193- Courage to Leap & Lead with John Saintignon, part 2

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead.

Be brave and be bold. Whoa, let it roar.

Welcome to the Courage to Leap and Lead podcast, where each of our guests share the stories of courage that helped them become powerful leaders. Before we start today's show, please remember to visit courage-consulting.com. Where you can find all the episodes and other excellent resources, all at courage-consulting.com. Now, here's your host, Leadership Courage Coach CB Bowman.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to part 2 of my interview with John. And if you missed part 1, please, please go back and listen to this man of Courage and success. So welcome back, John. Now, after you found out you were adopted— but actually before you found out you were adopted, you were successful. Tell us about your success. How did you start your journey of career success?

Well, almost like anything else, you know, someone has to believe in you. So, you know, it started out—

Oh my God, that is, that is so fundamental.

Without it, without a question, someone that must believe in you. So obviously, you know, like my parents wanted to have me have this education because they believed that that would give me opportunities in life, choices as they put. But, uh, as I go along, I'm, I'm encouraged to try everything that I want to try. From football to baseball to basketball to you know whatever I wished. All all their requirement was is that if I did choose to do something, and I saw it all the way through, and didn't didn't quit, didn't do any of that, which was great by me. You know, but it all started when I'm at St. John's Elementary School and. that Catholic education up until 8th grade. And, you know, it's, it's strict. There were nuns at the time. You know, you, you had lunch, you had to eat everything on your plate. You know, just a lot of things that, that were kind of taught at home anyway, you know, like you had to eat everything that was given to you.

Used to be taught at home. Yes.

Yes, yes. So, so with that, uh, I was fortunate to have a, a coach there who, who saw something in me and encouraged me to play. And, uh, and I fell in love with the game of basketball. I did, I did play football, I did play baseball, I did everything religiously possible to play, but I fell in love with that sport and, and was encouraged And luckily got, got good at it. And, uh, it, it allowed me that next window of opportunity to now go to a private high school, which again was in a different part of town. Now I'm intermingling with different types of kids, different neighborhood, but I bring with me this background of basketball, and it allows me to build tremendous friendships, relationships there, and again, more quality coaches and teachers who are showing an interest and want to help. And I am fortunate, you know, that I had people all along my journey, especially in the world of basketball, from neighbors to older gentlemen to people that would just take me under their wing to, to get me better at this game. And, um, so I end up becoming successful in, in high school and get an opportunity to now fulfill a dream, which in 1979, I see this wonderful college basketball game with Larry Bird and Magic Johnson and And here I am, this, this young Hispanic kid in the south side of Tucson who has got this dream when all I'm told about is like, you know, you should play football, uh, just play soccer, uh, basketball, you know, that's for big tall guys, you know, uh, but How tall are you, John? I see this total passion there, you know, so I—

Hey, John, how tall are you?

Well, I say 6 feet, but I'm probably 5'10, 5'11.

Okay, but we won't tell anybody.

So, so as, as, uh, I get this opportunity, I get Lots of rejections from people to go to college because, A, I'm from Arizona. There were only— there was no social media, there's no internet yet, there's no way of communication other than these magazine publications. And if someone was going to recruit you, hey, you know, you had to, you had to be somebody kind of tall or some, something like that. I get one phone call from a college coach, and I jump at it. You know, it's from the University of California. I'm enthusiastic, and I'm so happy that no matter what he said, I was going to do. He recruits me sight unseen, which was rare too.

Yes.

I show up, I show up to the campus sight unseen. Never had been there. Now I'm venturing into a new world. I'm the only person in my family now going to college. This is, uh, no one has advice for me, and there's no— there's nothing else. This is uncharted territory. And here I am gonna go play a sport, and yet go— what's, what's majoring in college? What, what does all this mean? I have no idea. So, uh, luckily, I— again, someone believed in me, gave me a chance, gave me an opportunity. And I flourished so much so I led the country in scoring. And again, you look at the time, it didn't seem like much, but the accolades were there. ESPN's in its early infancy, and I get this interview on the front page of newspapers. But I'm naive at this time still. Now, hey, this would be a mass— it's still a massive deal because of Of all the players that play this game, I was the one that was the leading scorer in all of basketball. And so it was quite an achievement. And all that did was give me another window of opportunity to go and have a chance to play pro. And again, I'm just grateful for every chance that was coming because It exceeded the expectations that I had had. I wasn't arrogant thinking, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna go and do this. I was, I wished I was at UCLA. I wished I could have been at these places. But eventually I got to play against these people. And so, uh, you know, all things happen for a reason.

