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

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My cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal endoscellary. No Hello, boys and girls, ladies and gents. This is Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. I'm nervous. I'll explain why I'm nervous in a minute. My guest He's a very friendly fellow. He's not trying to make me nervous. His name's Chris Bosch.

on Twitter at Chris Bosch. He fell in love with basketball at an early age and earned the prestigious Mr. Basketball title while still in high school. That was at Lincoln High School in Dallas, Texas, not far from where we are sitting. in Austin, Texas. A McDonald's all American Bosch was selected fourth overall by the Toronto Raptors after one year of attending Georgia Tech. By the end of his basketball career, he was an eleven time, that's more fingers than you have, folks, eleven time NBA All-Star Two time champion and the NBA's first global ambassador of basketball. In March of 2019, Bosch's number one jersey was officially retired for the Miami Heat. In addition to his basketball career, Bosch founded the community uplift organization Team Tomorrow in 2010 and regularly speaks to youth about the benefits of reading. coding and leadership.

Bosh. Him. Adrian. And their five children reside here in Austin, Texas. His new book. is Letters to a Young Athlete, which includes a forward by Pat Riley

Chris Bosch can be found in many places online. Twitter as mentioned at Chris Bosch, Instagram at Chris Bosch, and Facebook official Chris Bosch. Bash. Chris. C B Welcome to the show.

Appreciate it, man. I'm I'm I'm excited to be here. I was looking at the copious notes in front of me. I was joking that I feel like the main character memento. I I don't like to show how the sausage is made, but this is uh the first in person interview since Covid for me, really. Uh certainly uh indoors. And I'm looking at this bio And I'm looking and I'm looking and I'm looking. Did you ever

Go to the Olympics. I went to the Olympics, yes. I thought so. I may not be the best researcher, but I I thought that that And uh How did things go at the Olympics? Amazing. Yeah, what was the what was the outcome? You know, the the Olympics were one of those things

I had the time of my life there. You know, and and and when I mean time in my life at That age. I was right where I was supposed to be. Back in n in ninety two when they constructed the dream team together.

I was just a little kid in Hutchins, Texas, watching TV. And I just thought it was cool that They had basketball in on on the summertime on regular TV,'cause you know, you couldn't really watch TV. Um, you had to have cable. to take in as many games as possible and I was just one of those kids I anything basketball. I'm taking it in and

I remember just that time of the dream team, watching them, it was just incredible. Wait a minute, Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson and all these guys on the same team that doesn't yeah, I was trying to comprehend it. Yeah, yeah, you know what I mean? And that pretty much sparked the obsession. And so every Olympics I mean, I would watch the Olympics, I'm I mean, we watch gymnastics. We'd watch track and field, and we'd watch anything. to do with the Olympics and getting to take part in Beijing was quite amazing. And you know, just to be there, taking part in the opening ceremony.

But most importantly, getting to have the experience of playing basketball for my country. And being able to represent the USA and win a gold medal, I mean That was everything. You know that you have a good bio. Just for those who didn't pick up on this, when you can omit the Olympic gold medal from your bio.

Just as a side note, that that doesn't happen all too often. The reason I brought up the Olympics is because I had heard I think it was Might have been LeBron James who who mentioned this, but that while other people were killing time or doing A, B, and C playing cards, that you were trying to teach yourself Spanish. And this is the type of anecdote that came up over and over again, where they're related to craft beer collection and make and craft beer, there are these parallel tracks.

And I found that very interesting because sometimes it's the side notes that tell a lot of the main story. Mm. Even though basketball's the most obvious. Yeah. Is that a myth? Is that true? Spanish? Probably true. Yeah. I'm surprised that they would remember something like that.

You know, that was when you had to like have the whole eight C D set. Oh yeah. Yeah, you get a separate bag for it. Yeah, you gotta have a whole separate carry on. I I could see that and I'm I forgot all about that actually. But yeah, I mean

Language was always something that was just knacking at me and I just had to do And Golly, back in oh eight. That would mean I had just started and I was trying to put two and two together and I thought it was so cool that Rosetta Stone had a

eight C D packet that you could take with you and and download on your computer and all that. That you could buy at an airport key. Absolutely. And I thought that was so cool because I'm like, yo, I got that But I remember taking it with me. I was always I always had a fascination with language. Always trying to pick it up and And believe it or not, it actually Getting drafted by Toronto in the beginning years. For some reason I wanted I thought I could learn French. Like, Oh yeah, I'm gonna learn French. No problem. No problem. And I got up there, everybody speaks English. You know. And so it's like you gotta watch T V and I was trying to watch TV, it just didn't happen and it didn't make any sense. And so

Probably a few months after that. I said, Okay. I need to learn Spanish'cause more there's more Spanish speakers in the world than there are French, so let's start there. And yeah, I started learning Spanish and That was uh before I got a tutor. So I started with Rosetta Stone and you know, that was okay.

And then um I I hired a tutor and then I ended up making the move to Miami eventually, which It helped me out quite a bit. Just in in the Cayoch. Yeah, Caye Ocho. Shout out in Spanish. But just the culture That was down in Miami. It was just Really just a perfect fit and

I don't know what it was. I just had to learn. Languages is just one of those things that just calls me communicating with people. Talking with people and And really, uh it was always beneficial because we would have Teammates I have had

Three three teammates from Spain. Two or three teammates from Spain and you have guys coming from Europe and Africa and South America and stuff like that. So You you want to be able to communicate efficiently. Yeah. with them and you know, just learning different languages and stuff like that, it has helped me quite a bit. You can cover a lot of the global Spanish. Yeah. You can go a lot of places. And it's a good beginning, right? That's a good Latin base,'cause then you can be like, Okay, Portuguese, Italian and You can hop around. Yeah, you can hop around pretty not easily, but it could happen. So I heard you say the words caecho in your

I I don't want to say last speech, but uh when your jersey was put up into the rafters. So for people who don't know, and don't worry, folks, if you don't know anything about basketball That's me too, because I have little squirrel hands. I'm I'm very small and During the winters when basketball was an option, I actually did not get accepted to the J V basketball team because as the coach put it, I dribbled like a caveman. So I ended up wrestling. That's gonna be my excuse for not knowing much about basketball. But we will we will come back to the very, very, very, very building blocks of basketball in a moment, but because this is also not explicitly mentioned in your bio.

Could you explain for people How you came. to retire or how your basketball career came to an end. And then we're gonna fill in In between. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So um

Year thirteen. And it was kind of like uh not a long drawn out process, but pretty much what happened is it started with a uh pulmonary Embolm. I ended up having a pulmonary embolism. I had chest pains, back pains, all kind of different pains, um, had a collapsed left lung partially. uh for a while and I was still playing. I chalked it up to Something else.

Happened. It wasn't definitely anything life threatening. And it definitely wasn't anything that would end My season, let alone my career. But I kept playing. And we eventually You know, it got so bad, um, I went to the hospital.

And I had to end up having to get a surgery. I was in the hospital for you know close to two weeks. It was pretty much like solitary confinement. I didn't really think about it until it was over, but I didn't leave that room for, you know, a good two weeks. I had two tubes in my chest right here. On my ribs, on the side of my ribs.

Right below my uh chest. And I had to Drag that around with me after surgery for a few days until You know, it got all the the leakage out. That took about

A week. Mm. And then after that I was able to recover. come back and play basketball and then that next year We found another clock.

And so pretty much when when you're in a situation with with blood clots and stuff like that, if you have a second blood clot, It's almost like you're radioactive. Mm-hmm. And so That pretty much was it. It was uh during All Star Weekend in Toronto.

I was uh reshaping my game. I'm a three point shooter now. I'm actually in a three point competition. I'm Looking forward to this my career being revitalized and still being on top of my game, still being an all-star, still performing. at a high lead level we felt that we had a Team good enough to compete for a championship that year. We were second or third in the East.

We're ready to go. We're we're right there in the um driver's seat. And uh we unfortunately found another clot. It was a blood clot in my lower extremities. That was pretty much the end of the season. I continue to try to come back. But it just didn't happen with doctors and and things like that and Teams and question marks and we found out that It's not that much research.

The research has been inconclusive about athletes' blood clots and things like that and You know, we we we tried and and I and I did try. I gave it the old college try to try to come back, but It just proved to be too much and I have a family, I have children. And I had to start thinking about that. It's like the easy, tough decision to make, right? You know what's right.

But I just love basketball so much and and I just figured this was This was my time to really prove myself as for the umpteent time to be an elite. player in the world and You know, it was just that second act or third act rather that didn't happen.

And was the cause ultimately whether definitively or just tentatively concluded to be a hereditary disease or was it I did test to see if it was hereditary. If not, I don't have uh genetic markers. That would be Mean. have recurring claws. When they said that, I was like, Okay, well great. Yeah. Yeah. It just seemed to have come out of nowhere, especially in a sport where, you know, trauma is pretty

You know, you're getting leg trauma on a nightly basis. But This is just something that I had to move past. Eventually and As tough as it was. I had to move on with my life.

And um you know, eventually figure out how To move past it and do something else. We'll likely come back to that at some point. Just just psychologically, philosophically. how you've navigated that, but Yeah, absolutely. As promised, I want to jump back to

To Lincoln High School. And uh we are going to at some point. We. I'm using the roy. I'm not I don't mean to embarrass my audience by including you in the questions I might ask about basketball. They're gonna be very, very basic. But let me first ask As we kind of segue into this. I just want to read part of this paragraph on Wikipedia because

I have something related to ask about it. All right. So the six foot eleven teenager. We didn't mention that yet. Six foot eleven teenager. teenager helped Lincoln High capture and this again Wikipedia so feel free to fact check anyway the class four A state title as he delivered twenty three points and seventeen rebounds to go along with nine blocks. Here's the paragraph that really caught my attention, right? Bosch was subsequently named High School Player of the Year by Basketball America, Power A Player of the Year in Texas, a first team All American by Parade, McDonald's and EA Sports, a second team all American by USA Today. And Slam magazine and it goes on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. And

My question is, what was it like for you at that age to get that? Amount of Visibility. Yeah. And that amount of suppose fame I mean this is later you'd be much

Much better known. But At that age, I think back to all the terrible decisions that I made in high school. All the terrible decisions I continue to make for a long time. Yeah. And it was not in any way fueled. I I wouldn't have had the opportunities afforded to someone with a tremendous visibility. What was that like as a student in high school? And was there a moment when you were like Oh wow.

Okay. Yeah. Okay, things are gonna be different. It might continuously happen like that. Yeah. The thing with me is I was lucky to find the thing. Right. That thing that you love. Once I found basketball and that's one of the things that I always encourage

Not only the youth but people in general. Find that thing that you love. And you know, people can help you get there, but only you know and and only you know that feeling, whether it's sewing, knitting, architecture It could be anything, but For me. I found basketball pretty quickly.

And In my mind, it was all supposed to happen. One of the interesting questions I get is people ask me, Well what else would you be doing? That's kind of a hard question to answer because I didn't do anything else. So it was basketball, video games, and friends. And you know, of course, school work.

Anything outside of that, it really didn't get too much in in in my atmosphere. And so with that said I was always able to go to practice. Or go to the gym. Or even play basketball video games. Or read the newspaper and see what the stats are and who's leading the Eastern Conference or who's leading the league in scoring, rebounding.

