The Daily Stoic - Ask Daily Stoic: Ryan and NBA Legend Pau Gasol Talk Books, Basketball, and Stoicism

Episode Date: May 2, 2020

In today’s episode, Ryan talks with NBA All-Star, Laker legend and humanitarian Pau Gasol. They discuss everything from Pau's reading habit to his advocacy for female coaches in basketball and more.1:51 - Intro6:22 - Being a big reader—and how that was encouraged by Phil Jackson8:22 - What Pau gets out of fiction10:32 - Phil Jackson recommendations11:52 - Stoicism and reading16:02 - The Meditations and marginalia18:28 - Why do athletes always like quotes/aphorisms?21:52 - The importance of reminders24:42 - The importance of female coaches in basketball, and why discrimination is so harmful, and how hardship makes us stronger37:25 - COVID-19 economic consequences: how did Pau process his experience with the Trailblazers, and how is that informing his decisions now?Books mentioned:The Shadow of the Wind, by Carlos Ruiz ZafónThe Shadow of the Sun, by Ryszard KapuscinskiCorelli’s Mandolin, by Louis de BernieresThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg LarssonFor Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest HemingwayCatch-22, by Joseph Heller2666, by Roberto BolañoThis episode is brought to you by Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is a custom formulation of 75 vitamins, minerals, and other whole-food sourced ingredients that make it easier for you to maintain nutrition in just a single scoop. It tastes great and gets you the nutrients you need, whether you're working on the go, fueling an active lifestyle, or just maintaining your good health. Visit athleticgreens.com/stoic and receive 20 free travel packs with your first purchase.This episode is also brought to you by Shippo. Shippo is a top-to-bottom shipping solution that works great with small and large businesses. Shippo will help you get the lowest rates on postage for your customers from dozens of global carriers like UPS, USPS, FedEx, and DHL. Visit goshippo.com/stoic to get a shipping consultation and a six-month trial of Shippo’s pro plan (up to $700 value) absolutely free.This episode is also brought to you by Go Macro. Go Macro is a family-owned maker of some of the finest protein bars around. They're vegan, non-GMO, and they come in a bunch of delicious flavors. Visit http://gomacro.com and use promo code STOIC for 30% off your order plus free shipping.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/ryanholidayInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanholiday/Facebook: http://facebook.com/ryanholidayYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicAnd follow Pau Gasol:Twitter: https://twitter.com/paugasolInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/paugasol/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paugasol/Gasol Foundation: https://www.gasolfoundation.org/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom, and temperance. And here, on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview stoic philosophers, we reflect, we prepare. We think deeply about the challenging issues of our time. And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more

possible here when we're not rushing to worker to get the kids to school. When we have the time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with our journals and to prepare for what the future will bring. Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, it's Ryan.

Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. You have a pretty incredible guest this week. It's Paul Gasol, two-time NBA champion, six-time NBA All-Star NBA, rookie of the year, just an incredible athlete and as it happens also, an incredible reader. I first met Paul through somewhat random circumstance. I saw that he had posted a photo of him reading ego is the enemy on Instagram and on Twitter. He read it. I believe it was last year while he was recovering from an injury. He was with the bucks then not playing but but rehabbing and and using that time. You know, we talked about a lifetime dead time, he was using that time to do some reading. And so we ended up connecting and then he signed with the Portland Trailblazers, whereas it happens I had also known a few players

who had read my books. And so we connected again and I got to meet him, we had dinner in Portland when I was on BookTour for Stillness is the Key. He'd read an early copy. And so earlier this month, he and I did an Instagram live where we talked about the strategies,

the exercises and the value of stoicism in sort of difficult times like this one. And then afterwards, I asked him if he wanted to come on the daily stoke podcast and sort of talk about some of his reading practices, some of the things that he's learned as an athlete and how they apply to both life and the pursuit of mastery and excellence. One of my favorite things in the interview is we end up talking about some books that Phil Jackson recommended to him while he was

the Lakers. I thought it was fascinating that Powell is such a big reader of fiction. Obviously, the Stoics were no stranger to fiction. They love fiction, they love stories, they love poetry and literature, and believe that often this was a way to teach sort of very real philosophical and moral lessons. It was really cool to talk to Powell.

