Chasing Olympic Gold with Stoic Virtues | with Greg Harden, Kate Courtney, & Chris Bosh

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1:03Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal, and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring.

1:55Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. So as you know, stoicism is popular with athletes these days. And maybe some snooty journalists are like, oh, it's a fad, it's a trend. You know, it's just, that's not what philosophy is about. But what's fascinating is that the connection between stoicism and sports goes back 2000 plus years, not just because the stoics were fond of wrestling metaphors and boxing metaphors and running metaphors, but because the Stoics actually were athletes. And in fact, there was one Stoic named Chrysippus, who was an Olympic level Greek runner.

2:32And I talk about this story also in Right Thing right now. If you didn't listen to part one of the episode, we're focusing on the Stoics and the Olympics, what we can learn and how these two things come together. And so let me run you this excerpt too, because I was talking about how a Stoic would think about being an athlete or what sports can teach us about philosophy. And I'll run you this quick story. There's a modern example, and then I talk about Chrysippus a little bit.

2:59In 2012, the Kenyan runner Abel Kiprap Muti became confused at the end of a long race and pulled up a few meters short of winning. The Spanish runner Ivan Fernandez-Unya was close behind and could have easily used it as a chance to win. Instead, he gesticulated, ultimately pushed his competitor ahead and thus lost his own chance to win. Yet they both won in a way, and so did everyone watching by being and seeing humanity at its best. In ancient Greece, there was a stoic named Chrysippus, who was also a runner. He, like competitors today, wanted to win. He wanted to win badly. That's what sport and life is about.

3:38But he also understood that without a sense of honor, without a commitment to rules and fairness, victory is meaningless. It is not wrong to seek after the things useful in life, he said, speaking of the laurels that go to the champion, as well as the spoils of success in business or politics, but to do so while depriving someone else.

4:00And so that brings us to today's episode. As I said, we're doing a deep dive into Stoics and the Olympics. And the first person I wanted to talk to is Greg Harden. He's a performance and mental skills coach that came out to the painting porch. We didn't get to do it in the studio. We did it in the bookstore. but he not only worked with Tom Brady when Tom Brady was in college, but he worked with 23-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps. Actually, when we posted a clip of Greg on the podcast, Michael Phelps commented on it on Instagram. They've got a relationship that goes way back. You'll hear about the techniques that he's used to coach many athletes, including Olympians, to the highest level of success.

4:41What's that thing they say about Tom Brady? the one thing you can never do is give Tom Brady a second chance. Never. That's a mental, that's not, you don't give Tom Brady a second chance because he's so fast or so strong or he has the best pass. It's that if you give him a second chance, he'll learn from what he did wrong the first time. You know, he'll make you pay. Like that's a comment on the mental game. Yes. And he mastered the mental game early in life because I'm telling you, man, And he was so confident by the time he left the university, he truly believed. Because, I mean, if you've seen anything about me, you know, I simply will say to anyone, I couldn't teach him how to throw a ball.

5:26Yeah. I couldn't do anything except teach him how to believe without question or pause in who he was and who he wanted to become. But I think it's good you brought that up because, yes, his confidence is essential, but that's not innate, inherent confidence that he had since birth. There's a scene in the book you talk about where he's like, my coaches don't believe in me. And you go, well, basically, why should they? I mean, because you have to be brutally honest with folks that you care about. Yeah. You know, and you haven't demonstrated anything and you're worrying about what they think. Yeah.

5:59My job, Tom, is to convince you I don't care what the coaches think, and you can't afford to care either. You're not here to be liked. You're here to be efficient. You're here to be consistent. The single most important word in sports, consistency. I can get a hole in one. Yeah. Can't do nothing else. But at one time, that's not enough. Yeah. I can't consistently perform at that level. Right. But consistency is the key to who's going to be the best and who's going to be the winner. Right. But is there a difference between belief, confidence, and like ego? Why do you think I like you so much? Look, I'm going to be giving you a book that I signed.