And things of that nature. I never wanted to do anything else. Basketball was was it. I grew up watching Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. And of course all the other stars too, but those two

Guys in particular. They were always winning. You know, as soon as I found out what basketball was, I knew who Magic Johnson, you know, was and Huge success in the eighties, five championships. And then

Michael Jordan is there. I watched him pretty much win six live. And then Kobe Bryant comes along and He was the dude that made it real because he was a teenager. doing things that Jordan did. So once that started happening It became more obsessive.

Are you familiar with Slam magazine? I I'm not, but I can imagine the subject matter possibly. So you know Slam magazine was pretty much like the basketball magazine and so that was like the internet, you know You go get your slam magazine and I started putting these posters Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, all these guys. and just obsessively following the game. But they would also put in these articles with

The high school talent. It was all basketball. High school, college and pros. And so for me, with all the content I consumed, whether it was movies Whether it was Watchin' Slam magazine. These things were supposed to happen. So when they started happening.

For me it was more like, Okay, cool. I was still in my bubble. Did you feel in a way because of this extreme focus on basketball? that you had identified it as like the path, your path. Yeah. That these things were sort of I don't want to say ordained to happen, but you are like if I am in fact

destined to be on this path. Like these are the following markers along that path. And therefore when you show up yourself in Slam magazine, you're like Yeah. So missing Slam like okay. As it was written. Full disclosure, I didn't like the slam article that they made of me. It's like I finally got my half page. I'm like, that's the photo they chose. But you know, yeah, it was kind of those markers. You know, getting those markers pretty much from the ninth grade on. And one of the things that was always interesting, nobody Fun fact, in our yearbook I wasn't chosen'cause we had another we had other good players as well. I wasn't chosen most likely to be in the NBA.

Mm. So I was never like, Yeah, Chris, just like you're reading off. Yeah. You saying USA's second team is still like They messed that one up. It's okay USA today. But with that said, that was just always my mentality. I I was not not written off, but In my mind it was always how it was supposed to happen and I started growing and then

I guess once that notoriety came. For me it was like okay, yeah, about time. Yeah. But Once I started getting that notoriety, I wanted to

Get in the gym more because it was working. You know, so from ninth grade pretty much on, every time I saw success Or if I was in the paper or If the coach told me good job or something like that, I wanted more. It was always an emphasis on doing more work, you know, doing more work. And You were like the recipe works.

Let's crank out some more pizza piece. It's going pretty good. Let's uh yeah, let's make something out of this. And and you know, one of the interesting things and and probably one of the things that lit a fire under me. was my dad, you know, we weren't We weren't the poorest. Kids, I would describe my upbringing as lower middle class.

But he sat me down or we would drive all the time and ride everywhere and he told me one day, like I was like twelve. He said, Hey man I can't pay for college. So uh basketball, you love basketball, that's awesome. You can get a scholarship playing basketball and that's great. Because I can't pay for college. He kept saying I can't pay for college. And I thought that was fascinating that you could actually wow, you could go to college and play basketball. Okay. And I started, you know, that began an obsession with schools and mascots and learning the colors on top of all the stats and stuff, you know. So

Once I really started getting into it, I mean It just grew and grew and grew and as it grew So did the notoriety. Let's talk about making those pizza pies. The recipe That was working. I wanna try to tease apart some some pieces of that. So you mentioned a name.

Kevin Garnett. If I'm pronouncing that correctly. Mm-hmm. Were there any players You Watched

and decided to emulate. I had read that KG was one such player. I don't know if that's true. You can't believe everything you read on the internet. Of course. So you can confirm you can confirm or deny, but were there players who you watched early on in your development as a player or as a player. Who you decided. to emulate for one reason or another. Oh yeah, Kevin Garnett and Tim Duncan. Alright. More so KG.

Mm-hmm. But Tim Duncan of course too,'cause he was right down the street and Mm. His nickname was the Big Fundamentals and every coach loved the way he played the game. So I would play the power forward, which is you know, is kind of a dying position now, but it was called the four and it was cool to be a four, like oh man, early two thousands, late nineties, to be a four man, it was awesome. And so it was just kind of looking for guys that look like me.

Looked like you in terms of physical dimensional. But you know it's kind of You know, growing up playing the game when you're Skinny when you're Mass hasn't caught up with your

Bones. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of you know people kinda be like ah you know, you hear all the skinny jokes and you need to eat something and Lift some weights and like I ha I am lifting weights. You know, but It it was always this uh preconceived notion or this stigma that you had to Have size to play down low. And once I saw KG play when you say down low, what do you mean? Closer to the rim. I see. You know, now the game is more spread, it's more around the three point line.

In uh the game back then was more people in the paint. Mm-hmm. So that's how the game was played closer to the basket, a lot more physicality. Um a lot of banging around. You know, and I'm sure a lot of people were worried for me. But you know.

Once I saw Kevin it was one highlight in particular. Long and skinny, he was a But all star when he was nineteen, twenty years old. He came straight out of high school in ninety six. No, ninety five.

And He was long and skinny like me. And one of the things kinda you were joking and saying how your coach said you handled the ball like a caveman. He can handle the ball. Yeah.

That was kind of like a new thing. Not new all the way, but Old school coaches would tell me if you're Tall, don't dribble. That was a part of the game. Don't put the ball on the floor.

I saw him put the ball on the floor. And rebound and block shots and play defense and he had this intensity. And tenacity to him, the way he played the game. It was just infectious and And you know, I was like, yo I want to do that.

And so I would imagine going to the park and imagine these moves and imagine myself doing, you know, we visualize every day, man. And and once I saw that It was over. And and I mean he was cool too. You had to Had the swag, the young guy swag back then had to Had the look and you know, had the off court look in the slam and

It was just amazing to me and I just wanted that's all I wanted to do. I wanted to be Oh that's what I want it to be that right there. KG. Not only talk. Ball handling skills and a lot of people don't know this. A lot of people don't know this, but that was actually my nickname. I never I haven't told anybody. That was my they called me KG in high school in summer league like KG. That's how bad I wanted to, you know, emulate his game and make it to the NBA. People were calling me KG. All right. So so this is this is the intended segue into all sorts of terminology that I'm gonna need your help with. But no. But but let's let's uh let's talk about Tim Duncan just for a second because The big fundamentals. The big fundamentals, man.

That's a cool name. What did the coaches like about his playing style? You said they all loved his playing style. What what were the ingredients that they loved about his playing style? He had that stoic demeanor. He was never Just he brought the intensity and he played hard, but it wasn't anything extra. Wasn't flashy. The opposite of Flashy.

But Like we were speaking of playing down low, closer to the basket, his moves that he used were very basic. But devastating. Sometimes. When you're dealing with younger players

That are good at the game, the simplicity can get to them. So they wanna show that they're good by doing something fancy. And then usually you're messing it up, right? But Tim, he made his career off of Establishing position. Basic stuff. Establishing position. Getting your move.

technique, you know, playing within the system. And he was unstoppable. I mean, he was he was M V P of the league and perennial all star, you know, and The Best. for man to ever play the game. You had to put him

In that same context if you're trying to be successful. And by playing within the system, do you mean within a coach's Prescribed system. Like a set number of plays. Like basketball is a fast moving game and it can look like guys are just out there or girls are just out there. Just running around and not really doing much, but there is

Method to the madness. A method to the madness. You're supposed to be in a certain position even if it's within the flow. of a game. So You know, when I say system that's what I mean by that. If he was at the top He knew exactly what to do. If he's down low. He knew exactly what to do. And

That added on top of the talent. Yeah, they could have given it to him and say, Okay, bring us home, big fella and that would have worked. Yeah. He added so much. longevity on his career by playing within the system, in my opinion. And and I mean that made it more dangerous'cause You have to worry about all of these other things happening. If you're defending him. It's four other people out there that you have to worry about.

But then he's Hitting you on your body down low. Yeah. Getting the ball and he was incredibly strong too. Okay, so this this is this is fun for me as a basketball illiterate to begin to sort of piece this together in my own mind because you have The big fundamentals who's playing with within the system, not in a negative sense, but meaning he he understands how to play with And synergize with the other elements on the team. Absolutely. He is

Not Doing anything fancy for fancy sake. Mm-hmm. Right. So as we were talking about before we started recording how like Morgan Spurlock once told me, like once you get fancy, fancy gets broken, right? That's a good one. That's a good one. And fancy can work, but you better have the fundamentals first, right? So he's devastating within the system, which is a possibility. And then you have K G, Kevin Garnett, who is in some ways violating the expectations of him, not because it's impossible to do so, just because there isn't much historic precedent for somebody his size also having the dexterity to be a to handle the ball really well. Especially in the mid nineties. Right. Which later you were all you would also receive that compliment quite a lot.

And I wanna go to Power Forward. And Is it four men? Is that right? Four. All right, this four. This is the four. This is where I'm really gonna embarrass myself. Here we go. So I'm gonna make a confession.

I was reading through the research, I was reading about your bio, I was watching videos, and I thought to myself, this might as well be in Greek. I can't I can't even begin to imagine what these terms Me and half of them. So I went to this these people are gonna love this. So I went to Wikipedia and I looked up basketball. Yeah. I was like I was like, let's just start there. And and just to be clear, like I I do watch basketball. I appreciate I mean I'm I clearly don't follow it very well, but I can appreciate the athleticism. I understand what a three point shot is, I understand what a jump shot is, you know, layup, slam dunk, et cetera. Some of some of these terms I actually do know.

But I realized that I did not know the positions whatsoever. And so I just want to read something and then we can dive in. So th this is from the Wikipedia entry on basketball, folks. Yes, feel free to laugh. All right. So first of all, if you didn't know this five players on each side, it turns out. All right, so the five players on each side fall into five playing positions. The tallest player is usually the center, second tallest and strongest, the power forward. A slightly shorter but more agile player is the small forward and the shortest players or the best ball handlers are the shooting guard and the point guard. Who implement the coach's game plan by managing the execution of offense and defensive plays, in parentheses player positioning. Informally, players may play three on three, two on two, one on one. And then I'll just add this because I was like what, really? Invented in in eighteen ninety one by Canadian American gym teacher James Ny Smith or Nay Smith perhaps Naismith in Spring, Massachusetts, United States. Basketball has evolved to become one of the world's most popular and widely viewed sports. So number one, eighteen ninety one, not that long ago. Not that long ago. That's crazy. Yeah. That is insane. That is just that's like wheels on luggage, where you're like, Really? It took us that long? Wow. And they started with a peach basket, did you get to that point? So back in the day when they made the game

They had to have something to do in the wintertime in Massachusetts. So They put the peach basket up there. And when you make a basket, they had to get a ladder to climb up and take it out. It wasn't until later that they cut a hole in the peach basket. The climbing up and getting it out not as compelling for television. Yeah, yeah, no, it's not as like oh good shot. Okay, let me go.

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dot com slash Tim to post your first job for free. Terms and conditions do apply. So I just want to kind of run through this again and then get your commentary just as to how to think about the game. Now also understanding the game is not static, right? And how the game is played changes. Especially now. Especially now. So we can take these rules and then we're about to break'em. Okay. All right, so so so not to say you have to comment on what I just read, because obviously you're much more qualified than the thirty seven people who put that together. How should we think about

the positions of basketball. Like if I were an alien Which might as well be the case. Yeah. And I'm looking at this and I understand What I said I understand, but like all right, how are the jobs And responsibility separated out here. How should we think about that?

