Vegan Diet TRANSFORMS NBA Performance & Success Secrets | Chris Paul x Rich Roll Podcast

everything that you want is on the other side of hard if you fall in love with the work aspect of it the success in the accolades that come with it but you got to fall in love with the work you are in for a treat today one of the greatest basketball players of all time is in the house and it is a banger that is Chris Paul's Chris Paul he is the point God you've got old Chris Paul down at the end the Great point guards in the history of the game an Olympian president of the NBA Players Association and if you didn't know now you know sport has taught me everything in life it's taught me about sacrifice hard work it's taught me about pain what was it about your grandfather that made him such an indelible figure in your life the day before Jones was killed he was here watching his grandson sign with Wake Forest that Wake Forest hat that Chris is wearing in that shot Chris sees on a plan to honor his grandfather in his next game scoring one point for every year of his grandfather's life it just made me feel different man this ain't supposed to be this kind of podcast he can now add author to his long list of accomplishments his Memoir entitled 61 is a really beautiful book and it Chronicles his life both on and off the court and the important role that his grandfather played in molding him into the man and the father he is today we talk about Legacy fatherhood leadership the importance of mentorship and work ethic and how he is leveraging his voice for maximum social impact not just as an athlete but as a Storyteller as an entrepreneur and as a philanthropist so get into it and enjoy we're brought to you today by Roka would you ever do that on Ultra endurance stuff no way the ultra is nuts he did those what did you oh yeah that's my whole deal huh yeah man that's that's my whole trip it's this whole thing hold up timeout yeah I wrote a book about it I'll give it to you that's how he got that's that's how this whole thing started yeah following group ultra distance so ultra marathon I was just telling that Jesse is losing my fantasy football league oh yeah yeah he's a he's a really good buddy of mine Jesse Yeah Jesse literally texted me this morning he did well like let's just send him a photo right now listen Jessie's been in my fantasy football league for a long time too Jesse texted me this morning congrats on the book that's super exciting oh cool but Jesse's Jesse's email and Instagram for the longest time was 100 mile man yeah or whatnot right yeah yeah so Warriors I seen him run like that one thing you probably know about it what's the thing when at night you you run on this Trail like you start like say you start at two o'clock you start running and then whatever time you get back it like starts again at like standing that oh the Big's backyard yeah yeah no no the last minute you do the loop and then you do the loop on the hour until everybody you know craps out man listen I followed I followed that whole situation right because it was it's like a day it's like a whole day go by and you still running oh it goes on for days yeah it goes on longer than that and what's so important about it and why like I appreciate that stuff is watching the team like the team of people so for you to do the the ultra Ultra Man how many people did you have on your team so Trapper was on my crew it was my family in 2009 when I did it yeah but then we had we had Alan also yeah five people in a van yeah we see the people in a van got your food got the recovery team sport you can't do that [ __ ] alone no you know and crewing for those races is is extremely demanding you know people think how hard can it be just hand them a bottle you make sure they're fed um but you know Trapper can tell you like it's it's exhausting and these guys have done like Jason's done 100 Miler Blake's done what's the longest one and you haven't done 100 yeah yeah 50k so is the swimming that's my background though that's the easy part no so my trainer when I played for the Clippers uh his name was um Richard Williams he was our head trainer for the Clippers and what I appreciated about him was that we would travel on a road trip and get into a city at one o'clock and Rich would get up at 6 a.m 7 A.M because he was training for um like an Iron Man or something an Iron Man yeah right and I went to San Diego to he didn't even know I was coming he had a what's the thing like before Iron Man like the smaller one half the half Iron Man I drove to San Diego to surprise him and showed up for him you know what I mean yeah just showed up to to support him and I watched him swim and then get out and then you bike and then you run and no way Ain't No Way ain't no way cause he talked about how everybody there's a lot of track athletes listening right now are very excited people kicking people kick you in the water right yeah it gets pretty hectic in the bigger races yeah there's a lot of jostling around climbing on top of each other it's not as bad as an elbow in the face or you know whatever you're dealing with I don't think I know you're gonna ask me questions but I'm so curious like what so training for that it depends it depends on whether um what your goal is like you want to just finish are you trying to win are you trying to meet some kind of time standard and that will and also what is your level of experience um so that's going to dictate like your training program are you trying to finish or were you trying to make a time I mean I was doing it for high performance so it was like a job I mean I was doing many other things but at the peak I was probably trained in 20 25 hours a week for a pretty good extended period of time you have to put in a lot of hours and it's just a You Know It's a Grind it's a slog it's different from an agility and and power and skill sport like like basketball but it has its own demands and you know particularly like the the sort of mental fatigue and exhaustion that you have to like contend with but you know yeah I know it's all hard man when you're trying to do something at a high level it doesn't matter whether it's a 100 meter sprint or 100 mile run or you know what you're doing like you have to you know basically sacrifice a lot in the pursuit of Mastery I believe I was in the gym last night um I had a long day yesterday uh with book stuff my kids I don't even remember what I did yesterday I just remember what I did last night as far as the gym I went uh somewhere my wife then I came home literally got home got my son went to the gym uh had a kid meet me at the gym and we worked out for probably about two and a half hours till probably about eight eight thirty then took my son home so that he'd go to the airport so he could fly to North Carolina and be with my parents for a few days but the kid that I was working out with is a kid named Mercy Miller who's he goes to Notre Dame he's uh Notre Dame High School here he's one of the best players in the country when I lived in Calabasas he lived down the street from me and he used to come over my house all the time so at that time Mercy had to be like 12 11 12. but now he's potentially maybe a senior in high school could go to college for one year and I might be playing against him right yeah yeah you stick around long enough as long as you you've been playing and and suddenly you know yeah you're like uh in this weird multi-generational kind of space yeah where you've seen it all over many years but the stuff that I can appreciate like you said is the the discipline aspect of it so even though I play basketball if I watch Like an ultra or if I watch a marathon I'm I'm looking at what you're doing but I'm thinking about damn you had to wake up early you know you had to wake up early to train for this like everybody see the finished product but a lot of people don't think about right the training that went into it so like what was the hardest part for you to think diet I mean I think the hardest part is is just the Relentless day after day aspect of it I mean I think it's you know it's it's um you know just getting up day after day the slog when you're exhausted and you know you just don't you're not feeling it and having to you know show up for it with that level of like consistency and intentionality over an extended period of time you know it's not I don't know that it's any different no matter what sport that you're in or or even if you're pursuing some other kind of thing that you're trying to be great at you know it requires that level of like focus and intensity and prioritization all of it right and I think you know to kind of get into you know the the actual podcast that we're going to do like that's um that's like a really big recurring theme in your book I mean you keep kind of pivoting back to this idea of work ethic and hard work and determination and and you use your grandfather Papa as like a vehicle this Mentor looming you know large and very important Mentor figure in your life to illustrate like how you you know sort of um uh you know inherited like that sensibility that clearly you know you are trying to say is integral to like your success yes absolutely and I don't know I think like it's really hard people don't realize how hard it is to be good at anything but the commitment like you said that it go that goes into it it's tough It's the waking up every day is the the the the one thing that that's really hard and that's why I was asking you is Diet right people don't realize how much you have to plan right you have to plan and so your last one was at what age last like last big race that I did yeah I mean it's been a while I'm 56 now the last really hard thing I did I was 51 but when I was at my Peak I was like 43 44. all right man it's a late in the Life thanks you know um and I also have like an incredibly supportive family and wife and my wife's an amazing cook and you know she handled like the food part of that but yeah you got to be really intentional about not just your food but it is the the little details like if you're running a multi-day race um you have to be so on top of all these little things like do you have the Vaseline that you're gonna put in between your toes with this if you forget like one tiny thing over that extended period of time you know you get a blister and you're done like one little thing can derail the whole mission so you have to be kind of um always thinking about that kind of stuff and being ahead of the curve on it the one word that I know my son probably hates to hear like even even if somebody else says this word I'm sure my son probably like shakes a little bit right because he just hears me say it all the time and the word is details right so we're working out in the gym and we're shooting shots and my son will put his foot on the line right shooting a three-pointer but if your foot is on the line it's a what it's a two yeah right and he'll shoot it and the first thing I don't even look to see if it went in first I just looked to see if his foot was on the line and if he make it I'll be like don't count right because we're doing a particular drill and he and I'd be like details like every everything matters not saying that you did it on purpose or anything like that but it's those little details that yeah that matter how do you stay enthusiastic about that after so many years I mean you've been doing this for a long time right it's one thing uh to come out hot as a young person and you know be running and gunning um and and you know make all of those you know detail-oriented decisions number one priority but you live a really big life now you got a lot of people pulling on you um and it would be very easy to be distracted or to start to just kind of like decide you know I got this handled like I'm good enough like I got you know another couple years of this or whatever like so how do you stay super energized and and you know kind of on top of those details yeah um it's a it's a competitiveness is uh I mean especially as a parent to um so many things have been going through my head at times if you just be honest like there's there's this part of me that's a caregiver too right when it comes to providing for my family like I'm also making ends meet to make sure everyone is good there's also an ego thing with my kids right and my son is a Hooper yeah like I want my son to be able to say my dad nice you know what I'm saying my dad can hoop you know that there's that aspect of it and then the the big one is just I just compete regardless of whatever it is like if it's Connect Four if it's uh we play horseshoes um You probably swim a lot faster than me but I'll try yeah I try I try as long as my feet can touch the it doesn't matter it's game on yeah I'm not swimming as you're an ocean I need to be in a pool that my feet are standing you know what I mean I just I love the competition of it and the other thing is the appreciation and the Gratitude and I'll say this because I don't I don't know your family or your upbringing but in the book I talk about my grandfather