to
Speaker 1: drain out. I had to get surgery on my lungs
Speaker 1: because I had complex situations that developed while I was
Speaker 1: in the hospital. I was in the hospital, like I say,
Speaker 1: for about two weeks recovered from that surgery, and it
Speaker 1: took me longer to recover at home, eventually got back
Speaker 1: to it, started playing again, became an All Star again
Speaker 1: through the grace of God. Then I was doing the
Speaker 1: right thing. My calf was sore one day, and it
Speaker 1: was around the same time that I had been hospitalized,
Speaker 1: so I was very very strict on doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: So I went to the hospital to go get it
Speaker 1: checked out, get a stink scan to make sure there
Speaker 1: wasn't a blood clot. But they found a blood clot.
Speaker 1: And two days before that was the last game I
Speaker 1: had ever played, and you know, I had to pretty
Speaker 1: much go from there. I was thirty one, I hadn't
Speaker 1: turned thirty two yet. I might have been thirty one,
Speaker 1: a thirty one, thirty two years old right at that
Speaker 1: cusp of my birthday, and that was pretty much the
Speaker 1: end of my career. So I had to pivot from
Speaker 1: that moment and deal with the pain of not playing anymore,
Speaker 1: deal with the pain of not being able to be
Speaker 1: picked up and knowing what I was gonna do. But
Speaker 1: one thing that really helped me was just being open
Speaker 1: to um. A friend of mine told me there's greatness
Speaker 1: and hobbies, and I was always open to hobbies and
Speaker 1: not to say that you're gonna know things right away.
Speaker 1: But I found those things to pour my energy into,
Speaker 1: to pour that concentration that I usually used on the
Speaker 1: court into, you know that a husband, being a father,
Speaker 1: falling into those you know, daily things in life that
Speaker 1: need to be addressed, you know, whether that's paying your
Speaker 1: bills or taking your kids to school. I'm in the
Speaker 1: drop offline and the mornings dropping off my son every morning,
Speaker 1: you know. And um, those were the things that I
Speaker 1: kind of really really poured myself into and and it
Speaker 1: really really tremendously helped me. And one of those things
Speaker 1: was writing. I always wrote my thoughts down and things
Speaker 1: like that throughout my whole life. And I was aware
Speaker 1: of it, not all the way, but people would always
Speaker 1: tell me, man, you really have a gift to write.
Speaker 1: You should really not pursue it. But they would just
Speaker 1: be a mention. You know, that is always stuck with me.
Speaker 1: And I found myself just writing down my thoughts and
Speaker 1: my feelings free writing every morning. You know, I was
Speaker 1: aware of my thoughts and what I'm thinking and just saying, man, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm tired of being tired. You know, I've had this
Speaker 1: pity party for long enough now it's time to start
Speaker 1: thinking on an upward trajection. I don't know what I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do, but let's start those positive thoughts right now,
Speaker 1: because when you write things down and you're reading those
Speaker 1: words back, it's kind of I was embarrassed for myself,
Speaker 1: you know, And after getting all of that out, I
Speaker 1: got to a point of appreciation. Instead of saying, oh man,
Speaker 1: it was just stolen from me, I say, man, look
Speaker 1: what I could do with the help of teammates. Look
Speaker 1: at what can happen in thirteen years. How cool is that?
Speaker 1: How cool is that to have that experience and be
Speaker 1: able to look back on it and say, okay, cool,
Speaker 1: even if it is incomplete, or if I feel it's incomplete,
Speaker 1: to feel confident about it, and you know, to be frank,
Speaker 1: that's usually how it goes. There is no parade riding off.
Speaker 1: You know. I had friends that were injured and you know,
Speaker 1: never got that call back. You know, there's more people
Speaker 1: who experienced, at least guys and girls playing professional sports.
Speaker 1: That's the regular news that you get. It's just over
Speaker 1: one day. And so that made me really really think
Speaker 1: on how appreciative I was and I am, on how
Speaker 1: I was able to put pieces together for myself day
Speaker 1: by day. But how much I loved it, how much
Speaker 1: fun I had, how much I just love showing up
Speaker 1: to the gym. Were you talked about you mentioned finding
Speaker 1: your why. That was like an easy why for me,
Speaker 1: Like I love the smell of a gym, you know
Speaker 1: that smell when you want in a recreation center, and
Speaker 1: usually people like those are the things that I love.
