Unlocking Inner Worlds: Dean Cooper on The Power of Presence, Curiosity, and Conscious Living

Hello everybody and welcome to another exciting episode of The Everyday Entrepreneur. Here I'm your host, Paul H. Flowers Jr., and this is the Popery Place podcast show. Today I've got the distinguished honor to bring on a guest that many of you might actually know. This gentleman has traveled the country with an extensive career in coaching and basically human development. Now, we're not just talking about any individuals that he may coach. We're talking about elite-level athletes. So really looking forward to this exciting conversation. Mr. Dean Cooper, welcome to the show. How are you, my friend?

Good, Paul. Thanks. Thanks for having me. And I appreciate the introduction. I'm really looking forward to our conversation., today.

Absolutely, absolutely. And again, it's always a pleasure to have guests from varied backgrounds. So we're just gonna hop right in. Uh, let us know right now, Dean, where are you? What are you working on? And let's go into a little bit of history lane and how you got to this point today.

Yeah. Um, well, currently I'm actually sitting in Nashville, Tennessee. You can probably see I've got a bunch of music stuff here in the background. Um, and, uh, so that's what I'm— where I physically am. Uh, where I am in my journey is the last couple years after 22 years in the NBA, and I'll, I'll hop back to that in a second since you asked, and I'll try to give you the funnel version of it. What last couple years, um, I've been, uh, consulting with teams and, um, and doing, just individual workouts with younger kids, high school, late middle school age kids. And, and then I, besides that, I, while I was doing this consulting thing, I wanted to come up with a product or a something where I could do a workshop, a seminar where I just go in for a day, 4 or 5 hours and talk to people about how to build healthy culture, how to sustain it. What does it look like? Healthy faith. Feedback Loops. That was born out of—

for about—

I'm a huge reader and I'm a huge listener. I, I walk about 6 to 8 miles a day and I listen to books and podcasts. As much as I love music, I don't listen to music, um, and I don't listen to sports podcasts, uh, to be honest with you. I try to do things that are growth mindset oriented, um. So for about 6 or 7 years, I've really been on behavioral economics and emotional intelligence because it, one, I think coaches really need it. And it's those two subjects in particular are, you know, paramount to healthy culture and good leadership. So, you know, I wrote this book, Fail, which we can touch on during the course. And it's actually, it's actually on how to succeed. It's kind of a Saturday Night Live skit. So a lot of sarcasm and satirical take on how to ultimately succeed. So that's where I'm at now. Where I— how it all started. I— you mentioned before we came on that you're in Gary, Indiana. I grew up not far from there in western Michigan, just outside of Grand Rapids.

Okay.

So really close to where you're at. Obviously, I know Isaiah Thomas and, you know, some of your people from your area that have, you know, the Jacksons. So, but, you know, I had a pretty interesting career. I started out coaching college basketball or high school basketball and then got my first college job, an NAIA job in Grand— just in Grand Rapids where I went to school, actually., at Aquinas and then transitioned to my first Division I job at University of Buffalo. And then I was fortunate enough to make, with no intention actually, um, it's funny how God just looks out or carves this path for you. Um, and I got in the NBA in '99 with the Rockets, um, as a video coordinator, coordinator/scout. And I made my way to the bench as an assistant, and I spent 4 or 5 more years there, uh, on the personnel side. Eventually became the assistant GM in Houston. Uh, so my first stint in Houston was about 9 years, and then I went back to the coaching side in Minnesota and Portland and went back to the Rockets as an assistant with Kevin McHale, and then to Utah and Chicago. Uh, Utah for 4 years and, um, Chicago for a couple, and then spent a couple years back in college before where I ended up in this journey that I'm at now. So that's, that's the, uh, journey in a nutshell.

Excellent, excellent. So definitely very travel— very well traveled as it comes to moving in and about. Now, question, as far as moving from team to team, did that mean that you relocated to— from area to area?