how he owned the service station like I used to be there working like changing oil rotating tires um my dad worked on an assembly line my mom worked at a bank and I'm not sure I don't think my mom was like a little kid and someone asked her what she wanted to do and she was like oh I want to work for Wachovia bank right so I wanted to be a basketball player I get to be a basketball player right so why not work hard and do all this different type stuff because I mean I I don't say too much but when you were a kid and like I said I don't know background but I was like man if I ever got a million dollars everybody gonna be good right yeah I ain't no ain't nobody ever gonna have to worry about anything again but you start to realize and once you start to get to know people and things like this like of course the money is amazing but it's the work right so I know billionaires I still work every day so there's no like I'm gonna get to this point and stop working yeah or or that you when you achieve that goal or you get that Accolade that you know then you're gonna feel a certain way and have this idea that everything is complete in your life yeah I'm telling you it's so crazy of course it's all these jokes he ain't one over he won't know nothing so um the the Nuggets won the championship the other night and DeAndre Jordan was one of my teammates when I played for the clippers but more so than that he's like my brother I called him uh yesterday morning because I knew he was out partying the night before I called him yesterday morning on FaceTime and I was like emotional and just so happy for him right so happy for him that he won and he was talking about like see man I always wondered what this was gonna feel like or what that was gonna feel like and you know he was talking about it and I've actually had those thoughts before like what would I feel like yeah when that does happen and I know I'm gonna be so excited and happy for my family and everybody to be around but I always be like you know that next day or even after the parade you're still you just knowing me yeah yeah I'm gonna be so happy you know what I mean but I know after that parade if not that next morning the very next morning I'm gonna be in the gym at six seven a.m you know so yeah the hard work the grit um but also you know I was listening to you on uh on the pivot podcast and you were talking about uh how you're a people pleaser yeah yeah it's hard to say no to people you want to be able to show up for the people that care about you and the way that others have shown up for you over the course of your life and your papa and all of that um but also uh you know that can those two like values can come into conflict right like if you if you've got to work hard you got to put the blinders on you got to go away you got to focus you got to go to the Woodshed be with yourself your teammates Etc and then the people pleaser thing like with the life that you live like you're a one-man like Empire industry you got so many things going on and I'm sure um a lot of people rolling up on you all the time wanting something and you being a people pleaser wanting to make them happy uh that can be without like healthy boundaries or you know good people around you could be you know draining or or really kind of like uh you know put your whole situation in Peril because you're just distracted all the time so how do you like work through that man it had gotten so bad one time with the clothes where I tried to during the playoffs uh I would cut my phone off and then I'd actually got like a chip like a chip like a different chip for a different phone number during the playoffs just to try to stay you know locked in you know because distractions they come even when you try not to let them in you know but it's always been tough still trying to figure that part out because I've always been um what's the word I approachable but accessible right and so you make yourself accessible you know hoping that people don't take advantage of it or whatnot but that's not always the case and then as the union president for eight years I had to be accessible I had to make sure that players could get a get a hold of me if need be or if people at the office needed to get a hold of me but I'm definitely a work in progress with that and especially with my kids like trying to make sure that they get that time yeah are you somebody who when it's really loud it makes you calm like you there's these stories of like brain scans of high performers that you know when the crowd is at its loudest that's why they're nothing yeah it's like you're just you're in that zone it gets so loud sometimes that I don't hear anything you know and that's who knows where that comes from I think it comes from a lot of experience but there's a Focus right like all my all my friends that I grew up with are my homies they they always talk about I so I play golf every now and then right not not the greatest or whatnot and golf or whatnot but if we play for something my game is totally different I've just always been like that like I don't want to do anything for shits and giggles right like if we put a trash can out there and then you had like balled up trash and we shooting it let's shoot for something there's no there's no off switch it's let's for push-ups that's fine let's shoot for push-ups that's yeah it's really no off um I watched that uh the inner you do these these little uh interviews with people for Bloomberg and I watched the one you do with Michael Phelps so did you I was like dude he's pretty competitive himself right like did you guys go after it man so the the cool thing about Phelps man who and I mean it's when I say that like Phelps is like my family and we have the same financial advisor that's how we got to know each other and I know I'm crazy but Phelps might be yeah he's just as crazy yeah and and I love him for it because uh I mean we'll play golf together we'll do anything we play cards whatever it is he he's like that he does not have an off switch um in the book uh you talk about the uh the the um the Jones disciples like the guys that would hang around with your your papa and uh shoot the [ __ ] like his close friends like his allies like his inner circle right um and I would assume in reading that I'm thinking well you must you know obviously that was impactful to you as a young person seeing him have that um you must have that yourself right like a core group like who's giving you the honest feedback wow a lot of yes people how do you know to say something about that I would ask I know you do this a lot but check this out I just got back from Cabo uh-huh day before yesterday like a trip I just got back from a trip so all my guys that I grew up with we got a group chat right it's the best thing in the world right it's like eight of us and my brother like all of us in this group chat and we talk just about every day about anything in life during the season when my game is over I can come back to that chat and they might be in there talking about how sorry I was in the game they could be talking about any and everything and the relationships in that chat I cherish right because you always think about when you start something right it's kind of crazy when you start it but then when you look back on something 12 years 15 years you're like man everything doesn't stand the test of time like that yeah I try to take my guys on a trip every year right after the season my guys I try to take them on a trip and the thing is is someone may say oh man that's cool for them no this is cool for me this is sort of like a gift to myself because in what I do I've been in this league for 18 years the season nine months long there's no such thing as the weekends and my homies that I grew up with they all got families they're back home like they work so my brother will go home every now and then they all get to spend time together so this is the one time we get time together so because they know you from way back they're not afraid like they see it yeah any and everything and so this the thing too the life that I Live Now is a very abnormal life so it's so cool to share this abnormal stuff with the people who you know I grew up with who see this stuff and be like hey man what are you what is that what is that yeah so for the last I don't know 12 years I'd always be like yo fellas y'all ready we going on a trip where y'all want to go where y'all want to go I'll be like man let's let's go out there let's go to Greece let's go to Spain guess where they want to go every year Cabo Vegas Vegas yeah every single year Las Vegas imagination and so a couple of my homies didn't have passports so this year I made them get passports and I said we'll go to Vegas but we're going somewhere after that and when I tell you those five days were five of the best days I didn't had in a long time because you literally just laughed like I laughed the entire time and there's a realness about it that I appreciate yeah um it's really good to hear that because I think you know what you hear and even especially in this town it's filled with people who are very successful who you know came from a variety of backgrounds but it's not it's not unusual for somebody to have kind of risen through quite a few obstacles because that's sort of the engine you know that drives them and makes them successful and then they become very successful and then they have kids and then they're pissed off because they can't figure out how to motivate their kids because their kids are living a life of privilege and I know this is something you spend a lot of time thinking about and and trying to figure out how to you know kind of work against um because the book is as much as it's about mentorship and family and and work ethic it's it's it's about parenting too it's about you thinking about how can I make sure that my kids kind of understand the principles that are important to me that I think were uh You Know instrumental in My Success how do I instill that in these young people who are living this insane life that is just you know very few people um get to experience it's a it's a daily daily battle and it's something that I don't say battle now this is a a good problem to have but the people that I literally look up to and confide in and stuff like that I'm always asking questions of how I'll ask somebody with the quickness how can I be a better dad before I can be a better basketball player that is the one thing I'm always just asking questions oh that's a cool tradition that's a cool tradition because like we just said those are the things that you get a chance to see if they stand to tell the time and I appreciate that uh with my parents yeah I mean you took you took your kids back to the the back to um North Carolina to you know what used to be the filling station I mean maybe just you know tell people who you're who your grandfather was and and why it's so important and and why it was important to you to bring your kids back there and help them to understand you know who this person was yeah so my my grandfather uh his name is no thank Nathaniel Jones uh Nathaniel Frederick Jones he was one of 11 kids and actually happened to be the sixth child the middle child and he had the first black owned service station in North Carolina and I always talk about it when you hear ownership now I think you think of other people working right but for him that meant that he he worked every single day and getting a chance to take my kids back um was so fulfilling and the thing is is my kids have been back and they go to North Carolina all the time but there's a certain age that your kids finally get to where you talk to them differently right it's not like just hey we're at the service station try to remember this yeah you know my kids were at the age at that point in the book where they knew they had heard about this service station but they would remember what they were seeing and it's like we just talked about you you work so hard to make sure your kids have this or have that and then what's crazy is you start to like raise them and you realize how much they need what you was trying to make better for them if that makes sense yeah and it's hard to reverse engineer it you don't want your kids to have to endure difficult things uh and yet there are lessons in those challenges that are that are Priceless right but is there a more graceful way to introduce those Concepts and and have them be meaningful to your kids without the the kind of suffering aspect of it right like I don't know you know I guess you're you're running that experiment right now always running that experiment always open to uh to suggestions is is just totally different and not saying everything's different in a in a bad way I grew up where I had to cut the grass right I had to cut the grass uh we have turf you know what I mean like we have turf at our house so always just trying to figure out different ways to um make sure it's just understand the work you know like we joke about it now me and my brother about how my mom