Speaker 1: Just overtook my senses and then one day I'd be
Speaker 1: able to express myself and get out there and scream
Speaker 1: and yell and push myself and push my teammates and
Speaker 1: just be the best I could be and you know,
Speaker 1: have a performance that was really cool. But looking back
Speaker 1: on it, I'm just so grateful of how everything went
Speaker 1: about because that was my why. That's why I loved it.
Speaker 1: You know, the what basketball me playing basketball gone, But
Speaker 1: it does not take away my love for the game
Speaker 1: and my love to get better every day. Yeah, as
Speaker 1: you're talking about finding your why, you describe this conversation
Speaker 1: of a coach who asks you early on kind of
Speaker 1: why you're doing this, and uh, you describe and exercise
Speaker 1: in it. That is what I do with coaching clients
Speaker 1: a lot which is really about sort of asking why
Speaker 1: and then asking why again. Didn't talk a little bit about,
Speaker 1: you know, how you keep digging in and and trying
Speaker 1: to get to a deeper why. Well. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it would be easy for a kid to say, I
Speaker 1: want to be a professional tennis player, right, and that's wonderful.
Speaker 1: It's it's up there in the mind. But then when
Speaker 1: you start diggings, well, I found that I couldn't answer
Speaker 1: those questions, even for myself, and so I had to
Speaker 1: spend time to eventually get to a point where Okay,
Speaker 1: at least I've gone as deep as I can, and
Speaker 1: I will continue to ask those questions, but I've got
Speaker 1: a decent starting point. And that's what I mentioned in
Speaker 1: the book. You know, sometimes some people will be on
Speaker 1: stuff just because their dad wants them to or their
Speaker 1: mother wants them to, or man, i'm really really tall.
Speaker 1: I don't like basketball, but they said I should play.
Speaker 1: If you're doing something, you don't want to be in
Speaker 1: a position when you're just doing something just to do it,
Speaker 1: you know. And that's something I try to teach my kids.
Speaker 1: You know, my kid might throw something and just make
Speaker 1: a mess in the house and it's okay, it's not
Speaker 1: a big deal. We'll clean it up. But why did
Speaker 1: you do that? Usually what do they say? Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know. And you know, I wanted to be very
Speaker 1: mature in this thought process, and I got pushed quite
Speaker 1: young to think about these things, why are you doing this?
Speaker 1: And to kind of harp on that story. At that
Speaker 1: particular time in the gym, that was the first time
Speaker 1: where I knew I could be successful and make the NBA.
Speaker 1: There wasn't a down in my mind because I'm looking
Speaker 1: at my coach's eyes and he's he's he's looking at
Speaker 1: me like wow. Because we hadn't worked out in a while.
Speaker 1: He had been out of town and it was the
Speaker 1: summer or I think in the school year or something
Speaker 1: like that, and we just went to the gym randomly
Speaker 1: one night. I think he was probably pushing me, let's
Speaker 1: go to the gym the night on a weeknight. You know,
Speaker 1: I was doing workout. He stopped the whole thing, like
Speaker 1: I remember it like it was yesterday. He stopped the
Speaker 1: whole thing and said, Okay, what do you want to do?
Speaker 1: Why do you want to do this? He started asking
Speaker 1: me these questions, and you know, I said, well, I
Speaker 1: want to go to the NBA. I want to go
Speaker 1: to college. He said, you'll do that, that's easy. Start
Speaker 1: thinking deeper. And so he challenged me at that time
Speaker 1: to really really put some thought into it, because we
Speaker 1: weren't going to be talking about talent, you know, we
Speaker 1: weren't gonna be talking about being a run of the
Speaker 1: meal situation, which is nothing wrong with those things. But
Speaker 1: he was talking about being great, you know, and I
Speaker 1: understood that right away. So I started thinking about those things.
Speaker 1: You know, what am I trying to do? What do
Speaker 1: I want to do? And it made me reflect on
Speaker 1: how I view my heroes and how I feel. So hopefully,
Speaker 1: when I get to that position and I have those
Speaker 1: young people looking up at me, or whoever is looking
Speaker 1: up at me, I want them to feel this. I
Speaker 1: want them to feel a certain way when they see you,
Speaker 1: when they experience what I have. That section in the
Speaker 1: book where you talk about loving the sound of sneakers
Speaker 1: in the gym, loving the hand helping you off the
Speaker 1: floor when you're down, is such a great description. In psychology,
Speaker 1: there's the concept I'm sure you're familiar with intrinsic and
Speaker 1: extrins motivation, right intrinsic motivation is we do something because
Speaker 1: of the thing itself. You're describing these great intrinsic motivations.
