Chris Bosh on Playing the Inner Game

our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks

for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Chris Bosh, NBA Hall of Famer, eleven time All Star, two time NBA champion, and Olympic gold medalist. Chris had his playing days cut short in their prime by a freak medical condition, but hasn't let that stop him. Today, Chris and Eric discuss his book, Letters to a Young Athlete. Hi, Chris, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. It is a pleasure to

have you on. I don't pay attention to sports much, but there is one sport I do care about, and it's NBA basketball, and you were one of the greats. You're actually slated to be on the vote for Hall of Fame, right, yeah, I am. My fingers are crossed. So hopefully, um, we'll be hearing some good news within the next few days, I hope. So. Also, we're going to get to all that in more in a moment, particularly talking about your new book called Letters to a

Young Athlete. But before we do that, we'll start, like we always do, with a parable There is a grandfather and he's talking with his granddaughter and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred. And fear, And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second, and she looks up at her

grandfather and she said, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well. One of the things that always found that helped me be successful was working backwards. So I would see myself being successful. I would visualize it, you know, in in this case, it would be playing basketball in the NBA, and I would do everything that I could

to help aid that. And yeah, there are a multitude of things that you can get into, both good and bad, but you always want to make sure whatever you're doing in your day to day actions should be going towards that pinnacle goal that you have, and if you don't have it, you should, you know, start searching and looking

for that. But I always felt that, yeah, just kind of like the parable says, whatever you feed, that's what's gonna get stronger, that's what's gonna have the most energy, that is what is going to be the dominant force, and whatever it is you're thinking about and I think it's easy to kind of, you know, say those things, but you have to back it up with action, and you have to feed the good wolf even during bad times.

And I think that's, you know, the most important part that we all skip sometimes or that can be the challenge, but whatever the wolf that you feed will be the one to win. And I like that comparison because you don't want to be something lesser than you want to be that forced to go after things with vigor and everything. So I like that spirit of the animal of the wolf.

But like you said, it can be good and bad, and I always try to make sure that I'm putting things into something that I want to see positive results out of, you know. So going back to that analogy of being that kid wanting to make the n B A. You know, sometimes there will be parties or something like that, or a social gathering or friends going here after school, which all of the times wasn't the best place or the best things to be doing for adolescent kids. I

would rather stay in the gym. I would rather dream about basketball, pick up a basketball. I would be in the courtyard dribbling on concrete. Even if I didn't have a gym, you know, it's feeding that good wolf in the hopes of one day it paying off and me being ready for whatever that test will be in the future. Yeah. I think there's so much in what you say there, and so much of your book I think actually ties back to this parable, which we're going to get into.

But I want to start with the title because the title is called Letters to a Young Athlete, and it's based on two other books that you've read, one of which is one of my favorite books of all time, which is Letters to a Young Poet. Rilka's book Letters to a Young Poet has been a favorite of mine since I was probably eighteen years old. I go back to it again and again. And that's one of the books that inspired you for this. But tell me about

the other one. The other one is Letters to a Young Jazz Musician, some kind of in that vein of the letters. Another one actually that is slipping my mind right now, the letters that Seneca wrote to his protege. I've always been an avid reader, pretty much my first book.

I read my first novel when I was in the eighth grade and completed it in I felt so good, and really ever since that day, I've always tried to consume more information, and I like the curiosity in people's eyes when you know, you tell them, oh, yeah, I read that book or I read a book you know that was always very fascinating. So it maybe want to consume more information, and it became a pastime for me. And so those are you know, the top heavy inspirations.

But you know, I drew inspiration from so many sources. I mean, you talk about a lot of books under the sun and authors and people trying to help aid people to you know, accomplish their goals or get through a tough challenge or a tough situation. I read a lot of those books, and I just wanted to pretty much write something that I felt I wanted to read,

you know, kind of fill in those blanks. This is like the book that I wanted to read before again, because I read before games and after games, you know, my whole career. This is pretty much the book that I would want to read to help me get ready and focused for the task ahead. Excellent. I want to move to a line that comes from near the very end of your book, but I wanted to start there. You talked about starting with the end in mind and working backwards. So I'm gonna do the same thing here.

