The Biztape
Welcome to The Biztape, a show where we highlight some of the biggest hits in business. Whether it's discussing the latest market melody or the newest company with a great beat, hosts Brodrick Lothringer and Zach McDonald will cover all the latest business news, and determine if it's a hit or a miss. So, grab your headphones, it's time to rock out to The Biztape.
The Biztape
Phil Weber's Hardwood, Hardcover and High-Tech Journey
Join us as we sit down with NBA coach Phil Weber, and walk through his riveting journey from the basketball court to the tech world. What would it feel like to peer into the minds of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O'Neal, or to motivate an entire team to achieve greatness? Discover the secrets of managing diverse personalities and inspiring peak performance, as we converse with Phil, the author of 'How Do You Make Them Thirsty?' and partner at TheBizio.
Phil shares gripping tales of his experiences with NBA legends, offering a glimpse into their contrasting approaches to motivation. His anecdotes about working closely with Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Shaquille O'Neal, Boris Diaw (just to name a few) as well as his coaching strategies focused on fostering self-esteem and sparking internal motivation, provide valuable insights for anyone in a leadership role. Yet, basketball is only half of Phil's story. We also venture into his exciting encounters in the tech world, marked by his involvement in a new, groundbreaking AI cloud platform.
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Speaker 1:Weekly Biz Tape, a show where we highlight some of the biggest hits in business. I'm your host, broderk Lothringer, and today I'm talking to coach Phil Weber, author of how Do you Make Him Thirsty, partner at the Bizio, and also longtime professional basketball coach with NBA teams like the Phoenix Suns and the New Orleans Palkins. How do you inspire someone on your team to act who just isn't motivated? Well, you need to find out what makes them thirsty. Today, phil will break down how to do just that, and with that, let's play the track.
Speaker 3:Take me through it then To get to the point where you've been in the NBA and then to write this book. Kind of, take us through that. What was it like? How'd you get into basketball? How'd you get into NBA and being a part of those you mentioned Mike Dantonie being a part of one of the greatest offenses ever, and being a part of that system with Steve Nash, shaquille O'Neal, amari Stonemire, boris D'Ow Lee and Andrew Barbosa? Take us through. How did you get from where you started to where you are there to now, where we'll get into the tech side with the Web 3 and writing a book. But take us through it. How did this? What's the origin of the story?
Speaker 2:Well, it always starts with where you're from, and I've been blessed with my family and my dad my mom very supportive, and you start playing when you're four years old. My dad was a high school teacher, but he was also a basketball coach, football coach, one of those. So I'm the kid at four years old dribbling down stairs in the basement because it's cold outside. And I got to tell you I learned physics at a very young age because it was old. In New York where I grew up and we had a hoop in the driveway five or six years old, whatever old and I would take this rubber ball out to the driveway and after about 20 minutes it would stop bouncing. It was just because it was so cold. I guess the molecules expand right and contract, whichever one it is. I'm obviously not really good at physics, so I put it under hot water and I got 20 more minutes.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll fast forward. I was blessed, worked hard, got a scholarship. I went to Long Island Lutheran High School, which this year was actually number five in the nation it's a known place basketball and I live 15 miles away from there Got a scholarship to North Carolina State and Norm Sloan recruited me and then he left to go down to University of Florida, which at the time, probably as a player, hurt me because he recruited me he had a plan for me playing, so I don't think I played as much and part of it was my fault, let me, let's face it. So, being a coach, I know that. But then V shows up right and he was amazing to play for and Norm gave me discipline. Norm Sloan gave me discipline whereas playing for V, he really planted a seed in me and I think it should be planted in everybody, and that is the power of self-esteem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know Stephen Covey will talk to you in his books about if you don't have a dozen oranges, you can't give a dozen oranges away. So what does that mean? What it means is we should always, as people, take heed the words of Socrates right the key to living is always to learn how to live. So if we're always learning and growing. We have more metaphorical oranges to give away, and to me that's how I've lived my life.
Speaker 4:So, phil, when it comes to your approach, I guess, to coaching or, even more recently, entrepreneurship, do you put a heavy emphasis on the psychology aspect of it?
Speaker 2:I think that was one of the separators.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me at a very early age, because I had some very powerful books that impacted me and my car has always been my classroom. So therefore, when I was at all my stops, I'd have like a 20-minute commute, right, and it's changed over the years, right, all the different ways that you listen to it, but you still listen to a book, right, cd, whatever. You know, victor Frankel wrote a book that changed my life, and it's Man's Search for Meaning, because it showed us that really to really live, you must understand how to die, and whatever that sounds like, who cares? But we're only here for so much, right? So how do we get the most out of life? We have to appreciate, live with an attitude of gratitude, act on gratitude, but from the psychology standpoint, that was one of the ones where I think people have said that I was kind of way ahead in that mindset, because I understand what that means Victory does not go to the fastest or strongest man, but the man who knows he can, which is one of the oldest poems that are written on sports.