I'll let the interview sort of speak to itself. And I hope you guys like these interviews that we're doing. I'm trying to, you know, get people that maybe haven't been on other podcasts or that have unique perspectives. And what I'm sort of insisting they all have in common is a sort of a very real and earnest connection to stoic philosophy. I'm not saying that these people are stoic masters or stoic stages, I'm not saying that these people are stoic masters or stoic stages, I certainly wouldn't claim to be one myself, but I think we're fellow travelers. We're all on this

sort of road. We're learning. We're sampling widely. We're doing what Senaqa said, which is sort of read from all the different schools and trying to cobble together, you know, a way of living, trying to cobble together insights and practices, trying to look for those daily nuggets that that Senna could talk about that fortify us against death, against poverty, against misfortune, against fear, against worry. And I think that's a great way to capture both who, Pau, is as a player, as a as a secret of wisdom. And just as a human being who like the rest of us is currently stuck in his house, trying to, you know, evaluate the future of his career and just get a little bit better as a human

being. So I'm excited about today's interview. Check it out. And I will talk to you soon. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just gonna end up on page six or do-mo-a or In court. I'm Matt Bellas-I and I'm Sydney Battle and we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast Dis and Tell where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the build-up why it happened and the repercussions What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lin spears. When Brittany's fans form the free Brittany movement dedicated to

fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lin's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad free on Amazon Music or The Wondery App.

So I was curious, have you always been a big reader? I've been surprised how my books have gone through sports. I didn't necessarily think like athletes, you know, books, but I've just been blown away at the amount that athletes like yourself read. I guess I've been a big reader since my, maybe my mid-twenties. When I started picking up books and and started falling in love with reading. And definitely when I got to the Lakers when Phil Jackson obviously my coach that I respected so much and I basically joined the team and I and he started hanging out books. I think that I've never

seen any other coach in you know with any other team. He also got me to be interested in more, I guess, John Roz and more books. And so forth. But there's a couple authors that really hooked me from the beginning, again, and earlier before I joined the Lakers, which one was a Spanish author who's also a good friend. His name is Carlos Rizsa Sefón, who wrote the shadow of the wind as serious as his most famous work,

or most red. I think I recommend it as based happens in Barcelona, kind of a fictional fiction book, which is not my usual my favorite, but it's really well written, and since it happens in my city, I'm a little biased, but that book really kind of hooked me. And then the other one is Kapuchinski,

Kapuchinski, the Polish writer who's always kind of following this story and going to civil wars and conflicts around the world and kind of reporting back to his country. That's another book and another author. I read pretty much all his books and that's another one that really kind of hooked me. And then from then on, I just started reading more and more and more understanding how much knowledge was out there for me to capture.

Well, that actually sort of ties into my next question because I've heard that Phil Jackson is notorious for asking players to read certain books, but then I was reading ones that he had recommended to Kobe Bryant, the book Captain Carelli's Mandolin, which is a beautiful novel, but not what you would think that a basketball coach would give a basketball player,

especially Kobe Bryant of all people. What is it about fiction that you found helps you? Why fiction? I guess maybe people would understand self-help books, but what do you get out of fiction? I think to me it's kind of a, it always is a change of pace. I think it takes you on a journey, right? So it's like, you know, just embarking on a journey with characters in a plot line and how the writer can really immerse you in that story. You know, so I read a lot of also historical novels,

but with fiction, with a fictional, like a spot. Like one of my favorite, no Gordon can follow it or some of my favorites. And it's just how the writer can really hook you, I guess, and say, hey, come into this trip with me and you're going to have a fun time and it's going to be exciting, right? So I think those, even those, remember those books by Stick Larsen, they'll grow with a dragon tattoo. I think those were a big hit overall, but it was really nicely written and it were fiction,