would be home on her way home from work and one of us had to wash the clothes and the other one had to fold the clothes right there was an anxiety about that that we were like nervous and scared about like if my dad was on his way home and we hadn't cut the grass yet we're like oh my God oh my God you know but that sort of teaches you about procrastinating teaches you about consequences if different things don't happen and it's necessary we're brought to you today by Roca glasses are not something you normally think about as a piece of performance gear which when you think about it is kind of insane because you can't perform at your best if you can't see well 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giving it out being of service to the community and being this you know he was very it seemed like he was very aware that he was um serving as this example of of success for you know the younger people in the community at large you know what's funny about Deborah is that we knew he had that water money in his front pocket but I don't think everybody else knew I think we knew because that was our Papa you know what I mean like if we went up and wanted something depending on what it was my ice cream or something we knew that or because we were we was around him a lot more than other people but I don't think people knowingly knew that he had that lot of money but like we grew up as Mr Jones grandkids right like that's what everybody knew it says so anytime we went somewhere or we was out in the city or whatnot because my grand you very rarely actually seen him in regular clothes I'm trying to picture because I got this video on my phone of my granddad from his 60th birthday party that we just found like a month ago uh it's like a VHS tape wow my dad I'll tell you this real quick my dad taped everything when we were kids every game um when we would have like a family function there would be a camera sitting at the family function just like that wow the whole time so my dad maybe like a month ago he took a bunch of the VHS tapes and had them converted into DVDs sent them out to Phoenix I mean when we finished I'll show it to you on my phone and so I'm watching so the first DVD I put in is one of my high school games and so I'm watching my high school game that's cool and so then I pop another one in and I see that it's like a party going on and so I'm watching it and I'm like man what party is this because we used to have events all the time and so then I see my grandfather walk in and I got like chills and I'm watching it and I'm watching it and then I actually pulled out my phone and started recording it like whatever's happening and my Granddad comes in and then I see on the wall that says like because everybody said surprise right it was my grandfather's 60th birthday right it was his 60th birthday and I'm trying not to get a emotional talking about it but um I took this video and I put it in my family group chat with my mom my aunt my wife my brother my two little cousins and my mom called me like crying immediately and then me and my wife had been together since I was 18. I didn't realize my wife has never heard my grandfather's voice my kids had never heard my grandfather's voice um my mom said she hadn't heard his voice since he had died and this is when it really like set in to me like how how crazy it was so everybody's giving these speeches at his 60th birthday mind you died when he was 61. my brother so anytime you look at a video or old video what you gonna look for probably gonna look for you yeah right so I'm looking at the video and I'm looking and I'm like dang where am I where am I I'm like I probably brought Papa to surprising because I always was with him so I'm looking for me in the video my brother starts giving a speech to my granddad and during my granddad speak during the speech my brother says um and I know Chris would say this if he was here so that now I realize I'm not there um so I called my mom and I said mom Mom where was I where was I and she said what month it was and she said she was probably at an AAU Tournament right playing travel basketball and that's when it hit me and at the time I was watching this video while I was uh in Arizona where I lived without my my wife and my kids for the last four years and uh that's when it hit me that majority of my life I've been missing things you know like just constantly missing things and striving to be like the best player that you can be and man this ain't supposed to be this kind of podcast it's all right man I mean That's Heavy you know that's real but I think it's clear that you were a very important figure in in his life as well and you showed up for him and you meant a great deal to him and he certainly understood that and knew that and he was just so you weren't there on that one day but you know birthdays whatever like on the daily you were there for that guy you know yeah for sure but um it just started me realizing it started making me realize how I mean I wasn't there on that day but my kids have had so many things now at this point because I am a professional athlete and I'm constantly traveling and um yes I'm working the provider what not but it's still hard not being there yeah for my kids there's a cost of greatness if you want to be the best like that's you know that is the the truth there are sacrifices and there is a dark underbelly and you know I kind of appreciate you being honest about that because people like to talk about here's what it takes and are you willing and it's like well what's on the other side of that and where do your other values come into play that get eroded for the sake of of that Pursuit and I think it's important to really ask yourself like is that worth it or is everything else properly in balance and if not like how do you correct that that's why like the first question I had for you is like you know when these things come into conflict like the people pleasing and the and the obligations that you have like you know there's a lot going on in your life it would be impossible for every bucket to be you know in absolute balance on on every single day and that's that's got to be hard and it must be I would suspect that it's it's lonely because you can't really complain about that like who are you going to talk to I mean you can call LeBron and talk to him about it but there are very many people that you can have that conversation with it's crazy you say that because uh me Lebron Carmelo and D way right the the banana boat crew or whatnot in the relationship that that we had um it was sort of founded on that right I got all my homies that I grew up with I got my brother who was my right hand man I got my family my wife and all that but our relationship and our closeness was built off the fact that there were certain things that we only could talk about to each other you know there are certain experiences that only we could talk about to each other I mean when Braun was thinking about leaving Cleveland to go to Miami he had his circle of friends that he was talking to but when me and him talked it was just always a different perspective because I play and I know what he sort of was going through and what he felt like so you're exactly right it's it's hard it's hard and you always sort of battle with this am I being selfish that's why I was asking you two like what's the training like because I mean for me even now I'm out of season and I'm back home right my family's here in La while I'm in Phoenix so then when the season's over I'm right back yeah as soon as I got back that next morning I was taking my kids to school you know and trying to be a present father as much as possible and then still training right yeah still trying to be the best athlete that you can be do you feel like whatever you're fully invested in one thing whether it's training practice uh or showing up as a dad that um you're feeling like you're falling short or you should be doing the other thing that's not getting attended to or are you able to kind of like switch those gears and and find a way to just be like listen this is where my attention is now I'm giving everything I have to this it's not perfect but um but you know I'm cool with that and I've made peace with that or do you haunt yourself with I try to switch gears pretty well sometimes I haunt myself some days are better than others there's some times where I am somewhere with my kids and it's like put your phone down and then there's some things that it's like okay I'm trying to figure out what team I'm going to like I can't at this time yeah you know and it's a battle you know and I think the one of the biggest things that I try to do is to really talk to my kids right like really talk to my kids and be like what's up what y'all think you know what I mean like um sometimes when I'm out with them so I want to ask for a picture I'll do it sometimes I'll be like no let me give you know sometimes I want my kids to hear make sure they hear me telling someone else that it's all about them you know because our kids are at an age where they're nobody's dummies they understand any and everything that's going on but I tell you the the really important person too is my wife right it's those conversations with her and I mean I'm going through a lot of stuff right now and you think about it be very honest with you this summer especially the fact that I'm away from my family for all those months during the summer my wife's trying to plan vacation where we going here we're doing this so we're doing that and I I literally called my wife the other day I was like look babe I know we want to travel we want to do this stuff but understand that I want to do and experience all those things but I gotta get to work right I got to get to work I got to figure out where I'm going to be and I don't want that to hold my wife or my kids back from traveling or experiencing a vacation like these are real conversations like that and I'm and I meant it you know I want to go here and go be there and do that but it's it's so hard and and she was like okay I got it and that's when somebody knows you like she knows that I want nothing more than to do these experiences with them but the way that I'm programmed in I gotta get to work yeah well you're you're in this you know unique flux situation right now right it's gonna get sorted out pretty soon but right now it's got to be leaving you feeling like you're just not sure which way everything is gonna yeah and and for me um I mean I feel like I know every Nuance of this league and how things work and all of this after 18 years experience so whatever situation it is whatever team I just always ask them to you know be up front and honest with me and communicate with me as I do with them you know so um having been in the league so long like how is it different now at 30 you're 38 right 38 38 versus 28. obviously um you know you're you're you're aging up and that means you got to be paying more attention to your training to your recovery to your nutrition um how does like longevity play into your daily equation about how you kind of approach your craft and how has that changed or evolved like you just can't get away with [ __ ] now that you used to be able to like not think twice about right right but I'm I'm JJ JJ Redick talked about it on his podcast might have been one of the first times he ever did his podcast when I was with the Clippers with JJ but it was like I kind of got like a case of like OCD right in that I don't know like if somebody say this is the type of water that you should be drinking right like you need to drink this water then I won't drink any other type of water I will figure out a way somehow some way to make sure I have that with me every time I go somewhere right so when it comes to has it always been that way though uh I mean it was Sprite for a while right right oh yeah so it hasn't always been dialed in oh no it wasn't always dialed in I'll tell you when I got to the Clippers in 2011 was the first time I'd ever been with a team that had a team chef and a nutritionist I played six years in the NBA before I ever heard of a nutritionist yeah John uh John Salley all the time man he's he's a couple times yeah he's like he's like he wouldn't believe what people are eating and how uh there's just this insane lack of Education I mean I'm sure it's different now or I hope it is really still never had a chef team Chef never had a nutritionist until I got to the Clippers I get to the Clippers right going from New Orleans to L.A and the team nutritionist tells me about Elite Test right you know what that is I don't know food sensitivity test okay never heard of this she tells me that I'm gonna go give my blood and they're going to take my blood and they're going to test it against 100 or something different ingredients and tell me what it what it means so go get my blood have to wait a few weeks I get this sheet of paper back and it's got Reds yellows and greens right so anything that was green meant that uh I can eat right anything that was yellow or red