I, I did until I got to the Rockets in '99. When I got to, uh, Houston, um, and like I mentioned, my first time there, I was, I was there for 9 years, right? And I loved Houston, and I just kind of decided, um, and there's some real benefits of living in Texas— no state income tax, warm weather, those types of things— that Well, you know, in our business, you just have to have a permanent home no matter, you know, you don't have to, but it's what I chose to do. And so, when I went to Minnesota and Portland prior to coming back, I still owned my property in Houston. So, when I went back, I just had somewhere to live. And then after the second time around, you know, my wife and I, had versatility because she had her own business. We don't have children and I love music. I play the guitar. I got a lot— well, now I play the piano since COVID And I just wanted to be around the things that I like to do besides play golf, like play the guitar, play my piano now, and want to be around somebody. So we moved our permanent house to Nashville and we've been going— it'll be 10 years in August. And we ain't moving.

So, so how did that work then with, you know, last 10 years having a physical and a primary home in Tennessee, but then you'd also worked with, uh, Salt Lake City, you know, Utah, you work with the Bulls. How did that work as far as travel? You just on the road a lot or what?

Yeah, I just would get a, um, most of the time what I try to do is look for like a furnished condo where I don't have— the only thing I got to do is just send my clothes, right? And so that's usually what I do. Actually, in Utah, I got it. Instead of getting a furnished place, I just got a place and then rented from Cort Furniture. And so the 2 days before I had to leave, I said, just come get your stuff. Real easy. Send my clothes home and we're good to go.

Perfect. Perfect. Well, nothing like being a man that's able to move when need be. But let's talk about some of that transition. And we're going to bounce around a little bit, but just kind of following that piece of leaving one place and going to another and now really kind of calling Tennessee home. What's the goal now? Right. We've kind of left NBA a little bit to the— I won't say backburner or wayside, but what's Dean up to now? What's the thing that wakes you up in the morning? What gets you thrilled at night? What are your days like?

Yeah. Well, I'm, you know, I guess I'm always going to be a— the way I've even looked at my coaching career, I always explain it like this. Like, I think, and this is where I think coaches make a mistake. I think coaches want to coach all the time. And I think there's a— in my mind, there's a clear difference. Like, I think you coach during the games. That, that's a tactical thing and decision-making thing. And I think, uh, the rest of it, the practice and all the other things, those are teacher— those are teaching times. And so I've always looked at it as 85% of my time has been as a teacher, not as a coach. And that's sort of kind of how I got to this journey is I just was brought up in a family. I, I come from a a family of 11 police officers that are there to protect and serve. And my dad taught me to give back, you know, as people gave to me, number one. And I'm, you know, I'm very curious person, like, so that's why I read and listen a lot, which gets me down these different paths. I just happen to be stuck on this one or not stuck, because I, I still do a breadth of reading. I, I read all types of stuff, but I've dug deep. I've went down depth on these behavioral economics, leadership, emotional intelligence thing. So yeah, now, and I may coach again, um, I probably will coach again or go back to the NBA on the personnel side, but this Helping coaches be the best version of themselves, no different than I tried to help players be the best version of themselves when they were with us, is that's kind of my focus now, you know, and trying to help people in that regard, both from whether it's personal experience, positive, negative mistakes I've made, mistakes I've avoided. You know, to observation, write down the, write down the list.

Now tell me, how did that then give birth to Space for Curiosity? That I was really curious, you know, pun intended, right? I was really curious to know about Space for Curiosity.

Well, when I mentioned that, so what I was, I have consulting I do with teams, and most of that's tactical. Right? It's X and O driven, right? Some of it's— so there's a little bit of kind of behavioral economics, culture building, but that's not what it is. But so I want to have a product, uh, or a service, however you want to put it, where do something where it looks like what John Gordon does, who wrote The Energy Bus, or Stephen Covey does, or you know, Mel, um, uh, uh, John Maxwell, people like that were, you know. So I got the, the product all done, and I'm out on my walk one day. This is honest to God how it happened. I'm out walking, and, and I, and I'm getting ready to send this out to like athletic departments, um, because even though it's, it's, it's, it's transitional across genres and types of businesses. Obviously, I thought the smartest thing to do is swim in the pond that I'm used to swimming in, which is athletics, right? And it's where I'll have my most initial credibility. So I'm out walking and I have it all done, and I asked myself this question. I said, aside from my resume, which is unique, what's gonna separate me from anybody else trying to get in this space. And it dawned on me, everybody goes in and tries to tell people how to succeed. So it's like listening to Charlie Brown's teacher, you know, so, and, and I kind of have a sarcastic satirical sense of humor anyways. So I said, I'm just gonna tell people how to fail. Like, I, I'm gonna come at success from a completely— I'm going to torpedo them from a completely different angle. And I'm going to, I'm going to ask them to recognize, acknowledge, recognize, address dysfunctional and toxic behaviors that are holding their team, their organization, or even themselves back. So I was sitting here playing my guitar. And about 3 years ago, my lawyer sent me this A to Z book. It's called M is for Metal. And it's just a, it's just a thin, it's basically a children's book for adults. So every letter had a, uh, has like a thing, every letter of the alphabet. I put my guitar down, I picked up my computer, and I went through all of the A through Z, the letter of the alphabet. Dysfunctional behaviors. And then I started just compiling a list of words that I know from all of this studying and observation, these life things I've lived. And lo and behold, 4 days later I had a book. Huh.