but really, I don't know, you kind of really enjoyed them, in a way. So some't know, you kind of really enjoyed them anyway. So some of these series just kind of like what I was talking about the shadow of the wind, it just takes you to a different, let's say, dimension, right? And it's to the age you from always like factual books or self-help books or any just kind of, you know, it's good. There's a time in a place for them, but I like to mix a fiction book every three or four

weeks. Do you remember any books that Phil Jackson recommended to you that maybe stuck with you? Yeah, well Phil is the one that introduced me to Ernest Hemingway. Okay. So for whom the bell tolls was my first book given for him and it was actually in Spanish because he didn't know that I could read English that well so he and he always was trying to be like funny and sarcastic in a way so I'll give it to you in Spanish. I can read English as well as fine. He gave me the, that was my first one. Then another one was Catch 22.

Another one was 2666 by Roberto Volanio, which is called, it's sort of like the drug cartel, Mexican drug cartel, and how the kid nap in Mexico and that whole situation. I'm not sure why, but he was always trying to give you a book that he would resonate with you, that you would find interesting or you would find that there was some type of relation with you, right? So he would kind of hit me in a way and you would be more interested in reading it.

So that's kind of how he he didn even never gave the same book to two players really and the team. Every player had his own book and it was different. Well, what I love about that. So the history of stoicism is shaped by the fact that, you know, some time in the middle of the second century AD, this philosopher named Junius Rousticus gives Marcus a really as a book recommendation. He recommends Epic Titus and Marcus reads the book and it changes his life, but it also changes history. And what I think so interesting is like,

people are always recommending books, but what's, you actually, like, how rare people actually go and read them. You know what I mean? We know what's good, but we won't actually go do the work and read the books. Right. Well, it depends, I guess, who recommends it and how do you feel about that person and how good of a reader or big of a reader you are. So, you don't have to feel forced. It's like

it's something that you should be excited about. It's something like, okay, that's my next book. Right now I have like a 10 books here to read. I've read four of them right now. I'm reading actually, how will you measure your life by... Clayton, that's your new book. Yeah, really, you know, it's been, you know,

really refreshing, but also just good reminders. Things that you probably know, really things that I've been probably, you know, but also just good reminders. Things that you probably know, really things that I'd be probably, you know, okay, that makes sense, or yeah, I know that, or yeah, that's for sure. Well, I mean, but things that you need to be constantly, almost not constantly, but periodically remind it up, right? And I think I also have here the meditations

by Microsoft Relius, so I have it here as well, I haven't read it yet. So it's there, but it's, I feel like, I don't know how have you gone about this book. Do you read it like the daily stoic, a couple pages or a few pages every day? So it's not like, because every each has meaning, has importance, has a weight, right? So you don't want to just go through it too quickly.

It's a strange book because it wasn't actually written to be read. It was just written for his own use. So when I first got it, I did read it, cover to cover, and I probably read it that way a few times. But over the years, yeah, I just, I flipped through it and I just try to read a few passages and my copies are now so filled with notes and highlights.

It can kind of be interesting, just to think, like I'll be like, oh, I wonder why I wrote that or I wonder, there's actually an idea in that book that I think captures that, he says, no man steps in the same river twice. And so I feel like each time I pick up the book, each time I look at it, I'm different, the world is different.

And so you're always getting something new. So I am a big reader, but one of the things I've been working on more that I've been recommending to people is just the power of rereading. And sometimes, you know, picking up a book a second or a third or a tenth time can be the time that has the most impact. Yeah, something really really sticks to you or really hits home.

For sure, and that's one of the things that through a period of time, and probably to a certain extent, I'm still am, like I like to read, okay, I read this book, I read this book, let's go on to the next one, on to the next one. Yeah, it's almost like that competitive side of me, the athlete, there's like how many books I can read, how much knowledge I can retain. And I love to take notes. Usually I don't, I'm reluctant to do it on the book.