Speaker 4:How profound, though. Yes, honestly.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, and you take Roger Bannister and I use Roger Bannister in all my talks to companies, and you know it's funny, because it's almost, you can almost predict it I always will say, okay, all right, how many people here? And you know, ceos are in the front row, right, they're there. And all the people who are in the front office, whatever, how many people here are, you know, not patient? How many people here are impatient? And everybody raises their I want results now. I got to get it now, right, and I'll say keep your hands up. Keep your hands up, look at you, Look at you. I'm just impatient. That's who I am. That's who I am. If you argue a golden nugget of life, if you argue for your limitations, they're yours.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And what Roger Bannister showed us. Nobody in the history of the world had ever run a four minute mile, people will tell you. Historians thought he was physically impossible. Yeah, a human being to crack that barrier From the beginning of time, whatever it was able to be timed. He first did it in his mind. He saw 359 point whatever on his mind's eye and he breaks it. And that's not why I, that's not why I say and tell the story. Why I tell the story is because that year after that happened, 18 people broke the four minute mile.
Speaker 2:Where was that limit? How many four minute miles do each of you have in your life? How many limiting beliefs do you have that you just, kind of matter of factly accept? And it's our job as humans to try to improve every single day. And so just to you know so. And again, I was blessed. How I got to be an MBA coach was crazy, because I think it was preparation meets opportunity. I mean I'd worked, I'd left college coaching. I'll go fast. I left college coaching it's last coaching at Iona and wasn't hired. I had a stack of rejection letters because I was trying to move up the coaching ladder this high. Just wasn't happening.
Speaker 2:It wasn't happening. Buddy of mine had an investment firm for professional athletes and entertainers and you know he tried to hire me for four years. Hey, phil, stop coaching, come work with me. I'm like, leave me alone there. I'm coaching, does it again? Leave me alone? I'm coaching next year, leave me alone. Finally, I don't have a job. All right, I'll fly to Lexington.
Speaker 2:He was a first team all American out of. We're best friends in high school, played on all star teams that traveled around the world and we basically always obviously being a really good friend, I went to NC State, he went to Kentucky, he was ahead of me and he had just knocked it out of the park after he graduated. So he hires me and basically what he's doing, he's got all this money and I'm like living in a little hobble. You know I'm a little closet right and I'm just worried about month to month rent. And the first thing we do is we sponsor a high school all American team that we create because we found out there was a loophole. And the reason why I tell you that story is because that first team that we had the only people who are NBA fans will probably remember a few names, and that's Baron Davis, ricky Davis, jason Capono and Jason Capono and Dean Oliver all future NBA players.
Speaker 2:And what happened was I lived in LA. I had some friends in LA, I could live anywhere. I chose the West Coast, moved to LA. You know a hard time, you know just. We were talking about why not.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Why not? And Baron lived in LA. I said, baron, we should get together. So I'm like he was only a junior in high school and I just moved into town. I don't know how to get it to gyms and stuff in a city, right, yeah? So Baron says meet me at UCLA. You know they were heavily recruiting probably, and I don't know about. You know I'm not gonna get involved in all that, but anyway, we walk up these antiquated cement stairs that John Wooden at one time had practices. I opened this door to this gym on a September day and I see 30 NBA players playing pickup on three different courts.
Speaker 4:Wow that's crazy.
Speaker 2:I never knew there was a place like this. Right, I'm looking over there and magic was still playing and I got all these guys. I'm like I'm trying to put all these names because you watch them on TV and I'm seeing this right.
Speaker 4:You're just trying to make us jealous now, aren't you?
Speaker 5:Well, no, no, I'm just like a pinch yourself moment. Yeah, am I dreaming here? Yeah, being such a fan.
Speaker 2:And fast forward three years. I had worked with over a hundred players in the NBA. Unreal the four major agents were utilizing me to get their guys ready for the pre-draft workouts, because nobody was doing it at the time. And you know I was blessed in the fact of Danny Angel's vision. He kept telling Toby Bailey, who played a UCLA, was a Phoenix son and came back, and Toby kept saying, you know, danny wants to come watch you work me out. And I'm like okay, that's fine, that's fine.
Speaker 2:And I didn't know how I was going to meet him and he just probably wanted to tell me about Toby's footwork or his shot or whatever it was. I'm coaching a team for a buddy of mine who was a smaller European player agent, and they're still getting ready for the NBA game. Right, the janitors are moving furniture around while our game. There's nobody in the stands. There's the row of chairs right on the court, but Danny Angel happens to be sitting down and I'm like, okay, phil, you knock a head, just go meet him. He wants to watch you work Toby out, just go meet him.
Speaker 4:So you're shot, and I was like, hey, no.
Speaker 2:I'm seriously. I thought he wanted just to tell me what to do to Toby. So I'm like hey, danny, phil, wherever I'm going to be working, toby and some other guys out tomorrow morning at eight o'clock You're welcome to join, come see it. He said I'll be there. Well, he watched the workout and you know it was. You know the players said. Derek Martin, who was the starting point guard for the Clippers at the time, said I turned up the volume just a little, but he would also he would also tell you that he would need three weeks to get into shape before my workouts, cause they were always super intense.
Speaker 2:Well anyway, Danny Angel, after the workout, said hey, Phil, can I talk to you? And I'm like and gentlemen, there are certain conversations in your life that you remember every syllable, right.
Speaker 2:It's always like first thing he says is hey, phil, what's your background? And I'm like thinking to myself that's an odd question Right here I am thinking he just said Phil, I'd like you to do this to Toby, whatever. He then said Phil, I've been a, you know, I played basketball all my life, and 13 years in the NBA and three years the last three years as a coach a perfect workout was only in my mind until today. Wow. And he then said what in compensation would it take to get you on my staff?
Speaker 4:Wow what a compliment. Yes.