Talk about putting, uh, the pedal to the proverbial metal, right? M is for metal, uh, and getting something done. Uh, the discipline that it takes to do that for many is again, nonexistent. And I'd been in that category until recently. So just a, a little bit of a preview here, and I'm not gonna talk about my own wares, but we have a segment that is gonna be launched in June, uh, mid to late June called Author's Alley. So, uh, after I get a copy, because I do want to go ahead and order a copy of the book, I presume it's available on Amazon and read it. I want to, uh, to bring you back on the show if you're open to that. I know it's an, an early plug. But I wanted to bring you back on to really dive deep into the pages of the books where I can ask some intelligent questions and really give our listeners a good feel for what it's about, To Fail, and why they should pick up a copy.

Yeah, yeah, I, I, I would love to come back on and do it. And the great thing about my book on, on, you know, I'll give a little just plug to the book now. We can talk about some of this stuff in there if you choose or whatever, way we're going to go or come back to that at a later time, as you mentioned. But I think the two good things about it is, is you can see, I mean, it takes 20 minutes to read it. You know, it's— now it takes a long time to digest it and to, to walk yourself through it and, and, you know, acknowledge some of these behaviors. Like A is avoid. Avoid difficult conversations. Avoid holding people accountable. You know, C is complacency. You know, once you have a little success, you know, just get complacent and think, oh yeah, the cheetahs are never going to catch up to me. I have too much of a head start. Well, like, let's see how that works out for you, you know?

So yeah, I mean, well, yeah, we're definitely going to come back on and dive into that, you know, and you've got such a varied history. Excuse me. I can imagine how those life experiences really added to you being able to put that, A, put that together so quickly, but B, make that book something that people can really stand behind, understand, and believe in. Like you said, it may take 20 minutes to read, but even, you know, days, weeks, months, hell, for some, a lifetime to digest. You know, I'd imagine that throughout that process, let's just call it the creative process, that you might have had moments where you wanted to stop or do something else. And I wanted to bring that up to talk about the discipline, both that you have within yourself and obviously that you've seen with the players on the court. How much does discipline have a role in your day-to-day life now? And how much has it had over the years as you've become again a successful now entrepreneur outside of the NBA?

That's a great question. I always start with this is I think disciplined, um, first of all, it needs to come to, to, to maximize or optimize discipline. It has to come from within. You can get external discipline that we all, you know, well, we didn't all, but, you know, unfortunately for some of those who, well, unfortunately, maybe some people who didn't. I mentioned I grew up in a family of 11 police officers. Like, there was a lot of discipline healthy, and let me use this word, healthy, healthy discipline. And it really was, and here's a word I would substitute for discipline is I'm, I'm less inclined to call it self-discipline than I am self-accountability. Like that's really all discipline is, is just can you hold yourself accountable, um, to something? And, or my parents held my, and then it eventually it has to leak over into your, cuz at some point you, the bird has to flee the nest.

Right, right.