6:50Yeah. And in that book, I'm going to go to page 61. Let us turn now to page 61. We're going to turn to page 61 in the book. And on page 61, you will see that it ends by talking about something very specific. If you look at letting your ego help you instead of just inflate you. Yes. You would think that I talked to you because you look at that last line, the secret. What does it say? The secret is to make your ego your ally, not your enemy. And some guy wrote a book. So how do you make your ego your ally? Walk me through it. Well, it's important to understand that ego in contemporary society is just bad words.

7:37Yes. But if it wasn't for ego, I wouldn't get out of bed no more. I've got to have the ability to be able to be self-motivated, to be able to push myself, to convince myself to not just dream, but to believe. Dreaming big is nice, but I have to believe big. And so I have to train my ego to be not something that just makes me lie to myself or fantasize that I'm the guy or be a narcissistic buffoon. I've got to convince my ego to be my best friend and to help me when I'm struggling for my what? Self-talk. I think what you're saying is ego is a kind of self-sufficiency, right? I think about this, I've tried to get to a place as a writer where I don't really care how the books sell.

8:28I don't really care what other people think about them. I know what I'm trying to do and I try to evaluate if they're good or not based on whether I did everything I was capable of doing, whether it achieved what I wanted to achieve, whether I'm proud of it or not, and then everything else is extra. And so in one sense, there's kind of an ego to that, right? Because you're saying what I care about and think about matters more than what other people care and think about. But there's also kind of a self-sufficiency to that that's like I'm playing my own game and that game is higher than the game of the crowd or the market or whatever.

9:06Because what we're talking about is having the ability to give 100 % of the time win, lose or draw. People get it when I say give 100%, 100 % of the time to be the best. But they miss it when I say win, lose, or draw. And so if I am willing to push myself, to believe in myself, and I end up being okay with it might work, it might not work, but I'm going to do the best I can with what I've got. Win, lose, or draw. that frees you and liberates you from the ego that's saying you're nothing unless you've conquered everyone no i'm right you have to be able to shrug shrug off striking out when losing bad call etc you have to be able to shrug that off baseball is one of the most fascinating sports in the world yeah because if i'm i'm good and i i in 70 of the time i'm stinking up the place but 30 % of the time I'm that guy.

10:13Yeah. You that guy. Yeah. So you talk about shaping your mind differently. You can't afford to be tripping hard if you strike out or you don't get a hit. We have the ego of like, I'm the best. Cause I have the best batting average in baseball. I have, you know, the most home runs that works for you while it's working. But what about when, you know, when you have that slump and when you're striking out. Well, that's when we get to the whole obsession of trying to teach people the mental game. And part of the mental game is introducing not just, because remember Desmond Howard, Tom Brady, they're not in my office because of mental health and depression and despair.

10:56They're trying to be the best. Right. It's an optimization game. That's the name of the game. So teaching people to trust and believe that what they're doing is right and for the right reasons, trying to convince Desmond Howard that you've got to decide with or without football, your life is going to be amazing. Yeah. Imagine telling Tom Brady at 19, who's obsessed with being the starter on the team, the most difficult thing I can teach you, Tom, is you got to believe with or without football, your life is going to be amazing. Tom, what did I just say? Brady is so intense and so brilliant. He breaks it down for me.

11:39And everybody else, it takes me weeks to get him to even consider what I'm saying. But it is true, right? Because he could blow out his knee. He could get in a car accident. There could be a lockout. He could not get drafted. That's not a controllable. Because we're trying to prepare you for life. People who are mentally fit recover faster than the average person. Yeah, if we take it for granted that a bunch of stuff in the course of a game or a season or a career, it's going to be outside of your control. Yes. What it really comes down to is how quickly can you respond to those things and respond well.

