Speaker 1: Charges. That's created by por Delays and Control Media. It's
Speaker 1: produced by dB Podcasts in association with I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This time a former Son's player who you might remember
Speaker 1: as t Rex. More video in just a moment, but
Speaker 1: this is Rex Chapman's mug Shaun, and we are learning
Speaker 1: a lot more about the charge up. Charging. You're a
Speaker 1: gay man at a time when it's not accepted. Forget
Speaker 1: pro sports, it's not even accepted in daily light in
Speaker 1: most parts of the country. You know, in Utah, people
Speaker 1: knew I was gay in the organization and they did
Speaker 1: not like it at all from the daftings. But basketball
Speaker 1: six years later, I was in the league. Some of
Speaker 1: the sports and the sports league don't deserve a love.
Speaker 1: Sports over promises and underdelivers. Welcome to Charges. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Rex Chapman. Today on the show we have John Amici.
Speaker 1: Some of you guys are going to have to dig
Speaker 1: deep in your mind for why that name rings a bell.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because John was the first person from England
Speaker 1: or the United Kingdom to make it to the NBA.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you're a fan of Penn State, where John
Speaker 1: was at two time academic All American, or maybe it's
Speaker 1: because after his professional career ended, John told the world
Speaker 1: his truth. He's gay, and he played basketball at the
Speaker 1: highest level as a gay man in the mid nineties
Speaker 1: in early two thousands. And then John did what so
Speaker 1: many athletes struggled to do. Hell, what I've struggled to do.
Speaker 1: He retired, he moved on, he got involved with another passion,
Speaker 1: and here he is now a decorated psychologist and one
Speaker 1: of the smartest, most considerate people I've come across. Let
Speaker 1: alone to lace up some sneakers or trainers as they're
Speaker 1: called in England and be a part of the NBA brotherhood.
Speaker 1: This his charges. John. It's an honor to have you
Speaker 1: on the show today. Thank you for being here. It's
Speaker 1: an absolute pleasure. Um. I'm sure that I'm not the
Speaker 1: first to say this, but sometimes you post the usual
Speaker 1: Dawa stuff that we all need to see. But sometimes
Speaker 1: you post these timeline cleanses that are like, this is
Speaker 1: saving me right now, this is saving me. So thank you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's amazing, John. Normally on this show, UH, athletes have
Speaker 1: face charges either from the law or court of public opinion.
Speaker 1: What are the charges you've faced from the court of
Speaker 1: public opinion? Well, everything from being just intrinsically sinful, uh,
Speaker 1: full of myself, uh, pseudo intellectual um uppity. Okay, this
Speaker 1: is this is just my small list of this. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it. I get it. You've I don't know
Speaker 1: if I want to sit down with you in therapy,
Speaker 1: Uh where you're diagnosing me? My goodness, let's start here.
Speaker 1: I've seen and heard you say this in other interviews. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're not a sports fan. No, I really appreciate, so
Speaker 1: I hope people can make this distinction. I really appreciate
Speaker 1: when I see people do remarkable stuff, whether it's Simone
Speaker 1: Biles and you watch her spinning mid air and land.
Speaker 1: You know. I don't know about you, but I went
Speaker 1: nowadays walking downstairs. There's a bit of a challenge for me,
Speaker 1: so I went when I see that, but I recognize
Speaker 1: intrinsically something amazing. I've been a part of something called
Speaker 1: the Activity Alliance in the UK, which is a charity
Speaker 1: that works with people with disabilities who participate in sports
Speaker 1: or physical activity. And I remember this has got to
Speaker 1: be nearly twenty years ago, when I uh was still
Speaker 1: in the league, and I was I I think so anyway,
Speaker 1: and I watched a young man, severely disabled young man
Speaker 1: in an electric wheelchair with a bean bag, and they
Speaker 1: have a bean bag throw is part of the competition.
Speaker 1: And I remember watching and I was still at a
Speaker 1: stage when I was probably stupid enough and young enough
Speaker 1: to I don't know, to not care about people who
Speaker 1: I didn't think we're real sports people. And then suddenly
Speaker 1: I did like a double take on this this kid's face,
Speaker 1: and I realized it's the same face that you see
Speaker 1: on court. It's the same face. So I really appreciate
Speaker 1: excellence in sport. My problem is that that some of
Speaker 1: the fandom creates a real toxicity, and also some of
Speaker 1: the sports and the sports league don't deserve our love.
Speaker 1: They overpromise and underdeliver in a way that is so
Speaker 1: epic that only weight loss drugs companies are probably ahead
Speaker 1: of them. Yeah yeah, man, tell me how a non
Speaker 1: sports fan who grows up in England becomes the first
Speaker 1: Englishman to ever play in the NBA. I was stopped
Speaker 1: on the street. And I don't think this is an
Speaker 1: uncommon thing. It's an uncommon thing in the United Kingdom
Speaker 1: to be stopped on the street to play basketball. But
Speaker 1: I was stopped on the street by a man whose
Speaker 1: name I do not know, and I don't know who
Speaker 1: it was. And the different in that moment in my
Speaker 1: life is remarkable because if you'd have asked me if
Speaker 1: I wanted to play basketball, I would have laughed at
Speaker 1: him sweating. I was seventeen years old when this happened.
Speaker 1: I started playing basketball at seventeen and a half. You
Speaker 1: hadn't picked up a basketball until then, really, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no. I ate pie and read books. I ate
Speaker 1: pie and read box. That was my So he he
Speaker 1: saw your size you had gotten. How tall were you
Speaker 1: at the time. I was probably six seventh Okay, wow,
Speaker 1: so I got big real quick, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: pretty much my I'm six nine now. Well I'm getting
Speaker 1: short of now, but I'm as tall as I was,
Speaker 1: almost as tall as I was going to be. And
Speaker 1: he he didn't ask me if I wanted to play,
Speaker 1: because I would have said no. He didn't even tell
Speaker 1: me I should play. I always hate it when people
Speaker 1: tell other people what they should do, because what they
Speaker 1: really mean is you know what you're good for. But
Speaker 1: he said he would be great a basketball and I
Speaker 1: remember being absolutely incredulous. On the street in Manchester Market
Speaker 1: street in Manchester, just being incredulous that somebody who was
Speaker 1: a stranger had told me I could be eight. And
Speaker 1: I was like, all right then, I mean such an
Speaker 1: idiot because I ended up in a gym horrible Jim
Speaker 1: in Chorlton with the backboards posted pasted onto the wall.