I had to cut from my diet this is what I was being told and it had different things on there it said this makes you more sleepy uh this makes you more tired all of this different type of stuff and what was crazy was at the time like me Blake and DJ all of us had done it in like I think one year Blake said chicken he couldn't have chicken so we would get on the plane and like be pushing chicken over to him like you sure you don't want this you sure but the very first time I ever did it I had 27 Reds and yellows 27 reds and yellow and when I came into the NBA my every pre-game meal of mine you know what it was it was salmon salmon rice and something green I felt like that was sounds that sounds on the healthy side of things yeah yeah absolutely that's what I had every before every game when my results came back it said something like I think salmon was red on there it had like hops was red so that was it for Corona that was it for all these different things I was stressed out I was like what am I gonna eat but you think this is what you got to do to be yeah you know really good so so you do that do you feel the difference what else was off the table oh I have to go on my email and check or whatnot but it was a lot of stuff that was off the table that's the first time you ever thought about diet or making changes or trying to you know kind of yeah follow directions yeah because when I was younger in New Orleans I eat whatever didn't matter didn't matter whatever like there's a difference between a chef and a cook too you know so everything that I was eating back then I mean I ate sweet tea I mean I drank sweet tea with every meal I used to hey what else Krispy Kreme Donuts I used to have Little Debbie's uh uh oatmeal cream pies you know and my wife at the time she was doing the shopping and I used to you know simply lemonade yeah like the lemonade oh I could drink one of them by myself it's just all sugar nothing but sugar but I didn't know what you don't know like you don't know and so then Fast Track I'm playing playing you know still don't really know much I'm I'm doing that leap test every year and it's changing a little bit some of the foods would change I would get down to my first year in Houston when I did the test I think I had three Reds and yellows right so I guess what that mean that my body was sort of you're getting better at it yeah so boom 2019 is when um uh executive produced game changers how did that happen how did that come about so it came about through uh Ethan Ethan Ethan brown right she already had a beyond meat like partnership before that so this is the thing I didn't have a partnership at the time so uh Beth uh moscowers that worked with Beyond Beth we knew Beth from Sports and basketball so I was playing in Houston um Beth sent out some beyond meat for my chef to try mind you I I don't know this I ain't really heard of it like that so after one of the games I come home and my Chef makes beyond meat after a game right he tells us to eat it his burgers and stuff and I ate the food and I remember sitting there like well damn I'm I don't feel like heavy right like because say what you want to I played a long time in this league I know what my body feel like right I know my body better than just about anything so I didn't know but so much about beyond meat at the time right but then we tried it again tried it again so at that time um Ethan asked me about um Game Changer so I saw early sort of clip of Game Changers or whatnot and I was looking at it and was like oh yeah I would love to to be a part of this man I like seen some of the athletes in it and I'm one of those people I know like y'all but I'm very curious I can't take somebody else's word for it I gotta try it myself so I went so that was it you saw like an early cut yeah and you got interested in what that might be like for yourself and just took the leap yep just flick the switch yep because I'm wondering where people too to where like I never forget everybody in my house was about to watch um what was that the like documentary like scare you from eat meat was it uh uh um not not what the health you mean yeah what the health yeah what the health right so they started watching it one day in my house and I looked at the beginning and I said oh can't watch it can't watch it I walked away I wouldn't watch it because I'm one of those people that if I see it it's gone make me you know I mean not not necessarily eat stuff so I did it I went cold turkey or cold so interesting I always thought I didn't know that story I always thought like you were you had gone plant-based and had experienced benefits and as a result of that and then kind of talking about it that's how you found your way to the movie no so Ethan yeah Ethan was how I found my way to the movie and I'm telling you I was like hold up man I'm seeing some of these athletes talk about it or whatnot and like I said I had had 14 years of playing games and waking up and being sore right aching and I got to the point where sometimes I wouldn't like like play with my kids right like the day before a game if my kids wanted to be out in the yard like throwing baseball or running around playing I'd be like no I gotta stay off my feet I gotta stay off my feet and so if not for Ethan and Beth and all them I would have never ever that's interesting so so what was the uh experience like jumping in going completely plant-based after having kind of no experience with that like what did you like did you feel better did you see the results yeah exactly how how it went so I just got back from Family Vacation it was like a Sunday and I remember I was telling my chef or not because it's during the summer too so of course everybody always says it's a lot easier if you got a chef but this is out of season so I had a chef a few days but here in La I just sort of had to figure it out you get to know Veggie Grill really really good yeah especially when you don't know like the foods that right you could just go to Veggie Grill and just eat you know French fries and exactly you can eat like [ __ ] there exactly yeah but like I said you don't know so the amount of foods that I eat now that I never used to eat it's crazy and I tell people who even think about going plant-based or doing certain things is that I'm what four years in and I'm still learning I'm still learning so the education aspect is huge and if we find a way to educate kids earlier then yeah look at what it would look like so for me what happened oh man first of all I remember sitting on the couch like sitting there like I felt like I was on drugs like I was tripping like sitting there like oh man what am I gonna do what am I gonna do right because you're like what am I gonna eat yeah but then my body so this is what started happening and I I gotta believe everybody's story is different but my nose started running like just I would be chilling sitting there chilling and my nose would just start running right because I used to also like follow and listen to a lot of stuff that Dr sebi would say right and I used to hear him say the stuff about mucus and all this stuff man I was like what's going on and I used to I used to get science when I was a kid I had was it five sets of tubes in my ears like sinus infections and I used to get sick like clockwork like twice a year during the season and I used to make this sound let me see let me see I used to do that like all day which was like just mucus yeah man it was like the mucus was leaving my body right and I know it sounds so dramatic or whatnot but that's that's what I felt then I started going to the bathroom obviously a lot more regular that changed like that and then um I was training I just started back training maybe three four days in I was like training hard to get ready for the season I called my my trainer and I was like I was like Donnie I was like are we not going that hard right now or something like I'm not like aching he was like no we're getting after it I stopped having to put ice on my knees every every single day and inflammation down recovery faster I used to have guns no no like impairment of your performance though if anything no yeah am I in my gut my gut is what really changed so there would be games that I played over my career where I'd be like burping like crazy or drinking stuff during the game and just feeling bloated you know and that that changed for me and I had a few health issues gut wise and whatnot that literally changed so four years you've been doing this you still feel good yeah and you're still learning you're not going to Veggie girl every day no no but but I hooked you up with Simon right yeah he should be he should be dialing you up pretty good man listen Simon was amazing because for me at this point now it's about the margins right so thank you so much for putting me in contact with Simon who took a look at um my blood work and was like oh look you could definitely stand to add some iron right yeah and I don't know if this is a conversation for here but we might as well have it you can choose whether to use it or not but when I grew up I thought creatine was like almost like a steroid right but it's not correct it's not a steroid no I mean it's it's pretty effective in in helping you build uh lean muscle mass but you also end up retaining a lot of water water yeah right right I remember that's what he said so I was trying to do like five grams or something like that but even when I heard creatine it was like huh what no we can't take that you know so it's an education aspect to a lot of this stuff that you just don't know and so what is the like the meals look like these days oh I eat a lot of mushrooms uh-huh I eat a lot of mushrooms um a lot of lentils yep depends on what it is I I mean I have I have like just egg I think that was one of the big things was that you start finding out so let me just tell you we're on a road trip and you'll see like a spread of food for our team right for breakfast before we go to practice and it's so funny because um probably most teams don't have vegan options yeah but I've had a couple teammates that like went plant-based let me say that right plant-based options um the funniest thing to me is when I come into a hotel and I see the plant-based pancakes and regular pancakes the easiest way to make me mad is to see the plant-based pancake sitting over here and they purple right all right because a lot of people don't know just make them the way that people like to eat them it doesn't it's not a huge leap to make it taste basically the same listen the only thing that is missing is egg yeah or butter or something like that right like you cannot tell me that somebody can tell the difference between Earth Balance and regular butter it's pretty close right really close really close and so I mean I could have guys over my house all the time and they could eat a whole meal and would have no clue that it was plant-based but at some point you got to figure out a way to start making it just food right instead of every time saying oh this is the plant-based food yeah and you don't feel like it's it's impinging your ability to perform or to you know stay strong in the gym and you know move quickly agility all that kind of stuff do you feel like it's helping you like you've been doing this for four years now obviously you know I would assume that you you're feeling like this is an advantage yeah I definitely feel like it's an advantage I feel like I'm always trying to just learn a little bit more yeah you know just always just trying to you know make sure you're getting that protein intake make sure you're getting all these different things but it's it's just like anything else you plan yeah you playing we go on a road trip I plan out and how does that work with with your teammates are they giving you [ __ ] or some of them on board I've had a few teammates who have went completely plant-based uh Jay Crowder my first year when I was with the sons we were in the locker room and after the game they all all my teammates were sitting there with ice on their knees and Jay was like we called 99 he was like yo see why why you ain't never got ice on your knees like like everybody else I was like I mean I sometimes when I need to but I don't need to next thing you know during All-Star break he went plant-based right yeah had a teammate of mine uh Tori Craig who last year he used to be talking about like how much his knees hurt and aching and all that he hit me last summer and told me he was going plant-based and I think he shot the best percentage he shot in a while this season because he wasn't he was back dunking again and doing all these different things so yeah to each his own or not but I know I'm gonna do what I got what I gotta do for me it's working for you I mean did you know John Sally before this or did you get to know him like after I knew I knew John but I never knew like that John had been plant-based and stuff like that for a long time and it's crazy because lady Carmen Wilson that works with me um she uh she used to work with the heat when