And it has to do with the way that your playing career ended. And I'll let you tell that story in whatever way you want. But you say that stepping away from the game challenged me at the soul level, but it also opened up my soul in new ways. Just share a little bit about that well I played, you know, my whole career, just trying to aspire to be better, wanting to be an All Star, wanting to

win a championship, and really just wanting to compete. You know, basketball has been my life, and up until that point it was. It gave me shelter, um help me travel the world. I am the person I am today because of the game, and that's both on the high level and the lower amateur levels. I mean, I made some of my best friends, ain't basketball. I mean, you know, some of my best summer days were on the road, A bunch of boys in one room playing PlayStation and

we've got a game tomorrow. Those are some of my fondest memories. You know. For all of that to come to an end, a lot of people forget I've been removed from the game for five years now. Or so, and a lot of people forget I was trying to reinvent myself in a different fashion. I was at that point in my career where I'm young but not that young.

I'm old but not that old, you know, right there in the middle, but still able to kind of draw that elite performance out of myself and and you know, still trying to prove that I'm one of the best in the world at basketball. And then all of a sudden I couldn't play the game anymore. It wasn't a dramatic instance. It was just a doctor saying, well, you can't play. And you know, I had had so many great feelings and all these wonderfu things that the game have given me, and I'm back on the top of

my game. And this is after and we'll get to that. This is after coming out of the hospital and proving that I can still you know, compete at an elite level. After getting out of the hospital and having surgery and being in there for two weeks, I was still able to get back to that point. And then one day I couldn't play the game anymore. And that was the challenge at the soul level. You know, Um, if that's

all you've done. I felt it wasn't fair. It hurt tremendously, and I had never given any thought to what my life would be without playing the game. You know, usually in your mind, you think you'll have more time, right those who are listening or any sports fans, you've got that cliche, the idea in your head of the old vet, you know, having that one last lap or that one

last game, or that one last season. And I obsessed over those things just like anybody else, just like I obsessed over winning a championship and being successful in the n b A. And not only was I not even going to get close to that it ends today, you know, and try for almost two years trying to get back into the game, but it just didn't happen. It didn't go that way, and I had to eventually be open to exploring other avenues and thinking about other things. Yeah,

that will take you in new directions. But it strikes me as for somebody who never contemplated what to do after the game, you were remarkably well prepared for a life post basketball. Given so many of the lessons in this book that you talk about, and I think the first one I want to start with because I think it ties directly to this is letter number two, which is about you have to find your why. And you have a line in there that ties directly to what

we were just saying. Is you say you're what can be taken away from you in an instant. Your why can outlast that. So share your career ending in context of that line. We'll paint a better picture so that people understand. I was playing with a pulmonary embolism. I don't know how long I was, but I definitely played with a partially collapsed loan for about a month. Two months.

Shouldn't have been playing, but you know, like I said, I was trying to prove myself to be the best in the game, and I was so driven that I was kind of even blinded. Even pain wouldn't stop me. I ended up having a pulmonary embolism was very severe. I eventually had to get tubes in my chest to drain out. I had to get surgery on my lungs because I had complex situations that developed while I was

in the hospital. I was in the hospital, like I say, for about two weeks recovered from that surgery, and it took me longer to recover at home, eventually got back to it, started playing again, became an All Star again through the grace of God. Then I was doing the right thing. My calf was sore one day, and it was around the same time that I had been hospitalized, so I was very very strict on doing the right thing.

So I went to the hospital to go get it checked out, get a stink scan to make sure there wasn't a blood clot. But they found a blood clot. And two days before that was the last game I had ever played, and you know, I had to pretty much go from there. I was thirty one, I hadn't turned thirty two yet. I might have been thirty one, a thirty one, thirty two years old right at that cusp of my birthday, and that was pretty much the

end of my career. So I had to pivot from that moment and deal with the pain of not playing anymore, deal with the pain of not being able to be picked up and knowing what I was gonna do. But one thing that really helped me was just being open to um. A friend of mine told me there's greatness and hobbies, and I was always open to hobbies and not to say that you're gonna know things right away.