12:16Sometimes it's going to be this big thing and sometimes it's just going to be your pregame workout is five minutes shorter than it usually is. Does that rattle you or can you adjust quickly? Or can you adjust quickly? Yeah. You're going to score and you've been fantastic. Can you recover from success? Yeah. You can't just teach people to recover from failure. You've got to teach people how to handle the ego. Well, you think a game is 48 minutes. Yes. And then it goes into overtime. You budgeted for 48 minutes and then there was overtime. You have to recover, not just physically, but you have to recover to the fact that in your mind, the game was almost over and you were done and you could go home.

12:57and then the other team rallied and now you got to play another five minutes. Yes, sir. That's the adjustment that you have to make. And again, the mental game is the game. And the ability to identify what's working and what's not working, not only in sports, but in my life. You know, being able to identify healthy versus unhealthy relationships, being able to identify, to teach people critical assessment. Swimming's the other one where it's just you and your mind staring at some tiles underneath you, and the water is always cold. You're good, man. Do you understand that, because we're talking sports, swimming and diving.

13:46Yeah. Ain't got nothing in common except water. Sure. We're on the swimming and diving team. Yeah. They're radically different sports. It's like a runner and a shot putter. Sure. I knew that I was a true sports administrator when I could watch the mile in a pool. Yeah. Back and forth. Yeah. Back and forth. How many laps? I'm on 60. Yeah.

14:18imagine in like the closest thing to swimming and diving is track and field yeah but track and field is outdoors right track and field training i'm running over mountains and hills and pretending i'm an antelope and a panther and doing all these things and swimming that one line. Yeah. That white line. And stay in your lane. Yeah. And grind it out over and over and over. You wonder why Michael Phelps had to rebel. Yeah. I mean, adolescence requires you to fight for autonomy at a certain point. Right. Imagine you've been in the pool since you were 12 years old, told that you will be an Olympian.

15:05And at 15, you're at the Olympics. And then at 19, you're at the Olympics. When just the constant delayed gratification, right? It's like, sure, you're practicing every day and that's the reward is going to be in competition. And you do have some competitions, but really the only competitions are every four years. it's very hard for anyone to show up and work on something when the potential rewards for that thing are an incomprehensible amount in the future it's like why dieting is hard right because you know it will make a difference but not in any perceptible way anytime soon yeah and remember you just described olympians yeah and we're talking about college yeah the championships ships and boom, boom, boom is every day.

15:51But the worst thing about swimming is you take two weeks off, you're behind. Yeah. Yeah. They do a, like a mile warmup just to get started, you know? And then after the race, they better do a warm down and then they better go get an ice. Yeah. An ice tub. It's a grind. It's the grind. The lactic acid buildup. It's insane. Yeah, you got to figure out what grind you love, though. Yeah. And you got to be able to find ways to recover. And you then have to teach that athlete and all the other athletes that your self-worth and self-esteem must not be based on performance. Yeah. I've got to convince somebody that how I feel about me cannot be based on my sport.

16:40Eight-tenths of a second. But then if you're serious, you have to say, well, when did you start being a gymnast, a swimmer? Five? Yeah. Four? How could I not see myself as a swimmer? Right. I'm a swimmer. No, you're more than a swimmer. Yeah, the thing you worked hardest on in your life that you're the only one in the world to do or you're one of an elite group to do, blah, blah, blah, all that, it's meaningless. Like, how could you, what? Thanks. Michael, you're more than a swimmer. Yeah. But I get rewards and people love me and they say my name and the lights go off and boom. Michael, you're more than a swimmer.

17:22It ain't easy what I do, son. I just make it look that way. Like an athlete, right? It should look effortless.

17:37Thanks to Toyota Trucks for sponsoring this episode. When I bought my ranch in 2015 out here in Bastro County, I drove my car about halfway down the dirt road that we live on, thought this isn't going to work, stopped, parked it, walked the rest of the way home, borrowed my wife's car, drove into Austin and bought a truck. What I bought was a Toyota Tacoma. And this truck wasn't just transportation getting me to and from my house. It unlocked a whole different style of living for us, not just on the ranch, but in our little Texas towns. There were places I could go now that I couldn't go before, especially out here in the piney forests, through the fields, and on the unpaved roads like the one that I lived in.