Yeah.

And it was like, I, I did everything with blinders on, you know, to, to get my degree, to, to play as hard as I possibly could because I had always been told The basketball was just a tool for me to get my education. That came from my parents at an early age. Without you knowing what you're doing in school, it's not the other way around. And so I respected the game and ended up getting my degree. And, you know, again, when that time came for my college degree, Yes, I played college basketball, but boy, when I got my degree, my college coach was at the end of, end of the aisle, uh, giving— gave me a bottle of champagne. And my mom immediately takes that champagne, pops it, because it's vicariously, it's her degree.

Yes, of course.

So she went with every celebration I had that day. She was everywhere with me, you know, because it was her degree.

Yes. Yeah. How sad.

She couldn't understand what I was going through because no one, no one knew. You know, I'm just trying to explain to them, my gosh, I'm in this lecture and I have no idea what I'm doing. I feel overwhelmed. And, and that's all it was, was just chip away, stay in the fight. Keep hunting, you know, kind of don't quit, you know, whatever you do.

John, what made you stay in the fight? What made you hungry enough to stay in the fight?

Well, I think you— I definitely didn't want to disappoint anybody, but, but for my own— definitely wanted to prove that I am more than, than what people had looked at me as being, you know, I always carried that chip on my shoulder, and to this day I still do. Um, you might think I wasn't this, that I shouldn't play this sport. I'll show you that I could, and not only could, I'll be the best at it that I, that I possibly can be at. Does that mean I'm gonna make it to the NBA? No, but I had a tryout. That's as good as it got for me. I got to play. I got to do the things that were valuable to me. But I was— but I also wanted to be known as more than that. I'm not one-dimensional. I'm not— I had a long, successful career in the game of basketball as a, as a player and as a coach. But boy, with my athletes, I rarely talk about the game because it's I want to do something else. I want to learn more. I want to— I'm curious. I want to always do other things. You don't just want to be known as, you know, this is all you did. No, no, not at all.

What is it that you feel your next journey looks like?

Well, I do know that my calling in life is to help others. There's no question about it. But I am very curious as to how to help others.

Oh.

Um, I, I look into ways that one, not gonna know something. I don't— I have— I've taken great pleasure in that, in that statement. I don't know. And that, you know, it ends. I don't act like I know something that I don't, but I'll find out, you know. Now this makes me curious about something. I, I don't like people who think, who make up something that they don't know and they just act like they're an expert on something and they're not. Well, why not be humble and say you just don't know? Nothing wrong with that. And, uh, so for example, recently I was coaching in Japan, and, uh, while that affords me a tremendous respect level in, in the country by being a coach and a leader. And I— it, it gives me these opportunities to be curious about other industries, other people that I meet. And I mean, I go out of my way to meet these people, and they're more than willing to talk to me because they now know I'm curious about what they do.

Mm-hmm.

And so in this one city that I was in, there was this big factory, and I wanted to know what this factory did. I'm, I'm, I was just curious, you know. I was like, it's, it's big. I want to know what, what do they do inside there?

Mm-hmm.

And the person there just couldn't understand, but was like, hey, you're a famous basketball coach. Of course we're gonna have you come here. And, and I'm now understanding this, this particular plant took protein, changed the protein into A product that, that goes into a glass of water that you mix to help those patients who are stricken with sickle cell disease. It was saving people's lives. Now, I'm just trying to win basketball games, you know. I'm not by any means impacting someone's pain and life in that manner. I I might because it's an entertainment side, but in that manner, I was flabbergasted. Now I'm curious. I want to know how, where does this come from? My gosh, it's an enormous operation to do this. And so I meet the CEO and I'm, that's, that's like, this is what I do. I want to know how these people just take these incredible steps in life, you know, and find a way to help people, you know. So that's what I do, you know. I try to reach out and get curious is really, I guess, the best word.