John played for Miami back in the day it's wild yeah I find that um there's a receptivity to this uh in the athlete that's kind of Aging up or somebody who's dealt with a bunch of injuries and is looking for an advantage or just realizing they're in the Twilight of their career and are kind of open to new ideas you know anything that might you know extend their career a couple years longer and I think we're in a really interesting era right now in terms of athletic performance I mean Novak just one is 23rd yeah Grand Slam you know Tom Brady wins the Super Bowl 43 like 10 years ago if you said that that something like that could happen nobody would have believed you so it's really cool to see older athletes like pushing the boundaries and and kind of eclipsing what everybody thought was possible um and them being kind of examples for a broader audience around the importance of wellness and the fact that like what you put in your body actually does matter right like you know would have thought you know what I I tell people just all the time my initial Journey on this started out sports related right I wanted to be the best athlete that I could be I don't I wasn't purely altruistic no come on it was definitely not yeah that's how it is forever we're self-interested creatures you know listen my my my previous coach Monty Williams who is just amazing and all the sayings he he always says he says that we want to be a team that's consistent right so if we're playing against another team he always says you just want to constantly be like this against them right the whole game because he says at some point they're just not going to be able to handle that right like somebody's just at some point gonna be like man stop right so when I talk about like feeling well and and food and all this stuff because people be like man what you mean you know you don't you don't want a chicken sandwich you really ain't gonna eat no steak you you know that's what people say to me and so for me it is I had 14 years of experience of waking up after some of those hard fought games and like just being sluggish and aching and stuff and so for me it's like if I know I can make something stop right then I'm gonna do what I gotta do you know I mean regardless of how hard it is or whatnot is it's been cool but like I said it started out sports related and then I started finding out all the other health benefits and I wanted to start sharing it with my family because I grew up in the South right where everything is fried like I grew up eating chitlins fat back sweet tea everything and still when I go home this is not like yeah no one talks about this stuff when they go home so it was stressful for me at first to go home and look at my grandmother and tell her that I wasn't gonna eat all this good food that she just cooked right they looking at me like who are you right or you're you're rejecting them I mean that's that's you know you're it's it's all tied up in love and that makes it very tricky exactly and and the thing is is that the education aspect of it which we're we're missing and I try to make sure that I get into these different communities inner cities whatever it may be because we also grow up with a lot of our family with all these different diseases right these different diseases um John Lewis uh who um we worked on a a movie together called uh they're trying to kill us right and it was just talking about where like where a lot of the education needs to be taking place because I grew up with family members with gout right everybody got high blood pressure I don't know if you've seen a thing while I was talking to my dad my dad all of his brothers and sisters take blood pressure medicine you know and a lot of that is this is me talking I'm like I said I'm still learning but everyone always says that this different disease is hereditary and this is passed down well I think part of it is but some of it is the ingredient I mean the recipes that's passed down yeah right from from generation to generation and unless someone's educated on it it's just going to continue it's one thing to kind of adopt a certain way of eating like you have and just say this is working for me this is cool and it's another thing altogether to say you know what like there's something really powerful here and I want to use this you know privilege that I have in this platform to talk about it and and perhaps you know change uh you know change habits change make it make a real social impact you know as a result of this voice that I have and you know John Lewis is my boy like I love that guy and and we were all you know kind of involved in the edit of of their trying to kill you so you know so yeah I'm very familiar with the movie and I think you know that's the kind of movie that's needed more than any of the other movies because the people who are suffering the most and could benefit the most from just a little bit of education and access are the ones that aren't getting it right it is the you know the underprivileged communities the food deserts these areas um that are kind of entrenched in a in a cycle of poverty and disease and the disease a result of Lifestyle all habits and and you know diet um that's so unnecessary and easily rectified and I think the fact that you lent your voice to that movie and so many other you know really um you know interesting performers and entertainers and athletes you know Etc to time out to basically contribute to that as well um was a really powerful thing I wish more people had seen that movie yeah that's a whole other podcasting story um yeah I mean I think what I what I take from that like is this idea that um that you you're aware of of your position in life right and that that comes with a certain level of responsibility and there's an intentionality um that you have about okay how am I how am I leveraging this position that I'm in or how am I using my voice to you know basically make the world a little bit of a better place and and from my not knowing you and like just kind of observing you know how you've done that it seems pretty clear to me that there's a lot of thought that goes into that you know what else too and I'd be lying if I didn't say it there's a selfish aspect that comes from it too and I'll say this because I love like my people and the people around me you know so sometimes I might put something in a group chat and somebody might not like it or not but just think about life right like life and I want not only myself but the people around me to be around me as long as possible and if you can help them in one little way just maybe add a little bit more longevity to their life or be able to wake up without a sickness or without aches and pains you know then there's not one person I think that I probably met who has tried at least plant-based for a little while and not seen a change or not because we be in our habits and routines for so long and for so many years there's so many people will be like no I'm just made this way oh yeah I always just sort of like break out like this or I such and such I I do this but the one thing that we all have in common is people is what we eat what we take care yeah but it's also a broader observation and and conversation around um habits and change and how do we change and a belief in our ability to like grow and evolve right if you're just like well this is who I am and this is how I do it and this is the way it's always been you're in kind of a regressive mind State as opposed to I'm the person who who's trying new things who's who understands the value of of of um you know putting myself in uncomfortable situations experimenting Etc that's that's how you grow and you have a belief and a and a lifetime of experience practicing that but a lot of people don't I need I need to take you with me to a few people and but you tell them that all right I don't think they're gonna hear it hear it the same for me where do you want to go but no that's that's real and it's so much I don't know which is why like I said um I was talking to Jess I was talking to Jess and I was like Jess we've been doing this now I've been plant-based now for like four years and this was last summer and I was like there's got to be an expert I was like I'm out here just sort of winging it right figuring it out right on my own in the city of 20 million people there's got to be somebody who lives in La that you know knows something about yeah it's got it it's got to be somebody because like I said like it's the margins right like if somebody can be like hey have you tried this have you tried this this may get a little bit more energy here oh if you tried this and so um I was so grateful when she uh she sent your info and I started watching things and I was like oh this is what I needed this is what I need and so that sense of community and just your willingness to even put us in contact with Simon has been amazing that's cool and for people that are listening we're talking about Simon Hill front of the podcast um and you should listen to his podcast if you're not on that because yeah he's going deep he goes yeah yeah um so beyond the the plant-based thing like what are some of the other like longevity enhancing you know career extending sort of things that you practice now that maybe you didn't used to like um I'm um I do the cold tubs you do I have a cold tub in my house are you on the Jesse plunge sauna situation yeah he he Jesse is OD with it but I got it I got an infrared sauna so at my house right outside my bedroom in Phoenix is a is a cold plunge right right so I'll get in sometimes right when I get in the morning yeah sometimes I do it right when I get up in the morning A lot of times I do it later in the afternoon or whatnot I get in three minutes five minutes I'll do the infrared sauna uh I actually just got a cold plunge here at my house in La probably like a week and a half ago because my son we finished working out the other night he was like Dad can I get in the plunge I was like absolutely absolutely yeah do you do that uh Plunge in the sauna together or you do those things separately it depends on what day it is sometimes I'll do them together yep and after the plunge do you get in the there's the idea that like you should never do the sauna after the the plunge you want to end on the cold end on the cold yeah do you do that or no so it's funny like if I'm going to bed you know what I mean a lot of times I do the sauna before bed it's sort of helped me sleep a little better or whatnot at least my oil rings yeah I know so I was thinking I was like that's an aura right yeah yeah um because that sleep stuff is so important and that's the hardest thing for me to do get a good night's sleep yep wow you think when you're training like that that shouldn't be an issue hardest thing for me to do is sleep and uh because your mind is going nuts got a few reasons um I think one of them is like I said I do live in Phoenix by myself so maybe it's this subconscious of like the worry of my family you know my wife and my kids um the other is just sort of the time schedule that we're on and I tell you so the way it works is I'll play a game let's say I play a game in L.A and then the game might start start at 7 30. game gets over 10 30 11 whatnot and we get on the bus drive to the airport go to LAX say we got a back-to-back plan in Utah the next night our plane might not take off from LAX depending on what's going on the weather or how the bags or if a guy's late to the plane we might not take off till midnight right say we don't get into Utah to the hotel till two two two thirty a.m now our game is at 7 pm we're all jacked up boom so now I just played this game I'm wired I'm up like yeah you can't just shut that off and go to sleep and then guess what usually we'll have team meeting at 11 10 or 11 A.M we might not have been to bed till four right four or five o'clock right you know so it's this complete cycle and that's not in isolation that's on the heels of weeks and weeks of that exactly yeah exactly so I'm not complaining by no means but sleep like that's when you really recover so how do you how obviously the aura gives you the stages in your HRV and all that kind of stuff but like what other than like cold plunge and sauna what are some other sleep hygiene things that have been beneficial man um you do like the the the um like the neural beats and the face mask and you know that kind of stuff or yeah no I I I I I not eating too late at night yeah yeah I try not to eat too late at night with that huh I'm bad about that yeah I know but that also too just like for for weight management and all that stuff too is try not to eat too late I just I don't know is is can you nap yes I can do that yeah I can definitely do that all my friends and my family they say I'm narcoleptic because I I will fall asleep with the quickness as soon as I get home from practice usually I sit down and cat but that's good I'm not like a go lay in the bed and I'm gonna take a nap right yeah it usually just happens I'll get home from practice and maybe