The Daily Stoic - Olympic Kickoff | Gold Medalist Dominique Dawes, Michael Phelps' Coach Bob Bowman, and Basketball Icon George Raveling

Episode Date: July 27, 2024

The 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris are officially here! To kick off the Olympics, Ryan talks to gold medalist Dominique Dawes, Michael Phelps’ coach Bob Bowman, and legendary basketball coach George Raveling. Dominique Dawes is one of only three US women to compete at three Olympics, and has won four Olympic medals. In the 1996 Summer Olympic Games in Atlanta, Dominique earned a gold medal as a part of the “Magnificent Seven”, as well as an individual bronze medal in the floor event. She also earned team bronzes in 1992 and 2000 and is a member of the International Gymnastics and USA Olympic Halls of Fame. 🎙️Listen to Dominique Dawes’ full episode on The Daily Stoic Connect with Dominique on Instagram and X Bob Bowman is best known for coaching 23-time Olympic gold medalist American swimmer Michael Phelps. Listen in to hear Bob share stories from Michael Phelps’ record-breaking Olympic performances and his approach to coaching top swimmers to world-class success. 🎙️Listen to Bob Bowman’s full episode on The Daily Stoic Connect with Bob on Instagram and X George Raveling served as an assistant coach on the medal-winning Olympic teams coached by Bob Knight and John Thompson in both 1984 (gold medal) and 1988 (bronze medal). George was a key influence in Michael Jordan partnering with Nike and worked as the Director for International Basketball for Nike after retirement from USC. 🎙️Listen to George Raveling’s full episode on The Daily Stoic Connect with George on Instagram, X, YouTube, and his website📕 Right Thing, Right Now | Read more on Shunzo Kido and his story from the 1932 Summer Olympics at https://store.dailystoic.com/✉️ Want Stoic wisdom delivered to your inbox daily? Sign up for the FREE Daily Stoic email at https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Get Stoic inspired books, medallions, and prints to remember these lessons at the Daily Stoic Store: https://store.dailystoic.com/📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, and FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke podcast. I was talking a couple of weeks ago about the mayor of Riverside who I've gotten to know. If you haven't listened to that episode, you should. It was awesome. But I've spent a lot of time in Riverside, not just when I was in college,

but when American Apparel was going through its takeover, dysfunction, implosion, or whatever, I spent another eight or so months out in Riverside. I spent six or so months living back in Los Angeles in various Airbnb's. And on the weekends, I would usually go out to Riverside and sort of revisit my old haunts. And when I lived in Riverside,

I used to just run around the campus. I would do that every day. That's where I picked up my running habit. But it was during these trips that I would run up to Mount Rubido, which is this interesting, weird looking mountain right next to the downtown. It's got this giant cross on it, but it's this beautiful sort of paved, very steep trail.

You run up, you get a whole view of the Inland Empire. And anyways, at the top of it, there was this plaque. There's this thing called the Friendship Bridge, and there was this plaque. And on this plaque, it tells a story that I'd never heard before. And I got fascinated with it, and I did a bunch of research on it,

and I actually ended up telling that story in Right Thing right now. And because this is an Olympic-themed episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast with the Olympics upon us, obviously dating all the way back to the ancient Stoics and beyond, I thought I would tell you this story. So I'm gonna give you that right now.

At the 1932 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, a flashy Japanese equestrian named Shunzo Kido gave one of the most remarkable performances in the history of sport. He managed to grab the lead in a 22.5-mile 50 obstacle endurance race that he didn't normally compete in, that his horse wasn't even trained for. A teammate had been injured and Keto replaced him. Clear of the pack and over the second to last jump, a gold medal nearly within his grasp, he pulled the reins and dropped out of the race. Why? Some part of him sensed that the horse could not take it anymore, that although he

could win, the horse would not survive the victory. As the plaque on the Friendship Bridge along California's Mount Rubidow Trail commemorating his unprecedented display of sportsmanship reads, Lieutenant Colonel Shunzo Kido turned aside from the prize to save his horse. He heard the low voice of mercy, not the loud acclaim of glory. How we treat the people who work for us, how we treat strangers, this says a lot about us. How we treat the defenseless, the voiceless, other species, according to Gandhi, it says everything about us. What I thought I would do today is just bring you