Speaker 1: You know, I love the way the jym smells. I love,
Speaker 1: you know, the feeling of a teammate helping me up
Speaker 1: off the floor. And then you know, of course, then
Speaker 1: there's extrinsic also, right. You mentioned your dad saying to you, Hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be able to put you through college,
Speaker 1: so if you want to go to college, be better,
Speaker 1: you better learn to play. So I think that's, you know,
Speaker 1: great that it sort of shows these two motivations, you know,
Speaker 1: not that one is better than the other. But in
Speaker 1: the book you make a point around the football coach
Speaker 1: Sean Payton and you talk about him making two different speeches.
Speaker 1: I was wondering if you could share that because I
Speaker 1: thought that was such another great primer on intrinsic versus
Speaker 1: extrinsic motivation. Yeah. Absolutely, And I'll get into Sean Payton
Speaker 1: in one second. But whatever you said made me think
Speaker 1: about one particular thing. You know, when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: things weren't always the best, right, And when I say that,
Speaker 1: some say pretty bad. You know, Um, we had food
Speaker 1: to eat, thankfully, But sometimes, I mean I witnessed my
Speaker 1: parents cars being repossessed. There were times where we didn't
Speaker 1: have electricity. There were times when my parents told me, yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't have money to get new clothes for school
Speaker 1: this year. And think about that. You know how tall
Speaker 1: I am. I'm six ft eleven inches, so you could
Speaker 1: probably think that I was a pretty tall eighth grader
Speaker 1: with big feet, you know. And there were all these
Speaker 1: extremities that I couldn't control. But when I got on
Speaker 1: that court, it all changed. Anytime I thought about the game,
Speaker 1: or visualize myself playing, or imagine myself and close my
Speaker 1: eyes and saw myself being successful, you know, I like
Speaker 1: to think those were the things I could control, and
Speaker 1: so I could always control my effort. You know, I
Speaker 1: had a coach telling me, man, be on time. I
Speaker 1: can do that. I can do that. I can control
Speaker 1: my effort. I can control being on time. Um, I
Speaker 1: can help this team be successful. I can add value,
Speaker 1: I can make friends. That's something I can't control. But
Speaker 1: the extremity, sometimes it just is what it is. And
Speaker 1: so I found myself in a place to where I
Speaker 1: could really express myself and be myself, you know, you
Speaker 1: can imagine a tall kid in a school, I mean,
Speaker 1: I stick out like a sore thumb, a kid in
Speaker 1: their adolescent You really have to find your way and
Speaker 1: find yourself in between all that. But that just made
Speaker 1: me think about that. The story was Sean Payton the
Speaker 1: first time after Katrina, after this catastrophic situation. You know,
Speaker 1: he takes the guys to the super Dome where they
Speaker 1: just reopened. They will be playing, and I don't know
Speaker 1: if you know Saints fans, but they're pretty serious bunch
Speaker 1: of fans. You know. It's very very uh, very very serious.
Speaker 1: And it was more so about the spirit of that
Speaker 1: city and the spirit about what the players and with
Speaker 1: their families and the people of Louisiana, especially the city
Speaker 1: of New Orleans, had been through. And so that was
Speaker 1: the purpose of playing. That was the spirit in the place.
Speaker 1: And he used that to really really motivate his players
Speaker 1: and to get them to see that it's not just
Speaker 1: about them, it's about the team, it's about a city,
Speaker 1: it's about the Saints, you know. And then there was
Speaker 1: another time where as fate would have it, they of
Speaker 1: course they're one of the best teams in the league.
Speaker 1: I'd say that in the book too, there was a
Speaker 1: call in there that kind of you can definitely argue it,
Speaker 1: but you know, just a sense of motivation. It was
Speaker 1: all exterior, you know, bringing out money and showing the
Speaker 1: guys and these are guys that have already made the
Speaker 1: most money in the world. And I say in the
Speaker 1: book as well, I'm not trying to pick on Sean.