18:22We got to go deep into the hill country's wild beauty. We've driven all the way out to East Texas. We've driven across the country. And by we, I mean not just my wife, but both my kids who I drove home from the hospital in that truck. Toyota trucks are built for those who understand that the best adventures happen when you're willing to veer off course, because you never know when you'll end up on a Toyota adventure detour. And of course, this is stoicism, too, because every detour, every obstacle is an opportunity. But it's helpful if you can handle the difficulty inherent in that. If you've got the resilience and the right companion to make it wherever the road takes you.

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19:14The next person I wanted to talk to is Kate Courtney, who's followed Daily Stoic for a long time. I think I found her on Instagram. Also, she'd posted herself reading a copy of The Obstacle is the Way. She competed in the last Tokyo Olympics in the women's cross-country mountain bike race. And she didn't do as well as she hoped. And we had this amazing conversation about dealing with that disappointment, what she's learned from it, how you compete at that high level. And what I really liked about the conversation, she said something I've been thinking about ever since. She said her coach gave her this advice.

19:45She said, fast now or fast later. And this is where she's learning this lesson of discipline insofar as how she trains for the race is not overexerting herself so she can be 100 % in the race.

19:59I loved the piece that you wrote for the Washington Post after the Olympics. Like, we obviously we so celebrate what winning looks like. And it's so rare that we don't spend that much time talking about what it feels like to to not perform at your absolute best. So, so walk, walk me through that. Cause I just thought that piece was, I'm sure incredibly difficult to write, but it also struck me as very beautiful and important. Well, thank you. I'm honored you wrote Reddit. Um, you are obviously one of my favorite authors and I have come back to your books again and again throughout my racing career.

20:41Um, and I guess to the overall Stoke philosophy that they impart in a very relatable way. Um, but I think for me that Olympic moment was really, really challenging, but it was also an opportunity. And I think writing that piece, um, I did for me, I wrote it as a way to process that experience and to understand, um, what had led up to that moment and also, you know, you know, how I could respond to it. Um, and in some cases there isn't really some triumphant response. You kind of just acknowledge process, um, take the learnings and move forward. And that was kind of the first step for me in doing so was, you know, writing about the experience, sharing it.

21:23And it was honestly amazing to see the response to that. And I think, um, for me as an athlete, of course, I love the moments where I have this breakthrough performance and it's an inspiration and it, you know, shows some people that they could do something they never thought they could do or encourages them to get on the bike. Um, and of course that's like more fun to be in that moment. But in this moment, And I actually got, um, a much deeper response and a response from a lot of people who I think throughout the pandemic had been dealing with similar, uh, big challenges and moments of working really hard for something and maybe just not having it come through or work out.

22:03Um, and to be honest, you know, even in the course of my career, which has so far, I would say like I've had big success in races, I've lost farmer races and I've won. Um, and I think that's kind of how it goes in life a little bit as you're, um, trying to learn from and deal with and grow through those challenges to allow you to have your next big win. Um, and so for me, that was definitely a pivotal, one of those moments. And I'm still figuring out kind of the learnings towards the next big win, hopefully. Well, one of the things you touch on in the piece that, that I thought was worth exploring was like, I think we sometimes think that like winning or being great at something is simply a matter of willpower that it's like, if you train for it, if you get in the right head space, like it'll happen.

22:51And if it doesn't happen, it's like a reflection of you as a person, but like, you sort of just, you kind of gloss over, but it sounds like you just like, it just didn't happen. Like you just did, you just, you thought it would go a certain way. and you just, it just, you just weren't yourself that day. Do you know what I mean? Like it just, you just didn't get the performance that you expected out of yourself for really no particular reason. Yeah. I think in the time since that, um, I've come to understand a little bit more about maybe what could have been different in my preparation or what could, um, change, but at the end of the day, that's completely true.