But I found those things to pour my energy into, to pour that concentration that I usually used on the court into, you know that a husband, being a father, falling into those you know, daily things in life that need to be addressed, you know, whether that's paying your bills or taking your kids to school. I'm in the drop offline and the mornings dropping off my son every morning, you know. And um, those were the things that I kind of really really poured myself into and and it

really really tremendously helped me. And one of those things was writing. I always wrote my thoughts down and things like that throughout my whole life. And I was aware of it, not all the way, but people would always tell me, man, you really have a gift to write. You should really not pursue it. But they would just be a mention. You know, that is always stuck with me. And I found myself just writing down my thoughts and

my feelings free writing every morning. You know, I was aware of my thoughts and what I'm thinking and just saying, man, okay, I'm tired of being tired. You know, I've had this pity party for long enough now it's time to start

thinking on an upward trajection. I don't know what I'm gonna do, but let's start those positive thoughts right now, because when you write things down and you're reading those words back, it's kind of I was embarrassed for myself, you know, And after getting all of that out, I got to a point of appreciation. Instead of saying, oh man, it was just stolen from me, I say, man, look what I could do with the help of teammates. Look at what can happen in thirteen years. How cool is that?

How cool is that to have that experience and be able to look back on it and say, okay, cool, even if it is incomplete, or if I feel it's incomplete, to feel confident about it, and you know, to be frank, that's usually how it goes. There is no parade riding off. You know. I had friends that were injured and you know, never got that call back. You know, there's more people who experienced, at least guys and girls playing professional sports. That's the regular news that you get. It's just over

one day. And so that made me really really think on how appreciative I was and I am, on how I was able to put pieces together for myself day by day. But how much I loved it, how much fun I had, how much I just love showing up to the gym. Were you talked about you mentioned finding your why. That was like an easy why for me, Like I love the smell of a gym, you know that smell when you want in a recreation center, and usually people like those are the things that I love.

Just overtook my senses and then one day I'd be able to express myself and get out there and scream and yell and push myself and push my teammates and just be the best I could be and you know, have a performance that was really cool. But looking back on it, I'm just so grateful of how everything went about because that was my why. That's why I loved it. You know, the what basketball me playing basketball gone, But it does not take away my love for the game

and my love to get better every day. Yeah, as you're talking about finding your why, you describe this conversation of a coach who asks you early on kind of why you're doing this, and uh, you describe and exercise in it. That is what I do with coaching clients a lot which is really about sort of asking why and then asking why again. Didn't talk a little bit about, you know, how you keep digging in and and trying

to get to a deeper why. Well. I mean, you know, it would be easy for a kid to say, I want to be a professional tennis player, right, and that's wonderful. It's it's up there in the mind. But then when you start diggings, well, I found that I couldn't answer those questions, even for myself, and so I had to spend time to eventually get to a point where Okay, at least I've gone as deep as I can, and I will continue to ask those questions, but I've got

a decent starting point. And that's what I mentioned in the book. You know, sometimes some people will be on stuff just because their dad wants them to or their mother wants them to, or man, i'm really really tall. I don't like basketball, but they said I should play. If you're doing something, you don't want to be in a position when you're just doing something just to do it, you know. And that's something I try to teach my kids.

You know, my kid might throw something and just make a mess in the house and it's okay, it's not a big deal. We'll clean it up. But why did you do that? Usually what do they say? Well, I don't know. And you know, I wanted to be very mature in this thought process, and I got pushed quite young to think about these things, why are you doing this? And to kind of harp on that story. At that particular time in the gym, that was the first time where I knew I could be successful and make the NBA.