Speaker 1: Something you took upon yourself to do what you heard that.
Speaker 1: Had you played other sports? Had you played no, no, no.
Speaker 1: My living was bringing in forged notes. My mom was
Speaker 1: a doctor g P bringing in forged notes, saying John
Speaker 1: can't do pe today. That was my life. I hated it.
Speaker 1: I hated sweating physical activity. But I got in that
Speaker 1: gym and fifteen or so strangers in that gym when
Speaker 1: I walked in, ran towards me, grabbed me by the
Speaker 1: arms and we're fighting over whose team who would get me?
Speaker 1: Even when I was I was terrible. Obviously, you know
Speaker 1: every big who walks in off the street, nobody's got
Speaker 1: that much. I shot my first shot. Somebody told me
Speaker 1: to shoot it, and I was like, what shoot it?
Speaker 1: And so is put throw that in there? So I
Speaker 1: threw it up. I missed by about six ft and somebody,
Speaker 1: some kid on the team just just yelled out, that's
Speaker 1: his first shot and he only missed by six ft
Speaker 1: And I was like, who wouldn't want to live as
Speaker 1: I was like at the end of that session, I said,
Speaker 1: I'm never leaving this place and that's why I wanted
Speaker 1: to play basketball. And when they told me, I told
Speaker 1: him about the NBA. That day we were sat down
Speaker 1: at the end of training. They started talking about the
Speaker 1: NBA and I was like, what's that say? It's the
Speaker 1: best league in the world. They said, well, what does
Speaker 1: it mean? And the National Basketball Association? Cool, and listen,
Speaker 1: it's in America. And I immediately thought, if I could
Speaker 1: have this good feeling around people, but do it in
Speaker 1: the sunshine, wouldn't that be great? And that's the start
Speaker 1: of my NBA journey. I want to do what this
Speaker 1: feeling but in Los Angeles, I can't even begin to
Speaker 1: express to you all how incredible John of mechs. In
Speaker 1: the history of the NBA, there's only been a little
Speaker 1: over forty players. The odds of making it into the
Speaker 1: league for anyone, let alone someone who picked up the
Speaker 1: game at age seventeen, are right next to impossible. John's
Speaker 1: journey from a young man who didn't play sports to
Speaker 1: an adult who doesn't like sports but was a professional
Speaker 1: basketball player in the NBA fraternity is so marvelous and
Speaker 1: miraculous that it could be a movie. While some see
Speaker 1: sports as an escape, the difference with John was that
Speaker 1: for him it meant acceptance as a young six ft
Speaker 1: eight black man amongst boys. So you just you felt
Speaker 1: accepted by a group of people for the first time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because mostly when I when you know, when I walked
Speaker 1: down the street even now, I mean I'm fairly regularly
Speaker 1: stopped in searching in the United Kingdom. Um, but even then,
Speaker 1: when I walked down the street, the number one reaction
Speaker 1: to me was terror. Even as a geek key, you know,
Speaker 1: thick glasses wearing kid who has usually had a pie
Speaker 1: in his hand and books, people were terrified of me.
Speaker 1: And yet in this place, you know, most of the
Speaker 1: people in my school thought I was thick. Assumed if
Speaker 1: I'm a big black kid, the only black kid in
Speaker 1: my school, I must be thick. And so you get
Speaker 1: into this new environment and everybody thinks you've got potential.
Speaker 1: It's intoxicating. You were a great student, though, right always?
Speaker 1: Or what did you put forth the effort? So I
Speaker 1: was I was very um. Let me see, my mother
Speaker 1: was very dedicated to me being a great student, and
Speaker 1: I love to learn. But what's interesting, and nobody cares
Speaker 1: about this, this is I'm taking a nerd, right, But um,
Speaker 1: there's this weird thing where people misunderstand that being thrilled
Speaker 1: by learning is not necessarily measured in education. And so
Speaker 1: I did quite well at the O levels, which is
Speaker 1: the up to sixteen A level. I did catastrophically badly
Speaker 1: because what I'm not good at is regurgitating learned information.
Speaker 1: What I'm great at is the integration of ideas to
Speaker 1: come up with a decent solution, or at least contributing
Speaker 1: to a decent solution. So actually, not even undergraduate, but
Speaker 1: graduate school really suited me because that's what it was,
Speaker 1: figuring things out. That's amazing. Tell me more about what
Speaker 1: you remember about your early years with your mom um.
Speaker 1: I I she was amazing. I always tell people that
Speaker 1: my mom was better than their mom um. The best
Speaker 1: way I can describe it is that most people have
Speaker 1: had the experience of those lovely, high pressure, cool days
Speaker 1: where the sun shining and it's not so bright, so
Speaker 1: you can kind of close your eyes and look towards
Speaker 1: the sun, and it feels like your whole brain is
Speaker 1: being illuminated by the lights. That's what talking to my
Speaker 1: mother was like. Everything she talked to you, it was
Speaker 1: like your whole brain was being warmed and illuminated by
Speaker 1: the sun, even when she was yelling at you. It
Speaker 1: gives me chills. The way you speak, the way it
Speaker 1: appears your mind works. It comes from somewhere. And you
Speaker 1: describing your mother like that, just know that there's some
Speaker 1: of that in there. Obviously obviously, Uh you said basketball
Speaker 1: gave you acceptance for being big, for being black, you
Speaker 1: know all of it. How important is that acceptance not
Speaker 1: only for you in your life, but in everyone's life.
Speaker 1: I think where you feel at home, where you where
Speaker 1: you can find a place where you aren't spending parts
Speaker 1: of your energy to protect yourself is amazing. I know
Speaker 1: that you will understand this, perhaps from a different aspective,
Speaker 1: but we've all been in positions where we've had to
Speaker 1: hide or protect parts of our identity and it takes energy. People,
Speaker 1: and so there's only a finite amount of energy. People
Speaker 1: love this, especially in sports. We love this stupid idea
Speaker 1: of a hundred and ten percent. It's like, no, sometimes
Speaker 1: there is just a percent of something and not more
Speaker 1: than that. And so if two percent of it is
Speaker 1: being used to kind of protect you from those people
Speaker 1: who say cruel things, and another two percents being used
Speaker 1: because the coach has the wrong style or or treat
Speaker 1: you with disrespect, and another two percent because you're worried
Speaker 1: about your family at home, and another two percent another
Speaker 1: whatever percent because you're gay and nobody knows about it,
Speaker 1: whatever it is, you suddenly realize the end. And in
Speaker 1: most workplaces you can get by. But when you're one
Speaker 1: of the you know, supposedly top three odd people in
Speaker 1: the world, it's something you kind of need, like on
Speaker 1: a bad day, and especially as me, because let's face it,
Speaker 1: you were a player. You are a legend, and I
Speaker 1: am a former player, but not a legend, right, I'm not.