some interesting conversations I've had with Olympians over the years on the Daily Stoke podcast. The first of which is the one and only Dominique Dawes. She competed at three Olympic games for the USA, one of only three women to compete at three different Olympics, where she won four Olympic medals, the gold with the 96 team, bronzes in 92 and 2000,

and an individual bronze in 1996. I talked to Dominique back in August 22, where there was a bunch of challenges for athletes because the Olympics had just been postponed. And so I'll get into that conversation now. I got a sort of a gymnastics question for you, which is, it feels like gymnastics is unique among athletic events

in that it's both an individual and a team sport. And obviously, I'm sort of fascinated with the role that ego plays in life and in business and athletics. How does an athlete balance, that must be so difficult in gymnastics, again, somewhat unique of the sports, like you're being judged, right? There's literally judges sitting there in the unique of the sports, like you're being judged, right? There's literally judges sitting there in the competition, you know, giving you a score. So there has to be this kind of intense perfectionism. It's not just about getting the outcome, like, hey, did the ball go in the hoop? It doesn't matter if it was pretty or not. How do you balance that perfectionism with what we would probably argue is what you want as like

just a healthy individual in the world. How do you turn that on and off? It's pretty challenging. I mean, gymnastics does attract perfectionists or it turns you into a perfectionist if you have that seed already planted in you. And you know, just being the subjective sport that it is, you do, like you mentioned, know that you're being critiqued and judged and not fairly. Because what one person will think is beautiful gymnastics and flawless, another will see it may be a sloppy. And it's very challenging to communicate that

to a young kid that in one light, they're doing exceptionally well and scored well, and then the next light, they're not. You know, I think it's just trying to not focus so much on scores, not focus on the numbers, but really focus on them striving for their personal best, understanding why they're pursuing the sport of gymnastics, why they're doing the sport, and hopefully it's, you know, them developing a deep love for the sport of gymnastics and wanting to challenge themselves physically, wanting to challenge themselves. You also kind of have to have this stronger inner scorecard where you know, like, hey,

I did my best, I did what I set out to do. And I imagine that's probably what you try to teach kids. And the earlier you pick that up, the healthier your relationship with the sport will be. Well, we want them, you know, like we want them to focus on their personal best. We want them to make sure that the passion, the drive is coming from within, that it's something that they wanna do

and to recognize that their teammates are just that. They're their teammates and not competitors. And the sport of gymnastics really does have a culture that is based on competition and you're constantly viewing everyone as a competitor. You're judging everyone. You're critical. You focus on things.

You focus on your imperfections instead of focusing on the positives of the things that you did do well. You leave each and every practice thinking about the things you didn't do well. And that's what we're hoping to change, you know, to help build up a young kid's self-esteem, not with fluff, not with, you know, you know, we're not just telling everyone they did a great job, um, right, you know, but, uh, just kind of encouraging people to recognize that, you know, hard work does pay off, but it can be done in a healthier environment.

Yeah. I think I read something from Billie Jean King once, where she was sort of saying the paradox of being a great athlete, I'd be curious about your experiences, is that precisely the perfectionism, the focus on what could have been better, where you fell short, you know, what went wrong is what makes you great. It obviously creates a feedback loop where you are getting better, but it also makes it extraordinarily difficult to enjoy or even notice that you are at the peak of your game or that you've accomplished an incredible amount. You're not able to enjoy the peak because all you're focusing on is the next peak or how imperfectly you got there. Exactly, like what you didn't accomplish.