I take notes on my phone, like I take, I get the, you know, the text and I write it on my phone and then I can always have it on my phone so I can go back to it and see that quote or that sentence or that page that really, that I found really important or helpful, but I'm reluctant still to write on the book. Still, I'm still not there. I don't know. There's a certain level of respect to the book that I feel like I don't want to like, dirt it or stain it even. So, but I'll, I think, good books like,

you know, like, meditations from markers are really, it might, might be the one that, that, that did me to start an experiment that way. I think you should. So, so there's a concept worth googling, it's called marginally. I'll send you the word, but but basically it's the word means writing in the margins of books. But like when I do a book signing, if someone comes up to me and they say, Oh, I love your book. Will you sign my copy? I always find it to be immensely satisfying and complementary or flattering when somebody shows me a copy and it's all the pages are folded and it's filled with writing. Whereas if somebody shows me the copy and it's perfect, I don't think like, oh, thank you for respecting it. To me, it's actually like the highest praise you can give the author is to really engage with the material. That's interesting because I always give my wife a hard time because she destroys the books.

Yeah, and not destroys, but you know, they're always. They always look like what you've described as a show, I guess, of appreciation to you. That's pretty interesting. And I'm always like careful. I don't want a lot of bringing the pages. I don't like, you know, I try to be careful where the books go in my backpack so they don't get wrinkled. I mean, obviously, you can't help, you can't help but to once you travel with books and stuff, that they get some exposure.

But I'm always very meticulous as far as taking care of, because it's to me, it's like a show. I always consider it as a show of respect to what's what's been written and how it's been done. So I remember this from being a kid even a Christmas. I was always very careful to unwrap my gifts. You know, so I would take it like very slowly was a process. I wouldn't even mess up the wrap. And my brother, Mark, for instance, he would like to destroy the lab and let me get to listen to him and see what it is. He didn't care about the rap, but to me, it's like, there's a process here that I need to

respect. Yeah. You know, and has taken its time to wrap this or in the elves, and taking their time to wrap this. And it's a way to appreciate that. But anyway, that's kind of how, but I'll try to go and do that with meditation as far as writing. And I'll send you a picture. Please. My books are all covered in food and dirt, and I drop them and you know, they're water stained and stuff.

Well, you said you write quotes down. That's one of the interesting things that I've loved getting a chance to sort of go to these sports teams is there's always like quotes up on the wall, but buzz Williams who's the coach at A&M. I was just talking to him and he even has this, he calls them quote shirts and he's always like finding quotes and then giving the the player shirts with quotes on it. I mean, why do you think athletes are always looking for these like nuggets or, or, or sort of aphorisms? And then, you know, they're always repeating them in locker room interviews. And I'm just curious what the relationship with that and sports is if you had any thoughts. Yeah, I think part of it, I feel that it's not a put down to athletes, but I guess the

attention span is pretty small. So athletes appreciate pointers and directions. And I feel quotes kind of hit home as far as like, okay, there's a message like pound the rock, as far as resilience, just keep pounding the rock. That was a big one. And with it, right? Exactly, like as far as, you know,

just keep pounding the rock. If you hit it a thousand times, so a hundred times, oh, a two thousand a hundred times, you might not see a crack, but is that next hit, right? That next pound where the rock will crack, you know, you just gotta keep at it, keep at it, that next hit, right? That next pound where the rock will crack. You know, you just got to keep at it, keep at it, keep at it, right? So, on the rock, you know, and it's something

that a lot of other, you know, coaches have, I guess, acquired and then shared in their locker rooms and so forth, you know, it's one of them, right? So, with the Lakers, we used to have this quote in our wait room, which is from I think Rudyard Kipling, if I'm not mistaken, is to the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the wolf is the strength of the pack, right?