Speaker 1: This is not humble, This is just practical. Let's just
Speaker 1: be practical. And so I bring other things to the
Speaker 1: table nowadays. And I brought other things to the table
Speaker 1: when I was there, and I had a couple of
Speaker 1: great years, but you know, not my on my best day,
Speaker 1: I still needed to bring otherwise I would get squashed.
Speaker 1: I understand that completely, and Honestly, I bounced around the league.
Speaker 1: I wasn't an all star type player every year. I
Speaker 1: understand exactly what you're talking about. And what was weird
Speaker 1: for me is you know, any secret that I had
Speaker 1: or part of my identity that I hid, you know,
Speaker 1: over an amount of time over my life. Once I
Speaker 1: started talking and those I let out those parts, you
Speaker 1: know what, I felt uneasy, like I didn't know what
Speaker 1: to do with out the secret or I'm sure you've
Speaker 1: gone through that, right. It builds a gravity. Secrets have gravity,
Speaker 1: and when you start to let go of it, it
Speaker 1: feels like you're spiraling away from from something incredibly familiar,
Speaker 1: even if that familiar is bad. You know, one of
Speaker 1: the things that people don't realize about why change is
Speaker 1: so hard. It's not actually about the difficulty of going
Speaker 1: from something good to something better. It doesn't. It's not
Speaker 1: even about the difficulty in going through something good to
Speaker 1: something worse. Any change from your status quo will be unwelcome,
Speaker 1: at least initially until you wrap your finder us. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: brilliant Dachi take go with a skin absolutely indo. He's
Speaker 1: so big, it's so strong, and he's got such a
Speaker 1: soft shot Michigan shot sent in the first half, John A.
Speaker 1: Mici Mrs gets the foot back. Then State with Michigan regroup,
Speaker 1: Michi strong inside or all to part room to AMGI.
Speaker 1: He had twenty six and Maji spent two years and
Speaker 1: stadium was tipped for the draft when the end wasn't picked.
Speaker 1: Then just before the started last season, he got a
Speaker 1: call from the Cleveland Cavaliers. The dream had come true.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about becoming a professional athlete for a second
Speaker 1: in the mid nineties in America. How did how did
Speaker 1: you do that? How did you end up in the league?
Speaker 1: I wrote three thousand letters to America UM when I
Speaker 1: was seventeen from that day, that day that the man
Speaker 1: approached you and this set you on track and you
Speaker 1: had you had a focus at that point, right. Oh yeah.
Speaker 1: I want to be clear. When I left the gym
Speaker 1: after my first hour and fifteen minutes session in basketball,
Speaker 1: having missed taken and missed one shot zero percent. That
Speaker 1: sitting down in that gym with my new teammates, who
Speaker 1: I already decided with my teammates now they talked about
Speaker 1: the NBA. It was there they said, this is the NBA,
Speaker 1: It's the best place in the world. I said, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do that. That's what I told them
Speaker 1: right there. And then what's interesting is that each of
Speaker 1: them they said, of course you are, but not like
Speaker 1: in a sake sarcasm way, in a legitimate yeah, of
Speaker 1: course you are. So that's what started me off. Then
Speaker 1: I had to find a way to get to America.
Speaker 1: We went to a bookshop in London that had the
Speaker 1: Fulbright Commission is you might be familiar with it, used
Speaker 1: to do all kinds of exchanges and things like that.
Speaker 1: But they had this book with all the high schools
Speaker 1: in America in it. Because don't forget this is I
Speaker 1: don't know eighty something and so it wasn't in an
Speaker 1: internet or email time. And I got this book and
Speaker 1: I simply went through. I knew there were too many
Speaker 1: in that I just went through every couple of pages,
Speaker 1: stuck a pen on the page whatever the dot was
Speaker 1: that was. So there was this place in Roanoke, Virginia
Speaker 1: that I wrote of this high school in Roano, Virginia.
Speaker 1: I wrote a letter to um Toledo, Ohio. Quite a
Speaker 1: few other places I wrote the same letter high coach.
Speaker 1: My name is John M. G. I am six ft nine,
Speaker 1: black and English and I want to play on your team,
Speaker 1: something along about sirs lines. I expected to be inundated
Speaker 1: and was not. I got three replies, UM, two of
Speaker 1: which were knows. One of them like, why would you
Speaker 1: bother right? But two of them were knows. One of
Speaker 1: them was from a very famous high school in New Jersey,
Speaker 1: UM where they said, we're the winning this school in
Speaker 1: New Jersey. We don't need foreign talent. And then one
Speaker 1: of them was from Telit, Ohio, and they said, if
Speaker 1: you're serious, you're willing to work, we'll give you a goal.
Speaker 1: So I went to Toledo, Ohio. That, by the way,
Speaker 1: I just want to point out that blew my idea
Speaker 1: of America out of the water. Don't don't don't forget that.
Speaker 1: I knew America from night Rider in the eight That
Speaker 1: was that was what I knew. The sun always shines,
Speaker 1: but it shines in a really reasonable way. And I
Speaker 1: got to Ohio in the middle of summer and nearly
Speaker 1: died when I off the plane. I couldn't believe how
Speaker 1: hot it was. Then people started talking to me, and
Speaker 1: I realized that Americans don't speak English speak Americans, like,
Speaker 1: what do you what do you think? So I spent
Speaker 1: my first three weeks just nodding and smiling at people,
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what the hell is going on
Speaker 1: around But such a generous group of people. Were you?
Speaker 1: Were you any good at this point? No? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean I thought I was a two
Speaker 1: god X. I thought I was a two god. I
Speaker 1: didn't like contact and I like to shoot threes. But John,
Speaker 1: at within a year or two, you're able to compete
Speaker 1: on the college level and not just compete, stand out.