You know, and, um, I use this all the time and I, I'm, I'm gonna use the G version. I'm not a big, uh, rules person. Uh, I haven't been for a long time. Like the rules are something you abide by. You, you stop at the stop sign because that's the rule. You, you, you do, you wear your seatbelt because that's the rule. You do certain things and go like, rules are just simply guardrails that you have to stay inside. So, uh, I would tell, well, like when I was a G League head coach or in the NBA, you usually get about like 3 to 4 guys that you have for the whole year that you work with so that you can lean into them, create trust, you know, their story, all those things. And I would tell whether it was my G League head team or the group of guys, the very first thing I'd say, guys, I don't believe in rules. I got two rules and I'm going to give you the G version of the second one. The first one doesn't need the G version. Is be on time.

Absolutely.

The second one is don't act like a jerk or whatever words you want to insert for jerk. Understood. That's it. That's literally— now, rule number 2 is pretty encompassing, right? So I have an acronym that I prefer, and I'll tell you the why. It's C for yourself, S.E. A, standards, expectations, and accountability. Standards are something you can achieve. Those are things you can achieve. Expectations are something which the standards help you get to there. And then the accountability part comes in is when you don't do those things, whether it's self-accountability or external accountability, Someone has to hold you to that. Rules are you doing because you're told to and this is just what you have to do or there's consequences. Standards are something I can— that's something I'm trying to live up to. Yeah.

Okay, okay. Well, that's definitely a good way to, to frame it, so to speak. Standards, expectations, and accountability. Now, you'd worked in an industry with primarily men, I'll say. And with that, I noticed your second rule was don't be a jerk. I can only imagine what the additional ratings, uh, of that could again translate to.

It's probably just PG-13, but you know, perfectly fine, perfectly fine.

So with that, what immediately comes to mind is this idea of, you know, masculinity, that everything has to be a macho kind of way. And again, with 20 years' experience in that space, uh, if you could share with us stories of how masculinity exists in that area, in that culture of the NBA and professional sports, and quite frankly, if there are any myths about it that on the outside we believe are true, but from what you see on the inside, just aren't.

Oh boy, how— this show's only an hour. We can run a little later if need be. Yeah, yeah. So the first thing is, is actually when, when I— the other thing about— see, rules are something that I don't have a say in. Okay, I have no say in that, right? We're just— the stop sign is there because the city engineer and the police just figured that that needed to be there, right? I don't have any say in that. I have say, I have skin in the game on whether I'm going to live up to the standards expected of me. So when I would say this to players, first of all, they would chuckle. But the other thing is, is immediately it was, hey, there's a reciprocity here. Like, there's skin in the game from both of us.

Right.

And I have standards to come and make Paul the best version of you every day too. I used to tell my coaches, the players can have a bad day. We can't have a bad day. We can't do that. Like, that's our standard. We, we, uh, you know, we can't allow ourselves to have a bad day. Now we're gonna have some, obviously, but if that's the goal. So I think immediately when I took that approach and, uh, took the approach also is like, this is a partnership. Rules are not partnerships. Rules are dictatorships, necessarily, sometimes, or authoritarian. Maybe that's the better word, right? And I get it. We have to have rules in certain things. But I think when people feel that they're part of what's going on, this is something I learned from Rudy Tomjanovich. Rudy had a great saying. You know, he won two national NBA championships and went right before I got to the Rockets and then won the gold medal with the Olympic team in 2001. I was with the Rockets and he had a great— he has a great saying, involvement equals commitment. If you get people involved in what you're doing, they, they're gonna be committed. And so I think that's the first thing. And then I think that is, uh, it starts to penetrate the second part of the question you asked me. Which is the masculinity. I wouldn't— I don't know if I would, and I, I probably should have asked you for clarity on masculinity, so forgive me if I'm making a leap here. I think what you're asking more about is ego and how do I, you know, uh, become a man. But in reality, everybody at some— whether they have acknowledged it or not— is We all want to be held accountable. We, we all want people to feel like we can. Accountability is, um, people insert these two words as synonyms and they're not even close, is belittling or degrading. Accountability is just, are you gonna Like, if Paul's having a bad day or not bringing it or whatever, you— I might just ask you, are we going to lower our standards for you today? Or, because if we are, just let us know so we— everybody knows where we're at. Player X, Player Z, Player A, Player— like, just like, let everybody know. And, or are you going to try to get to the the, the culture. So I don't think it's— I've never— I, I shouldn't say this, uh, we never bat a thousand with players, not— and not everybody's personality is compatible. Exactly. However, I think players at the elite level— this is another part of the question you ask is, what did you find? They're just people, man. No different than my musician buddies. They're just people. Now, sometimes the egos get out of control and does the money and the power contribute to that? Absolutely. There's no question about it. We, that, that's, that's part of the thing. But I think for the most part, if you lean into 'em, my buddy who unfortunately passed away was the sports psychologist at Duke. And, uh, um, unbelievable guy. And he would always say, everybody has a story. They got a story for their life. They got a story for the last year of their life, the last month, the last week, and even today. So you better, if you want the best out of them and to optimize your relationship, you better know their story because there's a point in time in our business or any leadership role, you're gonna have, you better put some chips in your basket because you're gonna have to spend some of them on some very difficult conversations. But if you don't have any chips in your basket to start with, good luck.