Yeah, so basically, so the strength of our best wolf or our best individual relies on the pack, right? Yeah, so particularly, so the strength of our best work, for our best individual, it relies on the team, and the strength of the team relies on our best individual. So that's something that really kind of resonates and kind of brought everyone together, understanding the importance of everyone's job, everyone's contribution, everyone's role, regardless, because even if you have the best player,

in this case, like Kobe Bryant, but the rest of the pack does not do their job and does not fulfill their role, that Wolf, it's weaker, you know? Sure. We don't accomplish team success. So it was a good reminder, another one that I remember is if not now when,

if it's not us who, you know, that's another one that kind of is like, okay, we want we want it to be us. And in order for it to be us, we have to do it now. We can't wait until, okay, well, it doesn't work well. This has to have that sense of urgency, how important it is what we do today, what we do now as a team as individuals. So I think those quotes were there in our gym, and it really hits home. I think players really can take a lot of value and use out of those quick pointers,

quick messages that are not like books, or just too long of stimuli, you know. No, and the reason I ask, you might not think that that would be like sort of a long standing philosophical debate, but actually is. And so in the early Stokes, there's this kind of interristo, and he was sort of the contrarian stoke. And he was saying that like, that quote, so the stokes called them precepts, he was like, that's cheating. He was like, if you're actually wise, you should just know.

So he would be like, a player should know they should just keep going and pound the rock. They shouldn't need to have that on the wall. But I'm, I mean, I have sayings like tattooed on my arms, I'm a big believer that like, even if you know something, it doesn't hurt to have the reminder, especially I got to imagine when you're you know you've played an entire game in a seven game series and you've made it all the way to the finals at the end of the regular

season, you're exhausted and you need the you can like kind of return to those things and almost rest on them a little bit. You can, and it's true, and I think to me, it's always been very helpful. And that's why I write them on my phone, and I go through my notes, and I refresh them in my mind, you know? And when I'm thinking about something, hey, I felt like this author or in this book,

you know, what was exactly the, what he said about what we talked about, and then I go back to it and I kind of reread it. And that's kind of how I, you know, instead of going to the books, which I might not have with me at that particular moment, I have them on my phone, and that's kind of how I do it, even though it takes a little more time

to kind of put the book down and write it on the phone. But I think it's very useful for me to go and check afterwards at any given point. What are the things I really like that you did? A couple of years ago, you wrote that essay, I think it was for the players' tribune about why there should be female coaches in basketball. And I know you had a female assistant coach in San Antonio.

She's still there, right, Becky Hammond. Again, another sort of tied estosism for the Stoics, Musonius Rufus, who is Epicetus's teacher, was he was like, look, he's like virtue, courage, justice, wisdom. He's like, these things don't have anything to do with gender. So 2000 years ago, he was talking about how both men and women should be instructed in philosophy and that really it was silly to think that like these things, he was like you don't care, you don't care what gender your dog is or your horse is, like you care whether it has the goods, right? Whether it can do the job. And so I was just curious,

I thought that was a courageous essay to write and also an important one, just this idea that sometimes we let gender and sex and orientation, all these things get wrapped up. It block us from what actually matters, which is like can someone do the job or not? Yeah, and that's what I try to kind of portray, right? Kind of talking about from personal experience at my household. My mom

Was the one that was a doctor and my dad was a nurse. You could argue that my mom had a higher Salary than my dad and was more qualified than my dad So I kind of we grew up in that household saying, oh, this is, okay, this is normal, you know. So once I had a chance to ride that article or that essay with Player Shribune about Becky, which I obviously knew and I had high respect for, and I've known her for years before I got to play with Asperger's

because she played for Russia as an American. She had a Russian passport in different Olympics. So, and she was always, yeah, she was always a great player. She was a ren-in-tour and a couple of all-star games. She was always great, just a great advocate for the sport and a classy person. So once the argument started where she got like an interview for a coaching job or a coaching position,

like a head coaching job, I think it was with the bucks. And there was a guy, well, she shouldn't get it, or why she should be getting this interview, it was kind of big news. It's like, well, Beck is a great coach. And I think at the end of the day, we don't have to look at people based on gender. It's by their ability to do their job.

And I do get the job done, or do it better than someone else. So it's not about Becky being a woman or being a man. It's about Becky being a great coach. And she has proven in for my experience, I love what I see. So I think that that's what I kind of try to portray in that article. And I think I had a good amount of impact and it opened up a discussion. And I feel like a lot of people have got people thinking, so I know, it's absolutely right.