Like it's never enough. I mean, there was just this great piece on HBO and it was talking about the mental aspect of the sport of gymnastics and how many Olympians are just never satisfied. And then when even their career is over, there's that coulda, woulda, shoulda. There's that what's next because their identity is wrapped up in being that particular athlete

and nothing more because you sacrifice so much, especially if you did it since your childhood. So it is hard to kind of, I guess, be satisfied, but that's what makes, I think, a lot of athletes so great that they have that, I think, a lot of athletes so great that they have that, like you mentioned before, that drive. Always wanna do more and be better. Yeah, and especially if you came from a place in your childhood where maybe you didn't fully feel enough

or you felt like, hey, it's like when I'm succeeding at this, this is when I feel like my parents are proud of me or I feel like I'm more accepted. We can pick up all these super complicated issues that get intertwined with winning or success or money or fame. I think the saddest, hardest part is you finally get everything that you think you wanted and it didn't do what you hoped. And so it's encouraging to me to hear you talk

about the family stuff, because that is the one element for me that turned out to be even better than I thought. Do you know what I mean? Like hitting number one was great, but anticlimactic, you know, I've never felt like any experiences with my family were anticlimactic. My wedding was not anticlimactic. My wedding was not anticlimactic. You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, you know, waking up in the middle

of the night, hearing a screaming baby at 2 a.m., not the most joyful, you know, no experience in life, but it's very fulfilling and I know I'll miss those days and I really don't miss being at the Olympics. You know, I don't reminisce. Really? Nope. And I don't reminisce and miss, oh, that feeling that I got in 1996 standing on the podium, which I was very honored to be a part of that and honored to have such amazing teammates and, you know, to win a gold medal and make history. But when I dream about, you know, exciting moments and memories in my life, those don't come up. They really don't.

It's the time with my spouse or making that commitment to say I do because I never thought I would get married coming from a divorced household and seeing so much heartache and pain there or birthing two children naturally and then birthing twins. Wow, that was just a miracle and amazing,

but people do it all the time. They do it every day, but those are the moments that I really relish and they make me smile and they're fulfilling for me. And then the moments today of a young kid walking through my door smiling, or the story that I've heard of parents that had their kids in gymnastics,

they had a negative experience, they were in a very unhealthy environment, too much pressure, a lot of negativity. They get into our classes here, they have a blast, and they're smiling and they can't wait to come back. That's fulfilling. I'm not saying that the Olympics doesn't matter to me. It definitely did, but that's not what fulfills me and that's not what makes me whole. It was a little difficult, I will say, as a young athlete, winning gold sitting on top of the podium and being like, oh, this is it. Like, I'm not fulfilled what

just happened here. This is what. And then when I reached investing and putting away over a million dollars, I was like, oh, wait, I'm supposed to feel so much better about myself and so great, but I don't. And so it's those moments with your family. It's those moments with your spouse. It's those moments knowing that you've planted an amazing positive seed in the stranger's life, that those are the moments that fulfill us and that will last with us for a lifetime. Yeah, I remember when when my book hit number one for the first time I was mowing the lawn, you know, the text came in

and it's like, I still have to finish mowing this lawn. And it was this thing, you know, it was like a five year thing in the making. And it had been this, and I expected to feel X and I felt sort of the lack of X. And then when I think about like the best moments of my life, you know, it's like sitting on a porch swing with one of my kids and they say something cuter, you know,

it's weird how on a porch swing with one of my kids and they say something cuter, you know, it was, it's, it's, it's weird how the actual ordinary things are actually what you find to be extraordinary and the extraordinary things as great as they are. And, and as much as they facilitate, you know, you couldn't have gotten the million dollars without winning the Olympics and you couldn't open the gym without the... But it's how little we actually need to be happy and yet we spend... Unfortunately, people spend so much of their time. Some people feel that, I guess, I'd be curious what you think.

So they get on the metal standard, they hit number one, and it's anticlimactic. You can kind of go two ways when you experience that. Number one is you go, oh, okay, this actually isn't it. I gotta go find something deeper and more meaningful. And then other people go, oh, it's not one Super Bowl that I needed. It's the most Super Bowls of all time. Then I'll have it.

Yeah, so then it'll be never enough, you know? The other day I'm driving home with my daughter after a very long day at the gym, and we were both exhausted, and we see a double rainbow that she points out, and she's screaming and so giddy and so excited, you know, and just kind of, like, that's a moment that I'll never forget.