So, so now you're work— you're working on, um, coaching, um, college kids, right? Um, do you see that your next journey is going to be Coaching addition— I phrased that wrong. Continuing to coach?

Not, not 100% sure. So I, I definitely have gone the full spectrum of coaching. I coached high school, then I coached college, and this last, uh, this last, uh, 10, 15 years I've coached professionally. So I've lived abroad a number of countries. Um, no, I'm— I really, uh, would like to venture off into other avenues and explore. I'm an open book. I really wanna— what I have discovered is me coaching like these athletes to, to perform on a floor, professional athletes, college athletes, it, it really translates into the same in business. It really does. I, I have spoken to many CEOs and I coached them on Essentially how they're dealing with their own teams, their own people. They don't they don't they don't know it, but they're having that same conversation with me, and I'm like, and I leave the conversation going. It's exactly like I do with my own basketball team. It's no different. You know, and so I would like to venture off into something else in life. Coaching has been wonderful to me, you know, but it's it's just not all I am. I'm open, I'm open and curious to, to see where other things lead in life.

Hmm. Do you see yourself helping other people that have been adopted so that they find a successful path like you?

Gosh, I would love to do that. Um, I'm not 100— I don't know how to do that. Uh, I would love to, to have that conversation. A number of podcasts I've been on, I think maybe 5, that have dealt with the adoption side of storytelling because they found that my story was compelling. And, and all I discovered was it was different than the others that I had heard prior. There are the negative aspects of it, like why was I given up for adoption? And I guess you can go down that pathway, but You can also see the benefit of the other side too, and I can also see the other side as well. I, I see both. You know, I'd love to be an advocate, um, and a lobbyist of some sort, or somehow, some way to help. Um, again, all things in life, Miss Bowman, somebody has to take what and, and, and help you move into this next area. For example, if there was an athlete that I saw, no matter how good that athlete is, isn't going to get to the place they want to get to on their own. It takes someone like me to say, I saw this person, I will help them now get to that next level, because that other person now knows who I am, and therefore that opportunity arose. I'm in the same position now. While my resume might say just basketball coach for the last 30 years. I'm much more than that. And I need that other opportunity. I need someone else to say, hey, I know someone, at least take a look at what this person brings to the table. And, and then therefore, that's, that's the, that's the cycle of life to me. That's, that's how, how everyone helps one another. I've never gotten a job by just submitting an application. It's never happened for me.

Yeah, I don't see you as that type. You're more of a relationship-building person.

Oh yeah, I mean, I love— I love— I'm curious, you know. I just want to know someone else's story, and I'll have a dinner talking about that all day, you know, because it's remarkable to me. And mainly because, you know, What what it'll circle back to. You know, a lot of these people that I you think are so tremendous CEOs in life, you know, they have a purpose in life. They have a passion in something, and they're persistent at something. And when I ask them about those, I mean that that they're they're shocked. They actually want to hear. They want to tell somebody about it, but they've never been asked. And I, you know, I've met the president of Ferrari. You know, of all that's like the the the car of dreams kind of thing. And and all that guy wants to do is have dinner with me and talk about basketball, wine, Italy, other things. Rarely want to talk about the same stuff, but we were so curious and you want to know about each other. And take a little piece of what you learned and move it to benefit you. And that's, that's what I, I'm looking for now. I'm, I'm actively searching for another opportunity in life that can utilize what I bring to the table, but without looking at my resume going, huh, he's been a coach the last 30 years. He's just a basketball guy. No chance am I just a basketball guy.

No, no. You know, it's interesting in listening to your story today. I see you as a savior to so many people who have experienced being adopted, being abused, to, to be somebody that has the faith in them to change their viewpoint from victim to success.