So I think some of the things that we need to start looking, which we already I think do, but it's going in the right direction as far as measuring people based on their abilities and capabilities and their talent, not based on anything else. Yeah, we talked to Michelle Tafoya several years ago. She's the Sunday night football on field reporter.

And I remember I asked her, you know, is it hard being a female journalist in sports? And she was like, it's hard being a journalist in sports. And I loved that she was like, she was identifying not as, she was identifying as the job, not as a certain identity or gender inside the job. And she's really good at her job.

And I think I just found that to be very powerful. Absolutely, that's why she got it. And that's why she still probably, she has it because she's really good at what she does. And there's many women daughters, Burke and the NBA has turned out to be one of the main, I think journalists and now commentators or broadcasters and everyone has tremendous amount of respect because her career speaks

for herself and the quality of which she provides, it's excellent. So you don't look at Doris as a woman, you look at her as an incredible and great broadcaster. So I think that that's kind of the perspective and the view that we should kind of give to society and to people. So just know that everyone has the same opportunity. You got to work hard, you got to prepare to be the best at what you want to accomplish. And you have the same, again, same opportunities, regardless of genre, race, ethnicity, or even culture. What I think, I think this is why your essay was good and also what I feel like are out

like for the stokes of sort of virtue of justice or fairness is that if you have gotten to where you've gotten and because you had certain advantages, because both of you and I are male, both you and I are straight. We had an easier time of it. It's then important too that you use your resources or your credibility to make sure people who don't have the same, like who don't get the same looks as you, you make sure that you stand up for them and you give them opportunities or you vouch for them. So I feel like that we have to remember that that's our obligation as people is to look out for and help move forward. People who are super talented but are not getting, who don't have the same wind

at their backs as maybe you and I do. Well, to me again, it's, as you say, is everyone's responsibility, just because you have better opportunities or you're in a more privileged position, doesn't mean that you have to overlook or say, well, screw you, I'm good. We have to be more aware, we have to care for our peers, and we have to be fair as you

said. I think to me, just because you have something of a better chance or better privilege, if you will, that doesn't mean that you shouldn't advocate for fairness and equal opportunity and regardless of anything. Even if that means you potentially losing your job, well, you work harder and prepare better, so your job is safe. And you just utilize it to me that the higher to competition, the better it will make me. So when I had better competitors, that means I had to work harder, I had to exert myself, I had to take my game to the next level if I wanted to stay at top, if I wanted to survive. And I think that's all that's good. All those things are good. You don't want to be in a comfortable position where you're then start to decline, you know, and start to take things

for granted and start to get just complacent. I think it's good for everyone when the competition is high and everyone kind of brings the best out of each other. I feel like that's a weird thing that gets lost in a lot of the debates about, you know, gender or race or immigration. It's like, I'm not afraid, I'm not afraid of competition. I want it to be an open playing field or the fact that, hey, this industry or that industry has been all guys

that might seem like it's good for the guys, but actually the hidden factor there is that by filling it with sameness or with one sort of perspective on things, all those people are worse off. America and the world has been irreparably harmed, in my opinion, by the discrimination against black people by the discrimination against black people and other races because we were depriving ourselves of talent and skill and different perspectives that had everyone gotten a fair shake, everyone would have been improved by that. Absolutely. I think there's something to enhancing each other. Yeah, kind of lifting each other up and pushing each other to be better. Thinking you're something you can do on your own, but it's also good to, you kind of encourage

others to do the same and kind of make it a healthy competition, if you will. I think that's always good because it brings the best out of each other. The greatest athletes wouldn't have been as great as they were as they are if they didn't have high competition. I guess you can say that Roger Federer wouldn't be Roger Federer without Rafan Adal. And now, nobody's joking with you. Or Michael Jordan probably wouldn't have been what he was, maybe without, you know, the bad boys and the poor persons pushing them to take it to that next level and then Utah Jazz came later, but without teams being, you know, as good as they were,

even if they couldn't beat the Bulls in the finals in the 90s. Or, you know, you just go like Mesti and Ronaldo. Mesti wouldn't be considered one of the best players ever. If Ronaldo, Cristiano Ronaldo wasn't there. Like, I think it's great. And it brings you up because you have to, in order to be the best, or the best version of yourself, and continue to improve and push, you need that. You need that type of motivation. And that's always great. The rivalries, the Celtics and the Lakers. Now, you go back and forth through the history and it's healthy.

