PNTV - The Hoops Whisperer by Idan Ravin

You're listening to Optimize with Brian Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes TV Today, another great book, the Hoops Whisperer. The Hoops Whisperer by Idan Ravine. Subtitle on the court and inside the heads of of basketball's best players. Awesome book. I'm going to be doing a lot more biographies. I happen to love sports. I've got a few sports ones coming up. But Idan Ravine's story is fascinating. He is the kind of personal coach and trainer for the best basketball players in the world. LeBron James, Chris Paul, Dwight Howard, Kevin Durant, Steph Curry, ton of other extremely good athletes come to him to get better. And what's so cool about his story is you may think, okay, well, what would it take for you to be in a position to coach people like that? You must have been a pro player or at least a top tier collegiate athlete or maybe front office NBA guy or maybe a trainer or sports psychologist, right? You got to have some stamp that says you're worth working with these guys. And he's not that guy. He grew up in a really conservative Jewish family. He loved basketball, but his family didn't look at sports in a positive way. Yet he just crushed it and trained as hard as he could as a kid, played at this tiny little high school, tried to walk on at the university, I think of Maryland, didn't make it. But then he continued to play pickup basketball because he loved the game so much and constantly worked on his skills, like obsessively, awesomely worked on his skills. And then he wanted to figure out how he can create a career in basketball and he just couldn't figure it out, which we're going to talk about in the first Big Idea. So I'll leave it at that for now. But if you're someone who feels like you come from a disadvantaged background and you want to make it doing something that you love to do, this book is awesome as an inspiration and just an example, not necessarily a guide. He gives a lot of wisdom and he says, look, the only thing I can tell you is not to follow my path, but that you need to create your own path. But he demonstrates the fact that it can be done and it's awesome. Philosopher's note, Bunch of big ideas. I'm already getting excited. We've got five of them. Let's look at the first one. Love and Money. So I gave you a quick little biographical sketch of Idan. And his background didn't come from a Traditional basketball background, yet he managed to work with the best athletes in the world who come to him to up their game. How did he do it? Well, he started with his love. He didn't start with the money. And he shares this just a little bit more on his background. He wound up going to law school. Didn't want to be there, but finished. I dropped out before I finished. He kept on going. Then he became an attorney. Didn't like that. And then while he was an attorney. And he kept on playing pickup basketball throughout this time, right? And honing his game. And while he was an attorney, he coached a little kids team and they were awesome and they loved him. And he got so much out of it. And then he wound up coaching a young athlete who was doing some good things in his hometown back east, right? And that led to. He really helped him perform well for whatever he needed to do. And that led to an opportunity to work with other great individuals and great athletes, right? And then that led to his opportunity to work with other great athletes, all of which he did for free. And he literally paid to work with some of these athletes. He'd fly where he needed to go and he'd do what he needed to do. Didn't get paid a dime until Elton Brand, one of the best basketball players in the world, professional athlete, professional basketball player, right. Wrote him a check. And he shares the story of how he negotiated those fees. He's really funny. He says, yeah, I kind of muttered, yeah, pay me whatever you want. He said. He said that. Pay me whatever you want really fast at the end of a sentence. And he's like, I don't even know if he heard me say it. And I would have taken jelly beans if he had paid me in jelly beans because I just loved doing what I was doing. He wound up paying him a lot more than jelly beans. And he wound up getting paid a lot more from all these other athletes. But the cornerstone of the story here is he loved it so much he would have done it for free. And he did do it for free while he got so good they couldn't ignore him. So we come back to Cal Newport's idea, right? And so good they can't ignore you. Where he takes a different vantage point on love and craftsmanship, right? He says, you shouldn't think about love, you should just focus on being a craftsman. Longer conversation. But what we need to do in this model is figure out what do you love to do and then put in the work to be so good they can't ignore you. Be a craftsman about it. So proud of getting better and serving the people who you're serving, whether you're getting paid or not as well as you possibly can. Really powerful idea. And in the note, I talk about, what do you love to do so much that you would literally pay to do it? And then how do you get paid to do it? So he loved to play basketball so much he would have paid to do it. And then he figured out how to get paid to do it. And, oh, by the way, he also tried everything else he could think of. He sent resumes to every single NBA team and executives trying to find a way to get in. Constantly got rejected. And he says, thank God I got rejected because I never would have created what I created without those obstacles. But what do you love so much you'd pay to do it? For me, when I asked myself that question, gosh, 15 years ago now, inspired by Michael Gelb and his great book, how to Think like da Vinci, I love to read. I love to study and embody and teach the fundamentals of optimal living. I've known that for a long time. You and I did a little bit and did a little bit, then did other things and came back to it, as I've discussed in many of these episodes. But I've known for a long time that I would literally pay to be able to do what we're doing right now. Me sharing this wisdom, us being able to chat via YouTube and via our membership platform. It's so fun for me. I would pay to do it. And I've worked hard over the last 15 years to figure out a way to get paid. So what is it for you? How do you approach that with the next big idea of commitment to greatness? So I talk about all the time the fact that these books often can be summarized in one word. So the author comes back to a word or a theme again and again and again and again and again and again. In Mastery by Robert Greene, I shared the fact that what Robert Greene comes back to when he talks about da Vinci and Henry Ford and the Wright brothers and all these other extraordinary luminaries was intensity. They had intensity. They were intensely tenacious. They were intensely focused on their work and on their mastery and on their craft. Idan's word is greatness. He won't work with anyone unless they're committed to greatness, to being the best they can possibly be. In the note, I talk about Maslow. I