You know, that's a very important point. And it ties right into that question on masculinity, where again, you'd mentioned that money and power, uh, money, it kind of heightened that ego. Excuse me. In so much that now you have people that might have come from very humble beginnings and now are amazingly famous. And they, they know that they might be able to sway their way because of their power, prominence, and position on the team. And at that same time, in terms of being a coach and helping them to still, A, play nicely, right, because you're on a team, it's not a one-person sport, and B, elevate their game, bring them together when need be, when you need that fourth quarter hustle in order to get those last points or come from a deficit, right? It requires, like you said, to have some chips in your basket. But my question then is, how do you— I don't want to say expose like it's a problem, but how do you engage them in such a way that they, they become vulnerable enough to, to give you those chips in the first place?

Well, the first thing you have to do, it's real simple words, you got to be authentic. The second you try to start being somebody you're not, they, they sniff that out real quick.

Gotcha.

Right. And I get this question a lot from from college coaches in particular will say, well, what's it, you know, once guys get to the NBA or maybe just sometimes on a podcast or and, you know, how do you get them to, to adhere to, to want to be a part of the bigger group, right? Or how do you get them to listen to you? And I say it's, it's real simple. No, there's 3 things that professional athletes care about. And I think this is true across the board because I've got guys buddies that coach Major League Baseball. I've got buddies that coach the NFL. So, um, it's number one, you have to create trust with them. And I already touched on that, like, how do you create trust? You have to lean into their story. You got to know what the things are that make them tick. You got to know the things— what the things are that bring them down. You got to know how they think about their family. You got to know You got to know all those things. The only way to do that is to communicate. Like, you got to spend time. You got to lean in. Number 2, they don't care if you're black, white, purple, green, polka dot, short, tall, fat, skinny, no hair, hair. They, they don't— glasses, no, they don't care about any of that. What they care about is, are you competent? Are you competent? And third, so that when you tell me something, I know that it's going to be effective or you can show me. And then third is, are you in it for them or for yourself? The second that they think that you're in it for your own glorification, you got no chance. Those are the three things they care about. And then you gotta be authentic. Like, you know, for me, like I said, I'm so, I, I, like, I, I had this little travel guitar, it's called, or have it, it's called a Pignose and it's got a little built-in amplifier. And I would just play it on the plane, in the locker room. So, so I'm playing it one day, I'll never forget this. And we're in Sacramento and it's when I was with the Rockets the second time around and I'm playing it in the locker room. Before the game, just playing some rock and roll. And one of our players, Denatas Marojanis, he goes, "Coop, why are you always playing your guitar?" I said, "So that when you and James Harden don't do what you're supposed to do defensively when I tell you what you need to do and I get fired, I got something to fall back on." That's what— so, you know, sometimes there's like, you got to bring a You don't have— everything doesn't have to be a hammer, right? It can be humor. That my book is, it's not a hammer, it's humor, you know, but very sensitive topics, you know. So, but that's who I am. Like, I didn't, I didn't, uh, that happened organically. I didn't, I didn't try to, uh, stage that. Okay, you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, absolutely.

Who I am. If somebody else tried that, it probably wouldn't work.