You know, in Japan, I was, I was, I wanted to visit those that were given up for adoption. But it's a closed type of culture. There's no way you're going to find that out. Then I wanted to find out, like, there has to be. And luckily I kept asking. Now, over 3 years of me living there, I finally came to discover there was a place called Kids Rap that was near me, and it was just abused kids that were given a place to, to, to learn, maybe play some ping pong. have a, have a meal for them and be surrounded by like-minded individuals who cared about them only for a few hours out of the day, right? I asked if I could go. And now again, using my position as I was the head basketball coach, it was a bigger deal. But do you know that I went there as many times as I possibly could? Because what they gave me, you know, I started having— you know, the Japanese culture is not one to touch much, you know, but I started having them hug me and sitting on my lap. I'm giving them bread, desserts, food, things to take home because they're not going to have it. And this is, uh, this is that type of That's why I wanted them to see I, I was given up for adoption, you know. And they, they just— it was—

Are these children still living in an abused situation, abusive situation? Yes.

They just get to go away for a little while and they go right back. But every day they have this opportunity. And hey, you know, for a couple hours a day you're playing ping pong with them. You know, or or me asking, you know, teach me teach me Japanese. You know, oh God, that was that was funny. You know, because I intentionally would say the wrong thing to make them correct, and then I would do math with them and and English, but touching them all the time. I wanted them to feel that I. My hand on them.

Positive reinforcement.

Just love, you know. I just never wanted to— that was probably the best thing that ever happened to me, being, being there in Japan, you know. Because yes, all the accolades of thousands of people, television audiences, professional athletics, people think that's a wonderful— it's entertainment. These were real kids, you know. Big difference.

Well, John, we have to end this interview sadly, but there's so much out there that I feel you can make a difference in so many lives. I cherish the fact that you can do this, and it's clear that you could do it with success and heart, and so many people can have success in their own lives as a result of the success and your mindset that you've had for yourself.

Wow, I appreciate that, Miss Bowman. And, uh, if there's any— anybody that I can help out, you know, I'm more than willing to. I'm an open book. I haven't had all success. I've had multiple failures in life too.

Oh, before we end, tell me about a failure that you've had that you were able to Well, good question.

You know, some of the things, like when you're dealing like with a first-year franchise, it's like starting out like a startup company, right? And what you experience is an unbelievable amount of failure. You don't come into the— in the world of athletics, the teams with the most money are the ones that are the most successful, generally speaking.

Mm-hmm.

But you enter the, you enter the gladiator's den with what you have. And that, for many coaches in life, they, they are not ever wanting to be in that position because ego-driven, transactional, wanted to win games.

Mm-hmm.

I wanna be known as a transformational coach, but when you're given these constraints, you feel like you're a failure. You feel like, I don't have the same thing. Now I'll tell you, on a professional basketball team, there are 5, about 5 coaches, maybe 4 athletic trainers. You have practice kind of like that. I did not. I did have no coaches. It was just me. Now, I don't speak Japanese, so I need a translator. This is double, triple time work now.

Hmm.

You talk about dividing up a team at practice. There, there are many constraints that you are dealing with. And the loneliness of when you lose a game— part of the reason why you have such staffs is so that you can talk to them and commiserate. Figure out new things because it's it's lonely at the head coaching spot when the attacks come and they come from all angles social media only winning and losing is all you see boy you feel like you're a failure you feel like you've lost everything you know and so how do you rebound with that you know you it is the relationship that you built you you must go out and encourage. And what I find is we were losing a lot of games because we weren't as deep as others. We didn't have that same, uh, type of athlete as others. And so I walked in every day going, how am I gonna pull this off?

Mm-hmm.

And, and we could at times, but But over the long course of an entire season, you're not going to. And so what I did was I just constantly, how do I deal with this failure? You know, you have to think about where you're from. You have to think about other distractions. You think about listening to music. You think about reading good books. You talk about your exercise. You do a lot of other things to build a Well, it's like to walk into this.

John, is this something that coaches go through after each game that they lose? Or because on TV you get the idea when you're listening to these coaches that their team lost, it's like, well, we just have to do better. And it's, it's almost like, um, fluff it off answer.

Yeah.

I mean, you, you get the feeling that they've built up this armor That says, yeah, you know, next.