And, you know, just recognizing, you know, her, you know, reaction to that and how exciting. Then we started talking about a beach trip we had, goodness, I guess it was a couple of years ago, where we saw a double rainbow then and she remembered. I was like, how does she remember that? It was years ago. But it's those little moments and appreciating those that truly are gifts and they are the extraordinary moments in our life that we will hold on to but many of us see

them as ordinary we don't appreciate them we don't recognize the beauty in them and so we always think we've got to be on top of that podium we've got to win not just one Super Bowl like you said but multiple Super Bowls and that's what I'm gonna be fulfilled and I truly think everything that will fulfill us in life, it's right in front of us. Just many of us choose not to see it. And I went through life many years not seeing it. And it is my husband that kind of opened my eyes

to the fact that it's truly those simple, simple, simple moments in life that are truly gifts for all of us. We go behind the scenes looking at devastating financial crimes, like the fraud committed at Enron and Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. American Scandal also tells marquee stories about American politics. In our latest season, we retrace the greatest corruption scheme in U.S. history as we bring to life the bribes and backroom deals that spawned the Teapot Dome scandal, resulting in the first presidential cabinet member going to prison. Follow American Scandal on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge this season, American Scandal Teapot Dome, early and ad-free right now on Wondery+. And after you listen

to American Scandal, go legacy and even the Royals. Bob Bowman is best known as the coach of the 23 time Olympic gold medalist, American swimmer Michael Phelps, and he was a coach for the U.S. Olympic team many times. Well, this year he's actually coaching with France at the Paris Olympics, but he and I talked and I think you'll really like this interview. A big part of swimming is, you know, we talk about relaxation at top speed, right? And that's what you're trying to do.

You're trying to swim at your top speed, but you're trying to do it in a relaxed, flowing way, not a, you know, over-muscled kind of, you know, forced way. Yeah, it's funny, because when I was writing Stillness, I think a lot of people took that to mean, you know, over-muscled kind of, you know, forced way. Yeah, it's funny, because when I was writing stillness, I think a lot of people took that to mean, you know, meditative or, you know, sort of detaching or disconnecting, like stepping away, which that is an important part. You have to have that.

For sure. Really, I am fascinated with stillness in the midst of activity. You know, you're on the free throw line or you're going up, you've got two seconds on the clock activity, you know, you're on the free throw line or you're going up, you've got two seconds on the clock before, you know, you've got to make the throw or, you know, in this case, the race of your life. How do you have stillness while you're charging forward?

I think that's what is called like a flow state, right? You're in a place where time slows down, even though you're in the midst of lots of time pressure and chaos, the Olympic Games is a perfect example. I think you get yourself in a state where everything slows down. You feel like you're a part of everything that's happening instead of just being there amongst the chaos.

And you're able to get your best performance because you're not in this sort of frenetic state. You're in a calm state. It's almost counterintuitive because everything about it is not calm, right? Yeah. But that's what the great ones do. They learn how to do that. Right.

You're calm when everyone else would be losing their mind. Exactly. Yeah. The next paragraph is why I'd found it because I was looking for things about the word stillness, but the writer says, it's 16 without knowing it. Salnikov had grasped the paradox out of stillness comes swiftness and out of patience comes energy. He had cross spread the two seeds that grew on opposite sides of the wall. Oh, I love that. That's beautiful. That's what I thought. Who wrote that article? That was amazing. Yeah, it was like it's one of those things like a lot of Zen things where you're like,

that's beautiful. And I'm also not sure I have any idea what it is. Exactly. I think I know what it means. It means it's just what we just talked about. It's like an inner, you have to have an inner quiet and an inner calm in the midst of this outer, you know, cacophony. I think the idea of how do you get to, because it's funny, you know, you'll ask the athlete after, they'll be like, what were you thinking during the race? Or, you know, and the answer is like nothing.

They sort of went to a place where of no mind. Mm hmm. For sure. And that's exactly what Michael would tell you. And he's been asked so many times. Well, what were you thinking about those like nothing. I was just doing what he was trained to do. And that's really the big that's why we spend all of these years and years of training is to make the physiological aspect of the race automatic, right? You don't have time to make conscious decisions in a race that lasts 49 seconds. You have to just kind of go and free yourself up to do what you've been trained to do. And I think the key component of that is shutting out all the outside noise, being able to just

sort of say, turn on the machine, right? Turn off your brain, turn on the machine and let it run. Because I can get in the way of it. I got to imagine in any one of these races, let's say there's seven, eight, however many swimmers are there. All of them are physically capable of winning the race. Yes, many, most of them.