talk about Maslow all the time. And I love drawing this little triangle. Maslow's Hierarchy. You have your foundation, and then you have your ultimate potential. Your ultimate potential. If you actually actualize your potential, greatness is inevitable. Now, it's extraordinarily challenging to do that, but you're not going to do it without a commitment to do it. So he only works with people who are committed to being the best they can possibly be, being great at what they do. So when you've identified what you love and what you're committed to mastering, and again, this could be a sport or an art or a craft or parenting or business or whatever it is, commit to being the best you can possibly be. Let that energy come through you in everything that you do. It's an amazing fuel. Which leads us to the third big idea. Two buckets. Two buckets. So when we talk about Maslow and actualizing our potential, Maslow, as I share often, he says, look, if you want to achieve your potential, you're only going to do that moment to moment to moment to moment. He says, in any given moment, you have a choice. Here's this moment. Do you step forward into growth, or do you step back into safety? Plus one, minus one is the game that I've created. Plus one, minus one, guess what? That goes out into infinity. And in a day when you aggregate a bunch of plus ones, you're going to feel great. A day that you aggregate a bunch of negative ones, you're not going to feel great. Well, Idan tells us via a lesson that he shared with one of his athletes who wasn't doing the things that demonstrated that he was serious. He said, look, it's really simple. You have two baskets. You have a good basket and a bad basket. You need to identify whether what you're going to do right now in this moment is shooting into the good basket or shooting into the bad basket. And your destiny is going to be determined by whether or not you choose wisely. It's exactly what Maslow said. Plus one, minus one, forward into growth, back into safety. If we want to actualize, we got to choose wisely. And our power only exists in this moment. So the next time you step up to do something, ask yourself, is this a good. Is this a shot into the good basket, or is this a shot into the bad basket? You're not going to be perfect. Don't hold yourself to that standard, but try to and commit to shooting more consistently into the good basket. And when you notice you're shooting into the bad basket, quit doing that. Put some cardboard over the bad basket. By eliminating distractions and literally unplugging your WI fi or doing whatever you need to do to make it easier to shoot into the good basket. Fourth, big idea. Coloring. Idan shares a great story in one of his chapters. They're all really short, fun chapters. He's hanging out with his little niece, and she's coloring, and he doesn't think she's coloring quite the right way. So he says, hey, you know, why don't you do it this way? And he shows her the way to flex her wrist. And you can, you know, use the crayon in one direction so it looks better. And she's like, no, I don't want to do it that way. And he's like, but why not? Don't you want to look good? You know, the way your mom and I teach you? She's like, no, I'm cool with the way. I got it. And he's like, really? Why? And she says, because it's my drawing. It's mine. I get to choose what I want to do and how I want to do it. And just an awesome example of the fact that we each need to choose our own path. And. And I jokingly say that his niece must have studied Nietzsche. Nietzsche in Thus Spoke Zarathustra said people would come to him or his character in the book and say, what is the way? Show me the way. And Zarathustra would say, there is no the way. There's my way, but what's your way? Because there is no the way. So as we talk about these ideas, one of the reasons why I'm so excited to explore such a broad array of ideas is you tell me what your path is. There is no one way. There is no coloring book of life that you need to color within the lines. You need to create your own philosophy, your own perspective, and then have fun owning that day in and day out. Fifth big idea is Plato's cave. So Plato's cave. Basic idea here is Plato said, imagine if you grew up in a cave, right? And all you ever saw was inside this cave. And you didn't even see the whole cave. You just saw one wall. You just stared at the wall your whole life, and behind you, you didn't know what was behind you, but behind you was a fire. And people would walk in between the fire and the wall behind you, and weird shadows would show up on the wall. It's Plato's cave. And then one day, one person escaped and. And went outside the cave, and they saw what life was really like, and they saw the sun, and they saw all the different colors. And they saw all the amazing array of things that go on in life outside of the cave. Then if that person came back into your cave and tried to tell you what was going on outside of the cave, you'd think that person was crazy because your entire reality is based on these shadows cast on a wall. So he says, when you dare, Emerson says, to trust yourself as your own taskmaster, right? To trust yourself, to not conform. When you do that, when you exit the cave and you come back and you try to explain the visions you're having for your life, some, if not most, if not all, of the people you share this with are going to think you're kind of crazy and they might be a little vicious about it and try to cast you out. Right. And not accept what you're saying because they're so wed to their view of reality. We just need to be aware of that as we navigate our path. And there you go. That's Point O's cave. Very quick look at Point O's cape Color outside the lines. Two buckets. I love this. Good bucket, bad bucket. It's very simple. If you want to actualize your potential, choose wisely, step forward into growth, greatness. If you're not into that, that's awesome. Do what you want to do. But if you are into it, commit to it and live in integrity with the challenge of actualizing your potential and expressing your own greatness. Remember love and money. I love the humility with which he shared the story of how he got his first check. Pay me whatever you want. Totally inhibited. Didn't feel comfortable asking for the money. Would have done it for jelly beans and put it out there and proved you can follow your love right and your passion. And over the long run, if you diligently, patiently, persistently do it and master your craft and do your best over the long run, you have a shot. You're not guaranteed, but you have a shot at doing what you're here to do. So that's a quick look at the Hoops Whisperer. Awesome guy. If you enjoyed this so far, I think you'll like the book. And what was the idea that jumped out? What was the one idea that most landed? How do you make that a more practical part of your day to day reality? Hope you enjoyed. Look forward to sharing more. Have another awesome day. See you. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that Philosopher's Notes TV episode. 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