Speaker 1: That's where I started watching you. I actually you know,
Speaker 1: I'm an SEC guy Kentucky all that. I remembered you
Speaker 1: at Vandy and then did you you sat out a year? Yes,
Speaker 1: because you showed back up at Penn State and we're
Speaker 1: killing it. And so I don't understand. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like a guy going from hitting fourteen home runs one
Speaker 1: season to hitting seventy eight the next year. I just
Speaker 1: don't understand how you were able to progress. Was it?
Speaker 1: I'm sure your brain helped obviously, but you had to
Speaker 1: fall in love somewhat with getting in shape and staying
Speaker 1: in shaping you. No, I I lament most mornings. I
Speaker 1: miss being in shape. You know, you look pretty in
Speaker 1: shape right now, but I am not. And I lament
Speaker 1: those days when you could just be on a you know,
Speaker 1: when you be on a treadmill next to one of
Speaker 1: your teammates, you just be talking. You're going eighteen miles
Speaker 1: an hour, but you're just chatting. No problem. You get off,
Speaker 1: you take one big, deep breath, and your your heart
Speaker 1: rates back to fifty. I missed those days, but I
Speaker 1: remember what it took to get there. Going to high school,
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that basketball was a business. And my
Speaker 1: high school coach at High Hull, who just retired last
Speaker 1: year as the head coach there, told me to just
Speaker 1: enjoy this year because remember, this will be the last
Speaker 1: time you play for fun. It won't be the last
Speaker 1: time you have fun playing, but it will be the
Speaker 1: last time you play for fun. Wise words, and I
Speaker 1: was in a wait. They told me about weight rooms.
Speaker 1: I was like what, and tracks and running on. So
Speaker 1: that's when I learned that. But also my mother was
Speaker 1: diagnosed with cancer at the same time, and so I
Speaker 1: realized that if I'm going to be here, it is
Speaker 1: a sign of abject disrespect to my mother to fail
Speaker 1: in this pursuit. And so That's that's what it was.
Speaker 1: Every run, every step, every lift of a weight was
Speaker 1: a step towards scholarship security. My mom being proud. Wow,
Speaker 1: makes makes a ton of sense now, it really does,
Speaker 1: so far away from home. Every player's journey to the
Speaker 1: NBA is different, some more difficult than others. John's college
Speaker 1: career was special. I remember watching him play a year
Speaker 1: in the SEC for Vanderbilt in nine. I could tell
Speaker 1: he was a problem. Then he transferred to Penn State
Speaker 1: for three years before going undrafted, but did amazingly get
Speaker 1: signed in nine by the Cleveland Cavaliers, becoming the first
Speaker 1: undrafted player to start in their first game. John played
Speaker 1: twenty eight games in Cleveland before injury. He then went
Speaker 1: overseas to play in Italy, Greece, and the UK before
Speaker 1: coming back to the NBA in n with the Orlando Magic,
Speaker 1: where he had a breakout season, averaging ten points per
Speaker 1: game over eighty games. He had one more season in Orlando,
Speaker 1: playing in all eighty two games. John then played three
Speaker 1: more seasons as a backup in Utah. Five seasons overall
Speaker 1: in the NBA is a good career, but his biggest
Speaker 1: contributions to the league and the world of sports were
Speaker 1: still ahead of him. We'll be right back after a
Speaker 1: word from our sponsors. A British sportsman is creating a
Speaker 1: state side after admitting that he's gay. Why does America care?
Speaker 1: Because John Amici was a professional basketball player, a sport
Speaker 1: with a very macho image, in a sport that has
Speaker 1: been graced by some legendary athletes. John Amici was ordinary,
Speaker 1: but he's creating an extraordinary fuss in the US by
Speaker 1: announcing that he's gay. Those who followed the sport closely
Speaker 1: to say the revelation is unprecedented. You know, I know
Speaker 1: you've talked about this and written about it in your book. Uh,
Speaker 1: you're in the n b A. You're a gay man
Speaker 1: at a time when it's not accepted. Forget pro sports,
Speaker 1: it's not even accepted in daily life in most parts
Speaker 1: of the country. What was that like and what do
Speaker 1: you think when you see the world today where Ellen
Speaker 1: is the most popular TV host for the a's decade.
Speaker 1: Um So, I pretty much put my social life in
Speaker 1: a box under my bed, And it wasn't just about
Speaker 1: being in the closet. It was that I was never sure.
Speaker 1: I don't know if people can relate to this fear,
Speaker 1: but the idea that if I, if I really started
Speaker 1: to enjoy everything, that perhaps it would all come crumbling
Speaker 1: down and not just like being out. That was one
Speaker 1: of those things. But one of the advantages that I
Speaker 1: always have a slightly frivolous way, was that because I'm British,
Speaker 1: people could never tell if I'm British or if I'm gay.
Speaker 1: They just couldn't tell. And so, you know, and I
Speaker 1: looked at some of the footage I did because I'm weird.
Speaker 1: I did a ton of the n B A inside
Speaker 1: of the NBA, you know, the ones that were Shardamad
Speaker 1: used to one used to do a mad restand mad
Speaker 1: Reshard there we go used to do. And I've looked
Speaker 1: at one of them, and there's one of them where
Speaker 1: I just say to the lens my teammates, no, I'm different,
Speaker 1: and it's like wow, I mean, I didn't even realize
Speaker 1: I was, you know. So essentially, I just was afraid
Speaker 1: that if I had too much fun in any dimension,
Speaker 1: if I moved away from my focus on being a
Speaker 1: starter sitting in Orlando in the league, then I would
Speaker 1: lose it all. So it was very easy to just
Speaker 1: pretend for a while that I didn't have a life
Speaker 1: outside of that. Did it Now that you're saying this,
Speaker 1: it just breaks my heart somewhat, well quite a bit.
Speaker 1: Did it inhibit you really establishing strong relationships friendships with
Speaker 1: your teammates, just just for the fear that, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe if you got close enough with them that if
Speaker 1: you shared, you know, whatever, that I can only imagine. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. So my teammates asked in Orlando and Utah. Uh.
Speaker 1: The only person I didn't answer was Greg oost Attack,
Speaker 1: simply because he asked me as we were walking out
Speaker 1: onto the court to play the game, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is we are not having this conversation right, And
Speaker 1: it never came back up again. But for my teammates,
Speaker 1: certainly in Orlando, you know, it just was one of
Speaker 1: those things where as long as we don't talk about it,
Speaker 1: everything's fine, and people treated me with love and care.
