Fear of Failure - [Glue Guys, EP.5]

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Welcome to Glue Guys. We're your hosts, Shane Battier, Ravi Gupta and Alex Smith.

And we're bringing you behind the scenes of the locker rooms, the boardrooms and the living rooms that taught us everything we know about what it takes to be great leaders and even better teammates and friends.

We hope the conversation helps you bring more ambition and more joy to your own work life and relationships. It certainly has for us.

Let's talk about Glue Guys.

Well, Shane, I mean, I think you're the original. You gotta start us off. You're the one who has the most brand street cred as a Glue Guy.

Ironically, even though we gave ourselves the name Glue Guys, can you be a self proclaimed Glue Guy? That's the irony of this. You can talk about yourself in the third person and declare yourself I'm him and be Conor McGregor and be the world's greatest promoter. But to call yourself a Glue Guy might be one of the biggest paradoxes in sports. I think that's right.

I don't think I ever would have said that when I was playing I'm a Glue Guy. I do think as I've gotten older now, whatever role I have, I take pride. No, I think there's an element that it's a little more of my identity that I've accepted. I'm a team guy. I'm going to do what I need. How can I contribute to the team And I'm going to do whatever I can to do that. But I think it's something like an old age, as I call myself an old man. I think I've taken that on. I didn't do it as a younger person. I guess I hopeful that I was doing the same things, the same principles, applied, team first.

Is it kind of begrudging?

Almost.

I'm very proud of it now. Honestly, I feel like when you're younger, is it kind of an insult?

Absolutely.

100%. When you're young, you're trying to make a name for yourself. And that is a huge slight. When I grew up, I was not athletic. I did not fit the picture of a superstar. All of our stories are obviously very different in a lot of ways. Many people could say that I peaked when I was 13 years old. I was number four rated seventh grader in the country, according to Hoop Scoop magazine. It's ridiculous how you could objectively rank all these things. Well, Swoop Scoop used to be this magazine, this national recruiting rag. It was the biggest one. And it went all the way from like the seniors all the way down to seventh grade. And I'll never forget, you know, at the time I was 6 foot 4, dunking the basketball and I was pretty good player. My teams had won Michigan A state championships and that was a pretty dominant center back in the days where it was true. Back to the back, every shot. I had really good coordination. I grabbed every rebound I could finish. I didn't really shoot, but I was Patrick Ewing, essentially just crushing these kids.

Ravi, just absolutely. Just taking their souls.

People checking for birth certificates, just dunking on these kids.

I was that kid. I literally had to show up to the game with a birth certificate kick.

I was going to say they checked your age for sure, 100%.

This magazine comes out. I'll never forget. The top six players were. I wasn't excited about it. I was terrified by it. And number one player in the country, guy named Shay Cotton.

Oh, I remember Shea Cotton. He was from la, right?

Yeah. Bellflower from Compton.

I want to hear this list. How many of these guys I want to hear that made it from seventh grade?

Shea Cotten was like Charles Barkley. He was like six, four, just dunking the ball. Just this man. Everyone thought he was LeBron of the 2001 high school class. Number two was a guy named Edmund Saunders out of Connecticut. Played at Connecticut, big guy. Number three was a guy named Esteban Weaver out of Columbus, Ohio. I think he flunked a year. So I think he was like super, super old, but he was like this six two guard donk. Do all this crazy stuff. I was number four and ironically, number five and number six were the Collins twins, Jason and Jaren Collins. True story. And I played against Jason and Jaren forever. They were like twin towers. They were like the original Mutombo and Alonzo Mourning. Back in the AAU circuit. They played out of la. I never forget. Cause they had a kid who was dunking the ball on the team. Hit a Jerry curl. And so it was the Collins twins and the Jerry curl guy. I'll never forget that. When that hoopscoop magazine came out, I think most kids would be like, oh man, that's so cool. And I was like, man, I do not want to be a bust. As a seventh grader, I knew this.

Holy smokes, that's crazy, dude.

These top guys, so many of them fade out. So like I was petrified that I was going to be one of these guys that was going to bust.

That's a lot of pressure as a seventh grader.

Yeah.

@ the same time I'm having like racial reckoning as a mixed kid growing up. Am I black, am I white? I'm playing in the inner city with the brothers. I live in the suburbs with all the white kids. It was a very, very difficult time for me. Probably the most difficult interpersonally that I ever had, maybe outside of my retirement. I just was trying to figure out a lot of things. The one thing I did know is that I just love basketball. I love to compete and I love to win.

Were you thinking about going pro at that point?

Oh yeah.

It was in your brain. It was back there. This is the goal.

Can you imagine how crazy it is to think as a seventh grader? I'm just like really feeling bad for your 12, 13 year old self. I don't want to be a bust. You're a fucking kid. That's crazy. I never knew that, that you felt that at that age.

That was the fear that was with me my entire career. Even when I'm starting for the world championship. Back to back by the Heat. I was still worried I was going to be a bust, that I was going to be overrated. Some would say that I peaked when I was 13 years old. I had the most notoriety and the highest ranking. I went on to win National Player of the Year and All American and some hall of Fames, but that was the mentality. But going back to the Glue Guy thing, I didn't think what I did was anything special. I Blocked a lot of shots. I love defense. I was tall, and defense was the one place if I blocked a lot of shots and kept my opponent from scoring, like, I'm helping the team. It's good for them and it's good for me. And I always felt like if I'm scoring a lot and I'm missing shots, I'm hurting the team. So I always looked at offense as something that was potentially could hurt the team. And if anything could hurt the team, I didn't want to do it. So I was like, really like, lo the shoot I could shoot. And I had coaches say, man, you.

Got to shoot the ball.