I wouldn't say all of them, but three or four for sure. And they're all in the ballpark. Yeah. Oh, yeah. And so is it really, is it really as simple as getting in the right? Like the difference between Michael Phelps and number two or whoever in number two is who is in the right mental headspace when they went in the water? Or is it, is it that not right? It's a combination because the top three or four guys are probably in the right mindset too, right? So I think that gets down to just your total package of preparation. What made Michael

invincible was an astonishing preparation for a period of years, physically, mentally, emotionally, getting ready to step up and compete in Beijing, or a lot of the races that he swam in. But I think that's the difference is who's gonna put the whole package together. Everybody has talent at that level, that's not a question. Everybody is doing the big things in training.

Who really comes down to the details? Who's gone through every detail and checked every box and the one who does the most of those is the one who wins. Yeah. And I was, I think it was Ledecky where it was showing something where it was like her like 20 best races are like the one through 20 spots in 800 meters. Right. Yeah, and so you're thinking about, well, what's the difference between the one and the 20 performance? Some of it's age,

some of it's probably the conditions that day, what she's doing, but it's like, clearly it's the same person, right? In all 20 spots, so it must be some microscopic variable, probably a mental variable, a place that they're able to go in the pool on that day. That's the difference between your fastest time and your fourth fastest time. I completely agree. Yeah, for sure. And the environment, a lot has, you know, they take

the energy from it, the good energy from the environment lifts people like Ledecky and you know, Phelps, they get better when the pressure is higher. That's what separates them from number two, three, four is a lot of these people, they are going to perform lower when the pressure goes up. And those guys for some reason are able to give their best in those circumstances. Is that the role of the coach too? Because I mean, of all the sports, the swimming coach has sort of the least input

once the race has started compared to most of the major races. I mean, like even a track coach can at least like, the person could hear you, right? You can yell at them from the side of the track if you're running 1,500 meters. Whereas in swimming, it's sort of like, it's like they're in a spaceship.

Once they take off, you know, you don't have any contact. So what does the coach do to get them in a position to get the best out of themselves? Set up situations in training where they can do that and be successful at it. And a lot of that means challenging them beyond what they think they can do, actually seeing if they can do it,

if they fail, learning that you can come back and do some things differently and succeed the next time. At the meets, my job is over when we get to a big meet, right? Yeah. Everybody's like, what do you say before the race? It's like, I try not to say anything. I don't want to get in. We've talked about the strategy of the race for six months

before. Right. In the last three or four weeks, we're just fine tuning things and maybe a little reminder here or there. But there's no real coaching that can happen at these competitions. It's only sort of, you know, just letting things happen that we've prepared for

for this very long arduous time leading into it. And so the coach's main job is in practice every day. And that's what I love. That's why I do this. It's that kind of day to day, and I hate to use the word grind because it's every, that's what everybody says. But you know, that sort of really intense,

consistent preparation and putting them in situations where they have to rise to the occasion and know they can do it. That's how they build their confidence. That's how they build their mindset. And the more they do of that, the better they are when they get to the big event of just letting everything go and doing what they're trained to do.

Yeah, I read something about John Wooden as the team would leave the locker room to go out on on game day. He would say something like, Well, I've done my job. Yeah, exactly. And that's sort of the idea of like, now it's up to you. And you have all the tools you need, you have the plan you have. It's now on you to execute those things. Exactly. You know, I can illustrate that with a very specific example from Michael leading into Beijing. Obviously, there was a lot of hype about it, a lot of expectations and just 12 years of preparation on our part to get ready for it. One week before the start of the meet, we always do something that's very fast in practice,