Speaker 1: I was just trying to make the point that you
Speaker 1: can see the night and day in the motivation with
Speaker 1: his team, and maybe a year or two after that
Speaker 1: Katrina situation, he ended up winning a championship. I know
Speaker 1: a couple of guys, one of my good friends, John Filmer,
Speaker 1: one of the great linebackers to play the game. He
Speaker 1: was able to help lead charge with that. But just
Speaker 1: the spirits was different. If there's money, I mean not
Speaker 1: to say, you know, of course we need money to survive,
Speaker 1: but if you're using money as a factor, that's when
Speaker 1: you should be okay, why, that's when you need to
Speaker 1: start asking yourself those questions and and start digging a
Speaker 1: little deeper. But at the professional level, I just felt
Speaker 1: like keeping those main things, the main things, the spirit,
Speaker 1: the upliftment of community, the example that you're setting for
Speaker 1: young men and young women around the world, and men
Speaker 1: and women around the world. You know, those things should
Speaker 1: be thought of as opposed to willing out. It was
Speaker 1: super cool though, let me, it was really you know,
Speaker 1: really really super cool the way he did it and
Speaker 1: brought out you know, real cash and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It's real cool. But you know, sometimes the motivating factors
Speaker 1: need to involve a little more spirit in my opinion,
Speaker 1: and those are the things that are gonna get you
Speaker 1: through in the fourth quarter. You know, I can't pick
Speaker 1: up ten grand and that's gonna help me in middle
Speaker 1: of a game. You know, my opponent wants it just
Speaker 1: as bad as I do, and we will have to
Speaker 1: do this dance and I have to be open to
Speaker 1: whatever happens after. But I'm very confident in my preparation
Speaker 1: in my skill. Yeah. Yeah, Letter six is sweep away
Speaker 1: your ego. And I want to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the question you ask in there and then you
Speaker 1: go on and you answer, but you say, what's the
Speaker 1: difference between ego and confidence? And I was wondering if
Speaker 1: you could just share a little bit about what those
Speaker 1: two things mean to you. That's always kind of a
Speaker 1: slippery slope. Right. We wanted to make sure that we
Speaker 1: defined the difference between ego and confidence, because some people will,
Speaker 1: you know, ego is a good thing and I need
Speaker 1: my ego and things like that. Fair enough, the point
Speaker 1: that we are making in the whole thing, the ego
Speaker 1: kind of says, well, I'm the one that should be playing.
Speaker 1: Confidence says, oh, we're gonna win this game tonight even
Speaker 1: if you don't play. You know, confidence says man, if
Speaker 1: I'm in this situation, I have prepared over and over
Speaker 1: and over for this situation. I've visualized it, I've done
Speaker 1: it in practice, I have physically executed it in the
Speaker 1: real world and in my imagination. If it comes down
Speaker 1: to this point, I believe I can succeed. And these
Speaker 1: are very quick thoughts you have to have in sports, right,
Speaker 1: you know, the ego can be debilitating. It's an I
Speaker 1: first mentality. It's not team It's something that I feel
Speaker 1: a lot of people it can derail them because they'll
Speaker 1: be thinking about themselves and what they feel that they
Speaker 1: need at that time to feed something that won't even
Speaker 1: help at the end of the day. I've seen situations physically, um,
Speaker 1: you know, playing in the NBA never want to pick
Speaker 1: on players, so I'll leave him a name. But I
Speaker 1: had a teammate, and I think about this. The coach
Speaker 1: told them, Hey, if we win, everybody gets paid, every
Speaker 1: everybody looks good, everybody will be able to be more
Speaker 1: valuable and have a more valuable contract. To do whatever
Speaker 1: you want to do. But for the team to be successful,
Speaker 1: you need to play defense, set picks, and roll to
Speaker 1: the rim. That's all you gotta do. And this particular
Speaker 1: gentleman was more fixated on saying, well, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: I can do these things to help the team. So
Speaker 1: I should get the ball more. You should give me
Speaker 1: the ball more. And I've got game, I'm telling you.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was so fascinating because here's the coach.
Speaker 1: The coach and the veterans on the team at the
Speaker 1: time told this player exactly what needed to be done
Speaker 1: to help the team, not to say it's gonna be easy,
Speaker 1: but as opposed to embracing it and saying, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is what I'm gonna do to help this team be successful,
Speaker 1: because if we go up, we all, you know, team
Speaker 1: goes up, we all go up. They chose to um,
Speaker 1: you know, stay stubborn and show that they had game.
Speaker 1: On the flip side, I've had teammates to just play hard,
Speaker 1: be on time, and do what's asked of them to
Speaker 1: help the team be successful and have a long, long
Speaker 1: career in the NBA. And once upon a time in
Speaker 1: the NBA people said they couldn't play and they turned
Speaker 1: into a fourteen fifteen year career. That's the point that
Speaker 1: I try to get across when I speak of ego,
Speaker 1: And that's the difference with confidence. If I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: ego will tell you don't have to work. I'm good enough,
Speaker 1: let's go. Confidence is like, nah, I worked out last night,
Speaker 1: I worked out in the morning. I worked out the
Speaker 1: night before that and the morning before that. So I'm ready.
Speaker 1: I'm ready and willing. I'm ready to go. Let's do this.