You're a best player. I'm like, ah, I'm good.

I'm.

I'm going to work it. But defense was something I could go all in on because there was no downside by being a great shot block, great defender. That is a story why I was obsessed with defense and had a great defensive career. And maybe the reason why a lot of people would say I fell short of my offensive potential if there was any out there.

But the thing that's crazy about that, it's interesting. This is not really a glue guy thing, but it's a good thought. Part of liking defense is like, you can only do something good if you do it well, is universally positive for your team. You're not maximizing the ceiling. You're, like, minimizing the downside. I'm not gonna shoot that much. I'm only gonna take really easy shots. I wonder if there's some element to that of, I don't know, personality wise, of minimizing mistakes and doing things that are universally positive. There's, like, natural uncertainty in a bunch of stuff.

100%, I think, also growing up very poor, you try to mitigate the damage.

You're not taking big cuts.

My family was very conservative. Stay in the middle. Don't bring attention to yourself. Just do the best you can. Keep shuffling along. And I think that mindset definitely was pervasive in my basketball game.

When was the first time you were called a glue guy? When did you first ever hear that?

I would say probably my freshman year at Duke. So I go to Duke. National player of the year in high school, number one recruiting class in the country. The Chris Burgess and Elton Brand and William Avery. Duke was ranked number one in the country that year going into that season. Bojo, Trajan, Langdon. The first year Duke was back, they went through a kind of a down period, but Duke was back. And so I never had any grand illusions That I was the man ever. I pray maybe when I'm a junior and senior, I get a chance and be my team and get a chance to go to the league. My freshman year, Elton Brand gets hurt. And so I'm playing center. I'm back guarding these seven footers and again taking charges that took, like, I don't know, like, 50 chargers that year. And diamond for loose balls. Those are things I always did in my career. But the first time people said, man, it's bad. He just makes plays when he's in the game, good things happen. He's kind of a glue guy. It goes back to, like, the ethos of pickup basketball. It makes me sad that, like, no kids play pickup basketball anymore. Back in the day when we played, you go to the park, who's got next? I got next. All right, I might pick you up, but what was the one criteria of getting picked up? Gotta have a game. If you can help me win and stay on the court, I want you. If you can't help me, I love you.

You got swag.

You look great. And I'm time for you, brother. It's the purest form of credentials.

Do you have a game?

Can you help me stay on the court for as long as we can play? Cause that's why we're here. That's the mentality we grew up with.

Have a game.

Doesn't matter if you score, doesn't matter if you're the man. Are you on the court? There's something about, like, our kids, they don't have that mentality of just, hey, I gotta stay on the court, man. I gotta do whatever it takes to just stay on the court and win.

You said a word earlier. And again, it's not necessarily, like a good guy thing, but I think it's something that I definitely relate to. When you talked about worry for you, I can't imagine as a seventh grader that you worried and you said you worried all the way through Duke. And then even as a pro, there's this amount of worry. I gotta live up to expectations and this pressure to perform. For me, it was a defining moment in my life and in my career especially. I was almost too realistic of a kid. Like, I never thought pro sports would be in my future, especially pro football. And I loved football. And if I had a dream, it was to play college football. And my dad, who's definitely a hero of mine, played college football. He didn't let me play growing up. He didn't, like, believe that youth tackle football was, like, a great Thing. So I played all these other sports, soccer, baseball, basketball. And when I was a freshman in high school, I finally got to play tackle football. There was this thing that had been withheld from me and I couldn't wait to play. I loved it again. I think if there was maybe a tiny little dream that I didn't tell anybody, it was, could I play college football? I love the idea. I love Saturdays. I love turning on the tv, the student section and the band. Being a part of something bigger than yourself, getting your education. I just love that entire culture. I think it's the culture that we all love about college sports. Man, could I maybe go do that one day? And again, I didn't tell people this.

Why didn't you tell anybody, Alex? I.

Again, I think I was just too realistic. It's crazy. You tell people and you don't live up to it.

But there's something about not wanting to fail in public or something.

Probably.

Yeah, everybody has that.

So I finally get to play in high school. I play freshman ball. As a freshman, I mean, I'll never forget. I was 57 and I was 107 pounds. And I had size 13ft. Slowest guy in the field. I was not special at all. I played quarterback because I could call the plays in the huddle and hand the ball off. We ran the wing tee. I handed the ball off every play. Every single play. I played JV as a 10th grader. And then finally I made varsity as a junior. Finally. And I started to grow. I got a little taller. Still skinny and awkward and slow. I could throw a little bit. At this point, my high school running back is a guy named Reggie Bush. Not bad. We're running the wing tee. I hand the ball off every single play. Every single play for two years. I lost one game ever in high school on varsity. And it was a game that Reggie ran for like 350 yards and he fumbled five times. Thanks. Reggie Ball security was never a premium for Reggie. We had every college in the country, every single college in the country on our campus. Cause Reggie was phenomenal. I mean, as a 15 year old, he was one of the best players I've ever seen. I can't get two sniffs. Can't get two sniffs Again, I'm growing. I can throw a little bit at this point. And I'm like wondering if I could play college football. Maybe I think I can. I'm getting a little confidence in it. And every elite 11 quarterback that year, my year goes on to college scholarships. The Vince Youngs of the world, Reggie McNeil, all these guys that. That went off to the big schools and kept wondering how I stacked up, could I play? And again, forming a chip on my shoulder a little bit, determined to prove that I can do it. I want a chance to prove that I can play college football. And I get one offer, and it's the University of Utah. One offer to play. I jumped at it, man. I was so excited and hungry to go up there. And they have ratings for recruits and stars and, like, how many stars are you on? Like, your positional ranking changes went through. I was all zeros, not rated zero.