23:31Uh, and I think part of what I'm seeing in the world of sports in general and with me personally is as an athlete, I show up, I have this process, I follow it. I get to these races as prepared as possible. Um, and sometimes it works out and sometimes, you know, maybe there's factors outside of my control or truly maybe I just fail to have the best performance that I'm capable of that day. Um, but you're still the same person and you still have the same approach. And the chunk of my time spent preparing and processing and learning, um, still comes from the same place. And so it's this interesting disconnect where you're really forced to separate the outcome from who you are as a person, which I think is a very healthy thing long-term, but it's also very challenging in the moment.

24:16Uh, because especially when things are going really well, you, you want to identify with what you do. And for me, at least I care so much about the sport. I love it. I've put so much of my life into it that it is an identity that's important to me. Well, yeah, like when everything's going well and you're identifying with it, it doesn't seem like there's any problem with that, right? Besides maybe a little bit of ego, right? Like you obviously know, you don't want to think that you're perfect or something, but you go, as long as I'm not being a monster, what good is there, what, what problem is there being proud of how well everything's going?

24:50But I think, uh, the problem is what happens when it doesn't go well and you still did everything right. Or what happens when it doesn't go well? And it's like, it's not your fault. Uh, then you're devastated because you identify just as much with the failure. Absolutely. And that, that's a pretty tough moment to be in, but I think one that, um, is, is part of the game. If you're going to do something and put your whole self into it, you have to learn how to deal with that. And for me, I'm still early in my career. I'm still learning through those experiences, um, and understanding how to have that little bit of separation, but still care just as much because in many ways, being devastated by the Olympics, uh, shows how much I care, shows how hard I work to get there, um, and how much it means to me.

25:39And in many ways that points me in the direction of trying again, even in a moment when it can feel really challenging to think about that. What would you do differently as far as preparation? You said, as you think about it a bit more. Yeah, I think, um, so the Olympics aren't for another three years again, I think for me, part of, uh, this has been a little bit of a disillusionment of that one race. Um, for me, I race all year. We have nine world cups this year, and that's actually the same field in mountain biking as the Olympics. It's actually bigger, uh, cause you don't technically have to qualify.

26:16So I think for me, it's really understanding how to separate my personal progression and my goals, um, as an athlete, you know, comparing to myself year over year and getting better at my craft from those outcomes. Um, and that means that I probably won't put the same emphasis, at least internally on that Olympic year, but really see that in the context of my evolution as an athlete, this next go around. Um, and it seemed, that seems like a subtle shift, but I think mindset wise that that's what happens when you get experience in these sports. Um, and then of course, like the specifics of training, there's definitely some nuances that need to be changed.

27:00And part of what's challenging about being an athlete is that you're kind of, you have this perfect plan, but you also are relying on your physiology. And, you know, this year, the main thing I learned was like, what we tried didn't work for my physiology. I just didn't respond to this type of training. Um, and that's a hard lesson to learn, but it also like when you can identify what didn't work, when you can identify what did work, it's a huge learning and chance to do what works and know why it works in the future. I'm writing about, uh, Lou Gehrig in the book that I'm doing now on, on self-discipline.

27:35And there's this thing I was just thinking I was just working on it honestly before we talked. So it's kind of perfect, but he goes through, he sort of goes through this slump early in his career and he, he, he'd sort of always been really good. So when he goes to the slump, he's like despondent, right? Like he thinks he gets knocked down to the minor leagues and he thinks they're going to cut him. And it's this sort of downward spiral that he's in. And the scout that had discovered him sort of gets dispatched by the owner of the Yankees to find him. And they end up having this, this exchange and he sort of bucks him up.