I'm getting my body work my tissue work and just fall asleep there so I'm definitely a napper what does the body work look like like what kind of what are you doing a lot of times it's Active Release um not a lot of cupping uh uh I have and Shelly like they're different um and actually like uses her her feet you know I mean like she sits in a chair and sort of like mashes yeah and whatnot and then she'll like get her hands and my calf muscles and feet and all that stuff Shelly's more you're on the table and and working on you and then we got team people to work on it sometimes too but that's a that's an everyday thing just about anything else that you've like learned that's you think is like giving you an advantage that you think uh other athletes or particularly like athletes who are starting to age up a little bit I lift a lot I do yeah I lift a lot during the season like how does that work when you are traveling so much and it's just about game game game left left yeah the older I've gotten the more that I realize the day of games yes really yes day again left um so think about this right and someone said this to me a while ago our season is so long so if if you think that you're just going to lift heavy during the summer and then just cruise for nine months you can't do that yeah you can't do that and so for me but you want to be on point for the game too you don't want to be fatigued yeah like if you do it enough over and over and over again like not gonna be fatigued right but I I left it's like maintenance lifting exactly yeah exactly like if we got two days between games maybe it's a little heavier like depending on what my output was in that game but I'm I'm not shooting basketball I'm not playing a game without without lifting what do you what do you wish you you knew when you were in your early years or the years that you know now I always say to one thing I wish I could change in my career right is not a win or a loss it was when I two of my meniscus back in 2009 2010 is that I took my rehab more serious I was so young um two of my meniscus had surgery their rehab sort of whatever but I was so young I was like I'm gonna be right back you just rushed it rushed it too much to get back what happened to was towards the end of the season I came off a ball screen and I knocked knees with a guy and so back in the old NBA no offense to the old NBA but everything was just icing stem right everything anytime you got hurt they would just put some stem on it and put a little ice on there and see what happens so I remember I knocked knees and I was the same knee I had meniscus surgery on so after I knocked knees I team trainer we had like four games left in the season they was like we shut you down for the season he was like don't do nothing he was like don't do nothing for like the next week or two or whatnot just stay off of it as a young kid that don't know nothing about nothing if you tell me to stay off of it what I'm gonna do I'ma stay off I'm not going to train I'm not gonna do nothing season ended and then I had to do a Jordan commercial I had to do a shoe commercial at the arena and I remember showing up for the commercial and when they got ready to tell me like to do something basketball wise I couldn't I couldn't move yeah like I couldn't move and I looked down at my leg and my left leg was so much smaller in my right leg it had atrophied all right yeah because like I didn't know like I was fine walking up and down steps but I ended up having to go to DC the entire summer and rehab and over again and it's like um like the training aspect of it is what I wish I knew earlier right like the little nuances of lifting the right way and the training like that that is what I wish all the off Court uh protocols maintenance strength functional strength well it's one thing knowing it but it's one thing doing it the right way right like I could show you how to do a squat but you might be using all quads right your hamstrings might be shut off you you might not be using your glutes you might you know what I'm saying so like it goes back to like I said the details how is the league kind of changed or maybe it hasn't changed in terms of how it thinks about um you know the wellness of the players long term you know you you mentioned like oh the Clippers had a nutritionist like do all the teams have that now are they paying more attention to that kind of stuff yeah so when I played in Houston for the Rockets we had um we had a chef right it was uh it was one guy who was amazing but everybody coming in there like no offense to him because it was just him right so if you order something on Monday or whatnot when you came in on Tuesday if you wanted something different he had probably already had what you had on Monday May ready to give to you you know what I'm saying which is tough right which is tough on him and it's it's amazing to see how these teams and organizations have changed now that like in Phoenix we got like five six chefs maybe more like there's a whole kitchen that's cool I remember when I went and seen the Hawks practice facility years ago they got a whole Training Table there's so much and it's important yeah you know I think teams started realizing like it's so important that these guys are getting right because when you at this level of training not just what you're putting into your body but the timing of it right so like right after practice you know you got a window of when you need to get these nutrients and all that stuff into your body so yeah um that's great to hear but also it's still on you to shoulder the responsibility for you know going that extra mile and I'm thinking about like all the stories you hear about LeBron and how he you know devotes a not insignificant you know portion of his salary to taking care of his body and the people that he surrounds himself with with to like you know really make sure that he's operating at his best and I'm curious whether you know you've learned from him and kind of how he's pushed the envelope and you know where he's willing to go with all that kind of stuff and yeah whether he started I do the same things you do the same you know what I mean with all the chefs uh uh my team you know what I mean which is a pretty significant team and it is a pretty penny you know what I mean that you spend on it but it's invaluable you know I mean your body is your I mean your your valuation is how you're performing on the court right so everything stems from that and if you're not prioritizing that and making that first everything else kind of yeah it's a model's way right so my book tour is coming up that I start in New York like so when I when I go to to New York right so when I travel of course my wife my brother Carmen everyone who works with me Jess will be there but guess what my basketball trainer gonna be there I'm gonna have somebody with me lifting and I'm gonna have a a masseuse a Bodywork person with me who will travel with me so if I got to be at a a podcast or something at eight we'll probably start at five right right because all of that is necessary yeah you got to work that in you got to plan ahead you got to prioritize all that kind of stuff yeah yeah that's for real man that's legit that's that's what being a professional is oh one thousand percent so like as soon as we finish I'll get to my phone um probably call my wife first but then C was was for lunch yeah um I want to talk about leadership for a little bit um you've held leadership positions uh Players Association all the like um and uh you know this is something else that that it appears you've learned quite a bit from from your grandfather other mentors that you've had how do you think about like what are what are the what are the things that make for a great leader and how do you try to kind of show up in your various responsibilities to to lead in your own way I think the number one thing is communication communication so in different situations some people would be like man always talking always talking I always say this would you rather someone tell you how they feel about you or would you have to wonder how they feel and somebody be talking about you behind your back right like that's that's the thing when it comes to basketball or whatnot like if we out there on the court and we're playing do I need a guess if you want the ball in a spot right because if we're on teams I think that's the big part is communicating um leadership is also understanding when you got to delegate and if I be perfectly honest with you is that people don't understand this part when it comes to leadership is that sometimes it's going to sound crazy but it's the truth sometimes you gotta ask people for their input even if you really don't want it if that makes sense not saying like ask them but not not like want to hear it like say you're you're making a decision well leadership is about consensus building and getting a group to kind of all get in get behind one certain idea and you can't do that from a pure position of of dictatorship no exactly and so what I'm saying is even if you're trying to decide between A and B right or say you're trying to decide between a b and c this is just being really honest so you already got your heart set on that you're going to do a right you still need to go ask because people feel totally different when they feel like that they've had some input on what's taking place right now when you go ask these people they may also agree with you that it's a you know and a few of them might say b a few of them might say c and a few might say a but if you can learn to at least collaborate let people feel like they are a part of the decision being made that if they do feel like they are part of it sometimes good bad or indifferent they will embrace it totally different right and really really go for it who taught you that experience yeah but basketball coaches probably don't operate that way no not always but it's a different kind of leadership but the good coaches do what's the difference between a good coach and a not so good coach oh sometimes it's luck and then sometimes is I mean if you if you're coaching an elite player right an elite player then not saying the player isn't coachable or whatnot but at least sometimes there should at least be and it don't even have to be an elite player just guys on your team sometimes you should just ask them how they feel about a coverage right you talk about like people being invested right like say you got a company say you start this new code this new company over here or whatnot and you're hiring people those people that you initially hired to begin at newco if you give them more than just a salary and maybe some percentage of the company how you think they're gonna work in order to try to build that company well if they have a stake they have an equity stake and ownership stake obviously they're going to be more invested in success exactly and so I remember when I played for the Clippers uh and I pay attention to stuff I remember when Doc Rivers got the job he made sure that because everybody used to always try to say it was like me and Blake it's me and Blake doc made sure that when he came there it was me Blake and DJ right and what he did was we were out in Vegas for like training camp and there was three vans right we were staying at a hotel but practice would be at UNLV he gave me a pair of keys Blake a parakeets and DJ a parakeets right because before doc got there it was Chris and Blake Chris yeah he wanted to give DJ some ownership right and he gave DJ he said DJ you in charge of the defense right you are in charge of the defense so that was an ownership and responsibility yeah that's cool um do you think about uh future ownership for yourself absolutely yeah what would that look like for you man in the best case scenario because people always talk to me about coaching right and I coach my AAU program like the young kids because they actually listen I don't think NBA players gonna listen too much so that's why I love coaching coaching my hey I'll own the team I don't want to coach these guys yeah yeah sometimes we we don't listen as well but also it's not just that it's because I've had such an opportunity to learn just about every Nuance of what it takes in a team right through CBA negotiations through playing for this long to having conversations with um I mean well everything that happened uh in the bubble right like put you like in a really challenge challenging situation where you had to show up in a way that probably made you really had to stretch right no no question and even through like I said some of those CBA negotiations like I got to know what's eating really well right West is uh one of the governor the governor of the Milwaukee Bucks uh Stan cronky right Stan is amazing I used to sit next to Stan in those negotiations how many teams does he own yeah right right Stan and his son Josh too just genuine incredible people you know they they got the hockey team they got the Arsenal um they have the Rams they got the Nuggets but just genuine