And that was not Urban Meyer, right?

Not. Not Urban Meyer, no, no. Ron McBride, head coach, gave me the offer up to Utah Mountain West School.

At that point, had you not gone to Utah, you would have gone to, like, an Ivy League and played there.

I was lucky enough. I had really good grades, and so I'd gotten into some Ivy Leagues, and so that was kind of the alternative. But they were, like, playing one aa. They didn't go to the tournament. In my mind, it wasn't on the same level.

I remember you telling me, like, you were thrilled when you got the offer from Utah, and like, your mom cried or something.

She was adamant that I was making this horrible decision. I wasn't going to go to Dartmouth. This dream that I'd had, can I play college football? Can I get the chance? So I jump at it. I go up and no one's expecting anything. Me, when I step on campus, no one's expecting anything. Totally flying under the radar. And again, I've developed this chip that I want to prove this to everybody, and I think I can now. And it was just amazing. Obviously, my freshman year is a disaster. The head coach gets fired. A couple months into the season. I burned my red shirt. I was red shirting. He pulls me out of my red shirt. I played seven plays, lost my entire year eligibility. One of the plays was a pick six. We're playing San Diego State. I'm from San Diego, back at San Diego State. My high school is, like, two miles from San Diego State. Reggie. My whole high school team's there. I played a couple snaps. One of them's a pick six. That's my freshman year. And I'm like, man, I'm thinking about transferring. It's a disaster. We hire a guy named Urban Meyer. At that point, I had never even heard of Bowling Green, where he was coming from. I'd never even heard of him. He was just this crazy coach who ran a crazy system that Was centered around quarterbacks running the ball. And I was this goofy, tall, skinny pocket passer, fast forward. Like it was this incredible run. You know how much timing and luck goes into these things. To be where I was. And we'd go on a run from there on out. I started the next two years. I lost one game as a starter. My entire college career I played. Never thinking I could play pro football. And I mean it. Cause I never worried. It was amazing. I played with a freedom and I was so present. I was living my dream. The weight of pro football was never looming over me. And it was awesome. However, everything changed very fast for me. All of a sudden, Urban left for Florida.

What year did he leave for Florida?

The same year I left. So the 2004 season, he leaves. I'd already graduated. I was a junior. I was a true junior. I'd started my master's in economics. I was fully expecting to come back and play another year. And he left. And all of a sudden I started hearing rumors. You can come out. I remember I thought I was getting punked. My brother called me with the news, my older brother. And he's like. They'd got some research from some GMs at somehow through agents, had helped collect some information for me through my parents. And I remember he was telling me it for the first time. They were doing this unbeknownst to me. And so he's telling me, hey, we've been helping potentially with the decision. And he tells me, if you come out, you'll be a first rounder. And I remember I was looking around for the cameras. They were like trying to catch me in this. I still wouldn't believe it. Here I am, I'm going to New York for the Heisman. And I still like couldn't grasp that this was a reality in my future. And again, I got how much I appreciated that naivety.

But still not a glue guy right now. No, no, you're him.

I am him. Because it's this quarterback centric offense. I'm doing every single play at Utah. It's all built around me and fell into that. Overnight, though, everything changes. I declare for the draft. I'm doing the crazy combine thing here. I find myself in the green room in New York City the day of the draft and the freaking commissioner calls my name first. This scene, if you're a football fan my entire life, I watched the draft. It's this iconic thing. And Peyton Manning walk out. Larger than life, people. And all of a sudden it's me. It's like this Outer body experience. And I'm getting drafted by the 49ers, obviously this franchise that sets the bar pretty high when it comes to quarterback play. And I'm flying out to San Francisco and I'm doing press conferences. I am the face of the San Francisco 49ers. I am the future. I'm 20 at this point, so I always thought I was crazy young. I'm not a seventh grader, but I'm 20 and everything flipped for me. And for the first time in my life, worry consumed me. Self doubt, am I going to be good enough? I was haunted by this word bust and it just never left. And I had never dealt with anything even close to that. I had been flying under the radar, playing with house money. I'd been playing defense. Essentially. No one expected anything of me. We were a little Utah when we played Michigan or Texas A and M or Oregon. No one expected us to win. It's like going out there with nothing to lose. And then all of a sudden everything flipped. And I'm running out of the tunnel for the San Francisco 49ers. Like I remember my rookie year at Candlestick and the weight of the world's on in my mind. Here I am getting to do this amazing thing. What kid wouldn't dream of that? And my mind's 15 other places. My own worry and self doubt. This imposter syndrome is how long until they find out I shouldn't have been the number one pick? How long until they figure out I'm a bus? Like I'm not good enough? What are they going to write about me in the paper? What have I thrown interception? All this negative self talk and it just consumed me. I've distracted myself. I'm sabotaging myself, getting ready to do this incredibly hard thing. And I don't even know it though I'm not aware of it. I'm not talking about this. These aren't like feelings you express, especially in a football locker room. And I thought I was alone. I thought I was the only one that had those thoughts.

Which is the most ironic part of anyone's journey that has success.

There's not a single guy in a locker room that I ever played with that didn't have those doubts. Is the ironic thing. The biggest, baddest dudes on the planet, these are all Alphas we played with. They also all had the same worry. They dealt with it. Now some deal with it better ways than others, but they all have it. It's present. We all deal with this. Everybody has it. And it's not just sports. It's universal. It's life that is there. And I think it's cool to be open about it because so often I think people put athletes up on this pedestal and like, these guys are just the baddest dudes. And so confident and roaring. It's like, no, man, we deal with the same stuff. When you're toeing the line, you're taking the court every few times a week or once a week, football game, you're out there, you put yourself out there and it's hard. And again, I think these things are transferable away from sports too. The same lessons learned apply everywhere.