Speaker 2:We sat down and talked and you know as it turned out, I hired an agent that day and you know the rest is. You know I had 19 straight years, so it's it was an amazing thing for me, for my family, to experience that, and you know you don't take for granted that right.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Right, and there are certain. You know there are certain habits for success. To me, right, there are certain habits that you have to embody, and one is enthusiasm. If you don't have an, you know Ralph Waldo Emerson, Emerson said, you know, nothing great was ever accomplished without enthusiasm. You have to have, you have to be prepared, you have to right Now I tell the story that in Phoenix they had in the belly of the arena that's where we parked, and they had, you know, they had the. They had three designated parking places. They had owner team, gm president, head coach, but then it was open parking. Parking spot number four, that was mine. Nobody beat me to that spot every single day. Yeah, nobody beat me to that spot. And you know I take great pride in being there early, preparing, knowing what was gonna happen and trying to grow and be as good resource, because I didn't take for granted what an opportunity.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:You know, and you know you have to be present, right, when you're with players, you have to be present. You have to understand that. You know you have to be focused, which is present, and understand that you know if you're not paying attention to them, they know it. Yeah, Right, yeah, and guess what? You know, until they know how much you care and if you're not present with them, they will absolutely, absolutely know.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, I mean, how do you expect to motivate somebody you know as a leader if you yourself are unenthusiastic or unmotivated?
Speaker 2:so yeah, it's a great president to set. No question. And resiliency. You have to be resilient, meaning you know you're gonna hit trials and tribulations. But the truly great ones and the great players that I had the honor and humbled by being able to coach them. What I learned about them is two main things they listened with their eyes.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because they wanted to embrace. They always wanted to grow. And the other is probably the most pronounced, and that is you know. They fight through, they welcome the boredom, the frustration, the pain, because they know and here's the belief in yourself right, they know they're gonna get to the other side.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:They know it.
Speaker 3:So take me through something here. I've got a question for you. So the book that you wrote, again that you talked about this years ago, when we were before. You know even where it is today before you had the beautiful poster that you have behind you now. If you're not watching the video, you don't get to see it, so you're just gonna have to look on my Amazon. How do?
Speaker 3:you make them thirsty, but otherwise okay. So the whole thing you can, you told me forever ago, hey, if you can, you know you can lead a horse to water, but how do you make them? You know what is it that you say If you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink? But my question is, how do you make them thirsty? So, along this theme of motivation, okay, and you have the very unique perspective of coaching, as you just talked about some of the all-time greatest athletes in professional basketball history. So one of the stories I remember you telling me years ago is I believe this was you where you were talking about how Kobe Bryant had just won an NBA championship, and I think you went to a gold's jam or something later that night I don't know how many hours later it was and you saw him by himself shooting around. Do you remember this story? Well, let me, yeah.
Speaker 2:I got it. I got to back up just a little bit, okay, and I'll tell you the Kobe story because it is, you know, I was the person who was learning from that situation. Yeah, so Arntellum was the leading, he was the most powerful agent in the NBA at the time. He's now like senior executive, vice president, probably part owner of the Detroit Pistons right now, but at the time he had Kobe and Kobe had just come off of a. You know, he was his rookie year and he didn't start as a rookie and he had. Everybody knew he was talent, everybody knew he was talent. But he had come off a horrific Utah series where you know they talked about the five air ball game and all that kind of stuff. So Arntellum reached out to me and said, hey, can you work with him? He's got eight days before his summer league and I'm like, of course, you know it's cool. So I had. You know, ironically, rob Polinka brought him to the first workout because he was working for Arnt at the time. So we go, we start working and I start very close and you know building, you know you always start smaller.
Speaker 2:I had to get a feel for what he was doing and I kind of knew. But long story short is, we worked for about an hour and a half really hard. He was so locked in he started to see go like make after make after make, and now we're not shooting deep, right, we're working on fundamentals. We're trying to lock in the right form, we're trying to establish that steel cable that's in the mind and the only way you get rid of that bad cable is by one strand at a time, putting on good strands, right. Well, after that hour and 15 minutes, I had three workouts that day. Okay, kobe, you're not my only guy, right. So I had four or five guys right there waiting and he goes coach, can I stay? And I'm like, sure, stay. So this was more of a work on your skill development, your handle, pick and roll, post up all the different moves and some cardio.
Speaker 2:As far as intensity and every drill, he was winning. He would not let anybody else win. That went on. He was crazy and I'm like, wow, I'm thinking to myself this guy, this is nuts, this is three hours. Well, I had one more workout that day. I had four guys waiting to come on. He says coach, can I stay, let's go right.
Speaker 2:So he again, nonstop. He's guarding guys, I mean not even close to the level of what the intensity was compared to everybody else. They were good players and they were playing hard, but it was just. You could just see there was another level there, right? Well, that went for seven straight days. Seven straight days boom, boom, boom. And then on the eighth day it was just gonna be him and I.
Speaker 2:It was a Sunday and he was gonna have take Monday off and then go to the summer league on Tuesday. So him and I are working out on that Sunday and we're walking out of that last workout and I was just blown away, right To be close to that, right To be so close to it. And I can tell you the spot on the brickyard where I stopped and I could see the UCLA Bruin right there. I could see the school store right there, university store right there, and I'm looking up. He is six, six, okay, I'm six, two. Yeah. You know I'm looking up and I'm like cool, if you keep working as hard as you're working, you're gonna be one of the best players to ever play. I know I'm not telling you something you don't know. He almost stopped me mid-sentence and with a look in his eye and a conviction in his voice said I am gonna be the best to ever play. Wow, so the story doesn't end. So now, two years later, I get hired by the Phoenix Suns. I'm in, I'm court side, I'm on the bench right next to you know, danny's right there, scott Skiles, Frank Johnson, and so we have a really good year.