I would say, Ms. Bowman, that probably that's, that's, uh, that's, um, television ease, you know, kind of thing. You have to say these things so that you come across that you're in control and so on. But I, I have known— I, I know of no coach that personally isn't afflicted by this By the loss. They take it personally. You wonder about— because as an assistant coach, no, you don't have the same. You don't have the same. You're okay. You could deal with losses. You're fine. You're— but at the high seat, those decisions are yours. The criticism is yours. And it's lonely. It's not a place where there's many people around you. You know, it's a lonely environment at the top. And there's the mental illness that occurs for every coach that sits at those decision-making— assistant coaches make suggestions all day. And if their suggestion was taken and it didn't work out, it's still the head coach's fault. If the decision wasn't taken Then the head— then the assistant coach goes, you see, you should have taken my advice. It's never this— the decision-making, you know, that it's, it's always on the shoulders. Uh, yeah, every coach that I know of in every single sport that I've ever dealt with, they go through an amazing amount of, of, uh, a range of emotions of how to deal with it.

And John, who's there to support those emotions?

So this is why you see some of them act out. They'll, they'll take it out on their team. They'll, uh, they'll act out on a reporter from time to time. Uh, they'll go into seclusion. You know, uh, I know I did. I experienced anxiety for the first time in my career. last year, uh, because I want to do so much more, but I don't have the resources to do that much more. And I felt like—

What does that mean?

So as, as, as I was pointing out to you, like, I want to walk into this arena with the same amount of bullets you carry, you know, kind of concept. We're going into a fight They have a gun. I have a knife. You know, we're not at the same level. Now I got to get strategic as to how I manipulate this for a little while. It's exhausting. You know, you just want to walk in with the same weapons they do, but you don't have it. And luckily for me, that's how I was kind of raised in life. I didn't have those golden spoon opportunities like that. It made me appreciate things more. drive the players more, get more creative. I became better at it, at my craft of coaching, because scouting is a tremendous amount of work, breaking down video on your opponent, uh, and then transferring that.

What do you mean by breaking down the video on your opponent?

So as in a game, so we have 60 games and In, in a season. And in those, you have an opponent and you, you want game film on them, whether it's last week, day before, however they play, a knowledge of—

Oh, I get it. I get it now.

Now you have to take that information and transfer it so it's digestible to your own team in 2 languages. Alone, you know, because I have to do it in English and Japanese. And, and then now you rehearse it so that you understand what your opponent is going to be like. Uh, if with proper resources you have much more people that could do these kind of things to help you out, but you're not, so you feel like you're overwhelmed. Even if I won the game, immediately I have to turn around and now Instead of having assistant coaches do this, it is just, it is back on me again. You feel this tremendous weight of responsibility, like, yeah, we won. I feel great. I can only enjoy it for a little while because now I got to go back and do this. Now, if you lost, food doesn't even taste good. Nothing is good. You are now back at it all over again. And you start to think like, I don't have— I don't have the resources. Now you start to think like you're a failure because you're losing games. Yeah, I'm not. You're not. It's just that the general public doesn't understand. I don't have the same resources they do. And the— for example, in the world of baseball here in the United States and Major League Baseball, the New York Yankees have an enormous payroll. The Oakland A's do not. It's totally different places they come from. Over time, there's going to be a balancing out of the superstar athletes. The world of basketball is the same world of football. All these sports have this same thing. So it— that's, that's where I came back, like, thinking, man, I, I— It takes someone else to talk to, to, to get out of the feeling that you're a failure. Simply because you lost the game when, when in fact, Miss Bowman, less than 1% of the entire world population could care less about what I did.

Well, I don't know about that. I listened to my husband watching sports. He loves sports and it drives me crazy. And he's like, well, why the hell did you do that? Don't do that. Don't pull him out. And I'm like, yeah, well, if you were that good, you'd be a coach yourself. Second of all, have some compassion. And third, I can't even imagine the pressure that coaches go through with all the men that are just in arms about a call they made or didn't make. How do you do that? How do you— how do you have the courage to get back in the game the next game, believe you're going to win, and bring your team to victory?