And you mentioned the word authenticity. That's one of my favorite A-words, right? Coupled with the other A-word that you used a couple of times, which is accountability. And I think with that, you have the ability to increase a person's trust in you the more authentic you are and the more accountable you are to the things that you say you'll do either for yourself or for them. Because I'm certain that as a coach with so many players under your helm, you've got a lot of eyes on you, right? The, the players have 2 or 3 or maybe 4 or 5 people that are, that are looking at them from a hierarchical standpoint, I'll just say. And but in your case, all the players are looking at you, and it seems like that can develop a bit of pressure, if you will, to, you know, because— and forgive me for saying it like this, again, no offense to any of the players under Dean's— under Dean's stead, but it's almost like raising children. And again, I know you said you didn't have children biologically, but inasmuch that you've been caring for the children of other people's parents for decades, you've had to touch on very again, like you mentioned, very hard conversations, right? And to a degree, they look up to you and they look at you because you have a big portion of their future in your hands. How much playing time, what players are going to get me the points, the views, etc. So how do you, how did you, and how do you, I will say, because I'm sure there's still certain pressures with the, the current work, but how did you deal with that pressure? Of essentially being held accountable for the success of so many people over the years?

Great question. No one's ever asked me that question, actually, not in that manner. Great question. So some of it is, like I said, if the pressure— it doesn't go away, but it's mitigated if you are authentic. When you're not trying to fake, you know, the people who have the most pressure on them are the people who lie or try to because they can't remember what they said. And then they gotta come up with the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. So is to be authentic. And the second thing is, is this is another, like, I, I reference Rudy Tomjanovich a lot. I mean, he's like my dad, my big brother, my uncle, my mentor. Yeah. All of the above. I, you know, I talk to him all the time, but this is something I learned when they, I got in the NBA. And I think this is a great lesson, is these 3 words are an acceptable answer. You know, they can't be habitual. You can't say it every time. But these 3 words is an acceptable answer. I don't know. I don't know. But Paul, let me go check. And let me ask Coach what he thinks and let me come back to you. Now, you can't say that every single time, but that is much better than telling somebody something that you're just winging it. Mm.

I like that. I like that. And it's funny you bring up that phrase, I don't know. And again, I'm not here to talk about myself. I'll just simply say that I'm very familiar with that phrase. In a sales capacity and the way that you use that phrase coupled with the, and let me go and find out the answer. That's something that is, I'll call it Sales 201, not even 101. Uh, it should be 101, but again, some people are just really rudimentary. So that, that has me to ask the question from that perspective, really what you've been doing. And again, I'll, I'll insert my past into this one. Because it sounds like you have to sell the players on how they can perform, like the abilities that they have. Have you done any training in the sales realm? Or has it basically been about human psychology and improvement in that space?

That's all that is, is sales. I tell people all the time, I can sell people on themselves. I can sell people on basketball. I can sell people how to play. I can't sell dishwashers. I can't sell cars. I can't sell computers. I can't. But I can sell people on themselves.

Okay. Okay. That's good. That's good. Well, the dishwashers part, right?

Hey, I know what my— I know my lane. I can play the guitar. I can't sing. Not once. Not a lick. I don't sing in the shower. I don't sing by my pool, period.

Well, this has actually been, been really fun. I am, I'm curious, and not that it's something that I normally would do, and since you have so many guitars, would you play a little medley for us?

Oh, I could play a little medley.

I love it. And for our Audible listeners, he's got a beautiful display in the background of several guitars as well as keyboards. So I urge you to come on and check out the YouTube version so that you can see Dean live in terms of utilizing his talents again right here live with us. So I'll turn it over to you if you could play a little medley for us.

I'll play a little bit. I got to get a picture. I'll play some. I'll play familiar, uh, maybe I'll play a familiar song. It's cross-genre, like a Leonard Skinner, like Simple Man, you know. So you're a little Leonard Skinner. Everybody knows Leonard Skinner.