Speaker 2:We went 53. We beat San Antonio in the first round. That was backcourt 2000 with Jason Kidd and Penny Hardaway, and we have the Lakers in round two. We lose game one, relatively close. We're up a point. How about this? We're in the playoffs right now.
Speaker 2:Right, we're up a point on the road in LA, with 3.9 seconds to go in the game, kobe comes down with JKidd draped all over him, bangs a shot with 3.9 seconds to go in the game. They win. It was like he went inside each and every one of us and just took our hearts and threw it down. So we go back. Okay, we're down 0-2. Now they beat us. Game three. We're demoralized. We win game four. They probably wanted to finish us off in LA so we had to go back to LA. They beat us in the second round. They win. I forget, they end up winning the championship. Right, they win the championship. So we had draft workouts that we handled. But now it's seven days before we go to Summer League.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go back to LA right Five days after the Lakers cut down the nets, five days and my flight gets delayed. I go to a in the marina, one of the hotels that we would always stay at, and you know it's late. I'm going to. It's like I'm going to go get a workout, you know, and then I'm going to go get a late dinner because it's everything's late. So I'm going in to get a workout at Gold's Gym at eight o'clock at night, five days after they cut down the nets, and who is lathered, sweat Just dripping, just working so hard, being a Phoenix Suns coach, seeing a lake or right, and I'm like, oh, this does not, this is not good.
Speaker 2:But you know, you know what you know about the Great Ones, though. You know about the Great Ones and this is, you know, I've shared this story many times and what in the league? What I find is people who knew him have their own Kobe stories. The Great Ones all have stories, and that's what makes them great. John Wooden, who I mentioned earlier. I had an experience that changed my life and he was so kind and gracious, inviting me to his home where I could ask him questions, and I've shared that with people and they share back that he did the same thing to them. And the consistency right being consistent, right being consistent and having that's what makes part of greatness is being so consistent in what you do. So that's the, that's the Kobe story.
Speaker 3:Well, with that like what's amazing, I mean, obviously Kobe Bryant is an individual that you don't really have to make him thirsty. He's parched 24-7. Wanting, wanting more, wanting more. So I guess, with that, though, I mean obviously you're you're. We went in the beginning.
Speaker 3:One of Mike's questions was talking about the psychology of everything, something I think is really unique. You have stories with Kobe against Shaq, steve Nash, but Shaq's one I wanted to talk to you about because you were there in Phoenix when he was there and Shaq's known where you have Kobe Bryant, who's so hyper motivated and again, I don't know either of these two individuals, and certainly not as much as you do but Shaq's known to say, yeah, this summer all I did was eat cheeseburgers and it's. You know, in the media folks would say how much that would bother Kobe. And Shaq's known to say, eh, coaches, you know which? I mean? I'm sure he's got some sort of regard, but he's like it's the player that makes it this and that. So if you've got a guy like Kobe, that seems pretty easy to motivate. And then you see someone else like Shaq and again I don't know it, but based on what we've seen in the media where maybe he does or doesn't have a high regard for coaches and he wants to have fun. He's going to make jokes, he's going to be big, he's going to come in, he's going to be dominated. He's going to dominate, not be dominated by anybody else for a purpose that.
Speaker 3:But when you have someone like Shaq, what's the approach with that? Right Cause, most people aren't going to engage with Shaq in their uh place of work, but they might see a employee who's a rock star sales person or whatever else, but they're not going to go to any of the team functions outside of that. They're just going to come in, do their job. They know they do a great job of it and why try anything else? So for those you know, department managers or whatever, what would be? What was your approach in that situation, if it even was an approach that you had to have?
Speaker 2:So, so, great question, and Shaq was a joy to again, so humbled to have worked with him, uh, but I want to take a step back, you know, and to address before the whole. You know, how do you make them thirsty? So people had told me I had some people who were speaker of your own was and they said, phil, you should just write a book. And I'm like, you know, I don't have the platform. I've been a head coach internationally. I've been a head coach in the G League. I've been in a system for a long time. I've been in the front office, you know, I just wasn't that one chair over. I haven't been there, okay, so I don't necessarily think I have a platform for that, you know. And but then I was listening to a podcast, right. So you know, kudos for having a podcast, and maybe this, hopefully, will maybe impact somebody else, where the person, the thought leader, said you know, people have said you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink, and that's what he said. But what I want to know is how do you make them thirsty? Yeah, and what I did at that moment when I heard that, to me it just justified my ability to write a book and to share with people my knowledge, and how do you make them thirsty?
Speaker 2:First of all, you have to understand that everybody is different. If you don't, you, everybody is different, so everybody learns different. Different things. Motivate different people, yeah, and if you don't, if you try to, if you try to, you know, he who sees it, thinks of everything is. You know, who uses a hammer, tends to think of everything as a nail. No, you can't. That's not people, right, that's not people.