Well, you know, with those positions, with all those positions, with that said, it's been totally And e and each of those positions is numbered, therefore power forward. Yeah, the one, the two, that's like when you get into it like Oh yeah, play the two. That's when you're super cool. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like I'm at the five. Yeah, I'm at the five. You know you have your positions. But with that said The game has changed. So y you have one through five. The one is the point guard, the two is the shooting guard, three small forward, four power forward. And the five is the center. What has happened in the last few years is that it's become more of a spread.

Game because mathematically people that do data eventually said, Hey, let's shoot more threes. Because these shots We don't like these shots. We like these shots. That's interesting at the floor. So is the so is the reason sorry to interrupt, but I'm gonna do it a lot. Um is the reason that the three point shot has become more and more prominent. That was driven by kind of like the sabermetrics equivalent. Came from the data wonks, not from the player side. There were some players, in particular me and Shane Battier, we would talk about my good friend Shane Battier.

We played together in uh Miami during the championship years. We would talk about this. We had just got him, he had played uh his career in Houston and Memphis. In Houston uh is a guy by the name of Daryl Moore, he's the president for the Sixers. uh in Philadelphia right now. Big stat guy. Love stats. I mean a number

Cruncher. And so they had a certain team and it was a whole culture s of stat driven guys. Shane came from that. And so that's where we would kind of talk and we would talk about threes and contested twos and Just different shots that you contested too. So if you're within the three point line, right? Or a contested shot is if you're shooting and I just put my hand up trying to defend you. Right, trying to deny you from

actually putting two or three points up. And so it it it turns out. You're pretty good at denying other people. For sure. Yeah. You know? I've seen that link. I've seen these so like It came to be that uh the worst shot in basketball is a contested two. Mm. Fifteen.

to eighteen, nineteen, twenty feet away from the just statistically, when they look at like the statistically terrible. Yeah. And so people took that information. And said okay, hey, we need to play faster, we need more points. Big fella, you need to dribble. So now it's You want everybody to do it. Interesting. So all of a sudden we were not supposed to do is everybody should do it. You know? And it's like wow, you play the game, everybody should be able to do the basic fundamentals. But now it's opened up to where

Now you have guys like um You know, Nikola Jokic. Probably never heard of him. He's a big man. That plays in Denver. One of the best players in the league. He's a five man.

But he handles the ball. You know which is a five men again? The center. Okay, thank you. So to confuse you more, now you have a thing called the point center. Okay. But the evolution of the game, you you've had guys like, you know, Magic Johnson, then LeBron James comes and he's very tall, but he can handle the ball. And you have Ben Simmons, Giannis Ante Cumpo.

These guys who are very Talk. Seven feet. Six, eight to seven feet. Ooh, back in the day, you could say, okay, hey, you're a four or a center or something else.

They've totally transformed the game because they're the guys bringing it up the floor. And they're getting the team into offense. So they're doing the job of the point guard. So now it's more of a The term positionless when we were playing uh when I was playing it's crazy to say the last decade early in the twenty tens, that became kind of One of our words.

to say. Positionless. Disruption. That's the word I'm looking for. So you know, basketball has been disrupted. What we thought was the game has been cracked open and now it's just become Not just, it's become a faster pace.

Longer uh shots, more athleticism and um not so much the cookie cutter approach to where Someone should be on the court because of their size or lack of size. You know, it makes me wonder. About adaptability and the adaptability of not just some players, and I'm I'm sure there's also just a selection.

bias that changes with respect to who who is drafted and how, and just the the entire feeder system into the NBA, but also coaches, even more so coaches. Like if if their entire career has been predicated on a system of a certain type. I mean I'm not asking you to name names, but have you seen certain coaches who've been really able to adapt to this new style of playing. Others were like I don't know. I don't get it. Well the ones who say I don't know, I don't get it, they don't have jobs. Yeah. And they get weed it out quickly. One of the guys uh of course, you know, my ex coach and uh Eric Spostra, he

I remember him, he he was having the vision. of having that positionless Type of basketball and that faster pace. Which I didn't like at the time because that would mean I would have to play the center as opposed to the power forward and I didn't want to do that. But just taking advantage of the speed. Why didn't you want to do that?'Cause I was banging up against guys uh bigger than me. So usually in the NBA my playing weight was about two thirty five, two forty.

If I'm playing the five, I'm banging with guys That are two eighty. two seventy and on a weekly nor nightly instances. Oh man, it gets brutal. But you know, it did work as far as you know, using the speed to get around the bigger defenders. So essentially playing

I guess if you were a fighter. Going to class up and weight. Yeah. Because you're quicker you can, you know, hit'em more. Yeah. That was pretty much the philosophy. One of the other guys who have done a I think have done a great job is uh Uh Greg Popovich.

Mm-hmm. He he's uh in San Antonio. He's done a wonderful job because they run the same place. Yeah. They just extend them. Oh interesting. Okay. Could you could you expand on that? Because I remember watching The last dance. Uhum. Era.

Watching this segment on The the spurs. Yeah. And sort of their I don't want to say playbook, but sort of systematic approach. And Some of the debate around that, right? Because there are other players who are like, that's not fun to watch. Right. Like they should do A B and C instead. Because it beats you. Watch your team getting beat, you know. So can you expand on on uh what you mean by that? So they they had the same

Fundamental System but they expanded it. So it's kind of um The best analogy I could put to it is um, you know, I don't wanna expose their system, but everybody knows their system. It's predicated and I might I might be saying this wrong but it's too two plays that are the base in their system, weak and strong. Mm-hmm.

I can't remember which side of the court. If you're on this side of the court is weak, on another side of the court is strong. But that's their base of the offense. Like I was saying earlier, the game A few years ago was being Played closer to the rim. There was nowhere to go. There's no space. Even if you want to get your best player attacking.

Into the paint. If there's eight other people in there, it it makes it a little more difficult. Traffic jam. Traffic jam. So You can take those same plays in basketball and just Tell your players, hey

All these Things from the heat days are gonna come into my head, but pace and space. I can't believe I'm saying that I like it. But that's what You know, the space was very particular because you want to be able to see what's going on and to attack the rim. Get closer. To the room for easy buckets.

Well all you have to do is pay. If you're in the paint, I want you to get out there. We're gonna run the same place, but as opposed to being six feet away from the basket. It's sixteen. I need you in this twelve to sixteen area. Feet right here,'cause usually

Bigs, they wanted to keep them we call them bigs, the fours and the fives bigs. We want to keep you as close to the basket as possible. But that was clogging it up for the smaller guys to be able to attack. Yeah. So you would tell And they wanna keep the bigs close to the basket, not to state the obvious, but so that you can Receive a pass, jump up, done beat, rebound. Right.

Do all the things. Yeah, the tall things. Do all the things that tall people do. Well, if you spread the court, that makes it a little tougher to guard. It takes bodies away from the painted area, you know, that area uh where The pain. Yeah. Hard in the paint. If people have wondered what that term refers to, as my girlfriend told me, I was like what my God, I never knew that. Going hard in the paint, man. You can have the same type of offense which is nobody is reinventing the wheel here.

But What's happened is the the game has become faster. And more spread. So that You know, more offensive opportunities can happen. So you have to

Preemptively. Now this Huge asset. Yeah. As the game evolves.

But You get put into Center. Where you're basically running into freight trains. Mm. Uh oh. It was a part of my whole career. It happened in Toronto. I'm not saying a bad thing. But but initially you're like

And now Again, based on just the the homework that I've done, I mean, you you seem to be also very, very well known as a rebounder. And One of the questions that comes to mind for me is If

Certainly. The bigs? Is that the term? Mm-hmm. are expanded out to further away from the basket, does that not make it harder for you to utilize one of your superpowers with In in a way there are certain things that

Do get taken away. In our case it was a little easier to make that sacrifice because we had Dwayne and and uh Wade and LeBron. So If it's saying hey Chris

We need you to get out the paint and spread the floor. Yeah, your offensive rebounding opportunities are gonna Sink quite a bit. But It's better if we get those guys attacking. Yep. So you need to be out here and

One of the things that kind of developed was having a a more sound defense is okay, instead of crashing the boards, just get back. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because you know, the defense especially You know, if the defense gets the rebound, now they're on offense. If they're running, they're a fast team. You wanna

mitigate their opportunities for easy baskets. Mm-hmm. So you know, and that's That can be a stat too, which I'm pretty sure we uh We dug up the we did dig up that stat. What's the percentage of you getting an offensive rebound? versus not getting a stop because of that.

So question for you on the stats, and maybe this is getting too too too nerdy, but Do all the teams have equal access Two. Data and it's just a matter of analyzing it more effectively. Yeah. Oh, we can go on NBA.com and get all the stats right now. Wow. So that's hard. Like everybody has it's an open book. Right. It's an open book. It wasn't like that before.

And the way you crunch those numbers is not an open book. So everybody gets the data But that's all it is, it's just data. It's just telling you what happened. the last game or over the course of the game. It's on the teams to kinda take that and utilize it if they want to. Now Some people do overdo it in my opinion. You can kinda get some people like, eh, you know, uh it's the way we wanna play and okay, kinda. Tie your shoes with the left hand first. But there's still, you know, in my you know, in my case, there's still some fundamentals to the game that You know, you can't really get around.

You mentioned uh Eric Spolstra, if I'm getting the pronunciation right. Our mutual friend. Ryan Holiday had given me a bullet which was Uh related to books. That

Eric had given you. What books did he give you? They come to mind. He would give books every Christmas to the team. So there were

Quite a few. Quite a few. And I read all of'em. I was probably the only dude to read all of'em. It was even kinda funny. 'Cause one time we were cleaning out their lockers and our lockers and said you know, some I won't name who, but somebody grabbed the book from their locker, Oh man Spo, thanks for this Christmas gift. It's the it's in June. We're blowing dust off of it, you know. But when we first met, I had just signed to Miami. Mm-hmm. And I was always reading. I was always been an avid reader.

Since I was a kid. And I just fell into reading books. I would always read books, especially on the road, before naps, before games. That was my thing. And he knew that about me. He had heard that about me. Him being a good coach said hey. Mm.

I'm gonna get him this book. I heard he's a reader. He got me outliers. By Gladwell. That's okay. You know, he gave it to me and I took it. Oh, that's cool. I read that book.

And he was he he just kinda looked at me like what? And then ever since then he would I guess I hope that I pushed him to do more research. In his book buying. But yeah, he w he would he would get us uh books. Every Christmas. Were there any that stood out to you? One in particular was grit because he used that term all the time. The author slipping my name. Angela Duckworth. Angela Duckworth. Mm-hmm. And you know, he he got us that book and he would always use these phrases and so grit was a huge

Huge, huge word that he used that I'm sure he still uses to this day. But that book in particular He bought for the team and I read that one. I do remember that one. And then it's another one that's slipping my mind, but I remember specifically We were having a conversation and it wasn't an easy conversation. Usually when you're a coach, you're having tough conversations twenty four seven with your players'cause everybody wants the ball. I was having one of those conversations like, hey, give me the ball, you know? And um there was one chapter in particular that was saying push versus pull.

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

Oh, and having an open mindset. Hey, give me the ball. Remember that book you gave me? And I always love that one'cause it's the book that he gave us and I had to use it, you know, to kinda Try to get my way.