There wasn't a down in my mind because I'm looking at my coach's eyes and he's he's he's looking at me like wow. Because we hadn't worked out in a while. He had been out of town and it was the summer or I think in the school year or something like that, and we just went to the gym randomly one night. I think he was probably pushing me, let's go to the gym the night on a weeknight. You know, I was doing workout. He stopped the whole thing, like

I remember it like it was yesterday. He stopped the whole thing and said, Okay, what do you want to do? Why do you want to do this? He started asking me these questions, and you know, I said, well, I want to go to the NBA. I want to go to college. He said, you'll do that, that's easy. Start

thinking deeper. And so he challenged me at that time to really really put some thought into it, because we weren't going to be talking about talent, you know, we weren't gonna be talking about being a run of the meal situation, which is nothing wrong with those things. But he was talking about being great, you know, and I understood that right away. So I started thinking about those things. You know, what am I trying to do? What do I want to do? And it made me reflect on

how I view my heroes and how I feel. So hopefully, when I get to that position and I have those young people looking up at me, or whoever is looking up at me, I want them to feel this. I want them to feel a certain way when they see you, when they experience what I have. That section in the book where you talk about loving the sound of sneakers in the gym, loving the hand helping you off the

floor when you're down, is such a great description. In psychology, there's the concept I'm sure you're familiar with intrinsic and extrins motivation, right intrinsic motivation is we do something because of the thing itself. You're describing these great intrinsic motivations. You know, I love the way the jym smells. I love, you know, the feeling of a teammate helping me up off the floor. And then you know, of course, then

there's extrinsic also, right. You mentioned your dad saying to you, Hey, I'm not gonna be able to put you through college, so if you want to go to college, be better, you better learn to play. So I think that's, you know, great that it sort of shows these two motivations, you know, not that one is better than the other. But in the book you make a point around the football coach Sean Payton and you talk about him making two different speeches.

I was wondering if you could share that because I thought that was such another great primer on intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. Yeah. Absolutely, And I'll get into Sean Payton in one second. But whatever you said made me think about one particular thing. You know, when I was a kid, things weren't always the best, right, And when I say that, some say pretty bad. You know, Um, we had food to eat, thankfully, But sometimes, I mean I witnessed my

parents cars being repossessed. There were times where we didn't have electricity. There were times when my parents told me, yeah, we don't have money to get new clothes for school this year. And think about that. You know how tall I am. I'm six ft eleven inches, so you could probably think that I was a pretty tall eighth grader with big feet, you know. And there were all these extremities that I couldn't control. But when I got on

that court, it all changed. Anytime I thought about the game, or visualize myself playing, or imagine myself and close my eyes and saw myself being successful, you know, I like to think those were the things I could control, and so I could always control my effort. You know, I had a coach telling me, man, be on time. I can do that. I can do that. I can control my effort. I can control being on time. Um, I can help this team be successful. I can add value,

I can make friends. That's something I can't control. But the extremity, sometimes it just is what it is. And so I found myself in a place to where I could really express myself and be myself, you know, you can imagine a tall kid in a school, I mean, I stick out like a sore thumb, a kid in their adolescent You really have to find your way and find yourself in between all that. But that just made me think about that. The story was Sean Payton the

first time after Katrina, after this catastrophic situation. You know, he takes the guys to the super Dome where they just reopened. They will be playing, and I don't know if you know Saints fans, but they're pretty serious bunch of fans. You know. It's very very uh, very very serious. And it was more so about the spirit of that city and the spirit about what the players and with their families and the people of Louisiana, especially the city of New Orleans, had been through. And so that was

the purpose of playing. That was the spirit in the place. And he used that to really really motivate his players and to get them to see that it's not just about them, it's about the team, it's about a city, it's about the Saints, you know. And then there was another time where as fate would have it, they of course they're one of the best teams in the league. I'd say that in the book too, there was a call in there that kind of you can definitely argue it,

but you know, just a sense of motivation. It was all exterior, you know, bringing out money and showing the guys and these are guys that have already made the most money in the world. And I say in the book as well, I'm not trying to pick on Sean. I was just trying to make the point that you can see the night and day in the motivation with his team, and maybe a year or two after that