Speaker 2:You and again what I said earlier, you have to know people. They're different, they learn differently and it's your job as a coach, a manager, a leader, a producer, whatever it is how those people are motivated, how they think, how can you inspire? And it's a constant thing, you know it's, it's, it's not a set thing. You know you, you're always on, you always have to grow because you always want to give more. And the other thing is again back to they don't care how much you know until they know how much you care. And you show that care with your preparation, you show it with your concern for their family, and how are they doing, how are they feeling? And then you have to show that you're trying to motivate them as a person and you deal with them as a person. Yeah, you're, you're, you're working with them. But guess what? I care about you too, all right, and I take great responsibility in trying to get you to a, to a spot where you're going to grow and to experience success. Now, I guess one of the best ones will also touch on Shaq, because part of motivation is situation. Okay, situation because situations can help a coach. They can, because let's take Boris D out.
Speaker 2:Boris, arguably one of the smartest players I've ever coached, amazing, good person, a big heart, and he had a reputation, you know, just a little as a little indifferent when he was coming from Atlanta. We've made a trade for him in the Joe Johnson trade. We sent Joe to Atlanta and we got Boris and some other pieces and what happened was a Mars datamire has to have micro, microcosm, I guess it microfracture surgery, surgery in training camp. We had won 62 games a year before. So now we're without our starting center, who had like a breakout year, was like crazy. And now we, now there's all this opportunity, right. So now opportunity happens. So now Boris is there and it didn't hurt when Alvin Gentry told Boris, hey, you know, told Boris, hey, I'd work with that guy right there pointing at me, I guess, because the last guy he worked with pointing at Joe or Joe Johnson, just got $75 million.
Speaker 2:So you know, and I don't, I've only said this once in my career, but I, when you believe in somebody and you see it, and I had watched so much tape on Boris, I saw what he could do prior to working with him in preparation for that workout. And you know, on our first workout, you know I'm like Boris. If you trust me, not only you and your family but generations of Diaz will be thankful that you did. And you know he, he worked hard. Now he was different. Right, he was different. He's not Joe, joe Boris said more in the first week. Joe said for the previous three and a half years Joe was just come in work, get it done.
Speaker 2:Boris, you had to explain things. His nickname was. His nickname was we may, we may, yes, but yes, but yes, but. But worked hard, focused, and Boris never forgot anything I mentioned to him early in the process. You know that you know right after it to instill your shot right, you're going to be much better after about six weeks. So we're about seven weeks into the season and I told him you're probably going to be like automatic right, trying to build him up. He looks at me, you know he goes. Feel it's November, feel it's seven weeks. I'm not automatic yet. What's going on, I don't know. So just didn't forget.
Speaker 2:But he ended up being the most improved player in the NBA. There's only one of those given out and signed a massive deal that summer and you know, with Shaq coming to us, it was really you know how the NBA is with the trade deadline. So we got Shaq. Well, we were really good. We were really good. Yeah, we were supposed to win right, and the Lakers had just got the saw and we were, you know, in that mindset that we wanted to have size for size and Shaq was obviously dominant. And the biggest issue with Shaq was his free throws. I'll tell you, nobody came in and worked harder, but situationally it's hard. You know from a coach and I didn't have any tremendous high expectations that I'm going to be the guy you know with his free throw and stuff, because I could see he worked hard. What people don't really know is that he had hurt his wrist and he couldn't get his wrist back to where normal people could get it back. The flexion wasn't the same.
Speaker 2:I never did yeah no, so it's, and because of that the arc is a little bit different to get right. So, but nobody worked harder. We came in at nights, we were coming in at all kinds of times. So a lot of it is situational, where you have them in the, at least in the NBA, and I think it's with all professions right. Situationally is does impact it, but you have to treat people as individuals, find out what motivates them, get to know them, care about them Right, care about them as people and make sure that they feel that, and then I think it goes along.
Speaker 5:So a theme that I'm kind of extracting from what you've been describing is this tandem between the extrinsic and the intrinsic factors that motivate or impact the motivation of a person, a player, a team member. And I wonder how, what are some strategies, and how you identify what those extrinsic and intrinsic circumstances are for each of the individuals that you coach.
Speaker 2:Well, I think the extrinsic are become obvious. You know, like I just mentioned, you know, boris was. You know that was easier easier for me because he hadn't proven himself right and he needed and he felt he wanted to was shacked. The same way, I think that a lot of times, what you have to do as a coach is more so than anything else. You know, recognize that, you have those. Well, you don't make it an issue, you just recognize that it's part of the puzzle, right, yeah, and you don't ever want to call.
Speaker 2:You know, in the NBA, you know players make so much money but money's never discussed, it's never part of it. It's never part of it. It's always about winning, it's always about getting better, it's always about the grind. And you know one thing, that one thing that I always will talk to players about is and I guess it hits right, right on the bull side with this is, you know, stephen Covey circles of influence, because you know you extrinsic when it's outside of your control. And you and it's something that I've shown every player that I've ever coached, you know, because so, how it's a visual thing, it's so powerful, right, and what it is for anybody who hasn't seen it that may be watching now is that, if this is the circle of the things that you have 100% control over, let's give it a number. Okay, let's give it a number. So if this is 100 and this outer circle, imagine that it goes all the way around and it's like this everything that's out here, maybe your schedule, maybe your opponent, maybe it's with Boris. He would always argue with officials, right, so it's the officials. You know, it's a travel schedule, whatever it is, it's outside his circle. He has no control over that.