Speaker 1: And I think that's the biggest difference. Yeah, you say,
Speaker 1: the paradox of ego is that if you want to
Speaker 1: be great, you've got to be honest with yourself about
Speaker 1: all the ways you're not great yet. Oh that's tough,
Speaker 1: you know. That was a tough lesson I had to learn.
Speaker 1: When we got together in Miami, Lebron James and Dwayne Wade.
Speaker 1: We thought that we were gonna be successful, of course,
Speaker 1: right we we thought we were going to be successful.
Speaker 1: Not that we didn't work hard and not that we
Speaker 1: didn't prepare. It's just we got beat you know, and
Speaker 1: you get to a point where you have to own that.
Speaker 1: You know, and you can't just show up and be great.
Speaker 1: That's not realistic. Sometimes you have to go through the challenges,
Speaker 1: through the hardships, you know, just because you're really good
Speaker 1: at something and you show up. We've got a saying,
Speaker 1: you know, it's pretty simple, but you don't really think
Speaker 1: about it, right, Like you want to get to the
Speaker 1: championship and you want to win it. I never thought
Speaker 1: that I would lose in an NBA finals. I watched
Speaker 1: Michael Jordan, he won all of six and all. Never
Speaker 1: thought that I would be on the end of a
Speaker 1: beating in front of everybody. But that's what happened. And
Speaker 1: we really really have to look at ourselves, look at
Speaker 1: our team, and say, man, you got to get better.
Speaker 1: We cannot be complacent. You remember all the mistakes that
Speaker 1: you made on the way. That extra five minutes I
Speaker 1: could have stayed and I said no. That film session
Speaker 1: that I knew I should have done as soon as
Speaker 1: I got home, I didn't do. You know, all these
Speaker 1: things start coming back and haunting you, and you know,
Speaker 1: we just didn't want to feel that again. So we
Speaker 1: got to a point where we were willing to do
Speaker 1: whatever it was that was necessary as a team. But
Speaker 1: most importantly, we would stick together and we would not
Speaker 1: let ego get involved, and we would definitely prepare every
Speaker 1: day and be confident in going after the pursuit of
Speaker 1: another championship and not worry about what could happen. You know,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be in the present. We understand that can happen,
Speaker 1: and we're okay with that. We might lose, but probably not,
Speaker 1: probably not, because we're gonna do this. We're gonna run harder,
Speaker 1: train faster, get better, rest, better recovery. You know, we're
Speaker 1: going to be a better team and this is going
Speaker 1: to really help us out. You describe when it comes
Speaker 1: to ego kind of in your own life two separate times.
Speaker 1: I think of playing for the US World Champion team,
Speaker 1: and you know, you described the first time where you
Speaker 1: brought a fair amount of ego, perhaps, and then you
Speaker 1: described a second time where you don't you want to
Speaker 1: share briefly about that absolutely. So um. You know, I
Speaker 1: was able to compete with the national team in two
Speaker 1: thousand and six and two thousand and eight. Two thousand
Speaker 1: and six and was the World Championship, and this was
Speaker 1: after the disappointment in two thousand and four we did
Speaker 1: not win. You know, anything short of gold medal for
Speaker 1: the US is a failure, and we were called the
Speaker 1: redeem team. And so there's two different instances and oh six,
Speaker 1: we got third place, end up losing in the semifinals, embarrassment, pain,
Speaker 1: all of those things, you know, and then in oh
Speaker 1: eight we were able to win the gold medal, you know,
Speaker 1: in a very very dire and important situation. The difference
Speaker 1: from my point of view, the funny thing is it
Speaker 1: all seeds from one thing. I want to play and
Speaker 1: help this team, okay, And there's ways to go about that.
Speaker 1: I was twenty two years old in the first instance,
Speaker 1: and all I could think about was playing. That's all
Speaker 1: I wanted to do, was play. And then that kind
Speaker 1: of turned into well, why didn't I play yesterday? Or
Speaker 1: why am I not getting as many minutes? You know,
Speaker 1: it's a shorter game with more talent, and you know, naturally,
Speaker 1: there's gonna be less shots, there's gonna be less points,
Speaker 1: there's going to be less minutes. And so I go
Speaker 1: from being the top guy getting all the shots in
Speaker 1: Toronto during the regular season to being more of a
Speaker 1: role player off the bench, and as opposed to really
Speaker 1: diving into that and perfecting that role, I was kind
Speaker 1: of not kind of I was pounding about not playing. Now,
Speaker 1: I do say in the book as well, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if I wasn't the boisterous guy that is an
Speaker 1: obvious problem in the locker room or an obvious problem
Speaker 1: within the team. But I definitely did not help the
Speaker 1: situation by being silent or sulking or kind of complaining
Speaker 1: or you know. And the parallel that I drew was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: we were successful one time and we weren't the other time.