Katrina situation, he ended up winning a championship. I know a couple of guys, one of my good friends, John Filmer, one of the great linebackers to play the game. He was able to help lead charge with that. But just the spirits was different. If there's money, I mean not to say, you know, of course we need money to survive, but if you're using money as a factor, that's when you should be okay, why, that's when you need to start asking yourself those questions and and start digging a

little deeper. But at the professional level, I just felt like keeping those main things, the main things, the spirit, the upliftment of community, the example that you're setting for young men and young women around the world, and men and women around the world. You know, those things should be thought of as opposed to willing out. It was super cool though, let me, it was really you know, really really super cool the way he did it and brought out you know, real cash and stuff like that.

It's real cool. But you know, sometimes the motivating factors need to involve a little more spirit in my opinion, and those are the things that are gonna get you through in the fourth quarter. You know, I can't pick up ten grand and that's gonna help me in middle of a game. You know, my opponent wants it just as bad as I do, and we will have to do this dance and I have to be open to whatever happens after. But I'm very confident in my preparation

in my skill. Yeah. Yeah, Letter six is sweep away your ego. And I want to talk a little bit about the question you ask in there and then you go on and you answer, but you say, what's the difference between ego and confidence? And I was wondering if you could just share a little bit about what those two things mean to you. That's always kind of a

slippery slope. Right. We wanted to make sure that we defined the difference between ego and confidence, because some people will, you know, ego is a good thing and I need my ego and things like that. Fair enough, the point that we are making in the whole thing, the ego kind of says, well, I'm the one that should be playing. Confidence says, oh, we're gonna win this game tonight even if you don't play. You know, confidence says man, if I'm in this situation, I have prepared over and over

and over for this situation. I've visualized it, I've done it in practice, I have physically executed it in the real world and in my imagination. If it comes down to this point, I believe I can succeed. And these are very quick thoughts you have to have in sports, right, you know, the ego can be debilitating. It's an I

first mentality. It's not team It's something that I feel a lot of people it can derail them because they'll be thinking about themselves and what they feel that they need at that time to feed something that won't even help at the end of the day. I've seen situations physically, um, you know, playing in the NBA never want to pick on players, so I'll leave him a name. But I

had a teammate, and I think about this. The coach told them, Hey, if we win, everybody gets paid, every everybody looks good, everybody will be able to be more valuable and have a more valuable contract. To do whatever you want to do. But for the team to be successful, you need to play defense, set picks, and roll to the rim. That's all you gotta do. And this particular gentleman was more fixated on saying, well, no, no no, no, I can do these things to help the team. So

I should get the ball more. You should give me the ball more. And I've got game, I'm telling you. And I thought that was so fascinating because here's the coach. The coach and the veterans on the team at the time told this player exactly what needed to be done to help the team, not to say it's gonna be easy, but as opposed to embracing it and saying, Okay, this is what I'm gonna do to help this team be successful, because if we go up, we all, you know, team

goes up, we all go up. They chose to um, you know, stay stubborn and show that they had game. On the flip side, I've had teammates to just play hard, be on time, and do what's asked of them to help the team be successful and have a long, long career in the NBA. And once upon a time in the NBA people said they couldn't play and they turned into a fourteen fifteen year career. That's the point that I try to get across when I speak of ego,

And that's the difference with confidence. If I'm like, you know, ego will tell you don't have to work. I'm good enough, let's go. Confidence is like, nah, I worked out last night, I worked out in the morning. I worked out the night before that and the morning before that. So I'm ready. I'm ready and willing. I'm ready to go. Let's do this. And I think that's the biggest difference. Yeah, you say, the paradox of ego is that if you want to be great, you've got to be honest with yourself about

all the ways you're not great yet. Oh that's tough, you know. That was a tough lesson I had to learn. When we got together in Miami, Lebron James and Dwayne Wade. We thought that we were gonna be successful, of course, right we we thought we were going to be successful. Not that we didn't work hard and not that we didn't prepare. It's just we got beat you know, and you get to a point where you have to own that. You know, and you can't just show up and be great.