and it's the last thing we're going to do. After that, you're just keeping them happy and resting up and doing those kinds of things. One week before Beijing, I asked Michael to do three 100 butterflies from a push off, not diving in. And they had a little bit of easy in between, but each one had to get faster. And on the last one, he went 51.6, which is, it's kind of hard to describe to anyone. It would be that's, you know, no one has ever done anything close to that in practice. If somebody ever went 52 in practice, I would be shocked, but probably three

people have been 53 from the push and practice and Michael's 51. So he got out of the pool came over and I was like, well, that's it. I'm on vacation. My job is done. You're here. You just, you know, continue on and you're ready, you know, and it's the same sentiment. It's actually a great feeling when you kind of know that that you're really prepared. Although I read that you had said something else to Michael in Beijing, something like, maybe I'm messing this up, but something like that you'd read an article that someone had said, maybe it would be better if nobody ever reached more than eight gold medals. You dropped that on him at breakfast. So your work wasn't quite done. Yeah, not quite done. But that was because it was such a

Herculean task, right? Yeah. And you're talking about Michael, who I know better than anybody. Right. And he knows me better than anybody. Uh, and that was for the hundred butterfly, which I knew was going to be the closest race. It was going to be so tight and we had already gotten through the 400 free relay, which was like a miracle. And he was swimming well and everything else. And when I read that, I, I hesitated because I thought, you know, we never really want to think about the other people, like hardly ever.

But Michael is at that point is so experienced and so seasoned. And I knew he was going to swim his race, regardless of what happened. And I just wanted to give him every ounce of energy he could have. And I just dropped it on him. When I said that he just physically, like we were sitting at breakfast. And when I said that he just got taller. He just sat, he's like, he said, what? I said, it'd be better for swimming if you didn't win eight. And he's the guy to do it. And he didn't say another word. I was like, Hmm. But I could tell that just that little piece of motivation was going to add to whatever he was

going to put into that race. I would hesitate to do that most of the time. But at that point, this was the only chance we're going to get at this. And I was going for it. When I was reading that, I thought it's a little bit of a double-edged shorter. It's like you're playing with expert level materials there,

right? Because. Yeah. Yeah. That is the last half of a half a percent that I would use. And that's the only time I've ever really used it. Interesting. Yeah, because generally you do wanna be heads down on what you control and what you're focused on

on being your best. Like the, we're gonna shove it in other people's faces or I'm going to prove them wrong. It's like, you know, Jordan obviously operated on that fuel as I was talking about in stillness, but it's also pretty corrosive fuel, right? Because then you have to go look for more targets after you after you knock each one down. Exactly right. And Michael was very much motivated by some things like that. And that's why I use that, because I knew that it wouldn't have a negative effect.

It would only fire him up. And I've tried to stay away from that most of the time, because like you said, it's kind of a negative motivation. And a lot of times it just come backfire on you. But at that point, that seemed to be the right thing to do. And you know what was crazy? When you watch that 100 fly race right before it, before Michael steps on the blocks,

he puts one leg up on the block and stands sideways and just kind of stands there until they call him to the block. Well, Kavik was in the next lane and he got on the opposite side of the block and did the same thing. So he was looking right face to face at Michael before this race. And I was like, wow, this is sort of intense when I was just watching it. So they swam the race, you know, Michael won by a hundredth, kind of crazy environment.

But when I saw him after the race, I was like, what did you think when Kavik was staring you down like that before the race? And Michael goes, was he looking at me? He had no idea. He was in another world, right? He was like, I was just getting ready to swim. I didn't know what he was doing.

And it was right in front of him. So I thought that was a telltale sign that that's what it means to be in your zone, right? Well, and maybe if you asked the other guy, he would have been like, oh, I was very intensely staring at. So yeah. So it's like he was obsessed with the competitor, whereas the person he was competing against was not even aware of his existence at that point.

Exactly. Yeah, right. The lion doesn't sweat the flies kind of a thing. Yeah, right. The lion doesn't sweat the flies kind of a thing. Yeah, exactly. The other thing I was fascinated to get your opinion about as a coach is the other sort of, well, there's a handful of big story lines from the Olympic, but Simone Manuel's thing about overtraining, because if the coach is setting the practice, this seems like also a really fine balance in your profession is that you wanna push the person to get in their absolute peak conditioning,

but if you push just 1% over, the whole thing can come tumbling down. Exactly. And sometimes it's very hard to tell because these athletes, they wanna go, they wanna go pedal to the metal all the time, right? They know what it takes to get where they want to go. And they don't want to back off. They don't want to take a day off.