Yeah, well, it's just— it is all those things, you know. It's the one thing can change the complexion of a game, but it's the next play mentality. You need to transfer that to your athletes. Whatever happened, it happened. It's next play. It's always something else that's going to happen. You overcome hurdles, obstacles all day long, you know. Those athletes can come into the locker room disappointed with their prior relationship they just had an argument with, uh, didn't eat properly. Oh, you name it, you know, things come to the table. And by the time that game is occurring, you know, you, you hope all, all, all focus is on this, but in reality it's not. It's not always that.

So what do you do? What do you do as a coach for yourself and the team?

That's, that's why they They use a number of tactics. You know, they'll—you could see them, as your husband stated, taking out a player. Well, perhaps that's that's for a reason. Maybe that player isn't performing. The player's tired, or it's or it's to spark something. I'm pulling you out because you're not performing. You're not here, and and sit down on the bench and get re. reignited. Think about why we're here. And there are a number of tactics like that. You know, that's why you see coaches' emotions on the sideline, or lack thereof. They go through a lot of things, you know, because it's— it is a human game. It is a game. It should be enjoyed. But when you add the pressure of money and, and revenue and Ticket sales, you know, and now you start to see it's really just a business.

But how do you have the courage to keep going?

Well, because you believe in, in what you're trying to do. Like I told you, there are 2 types of coaches. There's one that's transactional. That's the guy that only thinks about winning and losing games, how many championships they have. There's the other type of coach that's transformational. That's the one that wants to change someone's life using this game. Um, in some manner. So you will have to figure out ways in which, like, why is someone playing a game? They started at an early age. Why did they decide to play it? You really are a psychologist a lot of the times. You're a, you're a dad, you're a psychologist, you're a brother, you are an absolute, uh, antagonistic, uh, Drill sergeant. Sometimes you are all these things to get to where you think you can take them. That's the role of a coach. They think they're here; you want to move them here. That that requires trust, and it requires from everybody the ability that I'm going to move you to a new place that you couldn't go. But if you're only concerned about winning and losing. Well, then you don't really care about the athlete anymore either. You can you can fire an athlete. You know, you you can do a lot of things. Yeah, there's a lot of a lot of issues that go into this into this game because I'll tell you this: your husband can attest to this. A coach is judged immediately, daily. Every decision is is out there for everyone to judge. And that fan is making a judgment every minute on them. Now, if I was to go to IBM where that person worked, I can't tell what they do all day. If I was there and I saw them on the laptop and said, is this all you do? Is this what you did today? Because they're not judged, they're judged quarterly. So they're judged every—

Yes.

3 months, and really it's the last 1 month when they start to kick it in gear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whereas that coach is judged every day. I call it a 1-day contract. That's all they have. Yeah, yeah. Because they can be fired tomorrow, and because that's, that's, that's their body of work out there, but it depends on others.

I, I don't get, John, how you can live with that kind of pressure. How a coach— I mean, it's the same pressure that we often face in life, but it's multiplied by the fact that it's every day. When you go home at the end of the day, what gives you the strength to go back the next day? Even if you think you're making a difference in people's lives, your team, Specifically, you want to win. That's natural to win. But you're faced with not winning, failure. I mean, what kind of courage does it take inside to say, let's go?

Well, Ms. Bowman, a lot of times you're an actor. You don't feel great. You know, we don't— we all don't feel 100% every day. So you do— you are acting. You are having to put on this show, and I and I would you know all your listeners probably know if you walked into a practice of some particular team that you liked, you would see this high energetic reaction every single day from that coaching staff, and you would be like there's no way they think this way today. You know, but they're but they're acting so that they can get this energy and enthusiasm and excitement. Excitement throughout the building so that their athletes can perform. But realistically, you must know like they're not. No one gives 100%. There's no such thing. Coaches love to say I gave 110%. There's no such thing. You may give 60% that day. All I'm asking is give me all of that 60% that you have.

But wait, wait, wait a second. Why can't you give 110%?