28:05And then as he's, as he's leaving, like it's a sort of cinematic scene where he jumps on the train, he's pulling away. And the scout says the most important thing that a young ball player can learn is that you can't be good every day. And I love that so much. And baseball is such a good example of that because, you know, like if you bat 300, you're incredible, but that means you're going to be missing the vast majority of times that you're at bat. And so I imagine that your first Olympics, it it's so big in your life. And even just, although you've raced a lot in four years, you have raced considerably more times.

28:42It probably loomed very large in your life. And I imagine the pressure of it and the place and what it meant to you only compounded all the things that we're talking about. Completely. And I would, I would toss the pandemic in there as well as an extra year of thinking about it. Um, but I do, I love that. You had an extra year to be in your head about it. Yeah, completely. Um, no, I really, I love that quote. And I think it applies a lot to a sport like cycling where there's, there's these big cycles. Um, and this year I've taken more of a break than ever before. So I'm very slow right now. Uh, but again, that's, that's the question my coach keeps asking me, do you want to be fast now?

29:23Or do you want to be fast at the next world cup? Um, and that I think is, it takes a little bit of maturity to appreciate. And it is, um, it's an interesting balance between being future thinking and looking at the process and understanding where you're going and trusting that you're going somewhere, but also being okay with where you are right now, uh, and being like present with, okay, this is where I am fitness wise, um, right in this moment. And that doesn't mean this is going to be the moment forever, but you have to honor that break and that rest and what regeneration happens in your body to be able to actually deliver when you need to be fast.

30:02I'm writing this down. So what does that mean to you? Do you want to be fast now or fast later? Because is that the idea of like doing something hard now that you're not good at, that will have long-term impact on your skillset or your, your, but what does that mean? Yeah, I think, um, the interesting thing about being a professional athlete is we do have these goals and we have cycles and we have training structure for the entire year. And the goal is to really peak. So we're trying to have kind of like superhuman performance for a few big events a year. And a lot of people think that means that you're just training as hard as you can all the time, 24 seven.

30:41But really, I would say what differentiates amateur and elite athletes primarily is the recovery time, the ability to make that work count, um, and to allow your body to recover between these hard sessions. So a lot of what we do in the fall is long, easy rides and just preparing your body to be able to take on this load. And it might feel like you're not, you know, going as fast as you can or doing all that you can. But it's it's critical to performance when the time comes. No, this is so interesting to me because obviously you talk a lot about courage in that piece, which I want to talk to you about.

31:24But it really sounds like what you're talking about here is temperance or the idea of moderation, which I imagine is extra difficult when you are super committed, super ambitious, super driven. And it sucks to not like I imagine it sucks to not be peaking right now because that means you're having to be OK with not being as good as you'd like to be in the present moment or for even for extended periods of time. Yeah, I would. So my dad actually describes this, and this is probably more of a business term, but of optimizing versus maximizing. And I think for me, that's really a big part of this phase of my career is understanding what things you're doing that make a big difference and doing those things fully and completely, but not maximizing and maximizing.

32:14I would, I would think of like the young athlete who's, I need to meditate and stretch and do this and do the cold bath and do the, you know, adding in every single possible thing you could be doing, um, just to feel like you're doing everything you can. And really it is temperance, as you said, the optimizing, the being able to identify what actually matters, what you actually need to do to be successful, execute those things at the highest level possible, and then trust that they're going to work. When, and I imagine holding back is difficult. You want to give, like you didn't become who you were if you weren't really good at giving everything you were capable of giving.

32:55Right. And then, so for a coach or for a race or for a training structure to say, yeah, you can only go 70 % here kind of goes against like what, how you're wired, but it's, that's the difference between like fast now and fast later. Yeah. And that I would say, you know, to tie it back to that Olympic experience into my experience last year, one of the biggest things that I learned is, you know, I kind of pushed so hard in the last two years, I executed every training schedule, um, to the best of my ability. And often, you know, I'm the one who's like always at the high end of the range of hours, always, always pushing.