Speaker 2:The moment you factor in and you focus out here because this is where the pressure is the amount of power you have in the world shrinks. Now for those wise and highly successful people who only focus in here, you know what happens if you focus out on this other side, right, you focus right in here. Your better habits, your better thought process, your whatever. How can I ask more empowering questions? Right, how can I grow from this, whatever it is right? All of a sudden, now you'll find the amount of power you have in the world grows. And in my life, because I did stay in my circle of influence, you know what happened with me is my circle got so big, my world grew. I went from out of coaching to the bench the NBA and it was. You know my dad thought, for he was in disbelief the whole first. It took him like four months to understand that I actually was coaching for the Phoenix Hunts.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Just total disbelief. So the intrinsic is where you get them to believe in themselves. And one thing that I you know I may I'm looking forward to, once our technology company comes to fruition completely and we're launching on June 26 is that having a podcast, okay, and what I want to discuss I don't know how often, but I want to have one Because I think the greatest gift that you can ever give to somebody is believing in them.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I'm going to have the believer in me project, because I want to interview people who have achieved greatness and I want them to shine a light on all the people, when they were coming up, that believed in them, because I think our world would be so much better if more people believed in more people.
Speaker 4:Absolutely, and you know, phil, you, I mean you're an extremely accomplished person and I'll honestly, you're far more interesting than any of us.
Speaker 3:No offense guys, wow Just taking shots where you can.
Speaker 5:Yeah, we're not going to play Mew Phil, you don't have to put your hands up.
Speaker 4:We know it wasn't you, it was this guy right here. I do think you have a lot like a lot to say and everything you're saying is extremely captivating. Like I, honestly, am finding myself hanging on to every word you're saying, and so I think that like it only seems natural that you would write a book. However, if, when I look at your background, you know, despite the fact that you're an extremely accomplished person, you've lived a very fulfilled life to this point, I guess like how? How do you make the transition from MBA to writing a book? I mean, I don't know. To me that doesn't seem like a natural progression. So I'm curious how you get from A to B.
Speaker 2:So, so again, it has been one of and I let me back up, it was like Valvano did plant that seed in me right and I wanted to grow, wanted to grow. What happens is I would find myself going down on elevators with philosophical conversations, you know, with everybody. The last chapter of my book is called Phil Ossophies. Okay, forgetting it.
Speaker 2:I had. I had managers way back at University of Florida that coined that phrase right and I just want to give back right. I want to share because I think so many people have shared with me.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And you know if, if you give without any expectation of receipt, magic happens. Yeah, and another belief that I had that I think we should all hold on to is that if we reach a certain level of expertise, eventually the compensation is going to match the expertise. Yeah, I was something like outliers before outliers right, that whole 10,000 hour rule right, where I I wasn't getting paid, I wasn't charging those pros, I wasn't charging the agents, but I was growing and I was learning, right. So, in in answering your question about why the book, it just came to a point where I just wanted to express my process because I felt people next generation's coming up who are whether it's player development, which is now everywhere, you know, you can't go online without seeing somebody doing some kind of video with some player or whatever. I mean I didn't have any of that right. I just wanted to help people get better and I wanted to find a way to do that.
Speaker 2:And over that, how and what books shall I read? So my culmination of all that information having worked with some of the best players and learning from them each and every time, I learned more from Steve Nash and he ever taught me yeah, you know, there's no, there's not, it's not even question. Yeah, now you know, but it's. It's one of those things where you want to give back and I, you know, I'll be honest, I am, and I know it's a negative emotion, but I am proud of my book because it has opened doors to me, because it has been what very well critically received because of our process and I, systematically, you know the context, you know, and then you have the relationship, and then you have the plan and then you have to execute the plan yeah so it's very simple, but yet I break down all those components.
Speaker 2:And the relationship is the most important.
Speaker 4:I love that.
Speaker 2:I mean, the relationship is, without question, the most important and understanding you know, and for them, the, the man you know, the teacher, the worker or the student, whatever it is, they understand really. You know, wow, he's really, he or she is really giving their offer. Yeah, and I will, and it's reciprocal, right, you grow together yeah, yeah, yes yes is, and and you challenge each other, right you?
Speaker 2:and that's what it's about. It's about challenging each other, and that's all competition is, by definition. You try your hardest, I try mine, and we're gonna get better together. You never want to play a tennis player who's not as good as you, right it's not? Yeah, right, you always want to play someone just a little bit better. I don't want to get clocked, right, I don't want to get you know, I don't want to be like a pinball or a guy going back and forth.
Speaker 2:Just you know that's not fun either yeah, you know target practice yeah, yeah, but that's that's the essence right, right and it and an improvement and improving. One of my metaphors that I have for improving is simply you know, if we're mountain climbing right, if you're learning a process right, you're learning something, you're learning something and you're climbing this mountain. You make sure you have this, and once you have confidence in this, then you reach for a little bit higher, and that's what life is yeah, wow if we understand that as we go forward, we're just just make in for incremental improvements.
Speaker 2:We feel good about ourselves. It's proven. We feel good about ourselves when we make progress. You just feel good, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:absolutely you feel good about yourself, then you want to give away. And one thing I tell people all the time is you know you should, when you, when you learn something, when you learn something, you should do two things you should teach it, you should always actually you should I take that back. You, when you learn something, you should always teach it. And there's two reasons why you teach it. First, you learn it better. Right gets gets through your mind again, learn it better when you're teaching. But the most important, most important aspect of teaching something to somebody else is you put yourself accountable to that information.