Admittedly, it might have been the way that the mic is set up. I was only able to get a piece of the medley. I was hearing bits and pieces of the chords, so we'll work with how that sounded, but I was getting the vibe from how you were performing it. Again, right there. And again, I like to bring some other aspects into the show. So I thank you for indulging. Oh, it's good to have that bit of curiosity also. Now, I will ask you again, as we're just in respect to your time, we're going to start landing the plane. I've got a couple of pointed questions that I do like to ask all the listeners and assume all of our guests, or the listeners, as we look at again, who Dean Cooper has been, and who Dean Cooper is, we typically call him by that very name, Dean Cooper. Uh, what I realize is that we usually, and you've seen this in the NBA, I'm sure, refer to people as their first and last name. Very seldom do you actually know the middle name of another person. It's typically 5 to 10 people, close friends, relatives, best friends, children, parents, that sort of thing. So I'm curious to know for our listeners, Dean, what's your middle name?

William.

William. Okay. Dean William Cooper. Now, does the William have a story? Is it handed down?

Yeah, that is handed down. My first name isn't. My middle name is after my maternal grandfather on my mom's side. So that's, that's where my middle name comes from. Yeah.

Excellent. Excellent. And then the next couple of minutes here, I'd really—

Can I— sorry, can I mention something? Because I think you'll love this. When you just said that. So when I go give speeches and I got this from Doug Collins, who's always treated me great, and he says, like, I've given some commencement speech and I go give athletic speeches and he has a great thing. I'm not sure where he got it. I never asked him. I probably should have. Maybe he did it on his own. Is we all have 3 names. The name we're born with, Cooper. The name that we're given, Dean. The name that we make, Dean Cooper. Only the third one is the one that we have total control over.

Hmm. I like that. Yeah, I like that. I may have to borrow that one. Yeah, borrow that for a keynote in the upcoming times. I really like that. Okay. Okay, good stuff. And I appreciate you adding that to the space too. So all our listeners out there, again, by all means, borrow, give credit the first 2 times, third time it's yours.

Good point.

So for, for just a minute or 2, Dean, if you would, I'd ask, you know, prior to the show for you to just consider some things that you want to share with the audience. And admittedly, my goal with this specific episode is for the entrepreneur-to-be, or this segment I should say, is for the entrepreneur-to-be, the person that wants to start their own business or is growing in business, and that business can also be sports, right, to, to take a listen and learn from some of the experts in the field that have had years, in your case decades, of success. So speaking to that audience, if you would just pour into them for a minute or two on, on what you feel they should know.

Yeah, well, Let me— I'm going to start with the word entrepreneur because I guess in some ways in the last couple years I've been entrepreneurial. But in reality, I would tell everybody we're all entrepreneurs in and of our own individuality. We're— we— every single one of us is an opportu— entrepreneur of ourselves. We have to be, and we have to learn how to We have to learn how to cultivate it. We have to learn how to grow it. We have to learn how to polish it. We have to learn how to sell it, and we have to learn how to reassess it. We should be in constant reassessment. And, um, because it, it's just part of the— it's the world around us doesn't stay stagnant. The things in our own personal smaller world don't really very rarely stay stagnant. And my— I know you're going to ask me about this in a second, so maybe I'm going to kind of fast forward to it because it's such a big part of what I am is, is my website, which is where you can find my book, is actually called Space for Curiosity. Space, the word, for curiosity. And the reason that is, is I'm a very curious person.. And I think it's really important for us to stay curious. I think it's really dangerous when we think that we have all the answers or know all the information. And I also think that part of being curious, which is really sad, I think, in our culture today, especially in the political climate that we live in, is that we immediately dig into our own side and we don't listen to the other side. And I think what's important is that we listen. We might not agree, and that's okay. We can walk away from the table and not agree. But I think we would all be shocked if we just listen to the other side. And on some things, we're going to be able to acknowledge why a person thinks that way. It might not change our mind, but it'll give us pause for thought. And, you know, a guy asked me on a, on a podcast a week or two ago, like, my— about my epitaph or whatever. And I said one of two things. I would like it to say perpetually curious, or I would like it to say, um, still in progress but pretty polished. I think once we think that our progress is over, then the headstone might be coming real quick. And I think it's just really important. I tell young kids or kids or older kids when I give speeches, man, stay curious and ask questions. That, you know, one of my favorite sayings is the answer to every question you don't ask is no. So, you know, ask questions, man. That, that's what makes little kids so— like, how many times you have— you said you have a 12, a 2, and a 1. I'm sure with your 2 and your 1-year-old, you hear the word why about 1,000 times a day. Well, that's— and that's the beauty of curiosity, is, is they just never give in. You know, and I think it's, I think it's really, I believe in it. I think it's important. And I think it's not just curious, like, I think society, we fall into, I don't think this, there, there's all kinds of evidence. In fact, I'm listening to this book right now called Willful Blindness. That's a legal term, but it's also a way of life. Like, but before they get it, she gets into that, she talks about how we gen— we end up organically migrating to people that look like us, talk like us, think like us, whatever. And it's like a river. It, it starts out as a stream, and then the water keeps flowing and flowing and flowing and flowing, and pretty soon you got a deep river with these banks on the side. Well, you have a real deep river, but you have no breadth of knowledge. Like, no breadth of what is going on. You can, you can see, but it's all straight up and straight down, right?