That's not realistic. Sometimes you have to go through the challenges, through the hardships, you know, just because you're really good at something and you show up. We've got a saying, you know, it's pretty simple, but you don't really think about it, right, Like you want to get to the championship and you want to win it. I never thought that I would lose in an NBA finals. I watched Michael Jordan, he won all of six and all. Never thought that I would be on the end of a

beating in front of everybody. But that's what happened. And we really really have to look at ourselves, look at our team, and say, man, you got to get better. We cannot be complacent. You remember all the mistakes that you made on the way. That extra five minutes I could have stayed and I said no. That film session that I knew I should have done as soon as I got home, I didn't do. You know, all these things start coming back and haunting you, and you know,

we just didn't want to feel that again. So we got to a point where we were willing to do whatever it was that was necessary as a team. But most importantly, we would stick together and we would not let ego get involved, and we would definitely prepare every day and be confident in going after the pursuit of another championship and not worry about what could happen. You know, we're gonna be in the present. We understand that can happen, and we're okay with that. We might lose, but probably not,

probably not, because we're gonna do this. We're gonna run harder, train faster, get better, rest, better recovery. You know, we're going to be a better team and this is going to really help us out. You describe when it comes to ego kind of in your own life two separate times. I think of playing for the US World Champion team, and you know, you described the first time where you brought a fair amount of ego, perhaps, and then you described a second time where you don't you want to

share briefly about that absolutely. So um. You know, I was able to compete with the national team in two thousand and six and two thousand and eight. Two thousand and six and was the World Championship, and this was after the disappointment in two thousand and four we did not win. You know, anything short of gold medal for the US is a failure, and we were called the

redeem team. And so there's two different instances and oh six, we got third place, end up losing in the semifinals, embarrassment, pain, all of those things, you know, and then in oh eight we were able to win the gold medal, you know, in a very very dire and important situation. The difference from my point of view, the funny thing is it all seeds from one thing. I want to play and help this team, okay, And there's ways to go about that. I was twenty two years old in the first instance,

and all I could think about was playing. That's all I wanted to do, was play. And then that kind of turned into well, why didn't I play yesterday? Or why am I not getting as many minutes? You know, it's a shorter game with more talent, and you know, naturally, there's gonna be less shots, there's gonna be less points,

there's going to be less minutes. And so I go from being the top guy getting all the shots in Toronto during the regular season to being more of a role player off the bench, and as opposed to really diving into that and perfecting that role, I was kind of not kind of I was pounding about not playing. Now, I do say in the book as well, I'm not sure if I wasn't the boisterous guy that is an obvious problem in the locker room or an obvious problem

within the team. But I definitely did not help the situation by being silent or sulking or kind of complaining or you know. And the parallel that I drew was like, Wow, we were successful one time and we weren't the other time. It's not to say that it totally fell on me, but in my part in playing the team, it was more of the shortening back in two thousands and six.

The difference in two thousand and eight was still want to play, but this time I'm doing whatever is necessary to be able to be out there on that court. And at the time I had to be real with myself I said, look, this was the situation. Last time. I didn't get to play too much. I felt a certain way because of offense, because I'm not getting touches, because I'm not getting a lot of points. Well, let's be fair. We've got Lebron, James, Carmelo, Anthony, Kobe Bryant,

Dwyane Wade. I mean, they're magical with the basketball in their hands. Let me get out the way to give them space. And then you know what happened. I got the ball anyway by getting out the way and helping the team out, playing defense, listening to the coaches, knowing that I will have to compete to be the backup center, and being okay with that and confident in the work that I put in, and that was the main difference,

and you know, we were successful. I ended up being in a situation in two thousand and eight where I was in a dream scenario, like literally, I watched the ninety two Olympics. The Dream Team revolutionized basketball across the globe. I was one of those kids watching that. And now I'm closing out the gold medal game in crunch time

and it's close game. But you know, coach k or coach he had enough confidence in me to put me out there because I guess at that time I was aiding the team in a way that would help us win a gold medal. And you know, I always reflected on that, and I mentioned in the book as well, I felt embarrassed just about my attitude. Like, man, it's back in two thousand and six, that's not even who did I have around me? Who was I listened to? What was I putting in my head that made me

even think like that? Two thousand and eight, whole different perspective. I was much more appreciative and and and ready to help the team out, feeding the good wolf firstus the bad wolf. Definitely. I was definitely feeding the bad wolf in the first one, as opposed to after a game saying, hey, we won that game, so what can we do to win the next one? Speaking back in two thousand and six, I just go to dinner. I gotta blow off team because I didn't play. No, I want to play twelve minutes.