There's, there's no, no, no person that I've ever met has consistently gotten even to that, to that level of all out, all, every effort like that. They want— it doesn't— it's not sustainable. Watch every course of everything. Why is it not? I don't know. I mean, if you— I, I don't know why that is, but I do know if you did push-ups, for example, today, and you said, I'm gonna do 10, and your mind will say stop at 6, it hurts. But theoretically, you have 40 more percent. You have to break what your mind tells you. You can keep going. It won't be pleasurable or anything, but that's the training of that mind one more time. Hmm. And so now if you did 10, the next day you, you'll find out you can do 20. It gets better and better, but you have to train your mind that I can give 40% more. And if that's— but that athlete, yeah, I've yet to meet that athlete that has gone all out all the time, every single possession. It, it just has never occurred. And so once I knew that, and I knew a person was having, let's say, a bad day and not giving all they had for whatever reason, just— you got for this amount that you have. Now it changes their perspective one more time. It, it allows them to know, like, hey, I, I, I sympathize with what you're going through. I know you're not all here today. Just give me the best you've got of what you have right now. Inevitably, they'll, they'll, they'll give you more.

Mm-hmm.

If you, if you start to program early and you start to say that, that whole thing, like, you know, we're going to do 10 push-ups, around 6 you'll start to notice that quit happens. I got 40% more, but you need to reinstill how that gets there. The same in, in academia world. If you read, read 2 chapters, uh, you know, you get all of a sudden you've been distracted a million times in that 2 chapters. You can't wait to— the first time the phone buzzes, you can't wait to look at it, you know. And so you start to think of all these things that are going through. You know, one of the hardest things I ever did was write that book, you know. Oh my God.

I was just gonna say that because I'm giggling because I use those excuses when I was at my writing time. I'm like, okay, stop, CB.

Yeah, you can't, you just can't, right? You just, you're just like, where do I even begin, you know? And It's that same thing telling yourself again, I got more. I— there are no distractions. How do I get through this? And, and achieve and get to this point? And yeah, so, you know, you trick your mind. And so it happens in the academia world, business world, you name it, you know.

Yeah, I'm writing this down because it's such great, great quotes. Quotes and lessons. Yeah. Okay, John said I have to do this when I get writer's block.

Oh yeah, you got 40% more. You got more to give. Yeah, you definitely have way more.

Look, John, I— we really do have to end, and I love ending on that note. Yes.

Ms. Bowman, it's been a pleasure to, first of all, to meet you and to be a part of your tremendous podcast. And I hope if any guests that can reach out to me, I'm an open book. I'd love to talk to them all. And who knows, maybe one or two of them have other opportunities that they think I can help them with.

And by the way, not to say that John is not a success, It's just his humility in how he communicates. John, this has been great. I cannot thank you enough for your openness and your willingness to share to help other people get over the mindset of trauma that they have. And I love your personality.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

My pleasure. And I can't wait to meet your husband one day and to ask him what is he thinking, you know?

Oh my God, you will— you'll be sorry. You know, I said to myself, I never want to marry a jock, and then what do I marry? The biggest one in the world. I mean, He's now even watching women's basketball.

I'm like, how can you not? You have to follow Caitlin Clark.

Yeah, yeah, he tells me about Caitlin Clark all the time. I'm like, okay, who's that again?

She could run for president now, man.

Yeah, yeah, big time now. And he's going, well, she'll never be cut. And I'm like, cut?

Okay. Yeah, nope, not, not gonna happen.

Yeah, yeah. And then he talks about, well, she'll be in the first-round draft pick, and I'm like, what does that mean, for goodness sake?

Yeah, yeah. Well, we have lots to talk about.

Yeah, yeah. Hey, audience, this has been a pleasure. Please check in with us next Tuesday for another very, very exciting guest. This is CB And John, on courage to leap and lead. And by the way, John, what is the name of the book that you wrote?

So I wrote, uh, a couple years ago, Take Your Shot, Make Your Play, and it did very well internationally. And now I'm— I've finished my second book. I'm just looking for a publisher on, uh, on the story of me going and searching for my adopted parents.

I have a publisher for you.

Please, please give to me because, uh, that book is called Shooting for Impossible.

Oh, I love the title.

I have the, uh, the manuscript all completed, done, and I just need a publisher who sees that value and, and, uh, wants to take a look.

Okay, well, we'll talk. Audience, see you next week. Bye, everybody.

Bye.