guys and a lot of these people I've gotten to know I've got to know Michael Rubin uh I know Balmer from I know it should be in all these different um Governors around the league that I've gotten to know um and not saying all of them but sometimes I talk to some of them just give them advice right on just how to approach us as players and treat us like human beings you know what I'm saying not saying that they don't but not just as the product going on the court like talk to us about the business of the game right like hey guys this is why we need to make the playoffs or whatnot because this this and this right these patches that we put on our jerseys now you see them that's on our game jerseys I think now and on our practice uniforms how much is that company paying to be on our Jersey you know so having these real conversations are important and that's why um I want to be part of uh uh on a team I can see it man I can see it in your future I mean I think you you handle everything during the the the pandemic and the bubble situation with a lot of Grace and dignity and that had to have been really hard but you were able to get Barack on the phone come on man man you got that guy in your contacts man he he's been unbelievable yeah I tell you um it's been situations that happen and when you talk about somebody who's in a thankless job or something like that who uh I'm trying to think when that locker room situation happened that time when I was in Houston we played against the Clippers I talked to uh President Obama after that and a number of times in different situations and he just always been been like you got to stay above to pray right and so when somebody like that tells you that then yeah you're gonna listen every time yeah uh very valuable advice especially you know in these times where everybody's got a hot take and you know everything that comes out of your mouth is going to create a new cycle and there's a million podcasts and all of that there's just a lot of noise out there right and there's a lot of misstatements of facts that probably get you agitated make you feel like you got to jump in and correct the record all the time listen let me tell you about how you just said exactly because I'm home with my family and things like this a lot of times where the tough thing with certain podcasts and all this stuff now where everybody's trying to get that hot take is that that's what the algorithm that's how they're going to get attention exactly get on it you just say what everybody already agrees with no one cares exactly the incentives are all [ __ ] up and it's so crazy because now it makes it even hard to have real interactions with people or something like that and because you like man we talk about this you gonna be on the podcast talking about it to tomorrow you know and so it's it's crazy how things work because like you said you just I'm just not the person who's gonna run in and say man that's not how this happened that's not how to happen because a lot of times you're actually doing something you're doing the work sure but you also don't want to be the guy who can't fall asleep at night because you're in your mind you're you're pissed off about something you've read about yourself that wasn't right and you feel neutered you know because you want to correct the record but you know it's not the right thing to do like that [ __ ] will drive you crazy you know it's like how do you turn that off that's so crazy you say that because I I keep telling my family I'm at this point now where I'm like um because people at some point start taking your kindness for weakness right so I mean on a period I said a few things here and there but it's it's a lot of a lot of things what's going to get clipped yeah there was a there were some articles written about that what you said on that podcast was it a couple well you thought you talked about the um I think you talked about uh leaving New Orleans for the first time oh yeah yeah see I just went so long without saying anything but just like anybody I'm I'm human like anybody at a certain point you're like okay man enough is enough all right and for me I've been in so many situations where people really don't have a clue of how a particular situation went down and I just always be like all right all right and so um I try to be cool as much as possible and I pick and choose when I'm a Make Your Move yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah well call up a rock first run it by him um you you were talking about we talked about your kids they play sports and you're super active in Youth Sports you've got you know you've got your own AAU team um and I'm interested in kind of like your philosophy around you Sports I mean you're somebody who your grinder you're a hard worker your dad used to tape up your strong arm and you know make you dribble with your weak aren't like work your weaknesses all of that like maybe not a task master but you were no stranger to like the grind um how do you think about the best way for young people to kind of engage with sports so that they fall in love with it while also learning how to become performers like I'm just thinking about a I had Malcolm Gladwell on the podcast we had a long conversation about this and his argument was that we kind of have it upside down like the real focus should be on getting young people to just fall in love with sports and movement so that they're setting themselves up for a lifetime because only .001 of these kids are going to ever end up making a career out of it but you know when they're 40 if they're still you know really enjoying uh you know basketball running whatever it is tennis Etc um they're gonna you know they're gonna be healthier and happier so you as somebody who's put a lot of time and energy and thought and parenting into this like how do you see that well I think that's the goal the goal is to I know for me with my kids and through our AAU program because we know that every kid is not going to make it to the NBA you know what we do have is everyone every kid that's came through our AAU program has gotten a scholarship it's got a full scholarship to go to college wow now we have 12 kids that's a solid stat oh man it's every kid has gone through your program has gotten a college scholarship yep everything is awesome because we we have a standard obviously and my my parents my mom books every flight hotel right for all my Au kids and my dad you know all the coaches are guys that for the most part of guys that I grew up with or not but the goal is to give them an opportunity right because when you play AAU Sports there's a commitment there you got practice you got certain weekends that you have to commit to a team now with my kids my parents only let me and my brother play two sports growing up we play one year of three Sports I played t-ball I play basketball and I play football after that year my parents said it's too expensive and too much time we can't get you to everything they made us choose two and my kids right my daughter this past year thank God for her she did everything I remember I got out of practice one day and my wife was like cam has a volleyball game today I was like when did she get on the volleyball team I've never seen her with a volleyball in her hand ever in my life so my daughter she played soccer she plays basketball she plays softball and she played volleyball my son just plays basketball I hate it you know he knows I played soccer for a little bit he did for a little bit but then he stopped and now he just wants to play basketball now I I tell them this and this is what sport has done for me sport has taught me everything in life taught me everything in life it's taught me about sacrifice is taught me about hard work it's taught me about pain right like heartache all these different things sport has taught me and that's the thing with my kids is that I want them to like you said if they fall in love with it like you really care about something when I wake up in the morning and I know I'm hooping or it's a game day that's a there's a love about that I've I've never woken up like I mean I have bad days just like anybody else but genuinely loving something right like I do like the game of basketball I think everybody should have that you can't will that in another person that has to come from within that person themselves right yep yep did your boy have that for basketball my son you know what he loves it and it's it's crazy because he'll watch clips of it as soon as he get up in the morning he come to YouTube and he watching clips of other people playing all the time all the time now the question is what kind of love do you have for it like you might just love to watch it and that's fine too but he plays and so as a parent when you show up somewhere and you see like you just want to know that they're going their hardest right or giving giving their best and knowing that if they want something that they're really putting that effort in and that's what I don't know if you've seen that quote in the book where I was talking about my coach when I was in Houston where yeah he's he told me that he said the hardest thing for me is going to be playing with people who don't care as much as I do all right and so that is still and always will be the struggle another struggle is putting yourself in in your son's shoes and realizing like the chance that he could ever you know fulfill the big the big shoes that that you've you know created is is basically an impossibility like it's going to be you know so how do you raise him in a healthy way around expectations and you know parent in a way where he doesn't feel that that burden you know and can fall in love with basketball on his own terms you know I make sure I have these conversations too with them like I because everywhere he goes he's in your Shadow so what does that do to you know a young person no question and so these are the conversations that we have I could just being open about it right because he's my namesake too right and so I've told him I don't know how many times I could care less if he plays basketball like I was so happy when he played baseball when he played soccer but also your name who you are your your life you can't change that right you're here like you're in it right even though it's going to be tough no one is going to feel sorry for you I am sorry like no one is going to feel sorry for you most of the times when you walk in any room when someone sees you or when someone hears your name they're going to judge you immediately they're going to say It's Your Privilege you're this you're that it's going to be up to you to not care or to change that right and one way that you can do that is by the hard work or do the work like if I walk into somewhere and someone asks me yo you need anything and I'd be like yeah I need y'all to order me some food I need a drink I need a cocktail I need a such and such somebody gonna be like I was expecting him to be maybe like you know which you can't control what other people gonna think about you and I and I have this conversation all the time with him and my daughter you don't get to pick and choose when your privilege Suits You right yeah because when he comes to an NBA game he gets to go back in the locker room you get to go this you get to go do that now when people are looking at you or saying this and that about this like you don't really get a chance to to pick and choose when the private shoots you right you want you get one you get the other yeah you still uh bring them to practice yes yeah yes also explain the philosophy behind that because I think that's interesting yes so um it's funny Monty Williams who's now the Detroit Pistons coach um he was my coach the past three years and it's more of my family than my coach because he coached me back in New Orleans uh my sixth year in the league which was his first head coaching job uh when I got to Phoenix uh I asked coach I was like coach you ever bring Elijah to practice or Micah those is two boys and Elijah is one of the top players in the country now he's he was top five Rising sophomore in the country and at the time coach was like nah try not to you know bring them to to practice and Sam presti when I play in OKC you couldn't bring family to the practice facility and Sam is a great guy but I told him that's [ __ ] I'm away from my family so much but the reason why I think it's important to bring your kids to the gym to see the work is because their advantage is not their last name like I said that's their disadvantage right like I said when they walk in someone's going to judge them so if my kids are always walking into school saying yeah yeah my dad playing the NBA my dad what should dad do I don't know just playing the NBA you know like I want my kids to see that I'm at the gym practice at 11. I want them to see that I'm there at eight I want them to see what practice look like it's a hard grind because when Dad can't be at such and such dad ain't just hanging out yeah no having that um real healthy appreciation for the