I want to ask you about your bus moment. Basically, the fear of the bust has propelled us to reach all of our dreams in our professional world, in the corporate setting. Where was your bust moment?

And I'm going to answer that in a second. But Alex, it's interesting in that your college was playing free. You get to the pros, you have this worry, and at the beginning it hurts. You're not playing as well, partly because you're worried. Shane, you said you were worried starting in the seventh grade. There's some fear of being a bust. It didn't affect you, obviously negatively the way Alex said it did at first. Do you feel like your worry, like you said, propelled you versus Alex? You're talking about your worry impacted you negatively, didn't let you be yourself. There's a different reaction to the same word in two athletes. Shane, did you play well even when you had that fear or worry?

The phrase that was most applicable to me was failure was not an option. The fear and what the implications were of being a bust were omnipresent. And I thought about them. I never saw that as that's an alternative. Think about burning the ships. The Vikings, you know, they invaded the land, they burned the ships. You're either going to take over the land or you're going to die trying. That was me. I was motivated by fear, but I never considered the alternative as a reality. It goes back to what do I need to do to stay on the court? What do I need to do? It doesn't matter what it takes to.

Stay in the game.

Do you always get picked for the next pickup game? Be an amazing value to my team. I let go of public narrative a long time ago.

These are things that I dealt with and I think I learned to move past. This all happened to me on such a public stage. Do you think you learned to cope with that and move beyond it earlier in your career?

I think being mixed was a huge part of my success. I was always the black guy with my white crew, and I was always the white guy around my black crew. And so no matter what I did, no matter how I shaped it, no matter how good of a guy I was, I was always different. And I realized there are some things I just can't control, and most of that is other people's opinions and their prejudices against me. So I learned to let go what people thought of me a long time ago. I'm a kid. Everyone wants to be loved and told they're great. Talk about that edge you had. I had that edge. I'm like, you know what? You're going to accept me, not because of anything else, but you need me out there. You need me on your team. My edge was completely different. I was going to kick down the door, and you're going to let me in whether you like it or not. Metaphorically, of course. I'm not a burglar.

That chip, though, you need it.

I had an edge. I was not popular. I go to Duke. Before, it was cool. Now it's cool. You got Zion and Jason Tatum and the Brotherhood.

It's cool.

When I went, people were hating on me. I was this preppy kid. Everyone thought I was this rich kid because I went to Duke. They thought I was a soft kid because I went to Duke. Didn't matter. There's nothing anyone could think of, me, could say about me that would affect what I was capable of doing in my effort and my attitude. And so learn to control everything that I could control to the 99th percentile. If that failed, I could live with that. Learning to let go of the outside narrative was the way that I fought that fear of being a bust. Because even if I fail, like, oh, it doesn't matter. I gave it my all.

Okay, so, Shane, to answer your question on my bust moment, I'll give you a little background first. My parents are from India. They're the ones with a tough life. I had a much easier life. My grandfather came from India. He was the first one. This is 1957, brown guy coming to the states in Alabama. He went to Auburn. Weird time. My life was much easier than that. And I was a pretty carefree kid. My brother was very judicious and very studious, and I was pretty free. I thought I was gonna play in the NBA. And my dad, when I was like 10 years old or 11 years old, which I still think is a touch early, was sort of like, listen, son, that is not what's gonna happen here? He's kind of like, went through some math with me of you're the second best player on your sixth grade team. We live in, like, a rando town. This is not where this is going. You're not gonna be that tall. Like, just pretty clearly that is not the plan. I remember being pretty surprised. I just thought that was what was going to happen. And he was like, that's not the plan. I was relatively bright. I was able to get good grades without doing a lot of work. And I just kind of thought that was the way it went. It was like that for me, honestly, until I went to college. And the first moment I ever had that was surprising to the negative academically was I tried to get, like an internship in college, and then I was summarily dismissed. That was the first time that I ever wanted something that I was trying to get other than the mba, which was again, knocked out pretty early. School wise or work wise? First time was when I was in college. And that was the first moment where I was like, oh, shit, I actually have to work at this stuff if I want to get things I want. Was lucky to get a job. But I think again, to your question on the bus, I was successful in my first job.

Cool.

That was two years at McKinsey. My second job was at KKR and I was successful in that for the first few years. And then I went over to the investment side, was trying to learn the ropes. And that was probably the first time I ever was fearful of getting fired. The first emotion you have when you're fearful of getting fired, at least in my world, is embarrassment. It's actually less. You think you're going to starve or something. It's just, oh, my God, what is everyone going to say? What is everyone going to say if I get fired? What am I going to tell everybody? And this is why I really admire you guys having to do stuff in public. Who is everyone? For me, nobody's, like, writing about my career. I'm not out in public. So I was just worried about my friends, my family, my people that I worked with, all this stuff. So the first moment that I had that was fearful of that was at kkr. The only reaction to it was try to work harder because I was trying to be cool. I was trying to act like I knew what I was doing without actually knowing what I was doing. I was trying to act like I had it rather than go do the groundwork, building up the skill set because I was doing a new job in the same place. So I kind of had to swallow my pride and go do the work of the most junior person. I was trying to act like I was more senior.

Did you ever feel like you were in over your head at that point?

I remember crying at my desk. You're there by yourself, it's late and you're like, I don't know the first thing about what I'm going to try to do. You guys have much better stories than me. But I can tell you, anyone who's ever worked in a corporate job, when you are asked to do something, you're sitting in front of a fucking blank screen. I still remember I was sitting in front of a blank Excel screen. I was supposed to build a LBO model. Should we buy this company or not? And I got a blank screen, I got a flashing cursor and I don't know the first thing to do, I don't know what to type into the computer to make one of these models come out. And I'm sitting there, it's like 11 o' clock at night, it's due the next morning and I'm like, what am.