Speaker 1: They did. Um. It required a compromise on my side,
Speaker 1: but it's love and care. It's weird, really, because although
Speaker 1: it's not true that every NBA player has a girlfriend
Speaker 1: in every every city, it is true that there are
Speaker 1: what could be considered alternative lifestyles operating within the league,
Speaker 1: and so it's kind of ironic to me that non
Speaker 1: monogamous alternative lifestyles are somehow more appropriate. And I don't
Speaker 1: have a judgment on that, by the way, as long
Speaker 1: as it's consensual around and everything. Night. I had never
Speaker 1: even I had never even put that together. Brilliant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And it's it's such a weird thing to see, you know.
Speaker 1: I remember somebody because they knew I was studying psychology,
Speaker 1: one of my teammates on the plane. They used to
Speaker 1: come and sit next to me and or opposite me
Speaker 1: on the on the plane if they had challenges or problems,
Speaker 1: and so I remember one of the first ones that
Speaker 1: happened was when one of my teammates sat opposite me
Speaker 1: and said john And I didn't say Johnny said meach meach,
Speaker 1: can you help me out? Uh? My wife doesn't like
Speaker 1: my girlfriend? And I just thought, right, what what? What
Speaker 1: an amazing thing to say, but but also lovely that
Speaker 1: you think I can help you with this as a psychologist.
Speaker 1: But also then that that that tinge of how weird
Speaker 1: is it that this is a normal conversation That in
Speaker 1: no way would I ever and nor should it make
Speaker 1: me think you are a bad or wrong person as
Speaker 1: long as there is something, you know, some sense of knowledge,
Speaker 1: which that clearly was. But for me, as a person
Speaker 1: without a partner, just the very fact of being a
Speaker 1: gay person could somehow cause me harm. And it could,
Speaker 1: you know, in Utah, it was people knew I was
Speaker 1: gay in the organization and they did not like it
Speaker 1: at all. Um, you know. And it wasn't just there
Speaker 1: in Orlando talk in my last year there the you know,
Speaker 1: I was being given books by the i think the
Speaker 1: president of the organization, who was prolific in writing Jesus
Speaker 1: late and books about business and Jesus Lading, books about
Speaker 1: whatever else. And they would just be dropped into my
Speaker 1: locker and I was like, I don't understand this. I
Speaker 1: know I'm a reader, but I don't think that's why
Speaker 1: I'm being given this. And the arrogance of that, the arrogance, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm so sorry. Maybe he thought his writing was so
Speaker 1: compelling it would change my very nature. Maybe I'm so sorry.
Speaker 1: You're living the life of an NBA player, you're also
Speaker 1: a person with feelings, needs all of that. You're not
Speaker 1: in your home country, and you're still not someone who
Speaker 1: loves the game, you know, particularly and you're hiding who
Speaker 1: you are? How did you even manage to who? Now
Speaker 1: we've already you did have two or three really good
Speaker 1: seasons in the NBA, and that's not something just anyone
Speaker 1: can do. But doing it while you're you're hiding a
Speaker 1: big part, and you're getting older and you're you know,
Speaker 1: understanding more about yourself and your independence, how did you
Speaker 1: even manage to do that? To play at all? I
Speaker 1: the you know, part of being in America. My mother
Speaker 1: only ever watched me once play. It was it was
Speaker 1: a game against Wisconsin at home at Penn State, and
Speaker 1: we lost badly, and she was there, wrapped in she
Speaker 1: was emaciated, she was wrapped in blankets to keep a
Speaker 1: warm in the stands, and she watched me lose and
Speaker 1: play badly. Um. I missed all the good time I
Speaker 1: could have had with her, all of it. I would
Speaker 1: never disrespect that by rejecting the job I had promised
Speaker 1: to do. And this was the job I promised to do. Um.
Speaker 1: And also I knew, you know how players sometimes we
Speaker 1: talk about how players are born to something, and I
Speaker 1: just knew that every time any player who looked at me,
Speaker 1: however good or bad, they thought I was. They must
Speaker 1: know that I had earned my way here starting at
Speaker 1: seventeen and a half, from the day I picked up
Speaker 1: at basketball. Six years later, I was in the league.
Speaker 1: They was starting in the league. It's amazing, and so
Speaker 1: they must know right that, even though I'm not as
Speaker 1: good as many of them, they must know that I've
Speaker 1: earned the right to be here. The ironic part was
Speaker 1: that lots of my not lots, but at least one
Speaker 1: of my coaches didn't believe that. He thought that because
Speaker 1: I didn't love the game, I didn't deserve to be
Speaker 1: in the league. There are Hall of Fame, There are
Speaker 1: Hall of famers that didn't love the game, you know
Speaker 1: very much. So, yeah, let's talk about our society for
Speaker 1: a second. What we put on athletes. You know, who
Speaker 1: they're supposed to be and how they're supposed to be.
Speaker 1: Did you observe that as a player, You certainly must
Speaker 1: now as a professional. Mm hmm. Yeah. I was intrigued
Speaker 1: by the impact that athletes had. Even in high school.
Speaker 1: I recognized very um my first high school game, I
Speaker 1: walked in the gym, and don't forget from England, if
Speaker 1: a couple of parents showed up, you were in hog heaven,
Speaker 1: right really yeah, yeah, it's it's not no noon, It's
Speaker 1: not a big deal. Um. You know, we have a
Speaker 1: professional league here with the average salaries about dollars, so
Speaker 1: it's not big time. And I got to this gym,
Speaker 1: in this high school gym in Toledo St. John's in Toledo, Ohio,
Speaker 1: and there were people in the stands going absolutely nuts.
Speaker 1: There were my classmates with no shirts on and the
Speaker 1: names of the team each letter. You know, it was unbelievable.
Speaker 1: And then people are asking me about my opinions on stuff,
Speaker 1: and people are asking me if I could come and
Speaker 1: talk to some kids at a junior school, and you
Speaker 1: suddenly realized this impact. I got to college and I
Speaker 1: suddenly realized that when I spoke, people listened. When I
Speaker 1: talked about the kids in Center County and the problems
Speaker 1: that we're having with drugs there and there the issues
Speaker 1: that were happening with poverty there, people listened. It was remarkable.