It makes a fans really enjoy that. So I don't know. If you zoom out and you look at those sort of grainy old footage of the NBA you look at grainy old footage of the NBA before it was integratedinobli, like the caliber of playing the NBA, as you know, elevated further, once international talent was starting to come in, right? And so I think that the idea of the obstacle being the way is that, you know, when you put in resistance or you put in challenges or you put in new, you know,

perspectives or ideas, everything gets better because, you know, as they say, iron sharpens iron. I feel like a lot of the coaches and I've said this myself too, you learn more from the feet that you learn from wins and victory. So hardship forces you to figure it out, right? And that's what we're, what we're going through right now with this pandemic, hardship forces you to figure it out, right? And that's what we're going through right now. With this pandemic, it forces us to kind of say, okay, what's going on, this is hard, let's figure it out, right? Let's grow from this. So we have an opportunity here to get better,

to prevent the next pandemic, to kind of reconnect with ourselves and our values and our communities and get through this together, right? It's a test. So I feel like, again, a lot of coaches that I've seen and I've played for and even myself, I've learned the most and I've grown the most when I've lost, when I've hit a wall, when I wasn't good enough, when I didn't do what I was supposed

to do in order to help my team win. When I let my team down, you know, those feelings of pain, her defeat, the seat, they can feel you. They can feel you and they can make you push when we lost in the finals in the weight with the Celtics. That was a very fueling moment. As hard as I was to go through and obviously if you give me a chance to win or lose, I would take the win. But it fueled our team to win the next two championships. I don't know. I can't tell you for sure that if we won in 2008,

we would win in 2009 or 10, maybe not, you know. So I think that there's really a lot there to think about. Well, that was actually gonna be my last question for you and this, so this might be a good place to wrap up is, is, you know, with COVID-19 and the global pandemic and then obviously now with the economic impact that that's gonna have, a lot of people are gonna find themselves out of work

or maybe they're temporarily furloughed or, you know, their stock portfolios down so that they work a few more years. People are gonna be stuck in some situations that they wouldn't have chosen for themselves. I'm curious, earlier this year, you experienced that yourself, you thought you were gonna get to play with the trailblazers.

You thought you were all rehabbed from your injury. And then it turned out that life had other plans. I was curious if you had any advice having, obviously, that's a first world version of a real problem. But how did you process what must have been aggravating and frustrating and scary and disappointing and a whole bunch of other things? And is that anything you're applying to what you're looking at right now? Yeah, of course. I mean, sports have taught me a lot of lessons and I'm dealing

with adversity and uncertainty. It's definitely one of the biggest ones. You know, injuries are tough. they're not in your plans, they take away from you what you love, probably the most doing, not so it's, they kind of force you to rethink things and kind of slow down and take a step back. So when I re-heard or re-angered my foot in November with the Blazers, I was like, OK, this is not how this was supposed to play out, but this is what it is.

It's an objective fact that I need to accept, that I need to deal with. And I try to figure out what's the best course of action for me to heal this foot that has shown that it's gonna take a little longer and it's not cooperating the way I wanted to. I wanted to. So that's kind of, you know,

I started seeing the best doctors in the world. I took the time and made the effort to travel to. I decided, Tom, what was the, what I thought and believe was the best option, which in a complicated case, you don't really know. So you have to kind of have as good of an educated, I guess, decision as you can have and do. So that's what I did. And now I'm going through the rehab process. Obviously, with the pandemic, things have changed.