I going to do?

Think about how embarrassed you are. You're working, you're like a grown up. And I'm sitting there and I'm crying at this desk, trying to hold it back. I don't know what I'm going to do. So that was the first moment, but the better one. Shane was at Instacart because then like I kind of got through that at kkr. Started doing okay job at kkr. I was never on the podium after the game. I was like a mid level person, upper mid level person. If something went well, something didn't go well. I was never the one who was accountable. It was always someone else's thing. When I went to Instacart, I was a cfo. And so when I go there and I think we're going to go bankrupt 100 years ago, the company's amazing now, all that stuff, so long ago when I first go there and I realize a month in, oh shit, we are like on path to go out of business. I remember the exact feeling I had. I'm like, I'm the chief financial officer of this company, this is on me. What if I'm the CFO of a company that ceases to exist? What am I going to do then? How do you bounce back from that? It's not like you can point to somebody else and be like, well, this person messed it up. Literally. My job is to make sure we have a business. So that was the first moment where.

I remember being like, oh, God, what.

Am I gonna do? I'm not proud of what I'll tell you next. My first reaction was not like, failure is not an option. It was, maybe I could go back to kkr. Maybe I could go back and tell them, hey, guys, I made a mistake. Because I'd only been there like, a month or two. I was going through the full calculation in my head. I'm like, what will the gap in my resume look like? Maybe I could say I worked there from this date to this date. All these things, all the bad thoughts. Like, my first reaction was, maybe I could run away. Obviously, I'm glad I didn't do that. I'm glad that's not what my reaction was. I'll tell you what I did, Shane, on the bust moment, I just tried to say the worst thing out loud that could happen. This company could go bankrupt. I could be the CFO of it, and everyone could think I'm stupid. And I try to do this outwardly. I try to literally say it out loud by myself when I'm worried about something. And I was worried about that. And then I did try to go through, well, what would happen then. What I realized what would happen then was I'd come home, I would try to see if my wife still wanted to be with me. I presumed that she would. I would see if my kids still love me. I presume that they would. And in a worst case, I'll move from California, we'll move to North Carolina or somewhere where I can not have to have a job like this. I'll kind of start again. I can deal with that to this day. I'm 42 years old. When I am stressed about something, when I'm worried about something, say the worst thing that could happen out loud. And usually it's something that I can deal with. There are some things I don't think I would feel good about him in the worst case. But I learned that from my dad. I remember one time as a kid, my dad was like a advice giver. People really come to him, asking him for his perspective. He's very wise. And so people would come to him and they would tell him their real stuff. He's very good at not telling people things. He's very good. Like, he's a vault. And so I still remember one time there was a young guy who'd come to the house and was talking to my dad, and I wasn't supposed to be listening But I was, like, going to get something to drink from the kitchen or whatever, and I still remember what happened. I could kind of piece it together. This guy apparently was having some marital problems, and I think it was his fault. And so he'd come to my dad to be like, what do I do? I just don't remember him hearing this. I remember where I was. My dad said, look, you have to understand that there is a chance that the marriage might end. You got to understand that what you've done, there is a chance the marriage might end. That's a real possibility. Now we're going to try and make that not happen, but there's a real possibility that happens. You gotta get okay with that. And I remember being like, whoa, can you imagine this young dude who came here hoping that the guy would solve his problems? And partly it's, you fucked up. This thing might be over. And that, I think, is where I learned that as a helpful framing when something might go wrong. I've never had to deal with anything as public as you guys, tech press and Twitter and all this.

It's the game within the game. Like, we all have our own circles, and to us, no matter what your circle is, it means the world to you. The pressure's no different. Again, I think it's no different whether the professional sport or the private industry, it's all the same because it's your world. I don't think there's anything negative and only positives about your example and your tool. What is the worst thing that can happen? Getting face to face with it. And I think that's what I wasn't doing my first several years in the league. I was trying to pretend like it wasn't happening. Even though this thing haunted me, consumed me, I was trying to pretend it wasn't there and it wasn't a possibility. And I would have been far better to say no. The reality is I may be a bust. I may fail. And I think that's the only way to move past the fear of failure that we're all talking about. You have to confront it first. I was trying to pretend like it wasn't happening. And so it just festered and got worse. Actually, there's great examples of this in general, even on a bigger scale when we think about death, right? Like, how many times do all of us not want to talk about this thing? Guess what? We're all going to die. And the sooner I think you come face to face with that, the better you're going to live while you're here. And I think it's no different, whether it be our careers or sports or whatever. And I think you have to move past that fear of failure. And I think it only comes from confronting it. And I'm going to steal it.

I'm very happy about that.

To even flash forward to me as a dad, when I see my kids doing whatever they're doing, whether it's my son playing sports or my other son doing musicals or my daughter dancing competitively, nothing makes me more proud than to see them go out and attack something free where I feel like I failed as a father. When I see them not, I'll see my son look over to the sidelines in the middle of a game and I'm like, no, I've been there. I don't want you to be there. Honestly, I think that's an amazing tool. You have to come face to face with the reality of. I get asked all the time about Patrick Mahomes. What is it about him? Certainly he's incredibly physically gifted. He's absurdly smart and competitive. He's so good. The other thing is though, I think his fear of failure is a lot less than everybody else's. The thing I think about in basketball, Shane, the guy taking the last shot, the Steph Curry, I think we all idolize these guys that hit the last shot. The reality is they missed the majority of those. To take it, you have to be willing to, like, I'm the guy that missed the last shot and Patrick has that. The two minute drill, the end of the game. Patrick's the guy that wants the ball. There were a lot of times I was on the bench and I'm like crossing my fingers like, come on defense, make the play for me. I didn't want it. I don't want to be out there.