actual work part of it the hard work ethic and and that like uh reflex to move towards uh the challenging workout not run away from it it's like your family you said your family helped you with your races right sure so the fact that your family got a chance to see like if Dad isn't here early in the morning when I wake up dad is not just somewhere hanging out you know what I mean like he's he's he's what he's he's doing this because of this yeah and you think they're getting it I hope so is it working I mean you just never know yeah I mean I'll say this about the book there were sometimes things that happened with my parents or with my granddad or whatnot that I didn't appreciate till I was older right I didn't really appreciate my parents enough until I had kids of my own that's the way it works exactly yeah what is it that you want people to get out of the book oh man I think one of the biggest things um I want people to understand the importance and the values of like relationships real relationships and how important they are and I hope in the book you can get a sense of of me and who I am but also more so about my grandfather just about who he was as a man and how when you lose somebody like even though you lose them in the flesh right they don't ever actually leave you and even though it was 20 years ago that that this happened there's a lot of emotions or whatnot that I'd never talked about that I experienced through writing this book but just know that you never get over it it's never like a week a month or a year and that's okay you know and I I have pockets now where I'll be on the bus headed to a game and I'll listen to that song My Soul has been anchored and I literally be in the bus like with my head up against the window with tears in my eyes just thinking about my granddad then I wipe my face and go to go to work yeah it's right there beneath the surface I mean I saw it earlier and you know I was texting with Jessica um earlier about like hey you know Chris is coming in like you know what should we talk like what what do people not know like what would be you know a thread that I could pull that I'm not going to find on Google because you know him so well and and she was saying that um the process of writing the book for you was just as you described it like it was a very emotional experience for you to revisit um your relationship with this man and kind of marinate in that and and she shared one example where you were you were trying to paint the picture of some experience or some scene or some setting where you were with him and it would it just became so real that you got emotional and you had to like yeah like take a break man like those emotions for you are clearly like still very much alive and just under the surface of your skin yeah I did the audio version of my book right so like reading it yeah I would get out of practice and I have two hours slotted with two guys that were in New York like via like zoom and put the headphones on and I would I did that for maybe a month couple months like two hours every day I would be reading and that's when it really really got hard for me and a few times throughout the process I had to stop because I tried to make it so vivid in the book that when I'm reading it out loud it immediately took me back to my grandmother's funeral it immediately took me right back to my grandfather's funeral and so a lot of that stuff like I said as family members you don't you don't talk you don't discuss some of those things everybody just sort of deals with it in their own way and they move on and it was uh I mean he saw like you said earlier like that stuff never leaves you yeah um a big theme of this show is as I was talking about earlier like change like how do we change like what is the what is the you know engine of change how do you create the desire to change and the belief in your own ability to change and as somebody who has become very successful how do you think of yourself as somebody who is you know a voice for change in the world and you know you're somebody who through your entrepreneurship and your you know the Investments that you're making in you know very you know kind of certain sectors of the economy your production company your your foundation all of this is oriented around change or creating a better world so what is the you know how would you kind of phrase the operating philosophy behind that and how you think about like how you can you know use what you have to you know create that better world um I think one of the biggest things is community right if you look at any business plan anything that uh tries to grow it's all about Community right about sharing with others and finding that connectivity that we may be from different backgrounds I mean at the end of the day it's the premise of my book my book is about my grandfather but there's other people who've had mentors and family members that they were connected to like that and so the importance of community and sharing your experiences with other people and not necessarily forcing it on people because even like with a plant-based lifestyle or anything a lot of times people don't want things forced on them but sometimes you gotta nudge it you know you gotta keep at least giving them the information and it may take them a while to actually try it and um when I think about change right I just think about stacking days stacking days my son is is small right he's small just like I was and I've talked to him about the training and how hard it is and this that and the third but he's he's finally starting to see a little bit of change right in his game or whatever and his ability and all I keep telling him is just keep stacking days just keep stacking days as long as you keep stacking days I promise you I promise you you will see the change but my coach used to always say everything that you want is on the other side of heart right he had another I think I said in the book he said reps removed out right reps removed out my biggest frustration with my son used to be we would go outside at the house and he would shoot a shot and he'd be mad he'd be like dang I'm like what you mad for you don't get up enough reps you know so those are the those are the only things you can control anyway yep your effort and the consistency of your effort right there's a quote uh in the book that I love which is hard work is my preferred language and I try to speak it fluently like that's [ __ ] great yeah you know yeah just stack it up that's all you can do and walk away what is your relationship to failure also like missing that shot is it a big deal or are you just moving on another rep another rep another rep I was in the gym last night I was telling you with with the kid um Mercy Mercy Miller last night um we had to end this drill we had to end with this drill that I do where you shoot a three in this corner and then you run to the other end of the Court shoot a three in this corner run to this corner come to this corner right so that's four shots then you go to this Wing five that Wing six this Wing seven this Wing eight top of the key Nine this top ten yeah non-stop so Sprint Sprint 10 shots gotta make seven out of ten and we're done with the workout for the day um I went knocked it out what not now Mercy gotta go ten for ten I want eight eight I went eight out of ten Mercy's Mercy's turn to go first time he I think he might have got five out of ten win again didn't get it one again didn't get it one again didn't get it kept getting the six out of ten and he would have to because you had to just make seven seven out of ten he'd get to the last one missed it he might have did this drill 10 times 10 times and my son was there too and I told Chris I said listen Mercy can work out with me any day because he didn't complain he didn't do nothing this kid is about to be a senior in high school he didn't complain he just kept breathing I kept talking to him like don't worry about it just keep keep going keep going and sure enough after 10 11 tries he got it he got it and I I appreciated that from him and I told him at the end of our workout because he was like man appreciate you letting me come work I said no thank you because you make it fun for me and that's the fun part about having 12 kids in the NBA having all of these young kids coming up and training would have been working out with him because that's that's the exciting part for me is to know that when I'm done playing I'll still be watching and be like man yeah yeah yeah yeah that's cool man and I'm sure you know within the NBA because you're you know more of an elder Statesman now you have all these young players who are you know looking up to you for that kind of guidance and for you they're trying to recognize like that that brings you Joy you know to kind of get back in that way I think I think it's cool definitely you are going to make a good owner man when are they gonna you got all this VHS footage of your whole life is there going to be a documentary are you making a movie out of this book we it's crazy man we have worked with Disney on a movie about 61. oh yeah we had done it it got like to production Oh you mean like before the book like a whole like a narrative and then we were waiting for it to get green lit and it did not crazy right Welcome to Hollywood exactly yeah but with all that footage maybe a little doc something yeah something um final thing man what is it what's the deal with the bowling oh man you bowl I mean I bowl like anybody bills you know but you own a bowling team like you're like bowling obsessed lax's yeah yeah so uh growing up my dad was an avid bowler me and my brother used to sit in we used to sit in bowling alleys with my dad in Bowling leagues you know full of cigarette smoke and french fries that's what everything smelled like and you know like my dad is seriously like a superhero to us anything my dad did we wanted to do everything so when my dad hooped we wanted a hoop he was a die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan that was us you know everything so when he bowled we went right right along with him I want to say when I was like a senior in high school my parents gifted us a bowling ball for Christmas mine my bowling ball was a red white and blue it looked like the ABA basketball and my brothers was a brown ball that looked like a regular basketball and so then we bowled all the time in high school and college that's where we go with our friends and then when I got to the league I started doing a bowling tournament on ESPN cool it's fine it's one of those things that like I know I say I golf now but bowling is something that everybody can do you can do it you know like my I had a like one of my granddad's Brothers he was 80 years old still in the bowling league right yeah so it's just fun and easy that's cool man um well I gotta get you out of here uh I could I could hold you hostage all day man but uh this is super fun I mean I you're an inspiration uh I really you know love the way that you lead by example and you teach uh through your actions and you comport yourself with you know so much grace and dignity and and you know gratitude also which you mentioned earlier which I think is huge and you know I'm a fan dude yeah I'm a fan so I you know best of luck with the book it's it was really fun to read it and learn about your life and I get my child and I will come back and interview you I got some more questions all right uh anytime man any time uh so uh any any parting words for the uh aspiring athlete out there somebody's trying to tap into a little bit more Mastery into their life yeah um I mean you hear all these sayings all the time where they say you're only going to get out of it what you put into it but um I would say fall in love with the work right like I always say about the NBA I've had guys I've had teammates and it's fine some guys be like I don't watch basketball when I go home because I play too much I don't know I'd be like listen you think if somebody work on work on Wall Street when they go on vacation they not checking um the stock exchange you know but to each his own right so if you fall in love with the work aspect of it then the success in the accolades that come with it but you got to fall in love with the work don't just fall in love with the the showers of people telling you how good and great you are at it like you if you fall in love with the work aspect of it then every everything else I promise to fall into place I spit in fire straight from the mouth with CP3 thanks buddy that was really cool appreciate it man it's an honor to talk to you thank you yeah thanks man peace [Music]

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Keywords: chris paul, cp3, education podcasts, fitness podcasts, health podcasts, mindfulness podcasts, mindset podcast, plant-based nutrition, rich roll, rich roll podcast, self-improvement podcasts, spirituality podcasts, vegan podcasts, wellness podcasts

Id: w45ZG6fmGTk

Length: 119min 43sec (7183 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 19 2023