Speaker 1: It's not to say that it totally fell on me,
Speaker 1: but in my part in playing the team, it was
Speaker 1: more of the shortening back in two thousands and six.
Speaker 1: The difference in two thousand and eight was still want
Speaker 1: to play, but this time I'm doing whatever is necessary
Speaker 1: to be able to be out there on that court.
Speaker 1: And at the time I had to be real with
Speaker 1: myself I said, look, this was the situation. Last time.
Speaker 1: I didn't get to play too much. I felt a
Speaker 1: certain way because of offense, because I'm not getting touches,
Speaker 1: because I'm not getting a lot of points. Well, let's
Speaker 1: be fair. We've got Lebron, James, Carmelo, Anthony, Kobe Bryant,
Speaker 1: Dwyane Wade. I mean, they're magical with the basketball in
Speaker 1: their hands. Let me get out the way to give
Speaker 1: them space. And then you know what happened. I got
Speaker 1: the ball anyway by getting out the way and helping
Speaker 1: the team out, playing defense, listening to the coaches, knowing
Speaker 1: that I will have to compete to be the backup center,
Speaker 1: and being okay with that and confident in the work
Speaker 1: that I put in, and that was the main difference,
Speaker 1: and you know, we were successful. I ended up being
Speaker 1: in a situation in two thousand and eight where I
Speaker 1: was in a dream scenario, like literally, I watched the
Speaker 1: ninety two Olympics. The Dream Team revolutionized basketball across the globe.
Speaker 1: I was one of those kids watching that. And now
Speaker 1: I'm closing out the gold medal game in crunch time
Speaker 1: and it's close game. But you know, coach k or
Speaker 1: coach he had enough confidence in me to put me
Speaker 1: out there because I guess at that time I was
Speaker 1: aiding the team in a way that would help us
Speaker 1: win a gold medal. And you know, I always reflected
Speaker 1: on that, and I mentioned in the book as well,
Speaker 1: I felt embarrassed just about my attitude. Like, man, it's
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and six, that's not even who
Speaker 1: did I have around me? Who was I listened to?
Speaker 1: What was I putting in my head that made me
Speaker 1: even think like that? Two thousand and eight, whole different perspective.
Speaker 1: I was much more appreciative and and and ready to
Speaker 1: help the team out, feeding the good wolf firstus the
Speaker 1: bad wolf. Definitely. I was definitely feeding the bad wolf
Speaker 1: in the first one, as opposed to after a game saying, hey,
Speaker 1: we won that game, so what can we do to
Speaker 1: win the next one? Speaking back in two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: I just go to dinner. I gotta blow off team
Speaker 1: because I didn't play. No, I want to play twelve minutes.
Speaker 1: Can't you see I can play too, ye, soaking bad wolf.
Speaker 1: The good wolf is just like, hey, alright, guys, what
Speaker 1: you need me over there? Okay, I'll be over there,
Speaker 1: no problem, Because and that is sad. That is like that,
Speaker 1: But disappointment sometimes is the best medicine. It's that best
Speaker 1: is that nasty cod liver oil that your grandma makes
Speaker 1: you take. It's good for you, but it's tough going down.
Speaker 1: So um, I want to move to letter nine, which
Speaker 1: is about handling criticism, and in doing so, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: briefly share what it is about NBA basketball why I
Speaker 1: think I partially love it, and it has nothing to
Speaker 1: do with NBA basketball. It's because my son was growing
Speaker 1: up in Ohio and he was a huge Lebron fan, right,
Speaker 1: which you would have been in the two thousands in Ohio.