We talked about that yesterday. A lot of people are hiding from the ball.

Patrick's like, no, I want it. I want the ball. I don't care if I fail. That's what makes that so rare. Wherever you are in your circle, I think it's invaluable. We all deal with feel of failure and that's what we talked about with the bus thing. What do you do with it? And again, I think confronting is such an important part of ever getting beyond it.

My takeaways from both your stories and something that I heard talk about. But our idea of what courage is from popular media is not necessarily the right one. We ask anybody, what's courage? People say, well, it's heroic courage. It's Rambo, it's Rocky, it's Tom Cruise and Mission Impossible. And it's doing these crazy feats of bravery when the adversity is high. Someone had to talk about everyday courage. It's the small little acts that you do every single day just to get by. Just keep pounding that rock. And it takes courage. So many people in this world, they get stuck in the moment and they think they can't go. It's too hard, it's insurmountable. And part of them gives up. And Lord knows what happens. But both of your stories remind me of just trying to do the right thing every time, every day. And that's an amazing example of everyday courage.

I love that. Alex, I don't know if you've ever seen Shane's backpack. He has a sign on it that says, embrace the suck like a little patch. Look, you gotta go towards the obstacle. Is the way. What you just said about you're gonna say the worst thing out loud. For me, that version of that is embrace reality. It's fucking there anyway. Whatever it is, just go and own it. Embrace it and play with that. Because otherwise you're lying to yourself. And that's the real problem. Whatever it is, acknowledge so resonates with me. Your point on, like, watching your kids, nothing makes me feel better or warmer to, like, watch them just doing shit with abandon, even if they're just, like, running as fast as they can somewhere. I love it because I just want them to know we love you. You are everything we want. And I just want you to, like, be 100% you. And so I love when they have that. And it kills me when they feel something different. The other day, my kids were talking. They were arguing about something, and I was like, guys, you're lucky because you're the oldest. You're lucky because you're in the middle. You're lucky. Oh, okay. Okay. What order would you have preferred to be if you could choose? They all give something that's not the number that they are. The oldest one said he wishes he wasn't the oldest. If someone else said they wished, whatever one of them I asked, why'd you say that? And they're like, well, when you're the oldest, by the way, he's older by five minutes. Five minutes. He's twin. He's like, you know, everyone expects you to win at everything. What are you talking. Who's everyone who expects you to win everything?

His world, though.

His circle in his world. But it's so real. My first reaction was like, what are we talking about? My kid feels like there's these expectations on him to win. We ought to fix that for him. At 11, he's talking about the expectations on him going back. It like hurt me. Damn. I don't want him to feel like there's that. If I have high expectations for him, I want him to be on purpose. I want him to feel high expectations on things. I want him to feel high expectations on, not on, like random shit. That resonated a lot with me, what you were talking about with your kids.

It's so funny, just on a dad moment. I had to circle back with your dad and your 10 year old self getting the basketball talk. My freshman year when I told you I was 5 7, 107 pounds and the slowest guy in the team. My first year playing tackle football that I'd been dreaming about, my dad literally had to pull me aside and was like, son, do you think maybe you should go out for cross country instead of football? And again, he's like a hero of mine. He played college football, he's tough. And he was like, maybe this isn't for you. Even freshman football is probably not for you.

Do you talk about this? When's the last time you brought that up?

I remind him all the time, jokingly. The same with my mom for telling me I should have gone to Dartmouth. Obviously so much of how I'm as a father is based off him and his example. But with your kids going back to it, as they get older, it just gets harder. My oldest is 13 now. It starts to get more competitive. Shane, I'd love to hear your thoughts. Your son's even older and in more competitive environment. How do you keep them in that healthy side where they're attacking things, playing free and there isn't this expectation on them? I played professional football for 16 years. My son, he wants to play football, he wants to play quarterback. He thinks that that's normal and achievable. I was so incredibly lucky and so many things had to go right for me to have achieved that. I didn't have that weight growing up. And how do I deal with that now? It never leaves me. How do I keep him in a healthy perspective towards struggle, towards a fear of failure, no matter what he's doing, school or sports or activities, whatever his thing is.

You should talk about Zeke. Talk about what it feels like.

My kids will never have the same experience I had growing up and that's okay. We all have to run our own race. I always say to my kids, start where you are. We're all in different places. What's great for me may not be great for you. It's great for you may not be great for me. I've changed my way of thinking about young people. And a lot of the lessons that my parents taught me probably wouldn't be popular these days. And I got to know a research writer, University of Texas, who told me something very interesting about the development of the adolescent brain. And really, from ages 20 to 25, this goes into my corporate talk. So everyone asks me, how do I deal with millennials? And my friend David Yeager wrote a book about how the human brain at 25 has more in common with a 10 year old than it does a 30 year old. But the very fact that the way we've evolved as humans is that we have constantly lived our lives for social status and acceptance. This goes back to the early days of hunter gatherers, where if you couldn't help the tribe hunt or gather food, you were ousted. You were told to walk to the edge of the village and keep walking. Don't turn around. If you can't help us, you're against us. From an evolutionary standpoint, from a sociological standpoint, we've always evolved, especially young people, to scan the environment and say, do I have status? Am I being disrespected? And look at the proliferation, social media, TikTok and Instagram, they tap into that vein. They keep that pressure constantly on those two things. Do I have status? And am I being respected? Thinking back my own journey, which was very public and I was dealing with a lot of stuff, but it held true for me. I was looking for status, whether that was racial status, basketball status, whether that was wealth status. I assume you guys would feel the same way. And so I feel bad for these kids now because they have so many external stimuli that are tapping on that status pulse. They're just trying to do the best they can and they're trying to make sense of the world like we were. And once you turn about age 30, you realize status is not the most important thing in the world. It takes until your brain literally is 27, 28 years old to develop fully, to turn that part of the brain off. And still, even now, we're affected by it. I have tremendous empathy and compassion for my kids and all kids for that search for status, status. And as much as you can, tell them, hey, it doesn't matter what they say online. Does it matter what they said about you at school or the lunch table? To them and going back to hunter gatherer days, it is the Most important thing. And so it goes back to empathy, compassion, communication, telling my kids I'm proud of them, and you don't have to be anybody but the best Zeke can always be. That's the one thing that my parents told me, which was the best thing they ever could say to me.