Can't you see I can play too, ye, soaking bad wolf. The good wolf is just like, hey, alright, guys, what you need me over there? Okay, I'll be over there, no problem, Because and that is sad. That is like that, But disappointment sometimes is the best medicine. It's that best is that nasty cod liver oil that your grandma makes you take. It's good for you, but it's tough going down.

So um, I want to move to letter nine, which is about handling criticism, and in doing so, I'm gonna briefly share what it is about NBA basketball why I think I partially love it, and it has nothing to do with NBA basketball. It's because my son was growing up in Ohio and he was a huge Lebron fan, right, which you would have been in the two thousands in Ohio. And I think it was just sub then we did together, and so I've always felt bonded towards the game because

it reminds me of that time with him. You know where I'm going with this. You joked, We joked about it in the beginning, right, Uh. You were part of a decision that broke the hearts of lots of Ohioans when Lebron decided to go to Miami in the in the two thousand's. My son is demanding an apology from you on this podcast now. M joking aside, you know, you walked into a situation where you were just criticized

and not liked, and it was just not nice. I mean, you know, even I being in Ohio and thinking like, well, I'm unhappy about this, looked at the level of vitriol that was out there and I thought, well, that's a little bit harsh. Let's take it easy here, right. So, but you were on the other end of that, right, as you say, you Lebron and Dwayne Wade were kind of hated. And you talk about the letter in the book called Don't let Him Get to You, so talk

a little bit about dealing with criticism. When we came together, it was a whole big hoop lot. People like to say it was a parade for the parade, which it kind of was. They had a parade without even playing a game, and there was no championship, and it was a lot of fun. At the time. We were just kind of in our zone and in our bubble. We were not aware or compassionate to others. We were just

i mean totally totally, totally absorbed in the moment. And it was kind of one of those things too, where it's just all right, you gotta be over here, over here, over here, over here, over and then the next thing you know, it's next weekend. You're kind of asking yourself what happened? And in that myself, looking back on it,

I wasn't. I was being a little naive. And like I told you, I grew up watching Michael Jordan's six championships eight years total team dominance, individual dominance, coaching dominance. That's what I aspired to be. And I know I'm sure Lebron and Dwayne were the same way. And in my mind, in my naive mind, I said, man, people are really gonna appreciate this forgetting that this is sports and everybody outside of Miami they want their team to win. And you know, I I like to say it was

it was a few straight bullets I got. You know, I was in a position where I thought that I would come in and I was looking at it from the wrong lens. You know, I said, Wow, I'm gonna go from Toronto to Miami, and man, people are gonna say hey, Chris, and I'm gonna get the waves and everybody's gonna be so happy forgetting that this is sports. And it can be harsh. It's just when you're on

the receiving end. It's totally totally different. And one of the things that I realized that the mistakes that I was making was wanting to hear something good or wanting the notification or the satisfaction. It was one point in particular, this is a true story, ex player. You know, people

will make you feel so oh unsure about yourself. That first year in Miami, had an excellent season, but I felt like I was just the biggest failure in the world, you know, because I was letting those outside voices keep getting into my head. I had been an All Star five years in a row in Toronto. I'm contributing to

a championship contending team. One X player left me off the All Star list one time on purpose, like left three slots blank, you know, and I was like, wow, all of these things were happening, and I was just kind of in a position where, you know, I haven't said anything to anybody. I just want to be successful,

and it just seemed personal. And it got to the point for me where I said, man, I don't like this feeling, you know, I'm feeling like this every day because of the comments section or because of what someone said.