Speaker 1: It's your superpower. It really, it's all of our supero
Speaker 1: it's your superpower. I think people mistake you are um
Speaker 1: considered and thoughtful, and I can't imagine a moment where
Speaker 1: you post something and you don't realized that it could
Speaker 1: have this profound impact. This thing that is almost inconsequential
Speaker 1: to you could have this profound impact on other people.
Speaker 1: I didn't learn this lesson properly until I was in
Speaker 1: the league. I didn't learn for all that what I've
Speaker 1: just said, I didn't learn it properly until I was
Speaker 1: in Cleveland playing for a This was Cleveland terrible, right,
Speaker 1: Who is the center that just retired with injury? Um,
Speaker 1: Larry Nance was gone, like all those about Dirthy gone.
Speaker 1: Everybody's got Mark Price gone. And so here I am
Speaker 1: in this Cleveland team. It's the only reason I'm playing
Speaker 1: on it. I was undrafted, but I played my way through,
Speaker 1: and I was in the mall, the Cleveland walls where
Speaker 1: I was. I was living at the hotel next door
Speaker 1: because I didn't think I would be able to keep
Speaker 1: my spot, and I would go to the mall just
Speaker 1: to chill out. Um, because nobody even cared. Nobody yet,
Speaker 1: you know you you couldn't have done that. I was that.
Speaker 1: I was wearing all the Cleveland stuff right, like an
Speaker 1: insecure clear I was. I was like, yes, but nobody
Speaker 1: cared because we were so bad and I was so bad.
Speaker 1: I was starting on this terrible team. And then suddenly
Speaker 1: this big black woman is rushing through the crowd and
Speaker 1: I can see she's heading for me. She comes towards
Speaker 1: me and then she jams into my hand a napkin
Speaker 1: and it is a used napkin from Panera bread and
Speaker 1: it has it has mayonnaise on it, and it is
Speaker 1: stuck to my hand, and she says, will you sign
Speaker 1: this for my boy? I look her boy is behind her.
Speaker 1: He wants no part of this. He knows that the
Speaker 1: cabs are terrible and that this guy is terrible. And
Speaker 1: so I just happened to have a sharpie with me.
Speaker 1: That that was the stage of my career where everything
Speaker 1: I wore there was that I had a sharpie with me,
Speaker 1: and so I signed it. And then instead of handing
Speaker 1: it to her, I just reached around her and I
Speaker 1: shook this kid's hand and then I put this mayonnaise
Speaker 1: autograph back in his hand and turned around, and she
Speaker 1: turned around and dragged him through the crowd. And then
Speaker 1: for some reason, as I'm walking out, I just turned
Speaker 1: around and I see that she can't pull her kid
Speaker 1: through the crowd anymore. He's just stood there and he's
Speaker 1: kind of staring at his hand with the autograph. He's
Speaker 1: staring at the hand that I shake. And that's when
Speaker 1: it hit me. I am a terrible basketball player on
Speaker 1: a terrible basketball team that nobody in this small cares about.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the most inconsequential thing you do. And this is
Speaker 1: the beauty of athletes when they're at their best. Not
Speaker 1: on the court. This is the beauty of athletes at
Speaker 1: their best. These inconsequential actions can have these massive ripples.
Speaker 1: This kid's are psychologist. Now, I got a note about
Speaker 1: six years agome on. He followed my career. He knows
Speaker 1: that I'm a psychologist. He's become a psychologist. He's a
Speaker 1: clinical psychologist. My you know what a store from a
Speaker 1: mayonnaise autograph? That is just it gives me goose bumps.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, you don't give yourself, you know,
Speaker 1: seven points a game or whatever my career averages. But
Speaker 1: the campath it can make a difference. No, God, that's beautiful. Well,
Speaker 1: from there, let's talk about the intersection of race and sports,
Speaker 1: because sports has always been a class and power struggle.
Speaker 1: Even now, the owners are billionaires and the players mere
Speaker 1: millionaires who are still commodities to be bought and sold
Speaker 1: and traded. But then you add race, what do you
Speaker 1: see in the world of sports today and how does
Speaker 1: it compare to the pro sports world that you were in.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what your experience was, but I
Speaker 1: have always felt that my experience with players is a
Speaker 1: more conscious group of people than they in the locker
Speaker 1: room than they talked about outside the locker room. I
Speaker 1: remember during presidential cycles, UM, having influential politicians come into
Speaker 1: the locker room, and not just Democrats, but people from
Speaker 1: different perspectives to talk about the issues that they felt
Speaker 1: were important. Some of the conversations we had around I
Speaker 1: remember sitting in the locker room when the o J
Speaker 1: verdict was was was saying was announced. Um, I remember
Speaker 1: the conversations we had then. It's been a fascinating, um
Speaker 1: enlightening journey to see this. What disappointed me back then
Speaker 1: was how public stupidity, public no, no, not fair. The
Speaker 1: dumbing down of the public persona seemed to be an
Speaker 1: important part of the picture. The idea that players didn't
Speaker 1: want to appear too clever, too tuned in, too controversial,
Speaker 1: to opinionated, whereas now that seems to have changed, and
Speaker 1: I think it's changed because the women have led the way.
Speaker 1: I think in the in the league, it's the w
Speaker 1: n b A, it's those remarkable women who led the
Speaker 1: way and were punished initially by the way and then
Speaker 1: changed the picture. And they changed the picture. They not
Speaker 1: I mean, they essentially changed the whole ball game. Uh.
Speaker 1: It took miss McConnell out of power. I mean, but
Speaker 1: that was the women, and they agree. We have followed
Speaker 1: their lead. Yeah, and that I've been really pleased to
Speaker 1: see people doing things on an individual basis. I would
Speaker 1: love to see people do things on a more concerted
Speaker 1: and connected basis. I'm not super connected. I do bits
Speaker 1: and pieces with the league now, but but I'm not
Speaker 1: super connected with what's happening on the team basis. But
Speaker 1: one of my biggest disappointments with Michael Jordan not that
Speaker 1: I should be allowed to have an opinion, perhaps, but
Speaker 1: I think he could have transformed America. And people think
Speaker 1: that this is hyperbole, but I do not. I think
Speaker 1: that he was the kind of person in his a,
Speaker 1: in his era, I mean, who could have created a
Speaker 1: coalition to do something about child poverty, to do something
Speaker 1: about the dis outcomes from education and things like that.