33:36Um, and midway through the year, when it seemed like things weren't working out, I had a lot of conversations and I talked to some of the best people in my sport. I talked to my teammate, Nino Schurter and to his coach, uh, and really learned that a lot of what I was missing was that, that pushing too hard, wasn't doing what I was supposed to do. So if I was given a two hour ride and I went for a three hour ride in their mind, that was wrong. That was not, Oh, you're like doing more. You're overachieving. You're pushing the limit. That was not respecting the assignment. Um, and so that's kind of a re-conceptualization for me this season about really respecting the plan.

34:17Um, and that involves a new level of trust and, and making sure that you understand, okay, why is it important that I do exactly this? Um, and then having that temperance, having that ability to say, this is the optimal thing. It's not the most I could do, but it is the right thing to do today, this week, this training block.

34:48And then the last person I wanted to talk to is the one and only Chris Bosch, who I was lucky enough to work on a book with a couple of years ago called Letters to a Young Athlete. Two funny stories about this. When I gave my talk to Kentucky basketball earlier this year, I saw a copy of it in Calipari's office. He was like, oh, I got a whole bunch of them. I give them to all my recruits. But it's funny. We were designing the cover of the book. And the publisher is like, you know, 11 time all star, you know, all his accomplishments on the cover. And Chris goes, sorry, guys. Let me just add here.

35:22Also, I won an Olympic gold medal. And they were like, oh, my gosh, Rizzo forgot. And it's true. He won an Olympic medal, the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. He averaged nine points and a team leading six rebounds across eight games. And in that gold medal game, he snagged seven rebounds. And you can check out his book, Letters to a Young Athlete, which is all about the importance of putting everything into what we do, even when it's tough. So I think you're really going to like this episode.

35:50You got to train, man. And you have to identify what those things that, you know, first what you want to do and then work backwards from there and say, okay, hey, I want to be a really good basketball player or we want to win a championship as this team. All right, cool. These are the things that we need to do. We've got to communicate good. We've got to make sure we're practicing and putting the work in every day. And we have to make sure that we're together and we know our stuff. So when it hits the fan, because it will, when, you know, we don't, we stay together, you know, and make sure we're, you know, doing the things that we always practice.

36:26Well, that goes back to what you were saying earlier about staying with it. If you've been there a bunch of times and you know, like, we're going to win this game. We don't care if it's sexy, if it's exciting. Like, we'll play, Belichick and Brady were like, this will be the most boring fucking Super Bowl in history. We don't care. But, but, but Goff is like, I got a reputation for throwing it. I'm not being able to throw it. People are going to blame this on me. You know, all those things running through your head, they make it hard to stay with it. And I think, you know, in the situation for like a Jared Goff or even Mahomes, you know, having that, you know, he's running from defensive linemen for the whole game.

37:03You know, you have those moments and say, okay, cool. You remember the whole, everything that was running through your head. Even for myself, you know, don't get too high, don't get too low, right? When we were playing in the finals, we win game one.

37:23We about to win a championship. Lose game two, embarrassingly. Our game two loss, we gave up a 12-point fourth quarter lead late. Oh, man, so embarrassing. Bad. Then we get in the game three, we win that one. Yes! We're about to win it again. and we back on top. And then, you know, then after that, we fell off a cliff. So, like, that was my experience. Should have been straight the whole time because regardless, the game is going to have a beginning and end. You know, you're going to have to go through the motions of this game. But, like, that helped us when we played the Spurs because it's just like one of those things.

38:02You flinch for a minute, you lose, you know. So you have to kind of go through the process each game, good, bad, and different, you know. And regardless, you try to do better the next time around. We have a chapter in the book about leadership. And I think people think leadership is, you know, Tom Brady must have gone in the fourth quarter of that game. They're down 28 to 3 and given the most exciting speech in the history of sports. You know, like he's Churchill, you know, like we're going to fight the Nazis on the beaches. That's what you expect. But I think actually leadership is like Tom's not rattled.