Speaker 2:You know they did a story of my home in one of in the Scottsdale magazine and players and coaches gave me a hard time. It's way, it's local, it's not you know nothing big time. But it italicized a quote that I had in the article. When they, you know, they interviewed you and it said you can meet someone as positive as I am, but you can never meet someone more positive as I now think about this. But think about this if I was a smoker and I'm not but if I wanted to quit, I would tell everybody why, because if they ever saw me smoking they go. Hey, I thought you were gonna quit, right. Yeah, they did bust you. Yeah, I'm telling the world catch me, if you can. So I put myself accountable. Positive tension. So yet I grow. When we lift weights. There's tension there, right, but we grow yeah, I mean.
Speaker 5:So we were taught like. I guess Mike's initial question was how did you make this transition to to writing a book, from being an NBA coach? And I was gonna ask you, like how do you make the transition to going into this tech company that you've mentioned a couple times? But you started talking about this challenge and wanting to see some growth and, like this learning and and everything. So I feel like maybe I know where you might go with with the question of this tech company. How'd you get started in it, but would you, would you care to let us know?
Speaker 2:on that, sure. So it actually happened right around the same time I started writing my book and you know, you know, while I was with the Knicks, I had a. You meet so many people in Manhattan, right, and I lived right there and I took a page out of Napoleon Hill's book where all these amazing people that at all highest level of all people right in in New York City and other people would come in. But what I would do is I would basically every couple weeks. I had a great relationship with an Italian restaurant, val Belich, one of the best if you go to New York. You got to go to Balboa. Now it's in Bryant Park, amazing, amazing spot, right, right, it's amazing anyway. But I would have. They had some great rooms upstairs where I would hold mastermind dinners, so I would have no agenda there was. There was just great food and conversation and people would exchange ideas and you'd get to know people. And you know, as fate would have it, one of the players, roger Mason, who was very business oriented.
Speaker 2:He's a spur yeah, former spring, a bunch of big shots one year for the spurs I did, I coached him with New York and was kind of helped them. You know, I recommended him when I was with the heat to Miami, but he introduced me to this founder of a tech company and it was an interesting, it was an interesting metaphor. Richard Thompson, the founder who's African-American, by the way, and he was Richard was former front office and CTO of BlackRock and he created the technology for BlackRock when and they at the time he left, they were doing one trillion assets under management. They're not all now, at about 11, 10 years later, so, and our art technology is more advanced.
Speaker 2:And so, wow, richard, richard hit me with Roger Mason, introduced me and said because he knew that I knew a lot of people, right, because he saw that how I interacted, I guess, and I was always hungry to learn, hungry to meet people, because we only go through life once, right, and to learn from other people is amazing. To meet people, to make more friends than anybody else, hey, that's a great, that's a great aspiration, right, help more people than anybody else, yes, let's go. And so with Richard, I just took heed, you know just what his metaphor was and he said you know, coach, most companies are like Frankenstein, where you have like Salesforce, which is a CRM. Oh and, by the way, little side note, my acronyms used to be SOB, side out of bounds, b O, b, right, you know, 8, ato after time out, right, those used to be my only acronym. Now I got ERP, saas, I got all the tech yeah, so he.
Speaker 2:So we had the CRM customer relations management system right, you got ADP, which was accounting. You have all these. Most companies have all these different licenses. Well, guess what? They don't talk to each other. Yeah, so there's, there's inefficiencies, and what I immediately correlated it to was a good defense versus a bad defense. Good defensive teams are prepared and they communicate all the time. They're always talking, always, and yet and you should, so you're unified, right? Yeah, what? What him and his tech is? They've created a unified ecosystem which is literally cloud AI, which the founding company it's not the Bizio is the product right now the Bizio, but Digital AIR is the founding company and Digital AIR, the AIR, stands for Artificial Intelligence Response. So this is everybody's talking about AI now. Richard and his tech people have been doing this for 10 years.
Speaker 4:That's in the rear of your mirror.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he's. No, I give him a hard time. I don't want to make light of it, but I call him Richard Nostradamus Thompson Phil, Because he predicted all of this.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So he's like a savant, basically.
Speaker 2:Oh, I mean, he is like the pied piper of the real tech people, right, and so he's put together this platform with his tech assassins and it's truly amazing what we're gonna be able to do, and what we want to do is to uplift the communities that need it. Okay, and how do you do that? And I asked him that question, how do you do this? And he basically said he asked me a question. He goes do you know how Bank of America was founded? I'm a basketball coach, I read a lot, don't know that fact right. And he said basketball was.
Speaker 2:I mean, bank of America was founded in 1904, but it was founded as Bank of Italy. Now why does that have significance? It has significance because the Italians at the time were heavily dues oriented. So those dues would go into the bank and in turn, they would come back and help others, pay for business, give business loans, home loans. So we're a subscription based tech company. We will be able to help people. We're not leaving the community. We don't just give a bunch of money and then leave. No, we're staying, we're helping, we're rolling up our sleeves and let's go. So to me it was just such an amazing opportunity to and, quite honestly, it's gonna change the world a little. I really do believe that because nobody's heard about it now. But if we have a reunion tour right here of us three, right us four, one year from today, I think our conversation is gonna be a little bit different.
Speaker 3:Hold you to it, we'll do it. Season two Get you back to talk, I mean, but by then you'll be too big league in a company.
Speaker 4:No, no, no, no, no. Phil, are you looking for investors?
Speaker 3:Yeah, is that what we're getting at here? Because yeah.
Speaker 5:How low of investment do you go, guys?