Speaker 1: His particular perspective Republicans by sneakers too, I think has
Speaker 1: been devastating. I think the approach of people like Lebron
Speaker 1: and others. Um, somebody who I love very much, I
Speaker 1: think is a remarkable man as Deck. I just think
Speaker 1: he's amazing. Um is who dee Sorry to kem By. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think just just you know, I don't know how
Speaker 1: many hospitals he's built now, I don't know how many
Speaker 1: causes that he stands up and rails for, but just remarkable.
Speaker 1: I'm with you, and you know what I want to say.
Speaker 1: Both of those men, uh, Michael and the Kimba represented
Speaker 1: by the same man, David Falk And I came up
Speaker 1: right behind Michael, and Michael was fame and success came
Speaker 1: upon him in a relatively fast time, kind of like yourself.
Speaker 1: He went from being a McDonald's All American to being
Speaker 1: this thing. And he was kind of especially when I
Speaker 1: came in the league in the late eighties, mid to
Speaker 1: late eighties, he was. And not that it's right, I'm
Speaker 1: just saying it was how it was nobody, nobody white
Speaker 1: or black, really felt and maybe it was our education
Speaker 1: and all that felt like we could say anything for
Speaker 1: fear of, you know, losing our our jobs. And I
Speaker 1: think he was that way too at a certain point,
Speaker 1: and then he was kind of being asked to do
Speaker 1: something different. I think to Kim Bay and Lebron and
Speaker 1: all those guys have been inspired and in recent years,
Speaker 1: Michael is coming, He's coming along. I'm with you. There
Speaker 1: was a time where in a perfect world man, because
Speaker 1: he was as famous, they would shut malls down for him, right,
Speaker 1: do you remember like they did from Michael Jackson. So
Speaker 1: I'm with you. I just wanted to kind of follow
Speaker 1: that up. Uh and and to Kimbay what he's doing unbelievable.
Speaker 1: Last last thing on sports, because there's so much more
Speaker 1: to you than basketball. What do you think of when
Speaker 1: you think they're roll sports play in society? What value
Speaker 1: do they have to society? And should we continue to
Speaker 1: hold them up? Sports over promises and underdelivers. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter what website you look at, the IOC, FEVER, FIFA,
Speaker 1: any of these big international bodies, even the NBA, the league,
Speaker 1: if they did what they promised on their website, the
Speaker 1: world and not just the sporting world would be a
Speaker 1: better place if they leverage their influence and their power,
Speaker 1: their money, and they're convening authority. The world would be
Speaker 1: a better place right now. There are some sports, more
Speaker 1: than others, that run the risk of simply being a
Speaker 1: minstrel show. You get in front of the camera, you perform,
Speaker 1: everybody collaps, you go home. That's not enough. I don't
Speaker 1: think it's not enough. It may be enough for the
Speaker 1: individual player in that on that day, it's not enough
Speaker 1: for the league to end it there, and it's not
Speaker 1: enough to flash a few messages that say don't do drugs,
Speaker 1: or or anti racism is cool, or whatever else. You
Speaker 1: have to live that. You have to decide if you'll
Speaker 1: go to certain countries that think that killing throwing gay
Speaker 1: people from the top of buildings is appropriate, or in
Speaker 1: turning Muslims is appropriate. You have to make tough decisions,
Speaker 1: and I'm not sure that sport is interested in those
Speaker 1: tough decisions. I mean, she's no ordinary British sportsman, the
Speaker 1: basketball superstar. It seems like Orlando Magic and the Utah
Speaker 1: Jazz in America. He's also studying for a doctorate in
Speaker 1: child psychology and hopes he can do his bit to
Speaker 1: help motivate youngsters like these pupils at the Earnest Bevin
Speaker 1: Sports College in South London, John and Macchi. In recognition
Speaker 1: of your many achievements in psychedethy in sport, it gives
Speaker 1: me the greatest pleasure to ask Mark Stevens, Chair of
Speaker 1: the Border Governors, to confer on you the award of
Speaker 1: Honor Doctor of the University Honors Cows. You're a psychologist,
Speaker 1: tell me in the audience how and why you became
Speaker 1: a psychologist. This is a long and convoluted story. Have
Speaker 1: people have to buy my book to really get the
Speaker 1: fullness of this, but my new one and my old one.
Speaker 1: My mom was a bit a gp. I watched her
Speaker 1: work and I marvel at this because back in the day,
Speaker 1: when I was seven years old, I would go on
Speaker 1: visits with her to patients houses. She worked in palliative care,
Speaker 1: so people who are not going to get better, and
Speaker 1: I would end up sat in living rooms with fraught, devastated, anxious, scared,
Speaker 1: terrified family member and as at seven, I would just
Speaker 1: sit there and I remember telling my mom that the
Speaker 1: air is so heavy, it's hard to breathe. After being
Speaker 1: in one of those rooms, It's so hard to breathe,
Speaker 1: and everybody, I think, can recognize that sense of dread
Speaker 1: and how it almost literally weighs on your chest. And
Speaker 1: I could feel that. But I would also watch how
Speaker 1: my mom operate it. She'd come into a room and
Speaker 1: she would look at every single person and it was
Speaker 1: like she was doing the thing that she did to me,
Speaker 1: just pouring sunlight into people's heads, and she would tell
Speaker 1: them you can do this, You're gonna do this and this,
Speaker 1: and I would listen as they just repeated back what
Speaker 1: she said like she was a guru, and I thought
Speaker 1: she was magic. And then in my mom took me
Speaker 1: to see Star Wars, and if you've ever seen Star Wars,
Speaker 1: there is a scene thirty four and a half minutes
Speaker 1: in thirty five and a half minutes in the new
Speaker 1: cut where Obi, Wan Kenobie, and Luke are going into
Speaker 1: Moss Eisley and they get stopped by the Stormtroopers and
Speaker 1: I'm confused because I think the film is going to
Speaker 1: be over and obiwe just looks at the stormtroopers and
Speaker 1: these aren't the droids we're looking for. We can move along,
Speaker 1: move along, and they just repeat what he said, and
Speaker 1: I think I was like at seven. I have seen
Speaker 1: this before, and so that's the point that I knew
Speaker 1: my moments a Jedi. I asked the librarian at my
Speaker 1: local library, how do I become a Jedi? M After
Speaker 1: I had to disabuse her of the idea I was
Speaker 1: talking about Star Wars, she told me that psychologist was
Speaker 1: the closest thing she could think of. And that's why
Speaker 1: I'm a psychologist, because it's the closest thing I can
Speaker 1: do to being a Jedi. Miss an accompliced God. That's beautiful,
Speaker 1: That's just beautiful. Let's talk about the world right now.