They don't certainly don't want to take a week off and they will sort of push through things in the early stages of a, you know, where a physiological overload in a way that kind of masks it, right? Right. They're still swimming well, but you don't know that they're sucking it up to do it, right? They're just gritting and getting, usually just on grit, not on just the energy that they're normally used for training. So that's how you can kind of go over an edge. Then one day they come in, they can't do anything. So, it's very tricky and you kind of have to really know athletes when you're pushing

them at the edge like that. And Simone has been with her coach for a while. He's an excellent coach, Greg Meehan at Stanford. And you know, he handled it, I think, as well as it could be handled. But you just sort of find yourself in a situation where, you know, you're past the line and it's very hard to get back behind it. And then of course, my dear friend and mentor and a hero of mine, the one and only coach, George Raveling. He's a longtime college basketball coach, two time member of the basketball hall of fame.

In 1984 and 1988, he served as an assistant coach on the medal winning Olympic teams coached by Bob Knight and John Thompson. Crazy story, he was actually asked to cut Charles Barkley from that team. This is where he got to know Michael Jordan. That's part of how Michael Jordan ended up at Nike. So lots to talk about here

with the one and only George Raveling. And if you don't get George Raveling's daily coach email, I think you'll love it. You can check that out. Coach, one of the things I wanted to ask you about, just cause I know you sent me an email about it a week or so ago, and you and I had talked about it when I was researching stillness, is the key.

You're obviously, you go way back with Michael Jordan. Are you loving the last dance documentary? Yeah, I am. It's taught me a good lesson. Don't everything you know as much as you think you do. Because I really thought that there wasn't much about Michael that I didn't know. But so far, the last dance has answered a lot of questions of why. So now I understand why he felt this way about certain people, things, and systems.

And I can now better understand why he acted the way he did in certain circumstances. And it's been an amazing revelation to me, not just about Michael, but basketball, the styles of play, the coaching. I was particularly fascinated on this last one about the evolution of Phil Jackson as a coach going from never coaching to becoming one of the greatest coaches of all time. And I love those scenes when on the bench, Phil Jackson's in his early stages, sitting there with Tex Winters and Johnny Bach, and he has a notebook and he's taking notes during the game and the strategies that he used to coach maybe one of the most complex gathering of talent in the history of pro basketball, how he was to take all these uncommon pieces and build

them into a championship team and how he was able to get buy-in and trust. There's probably 10 stories being told at one time. Yeah. I thought two things struck me that I was curious your thoughts on one. You know, obviously the Bulls are one of the greatest franchises of all times. And so in Ego is the enemy, you know,

I make the argument that ego holds people back. I think so far the documentary was a great example, someone like Jerry Krause, obviously his ego didn't prevent him from being successful at all, but it was so obvious that his ego prevented him from being more successful, that it essentially tore the franchise apart.

So if you could share thoughts on that. And then the other one, which I don't think, at least four episodes in, I don't feel like they've truly shown the cost to Jordan of some of the anger that he carried, some of the resentments that he carried, you know, like that he was so driven by, for instance, that desire to prove his father wrong or prove some of his coaches wrong. It feels like maybe they glossed over that a little bit. Yeah, I think some of that could be intentional.

I think the producers have found a good pathway of telling a complex story. And like most good writers, yourself included, you always try to leave your reader wanting more. And so in this case, That's a great point. I think that they wanted, they're trying to whet the appetite of the audience.

And I think they like the conversations we're having. Well, why haven't they shown this? And so they keep your interest of curiosity at a very high level. And the one thing I take away from the early parts is greatness is complex. It's uncommon. You know, one thing you'll hear about most uncommon people is they'll say, oh, they have such a big ego. But to me, I think that's a prerequisite of greatness.