Speaker 2:No, it's exciting, fellas, and we are, yeah, we're excited and it's literally it's got email, it's got streaming, it's got. There's nothing we don't do. We have like 40 inside, so it's very hard. I didn't know this, I learned through the process. But there's only so many companies. Very few companies can do email because the registrations and the regulations around it. And we have that. And likewise I mean we have a Ghana stock exchange, we have our own. I mean we're gonna have Bloomberg capabilities.
Speaker 2:I mean it's so far beyond, and we jokingly say, a portion right, only a portion of the Bizio was created by the WWW, which stands for the World Wide Webber. Yeah nice, yeah, so it's exciting, it's exciting.
Speaker 3:That's so cool, phil, you're doing, you've done a lot of neat things, you are doing a lot of neat things and we know you're just gonna keep going that direction. So really, first off, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to us today. This has been a fantastic episode of the Silver Line. Wow, that was a Sorry, we're gonna edit that one out. Gosh, I will be honest, I haven't said that name in like three years.
Speaker 3:Four years the audience doesn't know, it was the first podcast I ever did and he was one of our first podcast guests. And now here we are, years later doing. Podpony podcast production company decided that perhaps we preach, we're gonna do a podcast the weekly Biz Tape.
Speaker 3:One of our first guests again, and here I go just saying it's a you guys weren't even on that podcast but whatever Anyway well, it's always a great time talking to you, and every time I do, I hear a new story that not only is motivating but touches my heart a little bit, like I didn't know about the origin story that you had with Boris Dio, and I mean the fact that all the stuff you did and he was coming out as this, like emerging star in the NBA, and then he, for us, comes to San Antonio and plays on that 2014 Spurs team and a lot of people remember Kauai Leonard.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't like the fact that he started Pop started him game too.
Speaker 3:He did and that changed a lot.
Speaker 2:He did the year before, by the way. By the way, the year before, yeah, we took your heart.
Speaker 3:You did. Yeah, we thought we had.
Speaker 2:That Ray Allen three took your heart.
Speaker 3:So yeah, first off, I wasn't talking any trash, I was just saying Boris Dio is a great guy.
Speaker 3:We all like him, but, yes, just like the rest of the world. Let's remind me, ray Allen did hit a big three and I remember your stories about how he practiced those threes in the corners all day. Yes, he's a fantastic player too, but Boris Dio, boy, I really did like starting him. He was awesome. He was so awesome and he doesn't, and to this day, he does not get talked about in that series, hardly at all. Everyone talks about Kauai Leonard as the MVP, tim Duncan, all these guys I love all of those guys, but Boris Dio. If you really watched the game everyone talks about, oh, popovich has this system, that, and don't get me wrong, yes, he did. But Boris Dio and Genobly on the perimeter, the way they were able to just cut to people and just did play, just executed to perfection, was just awesome to watch. So thanks for investing in that guy, because he was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he was so amazing. What's so funny about Boris is he would get boomed somewhere when he first started playing with us because he was so unselfish. He'd almost have like a layup and he would just spray it out and we'd have wide open threes. But what people didn't understand was that was just torching defenses, because now they don't know how to guard you.
Speaker 2:They have a real idea and his pick and roll with Steve, because both were such good playmakers. You know it's a little bit. It's a little bit, I think Murray and Yolkic is such a good one right now, but Steve was a better passer. Yolkic is different, but the dynamic of that pick and roll is comparative to the one you see tomorrow night against the heat, because you have just such skill level on both players.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's every time, every single time we talk, there's a new awesome story that comes out. And for the folks who loved hearing your story today and all the stuff you're doing, and they want to follow you, they want to check out your book, where do they go?
Speaker 2:Well, it's really easy. Just go to coachfilwebercom and actually what we're going to do too, the Bizio is gonna. We're going to put a link on my website, but the Bizio T-H-E Be as in boy I-Z-I-O, if you want to see the platform, and it's literally your universe in one platform, and it's gonna. The cool thing that we're gonna have for influencers just so I put it out there to the world is because of our unique platform, we're gonna be able to put all different social medias on one page and we'll have our gist and guess what? It's wrapped in AI, so you'll be able to figure out where you're getting most of your activity coming from and it'll tell you how to do more. So it's you know our world is changing at such rapid pace and it's you know machines are just talking to each other faster, and they really are. They really are so exciting times. As long as you don't look back, you just focus on right now and try to improve and, you know, take advantage of the incredible technologies.
Speaker 3:Wow, absolutely. And boy, you're talking about talking faster. You're just the rate at which all of this tech is coming at us. Chat GPT just arrived, and now there's also a slew of other stuff. And that's its own episode. We're not gonna touch on that today. Mike and I actually did an episode like that. It was actually too dark to put out, so we're gonna do something lighter. This was a much lighter and happier way to talk about Like it was motivational, uplifting.
Speaker 5:Just trying to be as positive as Phil. Yes, be as positive when we talk about chat, GPT next time.
Speaker 3:Well, yes, y'all you heard him. Go online, check it out. Go check out the book. How do you make up thirsty? Go watch out for Vizio, otherwise you're gonna find a simulator. It's gonna change the world. So we're really excited about all those things and thank you all for listening to this week's episode of the weekly Viz tape.
Speaker 1:Check us out. Go to podponycom.
Speaker 3:We've got a page for this podcast. You can find all the stuff about us there. Otherwise, we look forward to seeing you next week for the next episode. See you then. Citrus music credits music.