Oh man. But I always I I wanna say it's good to great, but that's probably not the one. But those uh Good to great is one of'em. Those books in particular, and I mean like I say, throughout the whole time, throughout the whole stint. In Miami. He you know, he gifted us books and I'm pretty sure He gifted us the obstacle is the way.

Yeah. I'm pretty pretty sure. But you know I just thought it was fascinating just a coach taking the time. to think of his teammates and give them food for thought, something to think about. And I always enjoyed that and I would read it and I felt like I was getting inside his mind and and the minds of others reading these passages and kinda taking, you know, and interpreting it.

for myself right before the game. Yeah. It was always great. Wow, so you would read right before right before playing? Oh yeah. I would uh it was uh funny Pat Riley, he told me you like Kareem. Karim Abduzabar, he would sit there and read the whole time.

And a couple of my young players when I was the old grizzled vet. They they told me, like I would just sit there reading and and you know, I'm oblivious to this stuff. I'm just getting my mind right. You know. This was I read because this was my Relaxing time because it's about to get hectic. Yeah, so you're not reading like Blackhawk Down. You're reading Maybe. Maybe. I might. Yeah. But if I'm reading Blackhawk Down, it's the playoffs. Yeah. You know, it's winning time. But you know, I always try to give myself that peace of mind. It was like I felt like it was my time. And granted, we're in the locker room, it's media everywhere and people, it's like the buzz of an NBA game about to start. And I was sit there and they told me, man, when you close that book, it's like, all right, he's ready, let's go. Yeah. Yeah, we read and

All the way up until close. He's about to start talking. It's like all right, cool. Let's uh let's go ahead and do it. Are there any books that you've reread multiple times that come to mind? I mean, or was it always a new book that you would read? I always read a new book, but the book that I read all the time, which you uh I know that you're uh A connoisseur of Japanese culture.

Is uh the way and the power. Have you heard of that book? No. So it's a book called The Way and the Power Um I had a buddy of mine who is a uh Kenpo black belt. Many times over.

He gifted me that book. It pretty much It was breaking down the way of the samurai. And it was two books into one, The Way and The Power. Strategies, the powers more so like strategies for a master. Distancing.

Confusion. How to handle conflict. Things like that. The way is more so Shaping the body and shaping the mind to become a samurai. So the exercises that one has to do To get to the point.

Mm. To start mastery before you can even think about it. You know, you need to be here, you know, uh one of the passages said You have to look successful. You want to be able to look good. So I took all these principles and applied them to basketball. So what they meant by looking good was saying, Hey Shirt tucked in.

Regulation, everything is good to go. My shoes are tied. I don't have to worry about them because I have this knot. that they won't come loose. So I'm not worried about my shoes while I'm playing. It also says, you know, exercise must be vigorous. People need to tell.

So you have that Strong spirit. You know, when you're showing up before you even play. My muscle definition is good. I'm ready to play.

Because we've been working hard. Mm-hmm. We want to Feel that, you know, it's uh feeling the spirit before you even start playing the game, working on your key. Things like that. Huh. Yeah. The way in the power. The way in the power. I think you'd enjoy it. Cool. Check that out. Cool check out. And it's got Japanese, you know, they don't translate the words. So for instance

One of the principles is called motion. Mm-hmm. That really resonated with me quite a bit. No mind. No mind. So you attack with no mind. I don't Think about everything we've done, all the studying.

I filled myself with my opponent. Uh and I'm Attacking with no mind. Because I've done all the training. That is super cool. That's That's Wushin. Yeah, so you read that and be like, Oh yeah. That's cool. Yeah. Wushin, no mind or uh this this this character

Shin which is also Kokoro. Yeah. is also used for heart. But it's it's like spirit, heart and mind all wrapped into one's culturally super interesting. Yeah, it's very fast. And I mean they yeah, they don't change, they do not translate'cause some of them have no translation, right? Yeah. So they have the like motion, for instance. It's called motion. Then they do English, but

The title, the principle is is all Japanese. See so you mentioned the knot Having the right knots, you're not worried about your shoes. I might be misattributing this. I don't think I am, but Even though I know very little about most sports, I'm fascinated by Consistent top performers.'Cause it's like Once you're lucky, twice you're good. Like

For A decade okay. Yeah. Method. And I recall reading this story about John Wooden. famed, I guess UCLA. And I recall reading a story. I'm sure I'm gonna get the details, but when he would Meet a bunch of new players.

sit down and he'd walk them through tie in their shoes and and they'd be like, Why does this matter? And he'd be like, little things matter because if you mess this up. You're gonna get irritated, and you're gonna get a blister, and then you're not gonna be able to move properly, and that's gonna cost you points, and that's gonna cost you the game. And and I was like, Oh, so good. So good. Pyramid of success. Pyramid of success. Pyramid of success by John Wooden. You can check that one out. That pretty much describes that. So he had a pyramid of success and That's one of the uh myths or stories or or whatever. They pretty much owned

the sixties and seventies, you know, U C LA basketball, they built it to what it is, you know, historically today. And Not only did he get the best players and great players, Abdul Jabar being one of them, but He had the best teams and coming in to play for a great coach like that, it's like okay, first day of practice. Ooh, we bought I can't wait. What are we gonna do? And he's showing them.

how to put on their socks and shoes per you know, practically and perfectly. And that was the first day of practice. So you know, just imagining the faces Could you imagine that like we about Oh what what offense are we gonna run? This is gonna be the b and and you know, it's and and and if you read there's an actual pyramid that he built and constructed And tying shoes and socks was at the very bottom of the pyramid of success. So and and he do this every year. Yeah. Every year that would be the first thing that they would go over. And then they would build on top of that. And you know he was testing and

Tracking and keeping notes. It's not accidental that that ended up at the bottom of the pyramid. Of course. Of course. But that makes sense, right? If yeah, if you get a blister, you know, especially back in those days, everybody's playing in Chuck Taylor's. Oh. That's important. That's important, man. You've got to hey, let's this is important stuff and You know, like I was alluding to earlier, that's the challenge with younger players, right? They wanna go right to being The master. Doing the things that you know you think that a master is supposed to be doing when we need to do this. First, the basic, basic fundamentals.

That way, when it's winning time. We can be healthy. Kind of like Many sayings out there, but yeah. The bit and the horse in the shoe. If that nail isn't right, then the horse shoe you know, it's all these

catastrophic events that could possibly follow if this one basic thing is not Correct. You've spent a lot of time. As a leader. With other leaders, whether

Players, iconic players. Coaches. Whole broad spectrum. Are there any particular Lessons.

Or stories related to leadership that stick out to you, things you saw or absorbed from from anyone in particular. My high school coach. Leonard Bishop. He talked to me one time.

And As much as I became more social later in life. This is me as seventeen years old. Six eleven. All the accolades are possible and they can possibly come.

He called me in his office and he told me You don't have to be loud to be a leader. You can lead by example. And you know, we always hear the thing lead by example, right? You will hear that all the time, but what does that even mean, right? And he told me, he explained it to me, he said, you know

You Can lead by Putting your work in. Being on time. Being dressed and ready to go.

When it's time to practice. Staying after practice. Your teammates are watching you all the time. So if you do these things and lead by example, never giving up, never quitting, Playing hard.

These are the things that could be infectious. You don't have to be the guy Given the win one for the Gipper speech. You can go out there and you can be yourself. And that was so comforting them. I remember that conversation we we were having in his office. I said, Wow, okay.

That gave me so much more confidence because I could be myself.'Cause on the court, I'm gonna yell and scream and do all that stuff all day. I'm not I wasn't always the player to always Talk. During the game at that age. If it's getting hype and screaming and yelling, that was m basketball was always my release to do that.

It was comforting to know I could be myself and and still Bring the leadership qualities. Two That team. Mm-hmm. And you know that always stuck with me.

What are some of the things that people don't No, or don't C that you think are important about some of the the the big names you spent time around. Whether that and you can take your pick. Could be anybody, could be Could be a player, could be a coach, could be an owner, could be anyone at all. Somebody not on that list.

you on TV. Yeah. Maybe they've followed you for a long time and they maybe they think they know what makes you you. And they might have a few things right, but they probably have a whole lot of things wrong. And uh That would also, I assume, be true for many of these big names that you've spent time around. Are there any particular ingredients or special aspects of Some of these folks that come to mind. that you think are maybe less appreciated or less obvious to people.

One being human, humanizing. The people that can kinda get lost in translation when you're on TV. So remembering that there's a human element, these are people with families and feelings and emotions. And on top of that, I think the work that's that that is being put in.

to anybody who's elite at their craft or even professional at their craft. I mean It's in a ridiculous amount of work that's put in to even be in the league. Right. You know, and alone on the short list of people most of the time. No, and even on the short list. Man, they're working hard. Sure. You know, and um I don't know, like the the first thing that came to mind when you said that was like you ever you well, I was about to say you ever watch a basketball game, but Well I have watched basketball. You have watched basketball so have you ever watched watch that's uh understood all the finer details. So have you ever watched it when they say, Okay, they've got two days off into their next game. Yes. That is not true. Yeah. Right, right, right

Not true. Practice. Treatment. Appearances. The professional aspect that it takes to be able to perform.

Uh people just see you on TV. And see you doing your thing. Oh, okay, two days off. No, we do not have two days off. There are no such thing as weekends. there's a weekend maybe we play at eight o'clock as opposed to seven thirty, like usual. That was the only cursor for me that let me know it was the weekend. So

Just trying to remember and and you know, it's really for all people. Who who are good at what they do. If you admire that person, remember that there's a human element. That's a human. Like probably going through it. Or maybe not, or just whatever

comes with life. Mm-hmm. the tremendous amount of work and focus that it takes to be able to do that. You know, to be able to to say, Hey, I'm I I need to put this to the side to be able to perform.

happened many times in my career. You know, you go to funerals. You have things you have to fight through. And then you have to play. And and you're still expected to win, you know? So

Just remembering those those things, just remembering that it when you're watching your favorite player or your favorite author or Favorite engineer, whatever that is, the tremendous amount of work and dedication that it takes to get to that level. Mm. To really remember and understand.

I have watched maybe not not enough basketball, but I have watched basketball and uh in fact at one point Not to say I ever got particularly good at it, but when I was working on a book called The Four Hour Chef, which is very confusingly actually about accelerated learning, which might might explain why there was so much confusion on the part of readers also. But there's a section looking at free throws in basketball. Okay. And so I actually practiced quite a bit with the help of of few people, sort of technicians who were Trying to help me. understand basic principles. Yeah. And part of the reason for that is that I have been

Just Dazzled by Say three point shots. Mm-hmm. Because As a

Someone built like a small Flintstones character, myself, right? I I watch people who are jumping over the rim and performing these incredible feats of athleticism. I'm like, well I can't even imagine myself doing that. Like the physics are just not there. Right? Like my my bones never caught up with my mask is the problem. It's the other way around. And uh plus my vertical jumps, like somewhere between half an inch and an inch at best. So So those are things I just can't even imagine myself doing. And I think people might be I'm not saying that uh this is everyone, but people might be inclined to say, well Six eleven. Right. So of course you can slam a basketball.