Speaker 1: It still seems extremely fractured, and the pandemic continues to
Speaker 1: be an issue. What's John the person think of everything
Speaker 1: that's happening? And then what's John the psychologist think about it?
Speaker 1: John the person? Can you even do that? Yes? Yes.
Speaker 1: The problem with me is that A I live alone,
Speaker 1: and so I have just and I get up at
Speaker 1: five in the morning, so I have just copious amounts
Speaker 1: of time to think about stuff, and so I have
Speaker 1: thought about this. Um, here's the problem I as a person.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I'm surprised I'll wake up in the morning. Sometimes
Speaker 1: I go to sleep and I am afraid that the
Speaker 1: rage that I feel will strangle me in my sleep,
Speaker 1: The rage at the callousness, at the ignorance, at the stupidity,
Speaker 1: at the cruelty, at the avarice of the world. Who
Speaker 1: will kill me in my sleep? I that is me.
Speaker 1: John the psychologist and Jedi is somewhat more resilient than that.
Speaker 1: And I know that for every thing I see that
Speaker 1: causes me pain and makes me worry about the future
Speaker 1: of humanity. Every once in a while you peek into
Speaker 1: a corner of the Internet, or you have a conversation
Speaker 1: with somebody online or in person, and there it is
Speaker 1: that shaft of sunlight that makes you think there is hope.
Speaker 1: That that's it's hard, but there is hope. All that
Speaker 1: personal strength, the gumption that you have, the toughness. What
Speaker 1: are things you still struggle with today? H M. Most
Speaker 1: things I've struggled with, like body image issues since I
Speaker 1: was a kid. I was a super fat kid. And
Speaker 1: you know, one of the things that I most regret.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if you have any of these,
Speaker 1: but I have one picture of me with my shirt
Speaker 1: off when I played. Yeah, I've got like one from
Speaker 1: like high school. Yeah, I it was when I was
Speaker 1: in the league, I've got one. When I definitely didn't
Speaker 1: have one. You would never catch me. You know. I
Speaker 1: was the guy who when I was in England before
Speaker 1: I left my sister's bless him, they would bring a
Speaker 1: big beach towel to the corner of the pool because
Speaker 1: then you I wouldn't get out unless I could wrap
Speaker 1: it up around my chest because I knew I was
Speaker 1: a fat kid. But the problem is that in the league,
Speaker 1: I thought it was fat and you were four body fat.
Speaker 1: My my key years, I thought it was fat and
Speaker 1: still so I know I'm chunky now and the problem
Speaker 1: is at fifty I'm passable, and so people are like now.
Speaker 1: But if you if you're gay and you have this
Speaker 1: much body fat, you are way too fat. Trust me,
Speaker 1: nobody's looking at you. So that's something I struggle with.
Speaker 1: I think the sense of hopelessness that I thought I
Speaker 1: would have made more of an impact on the world
Speaker 1: by now. And I don't mean I haven't made any
Speaker 1: impact on the Oh I've got a anti racism video
Speaker 1: out there that's had ten million views, and I know
Speaker 1: I hope that the things that I do help people
Speaker 1: to be more resilient. I knew that basketball wouldn't be
Speaker 1: the place where I got to be the Michael Jordan's
Speaker 1: I thought that psychology might be and and I'm not
Speaker 1: finished yet, but I'm not where I thought I would be. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm going to accept the answer. However, the fifty thousand
Speaker 1: ft of view is you're the first to do something,
Speaker 1: a couple of firsts, and that impact. Everyone knows you
Speaker 1: in sports, everyone and we hope, I hope that you
Speaker 1: know you doing what you've done and how you've gotten
Speaker 1: there becoming a Jedi, and basically it all goes back
Speaker 1: to your mom's strength, which gave you strength in every facet.
Speaker 1: You are making this impact and this I mean, you're
Speaker 1: fifty I'm fifty four at this point. You're just starting. Man,
Speaker 1: you're just starting. I said I wasn't gonna ask more
Speaker 1: sports questions, but it's only a sports question because it's
Speaker 1: about you. You went from never playing basketball for the
Speaker 1: first seventeen years of your life to the NBA in
Speaker 1: just six years. What's it say about you? And how
Speaker 1: does that part of what's in you help you navigate
Speaker 1: the world. It says that I understand myself really well,
Speaker 1: that's that's the big key. It's it's about introspection. People
Speaker 1: think it's about drive and ambition, and that is important,
Speaker 1: but I have no more of that than any other
Speaker 1: person who is accomplished. The difference is that I know
Speaker 1: myself really well. So the reason I made it to
Speaker 1: the league is because I know that I am fundamentally lazy.
Speaker 1: Give me an option to save energy, I will take
Speaker 1: that option. Give me an option to skip practice, I
Speaker 1: will take that option. Give me an option to go
Speaker 1: through the motions in practice, I will take that option.
Speaker 1: Uh that I'm lazy, Give me an option to not prepare,
Speaker 1: to not watch take I will take that. And so fundamentally,
Speaker 1: this self knowledge don'll have me to structure my life.
Speaker 1: I ate the same I tell people this all the time.
Speaker 1: I'm quite proud of this. I ate the same lunch
Speaker 1: for a decade in the league because I knew that
Speaker 1: variety is my enemy. Variety is what leads to cheesecake
Speaker 1: for me, whereas brown rice, broiled chicken, and some kind
Speaker 1: of green vegetable that leads to consistency makes you feel
Speaker 1: like you've earned the rest of whatever your day is.
Speaker 1: Right Bingo, yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it.
Speaker 1: My goodness, John, thank you so much for being a
Speaker 1: guest today on the show. I do hope we can
Speaker 1: have you back because your perspective is incredible and not
Speaker 1: only me, but I think everyone needs to hear more
Speaker 1: of it on all sorts of things. Thank you, buddy,
Speaker 1: It'll be a pleasure. Thank you. Rex Charges is created
Speaker 1: by Portlay and Control Media. Is produced by DV Podcasts
Speaker 1: in association with I Heart Radio. For more podcasts for
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit i Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you get your podcasts. M