Speaker 1: And I think it was just sub then we did together,
Speaker 1: and so I've always felt bonded towards the game because
Speaker 1: it reminds me of that time with him. You know
Speaker 1: where I'm going with this. You joked, We joked about
Speaker 1: it in the beginning, right, Uh. You were part of
Speaker 1: a decision that broke the hearts of lots of Ohioans
Speaker 1: when Lebron decided to go to Miami in the in
Speaker 1: the two thousand's. My son is demanding an apology from
Speaker 1: you on this podcast now. M joking aside, you know,
Speaker 1: you walked into a situation where you were just criticized
Speaker 1: and not liked, and it was just not nice. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, even I being in Ohio and thinking like, well,
Speaker 1: I'm unhappy about this, looked at the level of vitriol
Speaker 1: that was out there and I thought, well, that's a
Speaker 1: little bit harsh. Let's take it easy here, right. So,
Speaker 1: but you were on the other end of that, right,
Speaker 1: as you say, you Lebron and Dwayne Wade were kind
Speaker 1: of hated. And you talk about the letter in the
Speaker 1: book called Don't let Him Get to You, so talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about dealing with criticism. When we came together,
Speaker 1: it was a whole big hoop lot. People like to
Speaker 1: say it was a parade for the parade, which it
Speaker 1: kind of was. They had a parade without even playing
Speaker 1: a game, and there was no championship, and it was
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. At the time. We were just
Speaker 1: kind of in our zone and in our bubble. We
Speaker 1: were not aware or compassionate to others. We were just
Speaker 1: i mean totally totally, totally absorbed in the moment. And
Speaker 1: it was kind of one of those things too, where
Speaker 1: it's just all right, you gotta be over here, over here,
Speaker 1: over here, over here, over and then the next thing
Speaker 1: you know, it's next weekend. You're kind of asking yourself
Speaker 1: what happened? And in that myself, looking back on it,
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I was being a little naive. And like
Speaker 1: I told you, I grew up watching Michael Jordan's six
Speaker 1: championships eight years total team dominance, individual dominance, coaching dominance.
Speaker 1: That's what I aspired to be. And I know I'm
Speaker 1: sure Lebron and Dwayne were the same way. And in
Speaker 1: my mind, in my naive mind, I said, man, people
Speaker 1: are really gonna appreciate this forgetting that this is sports
Speaker 1: and everybody outside of Miami they want their team to win.
Speaker 1: And you know, I I like to say it was
Speaker 1: it was a few straight bullets I got. You know,
Speaker 1: I was in a position where I thought that I
Speaker 1: would come in and I was looking at it from
Speaker 1: the wrong lens. You know, I said, Wow, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go from Toronto to Miami, and man, people are gonna
Speaker 1: say hey, Chris, and I'm gonna get the waves and
Speaker 1: everybody's gonna be so happy forgetting that this is sports.
Speaker 1: And it can be harsh. It's just when you're on
Speaker 1: the receiving end. It's totally totally different. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that I realized that the mistakes that I
Speaker 1: was making was wanting to hear something good or wanting
Speaker 1: the notification or the satisfaction. It was one point in particular,
Speaker 1: this is a true story, ex player. You know, people
Speaker 1: will make you feel so oh unsure about yourself. That
Speaker 1: first year in Miami, had an excellent season, but I
Speaker 1: felt like I was just the biggest failure in the world,
Speaker 1: you know, because I was letting those outside voices keep
Speaker 1: getting into my head. I had been an All Star
Speaker 1: five years in a row in Toronto. I'm contributing to
Speaker 1: a championship contending team. One X player left me off
Speaker 1: the All Star list one time on purpose, like left
Speaker 1: three slots blank, you know, and I was like, wow,
Speaker 1: all of these things were happening, and I was just
Speaker 1: kind of in a position where, you know, I haven't
Speaker 1: said anything to anybody. I just want to be successful,
Speaker 1: and it just seemed personal. And it got to the
Speaker 1: point for me where I said, man, I don't like
Speaker 1: this feeling, you know, I'm feeling like this every day
Speaker 1: because of the comments section or because of what someone said.
Speaker 1: And then I realized how insane that was, and so
Speaker 1: I just went within myself and I went to the gym,
Speaker 1: you know, And and one of the things I always
Speaker 1: like to say, if you're going to criticize me, you
Speaker 1: can criticize my work, ethic criticize these championships, criticize my success,
Speaker 1: because you will not criticize me for coming up short,
Speaker 1: for quitting, for not wanting to get back into the arena.
Speaker 1: You know, you definitely will not criticize that, because I
Speaker 1: think that's the ultimate measure of success. You know, You're
Speaker 1: only a failure when you stop trying. That's when I
Speaker 1: think it's a failure all the way. If you say
Speaker 1: you're gonna go after something and you go after it,
Speaker 1: you you gotta be all in. You gotta fully go
Speaker 1: after it, and if you don't get it, will it hurt, Sure,
Speaker 1: but you have to be willing to put yourself out there.
Speaker 1: That makes it real. And so for myself, I just
Speaker 1: went within. I realized how crazy that was, Like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I want people to say nice things about me. We're
Speaker 1: already kicking butt on the court. Let me go back
Speaker 1: to that stripped down version and just express myself on
Speaker 1: the court, you know, and go back to doing that.