But It's a lot harder to use that justification when it's a three point shot. Right? It's like well actually, actually Like you, short guy. Yeah, Tim, that's you. I'm talking to you. Like you should technically Like you have the physical capability of doing that. So I would just love to hear And this might be getting too into the weeds, but

How you improved your Three point shots. Mm-hmm. Because It's not just repetition in the sense like you can make the same mistake over and over and over again. Uh and I've read about you doing video review watching games six to eight times and and so on. So I I know that you

are methodical about reviewing your own performance, but how did you improve something like a three point shot? I didn't start shooting threes consistently until about my third year in Miami. Second or third year in Miami. I shot them In Toronto. A little bit, but like I said, it still wasn't we were talking about the game earlier, it wasn't that widely accepted in the game. Big man shooting threes

Handful of them. No. You have a handful that don't. We got to Miami and you know, my my position or my responsibilities changed. So I wasn't getting the ball closer to the basket anymore. That was my job in Toronto to get the ball as close to the basket as possible.

That's how we function. I was pretty good at it. And then the team would go from there and we would distribute and kind of base our game off of I guess my success or lack of success. Down below.

I was telling you earlier that in Miami I had to Get out the way. Yeah. That was my sacrifice, um, in particular with that team so that LeBron indeed could penetrate. And get into the paint and Do what they're best in the world at doing.

As we continue to play I had a coach when me and Shane Badier we would talk all the time about it, but then I had a you know have discussions with coaches as well. And somebody says something one day, says hey man. Just take a step back. Take one step back.

Shoot the same shot. Just take a step back because I was always an avid worker on my jump shot. I was pretty good. I was lethal from mid range. That was my thing. I always worked on it and worked on it. So it's the Hundreds of thousands or millions of reps. That I have shooting the ball, I know I have a touch

Anyway. It was just extending the range. So it's kind of um one of those things. That if you're good short range and mid range, hell. Practice your long range, you can be pretty good too.

But Getting those fundamentals of the you know, the shooting motion, the arm Snapping your wrist. Following through. Balance.

All these different fundamentals that you learn and what goes into a great shooter. Going and seeking that Advice learning from other shooters always kind of Taking in information, but

Relying on my own information. I think you have to have a good foundation in what you've done already. By yourself, even if it's in the weeds or in the dark. And then You have hopefully someone that can refine what you already have or say something to you to say, Hey man.

Take a step back. You can shoot three. Then I started shooting threes and then as I became more consistent You know, I found more success and it's funny to watch the game now'cause I'm like, man, I could still be playing, you know I'm thirty seven, I saw myself playing into my you know, thirty seven, thirty eight. And I started practicing more threes'cause I saw where the game was going. I said, Okay

Yeah, they're shooting was more threes. Me and Shane have talked about this. Three is more than two. Okay, I'm gonna start shooting more threes. And that in my last year in the league, I had a higher frequency of three point shots and and you know, I was seeing some success. So that was exciting. But that was like the part of my career that I never really got to crack open. Yeah. Yeah. With three pointers. When you're watching other players Make three point shots. Are their styles dramatically different or are the good three point shooters do they all have the same ingredients? I think there's the same ingredients. I mean you're always gonna get different flavors, but um

It's the same ingredients, uh to me. It's always follow through one fluid motion and good balance. If you have those things you can shoot the ball. And I always it's kinda funny you learning to shoot free throws. I would always tell people I give my friends pointers. So I have a few buddies that, you know, they're producers and songwriters. They always play in rec league games. I won't give away your sauce, dude. Don't worry, I won't give away your position. But I would uh I just give them like pointers and say

You know, like hey man, can you help me with my shot? And I just look at him, shoot a couple of times and give them Corrections and then they see instant success. You know, but that's just, you know, elbow in, follow through, one fluid motion. Boom. You have a better

You just wanted to go straight. And and it's you know, you can get super deep into a trajectory and all that stuff, but that's when you see It's good to get into the fundamentals of Where the ball is supposed to go and how you're supposed to hold it. But one of the things that we always do is just start with one hand shooting.

I don't know if they had you doing that. Right under the basket. All day. Get a lot of repetitions in that, build that muscle memory and then you can start stepping back as you get better. Yeah, the the thing that kinda blew my mind also, which I hadn't thought about at all, because why would I? I hadn't had any exposure was I was just missing, missing, missing. I was like, Oh, for you know, twenty. Even at a close distance. one coach, uh blanking on his name I wanna say it's Rick Torbit, but he

Did an eye dominance test. And he's like, Oh. You're right handed, but you're left eye dominant. He's like, Yeah, shift it like an inch over and then The whole thing changed. I was like, wow. Wow. That's a thing. Okay. That's pretty good. And uh well, maybe someday I'll I'll pick up a basketball again and have to confiscate all phones and cameras first. So be critical to myself. Yeah.

What did it feel like going from and why did you go from Toronto? Two. Miami. Yeah. King of the hill. Yeah, it's Mr. Canada. Yeah. You're Mr Mr Canada. Yeah, you know, it was uh it was a tough decision.

I loved Toronto and Toronto loved me. And it was great just to be able to compete and Put A city or a country on your back and just hope for the best. And just go out there and work hard every day and

You know, I just felt, you know, like a pillar of the community. I wanted to do it so bad for Toronto. you eventually get to a point in your career Where you have to make a choice. And I went to you know, I talked to many people It was a dilemma. I didn't know what to do and

If you're familiar with popular culture or maybe not. that year in in twenty ten there was uh that was like the first mega free agent Everybody who was free agents it was about Eight or nine free agents that's like okay, they're the Best.

eight or nine guys in the world right now, they're ready to go. Things can and will dramatically change. That was the atmosphere that was coming. And I knew that was coming. And I had tried everything. I tried everything in Toronto. I tried uh to recruit

I tried to push myself, push my team and and you know, we weren't even scratching the surface. And one of the tough things dealing with it is seeing the early success of my peers. I wanted to win. I've always wanted to win and I've always wanted to put in the work to be able to do that and compete and

Hopefully gain glory in their way. I talked to a lot of older players. And um about what to do. About what to do. And uh older gentlemen as well. And the thing that I kept hearing

Was that you wanna play on the stage, man. It's about going for it, it's about competing for a championship. You wanna play on that stage. That's the phrase. That stuck with me and I had an opportunity.

To play with two other grey players. And We had known each other since we were teenagers. I've been knowing Brian since we were sixteen, seventeen years old. I knew Dwayne since we were nineteen, twenty years old, and It just fit.

And it was a it was a a possibility to be like my heroes. I told you, I I I idolized Jordan and Kobe and it was right there to be able The calling happened and I wanted to play on that stage that I was talking about. I was telling you from as I was a little kid. I was watching Michael Jordan. I was like I distinctly remember and even

You know, the the moment I found out about basketball was because Michael Jordan was playing on TV all the time. I mean, even um we would go to Dayton, Ohio. My dad, he drivers. It's crazy. Eighteen hours in in a single cab pickup truck. 84 F one fifty, man. And we he drive us from Dallas to Dayton and drop us off.

And like every summer at ninety one, ninety two, ninety three for sure. The night that we got to my grandma's house The bulls will be playing. And it's winning time, you know, it's in the finals and it I I understood after a while, you know, after they get the trophy, I'm like, oh wow, what is this is amazing.

And I wanted to do that, man, and you know, I couldn't even tell you what happened the rest of that summer. I couldn't tell you what happened that night. I couldn't even tell you who was around the TV. I know I was. And I was just taking it all in. And every year. I would watch it and watch it and watch it and that's all I wanted to do, you know, aspire to do and

And at that time that situation was right there in front of me. It was right there in front of me to take, so I took it. Yeah And that was only a chance, you know, that's just a This is just an opportunity not to even say that you're gonna have success, but This is your best chance to go for that right now. Now did you feel a hundred percent confident when you made that decision and in the weeks and months following? Or w were there any points where you're like Oh man. Oh yeah, there's always gonna be those points, right? I don't know. I don't know.

Yeah, there's those points. You you get to those points, but I had gotten used to that. By then and you know, for whoever's listening, sometimes it's just gonna be yeah like that. You're supposed to feel it, right? You're supposed to it is a major leap of faith. Yeah. And if you're making that leap of faith, yeah, there will be some questions, but I always that was part of my mental training like yeah they're just questions that's okay let's Let's just keep going forward. Logically, it makes sense. It's sound. And then yeah, when the emotions come in and Yeah, you get those feelings like I don't know if I can do this and and we came together in such a way to where it was explosive and pretty infamous.

Yeah. You know, so That comes into it as well. Yeah. You start having self doubt. And that's one of the things we eventually got to with talking with the heat. That self doubt is gonna come and doesn't make you any less of a competitor or a person.

It's just a part of the process. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so I'm so glad you're mentioning that. I remember not too long ago, I was talking to a really not on the podcast, this was a private conversation, but a an extremely famous investor who from the outside looking in, I'm like, Okay. This guy's balls are bigger than my house. Like I don't know how this guy I don't know how he does. What he does. Like I would not get a second of sleep. It's just the the risks that I perceive him as taking. Yeah. And we were talking about self doubt and second guessing and he goes, Oh, just to be clear, he's like

No matter what. You're going to have some regret. He's like, if you buy something and it does really well, you're gonna kick yourself for not having bought enough. Why didn't I buy enough? If if you buy something and it does really poorly, you'd be like, Why did I invest in that? He's like, Oh he's like, No, either way. He's like, You're gonna have second guesses. He's like just accept that as like part of the game. And I was like Oh, it was actually very stress relieving. I was like oh okay, myself all the time, man. Yeah,'cause a lot of people they they get that they think something's wrong with them. Yeah. Or they think something's wrong with the situation or they'll pull out.

Yeah. And say hey no. I always kind of think of one of my favorite books was uh Blink. Blank, yeah. By Gladwell and you know, just talking about the gut decision. Stressing your gut, then we

Talk ourselves out of it. We knew the answer when we talk ourselves out. Yeah. Talking yourself out of it, that's a part of it. It's gonna happen, but You know, just stay with it. Stay with what you, you know, said you were gonna do, what you're meant to do and Yeah. Sometimes the self-doubt comes, you just gotta be like shh.

Shold on. I'm working now. It's okay to dismiss that voice. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Doesn't doesn't mean you're uniquely flawed. Yeah, it does not mean that at all. When you were reviewing Footage of yourself. Could you give an example of, if one comes to mind, of when you did that?

And then once again, like how do you watch? Like what do you looking for and what are you seeing? Because Yeah, someone was asking me as I was preparing for this basketball and I said, I think I've seen basketball.

I'm not sure I've watched it because uh, for instance, I mean there are sports I know a lot more about, like wrestling or Boxing or these things. And I can watch and I see things that some of my friends won't see just because I know the technical underpinnings. Absolutely. So when you're watching footage. If you can think of any examples of reviewing your own footage. Why did you look at it and then what were you looking for?

What types of things did you pick out? I think naturally every player will start on offense. They wanna watch themselves on offense and And it can easily turn into just a highlight tape. The Instagram of your own mind. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Your highlight tape and I would look for mistakes. I got to the point where I was looking for mistakes. Did you do that consistently? Did it start at a particular point?