It's interesting because I don't know how your guys's parents were coming from an immigrant family. There's like, a real pride, you guys have certainly heard about Asian parents or whatever, of high expectations for your kids, particularly academically. There was, like, a real pride. Hey, we have high standards. My parents had no expectations for us sports or anything like that, but they had extremely high expectations for my brother and me. We were going to be really good at math. We were going to be very, very, very good at math. What is your problem? Why is this hard for you? Let's go. They were sort of like, you don't have to get a good job, but you need to have the grades that can get you a good job. That is a big deal for us. I don't know if it's popular or not. I suspect it's not. We definitely have higher expectations for our kids academically than an average parent. We have definitely kept that. And so I do wonder about that sometimes. It isn't just like a free flow. Do whatever you want. House. We expect that you will perform academically. I'm not trying to put a lot of pressure on them, but I am trying to toe that line of not a lot of pressure, but still high expectations. I know you can do more. I know you can do a lot, and I expect you to do a lot.

This is something that I've tried to do as a parent. I don't know if it's right. It comes from a work ethic standpoint. You can achieve these grades through work, not necessarily ability. And it's certainly something that I try to praise my kids, whether it be in school or, again, their activities or whatever they're pursuing that when they do something, well, instead of saying great job or great achievement, I really try to focus on their work and sacrifice and the process and again, try to constantly reinforce that as opposed to some mark they hit, because, again, it doesn't matter. And on the flip side, you will fail. That's not important either. It's the process. And so it is something that I think I especially, as they get older, I try to reinforce that at my best.

That's what we're doing. Your best can achieve a lot. Go do your best. And we'll be happy. Sometimes you do fall. At least we fall in output metrics for that. Of what did we get here?

We all do that. We're all guilty of that. As much as we want to say it's about the process, it's about the journey. It is so hard.

I do it on my golf game all the time. I wish I could just be like, I'm hitting it good even though I'm not scoring.

You don't observe all the process all the time. So you observe the outcome and then you're kind of like, well, what the hell happened here? What's interesting is it's this funny thing of I want my kids to be joyful, I want them to be free, I want them to whatever. But I'm trying to like toe this line of earn the right to be free in sports. Sometimes I'm like, look, I want you to feel good. I don't want you looking at the sidelines. But you got to go to practice and play hard in order to earn that. You got to go and play pickup if you want to do that. You have to put in the work to go and do that. And the same thing for school. What did you expect? You're going to get on this test that you didn't study at all? What are we talking about? It is this interesting balance. What I'm trying to get into them is this idea of if you put in the work, good things will happen. And also, even if it doesn't, that's okay. But I am going to call you out if you don't put in the work. You can't expect that things are going to be great if you haven't worked at it. And by the way, the funny thing for me on saying that, that's a lesson I learned much later in life. When I say I was carefree as a kid, that's code for like I was kind of lazy. And so the big fear I have as a parent is that my kids are going to be infected with some of my like natural laziness. Rather than getting their mothers work ethic, I hope to God they're getting hers. One of the fears I have as a parent is my bad stuff will.

Go to them or Robbie and Alex. You guys are both resilient. And so I come back to I'm the opposite. I want my kids to do well and try hard and do all that, but I want them to be resilient. That is the number one trait. Whether you're hiring somebody, whether you want someone that is marrying your Kid off to the spouse. You want someone who can just figure the shit out when the shit hits the fan. That's the number one thing.

I agree with that wholeheartedly.

Such a healthy mindset.

We wouldn't be here on this podcast if we didn't have the dog in us. It's all been curated in sliced different ways and how we got to that. There was a point in all of our lives when we said oh shit, we got to figure this out. We pulled it together and we had support around us. Obviously a lot of it was sheer will and figure it out. That's the thing I think about the most with my kids. How do I give that to them, the dog And I'm just gonna figure it out.

I think that's incredibly healthy. The problem is I think 99.99% of parents want the achievement. It's achievement based. They want their kid to reach great heights and then they end up giving it to them. I know I fall victim to this. You wanna help em, you do it for em then. Or you make it easy. I wanna make it as easy as possible. Cause I want them to make this achievement. But that's contradictory and I'm doing the opposite of what you're saying. Figure it out.

Some of the shit you've been through that's obvious and external. It's crazy to come on the other side and say that those things were actually helpful to you when they happened. Could you even have fucking imagined that you would ever say that those hard things were positive? It's crazy.

Absolutely nuts. No. Not only did I needed it, but that's where I grew. I wouldn't be who I am today if it wasn't for the moments of struggle. And that's where growth happens. That's where like step function happens. It doesn't happen through success. It doesn't happen through smooth sailing. It certainly doesn't happen with a parent just snowplowing everything out in front of their kid. Even though that's what we want because we want so much to protect our kids, protect them and have them what's best for them. But absolutely looking back and it doesn't happen when you're young and when you're in it. There's no way that all the struggles as a professionally and then certainly when I broke my leg in a wheelchair and they're talking about cutting it off. Am I thinking that this is good for me somehow?

No. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. It's crazy.

Absolute bad luck, calamity. Somehow this Infection's eating in my leg and like they're going to cut my leg off now. And whoever, in hindsight though now thousand percent agree, changed my life. I'm a better person because I went through that. Absolutely. I'm also incredibly lucky obviously that I still have my leg and can go do a lot. But when you're in these things it sucks and you don't have that mindset. But I do think it's important to keep and I think it's important also the circle we have around us and, and I'm so reminded and I've heard you guys tell this story. Shane, your email that you wrote Ravi.

When, when Amazon bought Whole Foods and.

It'S the mindset of bring it on. I was built for this adversity and I'm going to make it through and I'm going to figure it out. I may not know right now the way through it. I can get through this. And that is so different. I think back when I haunted as a rookie about the bus thing, I didn't have that mindset towards this. I'm going to get through this. I didn't. It was too much, it was uncomfortable, I didn't like it. Those are very different things. And I think it's such an important as we all face adversity again in our circles, be on that side, get yourself on that side, however possible. That's easier said than done. That's the hard part.

It's so cool you brought that up because I actually have like a thought that came from this. And Shane, the email, of course you sent me that long one when Amazon bought Whole Foods of me calling you being like, we got a big problem, you emailing. I know we just talked about here's why it's going to be good. And you told some stories of your own resilience. It's super interesting because I still remember two or three things that were like written in there. One is you were built for this. Not just you got this. This is why you're you. Second thing is how lucky are you? You have a chance to become antifragile. This is seven years ago and I remember the words in the email, how lucky are you? You have a chance to become antifragile. And then the last part, which is when you get through this, we're going to go to Napa and drink the really expensive shit to have some fun. But Tyler Cowen has this great line about one of the best things you can do is elevate people's ambition. One of the Things that you can do as a friend, as a mentor, as a professional elevate their ambition, which is a really cool concept. That is something that you have the power to do for people. All of us do. Like, you could do this, you could do that. That's cool to me, what you did there. And there's this concept of lateral discipline in the military. A lot of keep your troops in line, not by the leader, but by the folks around them. You have elevated my resilience. There you are kind of like, you got it. When somebody who's like a peer or your friend or someone you admire is telling you, no, you can do this, you will do this and you'll come out on the other side and you'll be galvanized. That's pretty, like, noble thing to do on your everyday courage point. Helping somebody else be courageous, that's like a really good, impactful thing to do. And I don't think we always do that. Do we always reach out when somebody has it and be like, yo, you got it, and I'm going to be there with you?

Do you think it's a quality of a glue guy, essentially, you're a good teammate?

I think so.

I don't know how I pulled that out. All you see in a situation where your friend's hurting and you're just like, man, I got the news. I'm like, oh, shit, this is not good. This is not good for the home team. This is going to severely impact Ravi when the Amazon monster comes in. What can I say to him? You're not trying to be a hero. You're not trying to solve all the problems. You're just trying to elevate your teammates. Hey, man, you got this. You're built for this.

You got this.

It's going to be a great story on the other side. Hold my beer, do this thing. It goes back to the pickup game. What can you do to help you stay on the court? And so for me, your court was instacart. How can I keep Ravi on the court here, man, if I got to die for loose balls and set picks and cheer and be his hype man, I got that. Can you teach people to be glue guys, try to help people everyday, Courage. Try to do the right thing every time, every day. It doesn't have to be crazy speeches or emails or anything like that. It's just a simple gesture. I didn't think it was that big of a deal, to be honest with you.

That's what's cool, you know, I think makes somebody A glue guy. It's caring about what someone else needs on the team and then actually fucking doing it. All Shane did there, he's saying it's.

A small thing, huge thing to me.

Thinking about somebody else, thinking about what his teammate needed and then actually going and doing it. That was it. One, two. And all of a sudden, I remember for the rest of my life. That's it.

There's so much there, honestly. And I'm stealing Antifragile. I absolutely love it.

So good.

We're going to have to get some shirts made. Shirts that just say, antifragile. I've aspired to be that. You don't know the effect you have on your teammates. And one of the models that I stole is this. Just live. I stole it from a teammate that he had no idea the effect he had on me. I didn't tell him at the time, but it changed my life.

How cool is that that that guy changed your life by him doing the thing he told you to do?

Totally. So. But Antifragile, I'm just letting you know, I love that. I'm taking it.

Shane, are you going to tell him that you stole that from somebody or you're going to take credit for Antifragile right now?

I took that from fantasy football, to be honest with you.

It all comes back to fantasy football.

Don't get me started on fantasy football. This is so true. I'm a 0rb drafter. I love my receivers. Everyone laughs at me. I go straight receivers for the first, like, eight rounds of every draft, and everyone mocks me and I say, you know what? I'm gonna get these running backs, and by the end of the year, they're gonna be playing as the season goes on. I'm gonna get better. I'm gonna be Antifragile. So all these injuries are gonna decimate these rosters, and I'm only gonna get better. I must have been reading a blog or doing some research when the news came across about Whole Foods and Instacart.

Shane, just cheering when guys are going down on Sunday.

No, no, no, no, no.

Yeah. He's like, I'm going to be stronger. But of course, the author, Nassim Taleb, takes credit for coming up with the concept. We'll give him the shout out here, but for us, it's Shane Battier. It's the commish. That's the one who came up with it for us. Oh, man. I think we define glue guys. I feel pretty good about that.

Awesome.

Thanks for tuning in to Glue.

Guys, we're on social media at Glass Blueguys Underscore podcast, and we'll be back next week.