It is an ego to see things that other people don't see, to do things that other people don't do, to say things that other people don't do, to go down the roads that nobody else travels. To me, inherent in all of greatness is the uncommonness of it all. Sure. But don't you, but I don't know, I was just struck by the way that Krauss sort of continually sought out conflict and sought to make it about him and sought like, you know, even just, you know, driving Phil Jackson out, you know, not treating Scabby Pippin well, you know, it struck me that, you know, that was really a factor that cost, you know, the bulls probably maybe a few more, if not several more championships for really no upsides. And maybe a perspective that we could examine, Ryan, is for some people, for them to reach their outer limits,

they need conflict to drive them. And peace, they don't, they're not as good at doing, when peace and tranquility is the environment. But when there's all this conflict and disunity, it drives, it's the fuel that runs the vehicle, that human vehicle is fueled by that. The peace and tranquility gets them nervous and they feel inadequate. And they feel adequate when there's a lot of excitement, drama going on, disunity, because then they kind of, in a way, feel like, okay, now I get on the white horse and I'll calm the warders.

No, I think that's a profound observation, and I've met a number of those people in life. And I think, in a weird way, that's an attitude that can often make someone extraordinarily successful. I just found in my study of history, that tends also to be an attitude that leads to very, you know, cataclysmic falls because eventually the person tangles with the wrong enemy or, you know, blows up something that they worked very hard to build. I don't know about you, but I tend to have a lot of sympathy and pity for that person, even if they're really difficult to be around, even if they make my life miserable.

Ultimately, I feel sadness for them because I know that the person who bears the true brunt of what that must be like is themselves. Yeah, Ryan, one of the things that I think about people who are extraordinary or uncommon, they have acquired the ability to stand in their own troops. And for most people, they can't stand in their own truth. I think this, standing in their own truth is applicable to Phil Jackson, to Michael, to Krauss. God knows a guy who most people didn't even really know that he coached Jordan, Doug Collins. I mean, there's so many examples in so far of people who have the courage to stand in their own truth.

I think it's something that goes under discussion in our society today, is this whole idea about having the courage to stand in your own truth. No, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. And the self-respect to do that. Coach, I'm so grateful for your time. I had one last question that's something I know I've asked you about before. As someone who's now in your 80s, who's been around before, who's been through some bad times in America and experienced some

of the hope and redemption that America brings. How are you feeling about the state of things right now? And I'm just wondering if you have any wisdom for us. I'm going to give you my grandma's wisdom. She used to say, it's always darkest before the sun shines. And that's where I think we'll come out on the other side of this and we'll all be better for it and one great lesson that we're going to learn from this is that the American people are resilient.

They're loving, forgiving, caring people. I mean, we're being deluged with random acts of kindness, not every day, every second, somewhere in the globe, someone is exercising a random act of kindness. And so there's a hell of a lot that we're being challenged with, but there's a hell of a lot of love and kindness in our people, and not just American people. It's really showed us, I'll go back to what I said before,

in a very simple way, there's a hell of a lot of people who are standing in their truth. Now, that's beautiful. And I think that's a great sort of stoic lesson, which is like you decide what lens to look at this. Do you look at all the awful things that are happening in the institutions that have failed and the leaders that have dropped the ball? Or do you look at the leaders who have stepped up or the institutions that have endured that have, have endured the pressure? Do you think, you know, obviously, for me, being in my 30s, you know, I'm not that worried about a virus.

Like, you know, I know the odds are, are in my favor, right? It must be a different experience to be 80 and to have had some health problems. How are you managing what I, what I must suspect might be some anxiety or worry or even fear? How are you managing? I just go to bed every night and I think to myself and pray for a better tomorrow and just keep it simple. Just we'll wake up in the morning and it'll be a better tomorrow than it was. And for me personally, hell, I've already hit the lottery, man. I've had the blessing to be on this earth for 82 years. There's a large segment of American population.

I'll never make it to 40. I've been on the planet for 82 years. I've already on the planet for 82 years. I've already hit the lottery. Anything I get from here on out is a bonus. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and would really help the show.

We appreciate it. I'll see you next episode. If you like The Daily Stoic and thanks for listening, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. And before you go, would you tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey on Wondery.com slash survey.