Was it always? No, not always. Like I said, highlight tape. It started off as highlight tape, so you just want to see yourself doing good, but then you get to a point to where you're looking for the inconsistencies. Or If there was a game certain particular game that you were unsuccessful, I'm looking at the whole game. To see what exactly why

What happened, what I can do to get better. What is this team doing? They might have had some success against me. Defending me. So I what one of the things I would look for, I would look It's so hard to describe, but I would look for everything all at once you get to the point where you're looking for everything, but

The main, main, main things. Were defense and offense. My positioning on offense. I would always look at my teammates' characteristics. Seeing what they're doing, see their what the scouting report on them is. They might do a certain particular move every single time.

In this play. And you have to watch film to know that. That would help build continuity. And we talk about it too, like when you're doing that. I want you to zig instead of zag. You know, and it's having those discussions. You watch the video with

Coaches with teammates. Everything. By myself with the team. We always started practice with half an hour of film. Oh, you did? Yeah, forty five to an hour if Spo felt long winded. But yeah, we would have to do it. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Pretty much usually the night before looking at all the mistakes. And then I developed the habit of going home. And Dissecting other players. So in particular, uh was Dirk Navisky.

Three point shooter, seven feet. Late nineties, early two thousands, this is when it was you know, he was shooting threes back when, you know, it was very taboo, I guess, for a big to be doing all that stuff, but he revolutionized the game in that aspect. We lost against them in the two thousand eleven finals. Terrible, terrible Tragedy, right? But one thing inspired me to do he did these certain particular moves within the system that were s you couldn't stop it. And I had to figure out what it was he was doing. So I watched a tremendous amount of film on him in particular, but what happened

In our losing effort. But what happened was you you start seeing like you're saying, you start seeing other things. So what I started doing was I started compartmentalizing the film. And I would say, Okay. I'm gonna watch

What Atlanta Or I'm gonna watch what the Lakers are doing on offense. It became this thing of Okay, I've got my offensive system down. I know my game. Now I w I I will watch film on the other team. I just wanna get inside the mind of the other team. I wanna know all their plays. I wanna know their best players, best moves. So we can take all those things away.

So that's what it became. I was studying To take The top two. high percentage things away. From a team or person.

I have to imagine also that with that amount of footage and also just that amount of time on the court practicing playing That you're Almost certainly absorbing a lot more than you're consciously aware of. For sure. You know what I mean? For sure. Absolutely. And and what it's what starts happening. Is not that

It happens on tap, but you can start anticipating what's gonna happen on the court. Mm. So things will just come to you and be like I'm gonna run over here because I'm gonna be wide open. Or I'm gonna crash the boards'cause I'm gonna get a dunk.

Huh. And it happens. Shit's crazy. You know, it's crazy. But you know, the more It just becomes a part of you. The more that you watch it and I was having you know those second guesses and doubts and stuff the other week I was talking with my buddy and I said, Man, I should have I could have done more, man. Yeah. He said, Okay, stop You watch more film than anybody I know.

Yeah.'Cause you know, film is more of a thing of football term. Yeah. So it's kinda like the quarterback in football. They have to watch a tremendous amount of film because they have to a it's really anticipation. Yeah. They have to anticipate. They have to look Where they're looking and say, Okay. This is what they're doing. If you watch enough film, you'll pick up on people's tendencies and you know what they're about to do before they do it. Because he's leaning a little th those subconscious things that you pick up on. Yeah, telegraph.

You know, like I say, you would be surprised how much success you have as a defender if you take the Best move away. Yeah. Every day I watch film.

Whether it's the team or the player and be like, Okay. Take away that for him. He goes right every single time. He's got to go left today. And if he scores thirty points going left, hey, I'm gonna tip my hat to him. But percentage, that's where we would uh mess with the data. Yeah, we would play with the numbers, we twist the numbers a little bit. Team wise and individual wise, you develop a repetition for knowing the team's plays. That's that's the biggest thing, right? That's gotta really mess with people. It does. You know, if it's two minutes in the fourth quarter and they call a play, it's like he's going right there. A lot of people Look at LeBron and be like, Oh my God, you know. These were the discussions we were having. Yeah every day. LeBron James, Shane Battier, Ray Allen, Dwayne Wade. Richard Lewis, myself.

We're talking about I guess a master class every day and how to stop people or you know, how to successful take away one leg of the stool. You know? If they beat us with two legs, then hey, man, that's a good job. But Probably not. Yeah. Yeah, it's uh the footage is so important in the fight game too, whether it's boxing or MA, same story. Also because

I guess like many sports, like if you have person A versus person B And A beats B. And B beats C, it doesn't automatically mean that A is gonna beat C. Right, for sure. Matchups, styles and you know, and styles and another Component to that is You might play a team like San Antonio, which we were duking it out with them for a couple of years and

They'll run certain plays against certain teams. They have certain set plays against you. that they think are successful. And you have to crack those codes that out. On top of the individual tendencies for a Manu Genobli, for Tony Parker, for Tim Duncan, for Danny Green, you know, you have to You have to know their individual tendencies on top of the team tendencies. So it can get it can get pretty deep. You know, you can like you're saying get in the weeds. You can be in the weeds. Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Uh Banu is such a he's a sweet guy. Yeah, he's he's close to here. Lives nearby. He'll dunk on you too, if I will. Well definitely done. That was the thing about the Spurs, man. Like man, nice guys. Well, you know, he's elbowed me in the face a few times, so you know the nice guy, you know. Gentlemanly elbow. Yeah, he's a hell of a competitor. Yeah. Let's talk about Letters to a young athlete.

This is your new book. Mm-hmm. Why? Bo book book books are hard. Books are Hard. Yeah. Books are hard. You know.

How did this come about? So I was uh I was just in a place, I got the news, the unexpected news that I wouldn't be playing anymore and And I was just kind of in a place and I was just not wandering around but Reshuffling the deck. Yeah. You know, um That's a great way to put it. Getting used to being a father in the household, being a husband in the household all the time. I never knew how much time

That I had given the basketball. People think things are easy and be like,'Cause you should write a book. I remember people were saying, You should write a book. Like, what am I gonna write about? I didn't even know what to even think about, but I just put it to the side and Really didn't think too much of it, but W always being an avid reader.

I guess it was somewhere in the back of my mind. I continue to think about it and and I was in a Period whether I liked it or not. Of reflecting. I had never reflected. Or my career. You're too busy playing. Yeah, you're just in it. You're too busy playing and and going to the next thing and and going from A to Z.

And I find myself in um you know, just reflecting on the journey and how That child. from Hutchins, Texas was able to actually jump from lily pad to lily pad and make it to the NBA and actually be successful and thinking about those who helped me along my path and All the coaches who said the wise words to me, friends who helped me out, my family of course that helped me out, my wife.

And I was in deep reflection and then, you know, the opportunity came, we just kept talking about it. Kept talking about it. I have agents and they were like, Yeah, man, you know, just keep talking about you'll think about it and Yo, you should meet Ryan.

We should meet Ryan Holliday. Oh yeah. I've read a few of his books, man. That's cool. So we met right down the street here in Austin. And we hit it off. We had like a three hour lunch just sitting talking and And you know, shooting the shit and we had a great time and And then I said, Okay, great, let's figure this out.

And there's no reason to talk to anybody else. He was the first person that we interviewed. To help us out. And From then on we just were bouncing ideas. It took Months and months. Just to even figure out, you know, what are we gonna write about, but

Sitting there and being open to thinking of myself in that position of not being a player. Mm-hmm. And thinking of What would be the book that I wanted to read before a game if I were a younger player today. So this is kind of That book that I wanted to read. And you know, one of the my favorite parts

About books like that is that they always translate it. You know, whether that was uh whether you're an athlete, whether you're a CEO, a leader, a follower. A librarian, a teacher. We wanted to have those basic principles that apply to everything.

Whether you're a young athlete or an old athlete. We wanted To have those lessons. From myself that have actually helped me and worked. And, you know, from people that I admire.

Tools that have gotten him through challenges. I think that's the biggest thing. There are challenges every day. Everybody goes through challenges. And this is A book to h give you those tools to hopefully rise to the occasion when it comes. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Who are some of the people you admire whose

Advice. Yeah, featured in the book. Spo, of course. Eric Sposter is in there. My coach Leonard Bishop. We talk about some things like that. One of one of my good friends is Candace Parker. Um she's in, you know, Chicago now, uh getting ready for her season.

But she's such a tremendous Athlete and a person and We were having a particular discussion one time just about And really just the female player what they have to go through.

We were in Beijing. And the whole female team after winning squad, they have to go to their respective places to go Start the season. Not in the States. Not home. They're going to Russia.

They're going to Spain. From Beijing, China. And they just finished playing a whole summer. Or or they'll finish the season in W NBA and then Go right back to it.

Summer. Spring, fall, winter. They're playing year round. And they don't even get the credit for that. That was just so inspiring to hear because You know, it's like Ali Candice, man, you man, you really it just doesn't stop. It never stops. I know it doesn't stop for me and I know how I feel. How do you you know?

How do you feel? And just Kind of um. You know, hearing her story and how she gets through that. She I don't think she does it anymore. I don't think she plays in Europe anymore. But when she was just

You know, hearing those stories and how to actually get through that and be successful and still be the MVP. And still compete for a championship. In both leagues. That was tremendous. And of course, Pat Riley, he's always been um a great motivator and mentor for me.

Mm. And um we had a discussion with him kinda Jumping back to the book thing, he um He was one of those uh encouragers too. He said we should write a book. And he said, Yeah, you don't have to think about it now, but Just think about it.

You know, this is what I did when I wrote my book, The Winner Within. I was going through this and yeah, it's a good thing. You should you should check it out. Mm. And you know, this was the casual lunch in Malibu. You know, I really didn't think anything of it, but he's always been uh you know, that person to really uh

And um, you know, he's one of my heroes. And you know, you read the foreword too. It's so cool. Yeah, it's really amazing. Turns out he's a like a Huge writer, he He empathized with me quite a bit because his career like mine Weather.

It was because of other people's opinion or professionally being able to withstand The athleticism that the the new league was coming or whatever, his career just abruptly ended, just like mine. And you know, he is a writer as well and He told me about his writing experiences and You know, he's got a a few books out there and he's even wrote screenplays and stuff like that. So it gave me the openness to

Accept other things and And say, Well, okay. Just get the wheels turning. Well, if I were to write a book, what would it be about? And you know it. Two and a half year process, man. Before you know it. Two and a half years later. Two and a half years, but

Going and looking within to to try and and find those stories and those principles. To what Has made me me. Mm. You mentioned Pat.

A few times. What do you think his superpower is? Or superpowers. Motivation. Yeah. And excellence. So a lot of people try to be motivating. Yeah. Right? That's what he's good at it. He's good at it. Why is he good at it? Well, the experience.

Yeah, like what's the experience? He's got the experience. I think s when you're in team sports for so long. And You've seen every level. Whether that's good or bad. Yeah, and everything in between.

I think you can kinda start collect things that work and things that don't work. Mm and you know, in the NBA you're around each other every day. And I'm sure there have been plenty of things that he said that didn't work. Those get left on the cutting room for you. Yeah. It's like, Yeah, okay, that's okay. That's all right. And you know, but you know, his experience cricket? Okay. We're gonna cut that one for it. Yeah, they did they didn't care for that one in practice, so we'll you know, move on from it. But He's an extensive note taker, I know that. A voracious reader. And you know.

Talking to people. I think that's one of the biggest things, actually having that relationship and having those conversations. And sitting down. To talk with a person. Because if you come in just trying to be a motivator Why?