38:40You know, like Chris doesn't seem to think we're in any trouble. And that, especially for the younger people on the team to be able to look to the leadership and go, these guys think we still have a chance. That's what leadership is. You know, they say calm is contagious. So is hope. So is confidence. All those things are contagious. One of the things, speaking of Tom Brady, you say in that part, that was the year before that. But the main thing that I watched to where leadership was that nobody really even talked about was last year. As soon as he got signed with the Bucs, they're out on the field.

39:22Yeah. Like a high school. Running around. Yeah. Out on the field in the heat. I'm sure football players. Oh, my God. I'm sure. From Florida. So many people. Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah. I think that went over so many people's head because people only think about the speech that he might be giving right now or why is he back here again? And they'll show them raising the trophy on replay. I only remember it being in the moment, them running the routes. Those are the highlights they need to show, you know, because there's a reason why they're cool, calm, and collected because they've gone over and over and over and over.

40:00And then so when you're in these situations and you're a leader, you know, you're looking to them. Well, first, I've put the work in with this person, so I feel comfortable. You know, hopefully they've had a few meals together and had some good times. So just like, you know, to your point, if they're not rattled, okay, now I will go with this person and lead them. Because, you know, if you're being a mean person and nobody likes you or you being an asshole on the bench or something, you know, people won't follow you to that part. But, you know, doing those small things of when the situation starts, instead of looking at the, you know, grand picture right away, saying, okay, we want to get there.

40:40This is what we got to do. Marcus, in meditations, he says, Alexander the Great and his mule driver, they're both buried in the same ground. Yeah. You know, like the guys that you beat out for roster spots in high school, college, pros, you now both have something in common, which is that you don't play basketball anymore. I was speaking with a friend of mine. He was a guy that we had him at a few of the heat camps. And, you know, he he was in that tough spot of, you know, G League overseas. Yeah. Maybe a few games in the league. Somebody gets hurt. And that's a tough schedule. Right. And he's in a position where he's, you know, thinking about retirement.

41:21Yeah. And it's like, wow, he called me up. And it's like, wow, isn't this crazy? We're just, you know, in the same spot. I can hear the kids in the background. you know it's the great equalizer we're trying to figure things out and it's like wow you know how many i'm just glad i was a nice guy back then and you know cool to talk to because damn what if you know it's good to like and now that i'm done playing it's interesting because like i walk in a room people hey man how's it going it's cool to see people smile you know because it could be the opposite sure and for him to reach out and say yo i'm going through this i'm going through that it's like wow this is crazy how about this we're we're retired guys now and man my buddy's getting i have a friend he's getting married in october yeah you know it's like wow and i'm gonna be in his wedding and we're just you know doing the things you know well it's like like who was runner up for the mvp three years ago you know like or who who is who is ronald reagan's vice president right like you know it it gets equalized real fast and not that long of a time yeah this It's very short, man.

42:23I mean, it's very short. And I mean, I get to, you know, I'm lucky enough to get to live over and over in that tape loop of an NBA champion, which is great. But I, you know, knowing that what we're talking about, I've, you know, moved on to other things and I still love breaking the game down, talking about it. But when I look at it, it's, it's a moment in time and it's, it's in the past, you know, now, you know, they're showing KD and Kyrie and, you know, it's a new big three, man. You know, it's newer, it's younger, it's cooler. And we're the old tape that they're showing. Hey, remember this?

42:57You know, we're the remember when guys, which is great. But, you know, you always have to have that, you know, you don't have to know what you're doing, but you have to have those things that you enjoy spending your time doing. Well, that was my last question for you. So you have this, I think it gets overlooked because it's like, oh, the result is that Chris can't play anymore. But it was like, Chris can't play anymore because he might die if he plays. So you had like a real up-close reminder of this idea of memento mori. Like life is short. Yeah. You could go at any moment. And now you got to figure out.

43:34Yeah. You know, you still have this gift of time, but you don't know how long you're here for.

43:45Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it. And I'll see you next episode.

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