Like a silo.

Yeah, like a silo. Okay, not a green field.

Exactly. Exactly. Well, Dean, this has been fantastic. And you did jump ahead a little bit. I'll ask also still, in addition to your website, is there any other way that listeners can get ahold of you?

Yeah, I mean, you can email me on the website. Again, the website's called Space for Curiosity, S-P-A-C-E forcuriosity.com, and you can email me at dean@sportspaceforcuriosity.com. You can— there's a, there's a quick— you can spend 20 minutes on the website, similar to the book, and you can have a, a general, uh, knowledge of my journey, my background, why I've landed where I'm at— or I shouldn't say landed, why I'm flying through the space that I'm currently at. I don't think I've landed here. Is maybe I'm just touching down and refueling. I'm not sure. But you can find all that there. You can find out how to reach me for keynote speaking, seminars, things of that nature. You can— it's the best place to buy the book because I'll send it to you directly versus Amazon. And yeah, it's been great. And, and I hope people stop by, do a weekly blog. That gets updated every Thursday. It's called Nuggets and Reflections. It's mostly based around behavioral economics and emotional intelligence, and it's not meant to give answers. It's a— usually I try to keep it to around 500 words. It's an— it's meant to be an appetizer, not the meal.

Beautiful. Well said. Spaceforcuriosity.com, ladies and gentlemen. Make sure you go there, and I'll be heading there And hopefully when you send that direct copy, it's got a nice autograph in there for, uh, for, for yours truly. So I was going to let you get out of here right now, but I've just got one more question. It's kind of been burning, uh, here, and I think that the listeners might appreciate this. I was going to ask it in two ways, but I think I'll stray away from the, the negative way in terms of the players that you've worked with and ask, who are the best three players that you've had the opportunity to coach?

Oh my goodness. Everybody asks this, and I'm— the first thing I'm going to say is I've been like, for a kid from a town of 4,000 people in West Michigan with very humble upbringing, like, to walk the journey that I've walked is like, I've been beyond blessed. Um, so I'm always hesitant to say that, uh, talk about that because, you know, there's different ways like greatness. But obviously I was fortunate enough, um, I got to coach Olajuwon. I mean, that dude, you know.

Oh yeah.

And, and then I got to coach Yao right after that. And then, you know, with this, just with the Rockets, you know, And my second time around, I had James Harden and we had Tracy McGrady. And I've had LaMarcus Aldridge and Brandon Roy and Zach Lavine. And so, but I mean, yeah, I mean, Dream and Barkley was on that team too when I first got there. So, you know, I've, I've been fortunate. I've had so many good ones. It, it's hard to parcel them out, but Uh, number 34, Dream, he's a special cat.

Love it, love it. You know, we've all got our favorites. I come from an education background as well, and there are some students that just really stood out above the rest. So I appreciate you sharing that. We'll give shout outs to those players as well. Uh, well, Dean, this has been an absolute pleasure. Again, thank you so much for joining us here in the Pope Replays podcast show. Listeners, this has been another segment of The Everyday Entrepreneur. Advise you all to please go and check out Dean Cooper's site, spaceforcuriosity.com. You'll see the information also in the show notes, and we are looking forward to reconnecting because I do want to again receive the book, read the book, and then bring you back for author's alley when we launch that segment here in just about a month or so. So, uh, thank you again, Dean, and to our listeners, thank you all for tuning in. You can be anywhere in the world and you're here with us. We appreciate you. We love you. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.