Yeah. You have to have a why in things that you do. And Sometimes it can backfire if you're trying too hard to be a motivator. It it can come off as phony and and people are very smart. They can pick up one

Pick up on those things. Pat, he's always had that open door policy. He's always been one of those guys you can just knock on his door and and talk. It can be intimidating. A lot of people don't do it.

It can be. It's like going to the principal's office, you know? But um he he was always been open, I mean, you know Many dinners, lunches, talking. dissecting the game and he wants to be great. I think um a lot of people can work on their appetite to be great. And that doesn't necessarily mean having a bunch of money

Or having a bunch of Tremendous amount of success. That could be, man. I'm I'm coming here. I'm being consistent. I'm working every day. I'm putting in the work. My mental preparation is good. I'm ready. to carry out this task for this goal, having this unified goal and going after it. I think sometimes it's being as simple as that.

Can be a tremendous help. But with Pat he Once he identifies a goal, I mean he goes after it. Passionately and wholeheartedly. And and that's When you get into the teeth of it, when you're in the foxhole, that's when the passion comes out. You know.

You can't really motivate Someone and you just met'em or it's going good. Yeah. That's Brett naturally going. You wanna motivate somebody when it's tough and you have to be in there with them suffering. Yeah. The shared type of yeah, not to be too dramatic, but yeah, you gotta You gotta take part in the suffering to get over the hump.

This is gonna be a strange segue, but I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna I'm gonna strong on this one. We'll probably um Go for just a few more questions. True or false. I read that you are a fan of Leonardo da Vinci's?

Yeah. Okay. Please please tell me more. Why? How did that come about?

I can't remember how it really happened. of course everybody knows the Mona Lisa and uh and and the famous uh inventions and things that he had. I got my hands on one of the books about his notebook. Mm-hmm.

And I read it. It was amazing. I love Italy. I we went to Rome. We took a early uh went to Rome pretty early in my career around two thousand seven. Two thousand eight, somewhere in there.

And so the fascination was already there. I got to see the Coliseum and I was already infatuated with those things and I got to see that. One way or another I start Yeah, reading books. And I read that biography Walter Isaacson wrote. Oh, that's great. It's a good one. But I guess You know, you were kinda alluding to learning to learn in the pushing the human mind and all that stuff. I was just

Always fascinated by that. So And naturally he just became a person to, you know, emulate. The polymath of polymaths mean the the The breadth. Of his

Yeah. Fascination. Yeah. It's just fascinating. And and also and I and um I know that you know this. But if you look at the entire Pie chart, let's just say.

Actually I should say his works and the percentage that were completed versus incomplete. Mm-hmm. Very high percentage and complete. For sure. And and that's kind of as perfect saying way, actually. I kind of had to Come to appreciate that because One could consider a lot of his unfinished work to be a masterpiece.

Yeah. You know, and that's kinda how I look at my career. Because it was you know, in my opinion, it was unfinished. It's finished. But it was still an unfinished painting, in my opinion. And That kinda gave me a little

little confidence too. Like, yeah, he didn't even finish all his paintings. You guys, you know, he was the Vinci people. Yeah. You know what I mean? And you know, one of the cool things, uh me and my wife, we love to vacation. Getting to see those things in person. I mean I'm a avid note taker and I doodle and draw and you know, have sketchbooks all over the place. So that was a natural connection right there. But then Seeing actually seeing

The paintings, we saw them on Elise in person. We saw the last supper in person, which they were so nice and gave us a private tour in Milan. And when you see it is have you seen it? I've not. It's bigger than the size of this wall. People can't see it, but

I thought it was like more of a Yeah, yeah, arm to arm. Like a Tim Ferris arm to arm. Man, that thing is huge. It's the whole side of a building. And It was just breathtaking and just got away just like But seeing These relics and all of these things that still, you know, stood the test of time. And he's still

actually here today and and and just seeing that. It was very inspiring. I I was always fascinated in the Renaissance. You know, in the Renaissance period and knowing that the houses were right down the street. So you could go and Go study under Michelangelo and be a sculptor.

Yeah. Then you could go under Da Vinci and be a painter and it's right all right there in this small little space outside of Florence or in Florence or whatever. I can't remember. Yeah, but just just thinking of the density is crazy. Crazy. You know, so it it showed me that things are possible. That she could do was just through his observation and extensive note taking and curiosity. You know, I try to embody those things. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, this is Also these incredible inventions and part of the reason this is reasonably fresh on the mind is that I've interviewed Walter Isaacson a few times and interviewed him about his his Da Vinci book. And some of his inventions were

Just these prescient accurate predictors of the future. Like hundreds of years later. Yeah. And a lot of them were terrible. Like they never would have worked. And you would not want to be wearing his you know a mock up for uh bird wings and jump off a cliff. Right. And I think that's also very inspiring in a way, right? Because he had these masterpieces that were masterpieces despite the fact that they were incomplete. Maybe in some ways that makes them even all the more interesting. And he also had misfires. Right? So it's like it's like if if if Leo is allowed to have both of those, maybe we should be allowed to have that. And I'd love to hear your thoughts and I apologize if you've been asked this a million times, but I think for people listening.

Your story has many different points that can be inspiring. The one that I think Everyone can identify with certainly. is points in life when you realize that certain things are within your control and certain things are outside of your control. In fact a lot of things. And and so you have this pulmonary embolism. And for reasons

Or for causes Perhaps partly known, partially unknown. That marked the the beginning of of an end of a career. Are there any particular

books or resources or advice or anything that helped you through that period. I mean, what was it like emotionally when you realized, Okay, I can't actually forestall this any longer. This is This is it. It it happened in stages. I knew I wasn't gonna play again for sure all the way. When uh player by the name of Gordon Hayward He's still playing to this day, thank goodness.

He dislocated his ankle. I hadn't played the year before. And I still had dreams and aspirations of playing in the NBA. And I mean, that took all the wind out of myself. First game of the season. first five minutes of me watching that season. I was like let me watch basketball. I'm gonna get back into it.

Because I'm playing this season. Somebody's gonna pick me up. And that's a dislocated ankle. You know. In that game.

I hadn't watched basketball in close to a year. First game that I watched guy dislocates his ankle and I mean whatever motivation that I had instantly. Went away. And I said, Ah man, that could be me. Oh boy, those workouts just weren't as intense after that.

In the midst of figuring these things out. I can't remember what I read, but it was pretty much trusting everything that I read. And all of these books that say find what you love to do. You gotta love you gotta love it. And it sounds great until you're put in that position, right? And so I found myself kind of asking, Well, what do I love to do? Basketball. Okay, what else? I had to answer that question. I didn't know

anything else and I had to deal with the preconceived notion that I guess People think I'm smart, which is great. Like, Oh Chris, you'll be fine. You'll figure it out. But in that moment, and so I sat I was find myself sitting around, okay, let me answer this question. What else do I love doing? And that's where music

I always wanted to learn how to play. An instrument? It was one of those things where I gave up. Like two or three times.

in my teens and twenties. So I said, Man, you know what? This time. I'm gonna pick it up and I'm not gonna put it down and I'm gonna learn how to play. I'm gonna learn how to play an instrument. Which instrument? The guitar. I started with the guitar.

Let me ask if really Naive question. I'm just looking at the size of your hands compared to my hands. On a on a on a on a little guitar. Yeah, it is a little right. The thing you have to but you got to figure out. I'm thinking maybe bass I got I've recently it was just the same not chord structure, but it's the same string, string patterns and everything, the notes, it's all the same system. So you know, yeah, I've uh recently gotten into

But yeah, I mean, I wanted to learn how to play the guitar, man, and Say, man, I've always I never stopped. Does it make any sense? Of course it doesn't make any sense. But I love it. This is I love it. I was watching the Rolling Stones was on TV playing their doesn't need to make sense well into their life and they're still doing shows. I said, I wanna do that. I do that for free. And then I found myself

My wife and I, we we had all we were already avid music lovers and stuff like that. We cranked it up a notch. We went to Rock festivals with the went to Coachella, Glassdenbury, Panaru. Going to see certain shows. You know, meeting all of these cool musicians and

just doing something different. And I mean, it was just it was amazing and I started Getting magical fillings and Those things that magic that you wanna pursue. It didn't make any sense at the time, I just knew it felt good. And so That opened up a new world of possibility to me and

You know, I started making uh more friends, making um Great connections. Music is one of those things that really do bring people together and it's uh live element to it. It's a recorded element to it. It's just all these different Elements that you could put together or keep separate and just really enjoy it.

And so then I found myself, you know, okay, playing the guitar, then I wanted to make beats. Then it just went out to full fledged productions and and writing sessions and stuff like that, but Continuing. To go on and and meeting great people. Rico Love is a great friend of mine. Uh Miguel

Artist Miguel uh is a great friend of mine. Meeting Billy Corbin Meeting collective soul, having beers after their show, you know, and and and just hanging out. There's some Atlanta, Georgia boys, you know, we're Connecting with so many different people in so many different ways was was really, really cool and especially here in Austin it's been great. You know, Gary Clark, we met him

a few years ago, but just I was just so enamored by how They could play the guitar, man, and and and just do all these cool things. So that's just really been A thing that has actually turned into something but has been great for the spirit. What would you Aside from trying to find the thing that lights you up inside.

'Cause I'm sure you had some dark moments too, I would imagine. For someone who's going through an experience like that. Maybe there's something they had planned that they no longer can pursue. Yeah. Maybe they they had a career or a relationship or something and and now they just feel this void and they just feel directionless, not necessarily hopeless, but just really unsure of what to do. What advice might you give them or what would you say to them? Be open. I spoke with a friend, I won't

Name who they are, I was having one of those days, right? Just in the dumbs. I was taking this trip and I was uh doing some work and um This particular person was running a network. And uh running a company, the CEO.

And um, you know, I was feeling all bad and stuff and I said, Man, you know, how do you know It's a brilliant person. I want to give some insight. First thing that person said was well I was a child with cancer. And when you really do go through a situation to where

You're gonna wear hair or no hair. You truly find out that it is up on you to Make a choice to Enjoy it or be happy or Attempt.

To get yourself. Going. And when they said that, I was like man All these problems. That I feel that I have and this person just told me they were a kid with cancer.

So that kinda made me realize like, okay. Put everything to the side. This person just told me that it is really our choice. Not necessarily that Bad things won't happen. Or life won't throw curveballs. Or things happen or you won't be in a rut. It's just that when you're in this rut.

It's on you. To get out of it. And to actually have confidence. Now People can help you. But one of the things that we always said in basketball

If you were like on a shitty team One of the worst experiences to have'cause You know, you're losing and then you're feeling bad inside, but then you're making money and it's good money and People are like, Oh, you're fine. Which It's like this paradox.

But like We always used to say, Hey, look, nobody's coming through that door. If you're waiting. on that perfect person. Or that perfect

utopian moment to come is not. You gotta start putting the work in now. Pick yourself up. Self motivation, right? Yeah. You gotta get yourself going and then you'd be surprised.

Things start happening. Yeah. But you can't Sit in the bed feeling sorry for yourself. That's like one of the toughest things to do. Sorry with all these basketball analogies, but I think it's fair. Five game losing streak. One of the hardest things to do is to bounce back and actually win a game'cause it's hard.