And then I realized how insane that was, and so I just went within myself and I went to the gym, you know, And and one of the things I always like to say, if you're going to criticize me, you can criticize my work, ethic criticize these championships, criticize my success, because you will not criticize me for coming up short, for quitting, for not wanting to get back into the arena. You know, you definitely will not criticize that, because I

think that's the ultimate measure of success. You know, You're only a failure when you stop trying. That's when I think it's a failure all the way. If you say you're gonna go after something and you go after it, you you gotta be all in. You gotta fully go after it, and if you don't get it, will it hurt, Sure, but you have to be willing to put yourself out there. That makes it real. And so for myself, I just went within. I realized how crazy that was, Like, Wow,

I want people to say nice things about me. We're already kicking butt on the court. Let me go back to that stripped down version and just express myself on the court, you know, and go back to doing that. I was letting all of the focus is required, it's worth the goal. The minute you let even one percent of attention take you off of your path, you're not all in. So I eventually got to that point and I came to like criticism because if they're not criticizing you,

then that must mean you're not visible. That must mean you're not doing very well, you know, So you have to take it and stride. If if people are criticizing you for something that you're doing and being successful and you're positive, then you're in the right place. Yeah. You talk about the idea that criticism is a tax on success. Absolutely, if you're getting criticized, it's because you're being successful. And in the same way that having to pay a big

tax bill is a good thing. I mean, you don't want to pay a big tax bill, but it means you're making a lot of money, right right. You don't want to do it, but you know, I mean I'm doing okay, right right. The same thing with with criticism. And you said the best way to cope with criticism is to come to terms with its inevitability. Absolutely, and that's one of the things I learned I didn't learn that all of the way until we won a championship.

One of the things that I find a lot of people kind of and even myself too, uh, fall short of, is that we finally are successful, and now it's gonna get easy. You know. Now, boy, they're gonna respect us and we're gonna be good to go. Not not true. There will be other things that you have to fight, other challenges. There's always at least um in sports, another season. And if you are successful. That was you know, I had somebody just straight up tell me, yeah, anybody can

do it. Once I said, wow, this is somebody who hasn't played in the NBA, you know, And I said, wow, you know, this person has done great things in their profession. But I just thought, you know, and it wasn't meant to be malicious, just rolled off the tongue. And I was so fascinated by that, and I said, wow, okay, well, you know, let's continue to try, you know, to be great. So with me, it's always, you know, it's about doing

the daily work. You know, it's about investing in yourself, about going towards that goal daily, feeding that good wolf. You know, even if you're surrounded by bad wolves. Get out of that situation and do your best. Make sure your habits every day are feeding the things necessary to be successful, because you can fall short. You're not doing the daily work, you're cheating yourself. And I came to to feel that, and and really that was the funny thing.

It's always great in the pursuit of the goal. That's the easy part. It's harder to defend it, you know. And that's what I truly felt with like, hey, yea, anybody could do it once, you know, said wow, it really is way harder to defend your success as opposed to getting one time. Nothing wrong with getting it, but don't think. I don't want people listening to this to feel like, oh, well, when I get that thing is

just gonna be the gravy train after that. That's not the point and that's not what is going to happen. And a lot of people that can lead to things messing with them mentally because they thought, once I get this goal or once I'm a champion, the world will unlock, and that's not always the case. You have to find yourself putting in the love until your daily work every day into reaching that goal and like my great friend

once said, that's where the magic is. You know, that's where the magic is when you're doing those daily things every day to help you get there. That that's where you want to be, all right, Chris, Well, thank you so much for coming on the show. There's about ten other things that I would love to cover in your book, but we're not going to have time to. But the book is called Letters to a Young Athlete and it's highly recommended. Well of links to it in the show notes.

And Chris, I really do appreciate you coming on. It's been a real pleasure. Thank you very much. I appreciate you for having me. All right, take care, see you all right bye. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now. We are so grateful for the

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