Speaker 1: I was letting all of the focus is required, it's
Speaker 1: worth the goal. The minute you let even one percent
Speaker 1: of attention take you off of your path, you're not
Speaker 1: all in. So I eventually got to that point and
Speaker 1: I came to like criticism because if they're not criticizing you,
Speaker 1: then that must mean you're not visible. That must mean
Speaker 1: you're not doing very well, you know, So you have
Speaker 1: to take it and stride. If if people are criticizing
Speaker 1: you for something that you're doing and being successful and
Speaker 1: you're positive, then you're in the right place. Yeah. You
Speaker 1: talk about the idea that criticism is a tax on success. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: if you're getting criticized, it's because you're being successful. And
Speaker 1: in the same way that having to pay a big
Speaker 1: tax bill is a good thing. I mean, you don't
Speaker 1: want to pay a big tax bill, but it means
Speaker 1: you're making a lot of money, right right. You don't
Speaker 1: want to do it, but you know, I mean I'm
Speaker 1: doing okay, right right. The same thing with with criticism.
Speaker 1: And you said the best way to cope with criticism
Speaker 1: is to come to terms with its inevitability. Absolutely, and
Speaker 1: that's one of the things I learned I didn't learn
Speaker 1: that all of the way until we won a championship.
Speaker 1: One of the things that I find a lot of
Speaker 1: people kind of and even myself too, uh, fall short of,
Speaker 1: is that we finally are successful, and now it's gonna
Speaker 1: get easy. You know. Now, boy, they're gonna respect us
Speaker 1: and we're gonna be good to go. Not not true.
Speaker 1: There will be other things that you have to fight,
Speaker 1: other challenges. There's always at least um in sports, another season.
Speaker 1: And if you are successful. That was you know, I
Speaker 1: had somebody just straight up tell me, yeah, anybody can
Speaker 1: do it. Once I said, wow, this is somebody who
Speaker 1: hasn't played in the NBA, you know, And I said, wow,
Speaker 1: you know, this person has done great things in their profession.
Speaker 1: But I just thought, you know, and it wasn't meant
Speaker 1: to be malicious, just rolled off the tongue. And I
Speaker 1: was so fascinated by that, and I said, wow, okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know, let's continue to try, you know, to be great.
Speaker 1: So with me, it's always, you know, it's about doing
Speaker 1: the daily work. You know, it's about investing in yourself,
Speaker 1: about going towards that goal daily, feeding that good wolf.
Speaker 1: You know, even if you're surrounded by bad wolves. Get
Speaker 1: out of that situation and do your best. Make sure
Speaker 1: your habits every day are feeding the things necessary to
Speaker 1: be successful, because you can fall short. You're not doing
Speaker 1: the daily work, you're cheating yourself. And I came to
Speaker 1: to feel that, and and really that was the funny thing.
Speaker 1: It's always great in the pursuit of the goal. That's
Speaker 1: the easy part. It's harder to defend it, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's what I truly felt with like, hey, yea,
Speaker 1: anybody could do it once, you know, said wow, it
Speaker 1: really is way harder to defend your success as opposed
Speaker 1: to getting one time. Nothing wrong with getting it, but
Speaker 1: don't think. I don't want people listening to this to
Speaker 1: feel like, oh, well, when I get that thing is
Speaker 1: just gonna be the gravy train after that. That's not
Speaker 1: the point and that's not what is going to happen.
Speaker 1: And a lot of people that can lead to things
Speaker 1: messing with them mentally because they thought, once I get
Speaker 1: this goal or once I'm a champion, the world will unlock,
Speaker 1: and that's not always the case. You have to find
Speaker 1: yourself putting in the love until your daily work every
Speaker 1: day into reaching that goal and like my great friend
Speaker 1: once said, that's where the magic is. You know, that's
Speaker 1: where the magic is when you're doing those daily things
Speaker 1: every day to help you get there. That that's where
Speaker 1: you want to be, all right, Chris, Well, thank you
Speaker 1: so much for coming on the show. There's about ten
Speaker 1: other things that I would love to cover in your book,
Speaker 1: but we're not going to have time to. But the
Speaker 1: book is called Letters to a Young Athlete and it's
Speaker 1: highly recommended. Well of links to it in the show notes.
Speaker 1: And Chris, I really do appreciate you coming on. It's
Speaker 1: been a real pleasure. Thank you very much. I appreciate
Speaker 1: you for having me. All right, take care, see you
Speaker 1: all right bye. If what you just heard was helpful
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