Start watching basketball. Watch a bad team play. They have a chance to win the game. They're in the game. One bad thing will happen and they just oh, the body language, the sh shoulders start slouching. People start No no no keep playing. Yeah, okay. You you you know, it's a couple things that hurt or it's a couple things that Hell.

It sucks. Let's get that out the way. It sucks right now. But We're not gonna know pity parties. You know that. That becomes uh being old very fast. And you do see success. That's not gonna take away the challenges. You know, it's still gonna be you're still gonna be faced with challenges daily.

But If you get into the mindset To where You say, Okay, hey, problem solution, look in the mirror. What am I gonna do right now because I'm gonna stop feeling sorry for myself,'cause it's so easy, right? You could just

Oh man, uh you know, the coach, uh they they did it. Oh man, uh After a while it gets old. Yeah. And I assume if someone's listening to this now, even if they're in a place where they Don't wanna be frustrated with it. It's a daily grind, but it's not gonna happen tomorrow.

You gotta make that decision. Start focusing, start visualizing and and start working toward that goal and know Just because you had this moment of thought and say, okay, I'm going for it. The seas aren't gonna part.

You know, it's just not gonna just open up for you and say, Okay, Chris, great. Yeah, this is what you wanted. What it yes. It's not like that. You've gotta be consistent, be diligent. And just know that the challenge is gonna come and when these things arise again, I'm not gonna feel sorry for myself. We're gonna win this game. Even when it gets hard. And then we're gonna do it again and again and again and again. And just you know. Get to that point. That's a great story.

When you had it is when you had that conversation with this uh I guess network exec. Do you recall what the next thing was that you did when you were like, Oh wow, okay, that puts things in perspective. I stopped complaining. Yeah. I knew I was comp I didn't know I was complaining, but I I heard myself. I heard my language. Sometimes you gotta listen to yourself. And this was me after me promising myself that I wouldn't complain after I came from Africa. I went to Africa. We went to Joe Berg, we went out to Clinttown and Soweto. And solve real poverty. Yeah.

Went to India, speaking of being the uh NBA Global Ambassador. We've went to places and we have seen real poverty. You know, that make the projects look like a five star hotel. And so When I saw those things and you take in all that stuff, it's like man, it's heavy.

What have I been complaining about? I haven't been complaining. Uh uh man, I've been complaining a little bit. When she said that, I instantly stopped feeling sorry for myself and said, Okay At the end of the day. Yeah. Thirteen years in the league.

And I've got a shot. At doing something else. That's all I need. I don't need the Like I say, that leader to come

By and say, No, Chris, let me tell you something. Kick the door in and just get me going. You know, for even having Not weakness, not points of weakness, but just like having those thoughts and just saying Like w what do people say when if you think you've got problems where everybody put their problems on the table, you'll pick yours back up real quick. Never heard that. That's great. It's kinda that's pretty much what it was. Like, okay, I got some problems with man. Okay. I'll take those back. Yeah.

When that bad how you feeling? Fine. I'm doing great. Oh I'm so glad that they were having this conversation. It's so easy. To complain. And I feel like I've been complaining a lot in the last handful of weeks and it's It's socially reinforced. You will find somebody if you go searching.

Who's gonna encourage you? Oh yeah, you're right to feel that way. Oh that's terrible. And then how do you feel, right? Yeah. How do you feel when you're doing it? And that's for people listening. too, you know, and make you look at who's around you a little more. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough and it sucks and it's been like that for years, but aren't you tired of it? Yeah. You sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Yeah. Right. After a while. It's not gonna change. Yeah. These habits that you're building, you gotta think about the habits that you're building. What And I tell people too.

Be conscious of what you're consuming, especially nowadays. I tell my kids that I try to, you know. Even for myself, you know, just With everything you can consume, it's a lot of BS. Yeah. You know, so just be aware of what you're putting into your mind, what you're thinking about. And yeah, birds like a feather, right? If you're

You find yourself complaining and yeah, you people SAP you can have pity party, but after a while they're gonna get tired of you complaining. They're gonna be complaining about you. You know, so it just you you just get to a point where it's like okay, hey man, let's talk about solutions. Yeah, you know, let's talk about solutions. How do we get out of this rut or how do we find That next thing to do. For me, music and writing I would have looked at you like you had eight heads.

Five, six years ago. Music m maybe five years ago. Not so much writing. Yeah. Uh I always did'em. But

Just thinking of that I wouldn't have even come close at that time. But Going through challenges and situations. You wanna You wanna come out better, right? You don't wanna Still be hold up.

Talking about what could have been or why it didn't happen. That gets old after a while. So ladies and gentlemen, if uh Chris Bosch can have these days, you can too, but it's about what you actually do in response. to those days. You know, a long time ago. You're inspire me, I'm gonna do it again.

I I read a short book. It was called The Twenty One Day No Complaint Experiment, written by a pastor. Will Bowman I think is the name. And it's just a commitment to not complain for twenty one days. And it had a huge impact. I got repeat. And uh I'm gonna do that because Like you said, if you were to put your problems on the table with Even a small subset of human kind, you'd be like, I'll take those back. Thanks, thanks. No nobody take my problem cookies. I want those. I'm going home with those

And uh it really does make a tremendous difference. And I think that's Letters to a young athlete is gonna do a lot of good. I'm very excited about this. I I'm thrilled you took the time to do it properly. Two and a half years. When I hear people like, yeah, we started writing it three months later, we were done. I was like, Don't send it to me. And hey, look. Would I had preferred it to be one and a half? Sure. We had the intention, but you know, the The process is the process, right? You go through, you know, and and we've been hands on

Yeah, from the jump. This has been so special to me. But it's like uh I was joking the other day, uh you said in in writing about a book overcoming obstacles. We had to overcome obstacles writing the book. You know, that was you know, that was a good one, man. And it was uh it was such a it was a tremendous process and I think a lot of people will really, really be able to Take something for themselves, no matter what they do. They'll be able to take s something for themselves because, you know, it's been a team effort through and through.

It's been one of those things to where I'm talking about people that I admire. And situations that I admire from my own life that It's like, Oh yeah, in the moment you're just doing it, but then reflecting on it, it's like, Oh yeah. That conversation. That I had with my coach.

Back when I was twenty one, that was set off these ripple effects. Set off the ripple effects so I wouldn't freak out. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh It makes me happy you took the time. I remember somebody said to me at one point, I was struggling as I do with any writing and a struggling through book. And they said, Oh You're ninety percent done, congratulations, you only have fifty percent left. And I was like

Ninety percent fifty percent like wait a minute. Wait a minute. They're like. And they're like Yeah, you'll see You'll see what I mean. You'll see what I mean. No, that's great. And I think you know, athlete is an interesting Term. And Letters to a young athlete. You might even say letters to a young competitor and people might be inclined to say, Well, I'm not a competitor and I would say

You are even if you don't compete with other people, there's a competition like we've been discussing between Your lesser selves and your better selves. Absolutely. Yeah and We're all in the game. Everybody's in there and And you know, it's is you know, like I said, giving you the tools and and teamwork is definitely one of uh one of the main tools of course, mental preparation, self motivation, getting yourself ready and going, but Teamwork, working with others, learning how to coexist.

with people going after that goal. Definitely. I think that's a huge, huge important thing that we definitely, definitely talk about because Going to Miami. Playing with the best two players in the world. So My ego had to take a back seat.

I came in thinking I was gonna be the number one scorer. In the league. Definitely in Miami. Only because I said, Man They can score, but I can score too, and they're gonna be making plays for me. That was in my head, but

The math doesn't work. You know, you're going to have to Learn how to coexist within this structure. Being the third peg on the stool, nothing wrong with that. But

Fighting that notion that that actually means something. Putting a team before yourself and You know, making those tough decisions that you have to make. Because it doesn't feel good, but The team. Get it done. So hey Chris, you need to

Play at the center. Guard these Bigger dudes,'cause you're the only one that can do it. Rebound the ball and get it to these guys. Like, no, no, no, no. I want to score. You know, you give me the ball. No, no, no. Spo, you must have it wrong. You get me the ball and everybody else get out the way. That's how we did it. And it's not necessarily the case if you want to be successful. So that's like always kind of a thing that always

Took very importantly and took the heart. I if you're going after a championship or legacy or greatness or something like that. And you're part of a team. The team has to come before The person and what's best for the team.

You know, might not. Be best for your ego sometimes and you have to be okay with that. You gotta tell you. You go take the back seat. Let yourself take the back seat. We're going to be champions, man. Yeah. Sometimes that's what it takes. Yeah, man. If you wanna go fast, go alone. If you wanna go far. Go together. And together, man. Chris Bosch at Chris Bosch on Twitter

Also on Instagram at Chris Bosch. Official Chris Bosch on Facebook, the new book is Letters to a Young Athlete. I've really enjoyed this conversation. It's so nice to meet you. Same here. Nice meeting you, man. And uh Is there anything else you'd like to do?

To say to the audience any other Requests, comments, questions, anything you'd like to add before we before we wrap up? Oh man, I I just love starting a discussion. I think that's what the future is really going to be about. So I want this book. to be a discussion and really, you know, all all books and just Be a civilized Discussion and where we can see where each other's coming from.'Cause I think nowadays, you know, things get polarized and kinda

Either taken out of context or being too much. I want everyone to know how important this book is. To me But With that said, we want to start the conversation of how To be great, breaking those things down.

How to constantly uh get over those challenges like I keep alluding to that are coming. And to have those open discussions and just continue to push the boundaries in a in a positive great way. But Let everybody know they can do it. If they have that thing. Do it.

Don't wait. And you can do it. Look in the mirror. Don't complain. Problem and solution. Look in the mirror.

Problem and solution. Letters to a young athlete. Is the book. And I'm excited for you. That's uh it's it's a big accomplishment. I know how much effort goes into it. And uh I'm I'm thrilled that people will get to learn also the principles, right? You'll have stories, but also the principles that you've applied

Not just to one thing, but to many things. Even though you are best known for one thing. And I think, you know, in a way the the obstacles that you faced within the context of a book like this are a tremendous gift because There are battles everyone is fighting that we know nothing about. You've had to face and overcome.

Obstacles yourself. And I think that is incredibly humanizing. Also. No, absolutely. And that's what, you know, we you know, I like to call the pillars of uh getting through things, you know, the the pillars of success. That's kind of like my work and title for it, you know, is perseverance. Mental preparation, rising to the occasion. Teamwork is a is a huge of'em. Visualization is a huge'cause I feel in my life

Everything that's happened, I always saw it in my mind's eye first and did hours and hours and hours of imagining and um You know, and then it's time to put in the work after that and You can't just sit there and dream about it. You just gotta go out there and do it. And you know work be calculated. Of course, you just can't go out there with no goal and just Run around me like a chicken with your hair cut off, but

You can't identify that goal and then work backwards and say, Okay, what do I need to do? And work hard at those things. Yeah. One step at a time. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you, man. I'm uh so glad to be on here. It's great. I've been listening for years and it's great to be on here.

Oh wow. I hope it fits. Yeah, it does fit. It's it's great to spend some time together and uh for everybody listening, we will have links to everything, including letters to a young athlete, uh in the show notes at Tim.blog forward slash podcast easy to find. And until next time, thank you for tuning in. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun for the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share The coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up. in the uh the world of the esoteric as I do, it could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off.

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