My rehab has to be adjusted. I'm not able to get certain tests done. I'm not able to get my orthotics done in order to do so, or take certain steps in my rehab and put more load in my foot. I'm not able to be with my trainers or be like in direct physical contact with my doctor

so they can explore me and see me. But that's okay. That's where I'm at. I can still, you know, I set up a gym here in the garage. I can still do my routines until in communication with my trainers

and those doctors to kind of give them updates and they sent, my trainer sends me routines and videos and I can do my workouts and I can stay in great shape. So when I have the ability to take the next step, I'm ready and I'm in the best place that I could be. And that's what I focus on. I focus on what's on my control,

what I can do, and what are my best options with what I have. And I try to execute it. That's how I approach it. I love that. And that's as specific as that is for sports, I feel like that's kind of the same boat that the whole world is in right now.

I agree. I agree that everyone can relate to that. And they have the ability to control, what they do at home with their families or whoever they reside with. And they're going through this pandemic, try to establish with our foundation, with the Gassal Foundation, what we try to call the healthy quarantine, kind of establish a healthy schedule and healthy habits during the

day that you can do on your own or together. So you can get through this and not let it affect you negatively in a physical and emotional and psychological way, because one of the fears is how is it gonna affect us with what you mentioned potentially losing jobs, the economy and the stock market and the portfolio is taking a big hit and who knows when that's gonna kind of bounce back and stabilize and most of us not having the ability

to do our jobs regularly or in the people that do that are providing essential services being under a lot of strain and a lot of stress because of the virus. You know, still you have a certain level of how you can react to this in every individual case and when you can do proactively to put yourself in a better place. As hard as your position might be. So I think that there's, that's what we can all do as individuals, as communities, as families.

And that's how you get through it the best, the best possible way as you learn. So I think it's also important to do one of the reminders like, can we learn? Let's not waste this opportunity to not learn important stuff that will help us be more prepared for later, as, again, as individuals, as families, as communities, as countries, as the world. There's a lot that we can learn from here and that we should not waste this opportunity.

Because otherwise, we're going to, you know, we're going to deal with a similar situation or potentially worse if we don't do anything to prepare ourselves for the next challenge. I love that. No, thanks so much. This is really cool and it's been awesome to get to know you. I'll link to your YouTube channel and your Instagram. Is there anything else you want to tell people about or that they should know about?

No, I think we did some good stuff. I feel like, you know, we just gotta stay with it, you know, stay with it and kind of find, you know, I don't like when people say, all on board or this is hard, there's like, well, there's so many things that you could do. There's so much knowledge, so many activities that you can proactively pursue and do to make your days

better and useful. You know, I don't get bored at all. There's no time for me to get bored. I can keep doing so many things during the day that are stimulating, that are even fun in a way, or are enriching. So there's this So there shouldn't be an opportunity to really bore ourselves in the current circumstances. And yes, I'm sure there's households that deal with tension and tighter spaces and kids being at home and not, which is something exceptional. But at the same time, you can create

proactively, create activities and routines that make that situation better, right? And utilize that time. A lot of parents, I feel they've always show our jobs, keep us away from home, and probably you can relate to that, but now you have the opportunity to really connect with your children. And how beautiful is that? You know, when you resume your activity and you're traveling, you will probably miss it.

You know, we have a tendency to sometimes complain about what we do have and how things are in the present time. And then when we don't have it, we miss it. We need, we just like, it's kind of the things that you don't appreciate something until you don't have it anymore. Right? Let's not wait until not having it. And let's just enjoy what we do have at this particular time because who knows what's going to come next and when that's going to happen. But we can enjoy what we do have now and make it worthwhile and make it fun and make it exciting

and make it nurturing and useful. Now I love that. As soon as I finish, I'm going to go swimming with my kids. So I'm going to take your advice. And that's awesome. That's awesome. I really appreciate it. Thanks. You're welcome, Ryan. It's my pleasure. Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast app. And if you don't get the Daily Stoke email, go to dailystoke.com slash email. Hey, prime members. You can listen to the Daily Stoke early and and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon

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