NBA Legend Chris Bosh on Becoming Great and What You Need to Sacrifice | Impact Theory

you got to be hungry man i mean i know how i felt aspiring to be something before anybody ever knew you know i know what it felt like to to be in the gym by myself when nobody cared i wanted to be successful so bad i wanted to be a basketball player so bad every part of me you know was was going to put everything into that you can't be satisfied even when i was the best player that doesn't mean you stopped working you know we can get content so easily sometimes and when i say these things these are these are coming from my own experiences [Music] i hope you guys enjoy the episode brought to you by our sponsor blinkist go to blinkist.com impact theory to get 25 percent off a blinkist premium membership and a seven-day free trial all right enjoy the episode hey everybody welcome to another episode of impact theory i am here with entrepreneur writer music executive and one of the greatest nba stars of all time chris bosh chris welcome to the show thank you very much man thank you for having me dude i am super excited to have you i was blown away by your book letters to a young athlete i actually think it's going to go down as one of the great books on leadership if i'm honest i think that it really does transcend um i'm not an athlete not in the slightest my man but reading that book i was like this is directly applicable to everything that i do as well so whether you're an entrepreneur or somebody that's into music or just you're trying to be great at anything um i really thought that it was exceptional what made you want to to write that book man you know for those who don't know i used to play basketball professionally for up to 13 years in my 14th year or my 13th year at the midway in part of my 13th year i had blood clots and this was for the second time the first time the year before that i had a pretty tragic instance where i was in the hospital i needed surgery i had a pulmonary embolism you know i'm lucky to be alive um the next year they you know we found a blood clot in my cab and pretty much when that happens you know there's really no fix for that and i i pretty much had to retire so it's pretty it's like being thrown out of a car going 140. and you know yeah emotionally for sure and i kind of had to really just reflect on where i was where i am in my life because i had to go from being a full-time athlete playing in the nba road games appearances to pretty much being a full-time dad instantly i have five children you know so it's very busy you know being a full-time husband having to learn and reinvent myself and in that i really really reflected on my career i never had not not only my career but when i say career i mean my basketball life that's a bet a better way to put it because that's all i did and i didn't understand that's all i did until it wasn't there anymore and i just got to a point where in my reflection you know you go through everything in between you know the highs and the lows and i struggled you know i struggled uh emotionally dealing with with everything but this has been kind of define everything before me like you struggle with who am i what am i going to do do i have value that kind of thing or was it something different well more so like what am i gonna do um i've always tried to encourage people and read material uh to help people out what they're gonna do and then i'm in that situation and i don't have any excuses uh usually the is uh for someone to make a better living that's the drive for them right uh or money or something like that neither one of those uh came into play so i really really had to dig deep and really find out what i love doing and you know really just reflect on everything that happened uh throughout my life conversations with coaches um you know uh situations overcoming and you know of course adversity that's always a classic one uh but really sitting down and dissecting all of those moments in my career that i felt really really propelled me to where i am today and being appreciative for that so this book is pretty much like a momento if you will to not only the younger generation but all generations who want to better themselves uh want to learn more and who want to be great and want to win i think that's uh that's an important attitude to have and and i wanted to put it in some sort of book form where people you know could really really take it in and digest it yeah i had a similar feeling when i read phil jackson's 11 rings so i'm actually this is probably just a horrendous thing to confess to you but i'm not a sports guy like i don't pay attention to sports or anything um yeah but somebody had told me that no no don't think of phil jackson's book as being about sports think of it as being about leadership and so i read it and i was like this is one of the most extraordinary books i've ever read in my life like this guy is a philosopher as much as he is yeah um a coach and when i got your book i didn't know what to expect obviously i i recognized the title as sort of a wink to some of the other letters too um yeah but to see you so thoroughly uh take the soul of what those other but like you even reference um rainier rilke if i i think that's his first name letter poet and um you really poured yourself into this in a way that it feels like an instruction manual for greatness and that's how i felt and it felt like the birth of a philosopher and i don't know if that's sort of where you want to go with this like you're you're and i'm not kidding at all your resume is really interesting but the way that you're able to dissect what it takes to be great and i want to start with the notion of talent is not enough that was one of the things i found super profound in the book what does it mean that talent isn't enough and how do you achieve greatness if you can't just rely on talent well it's kind of one of those um things you know and i'm so glad that you know we're able to have this conversation because i feel that i'm one of those guys to kind of bridge the gap uh to help people understand the game of basketball a little more and not to not to say that somebody's going to be a die hard right away but there are simple kind of connections in there that i think were really you know i've talked to people and and seen the light come on and say oh okay you know that's how it is you know usually um we always had a saying uh in the nba if you play hard you give yourself a chance and in my in my career i had so many instances i've had hundreds of teammates and in that you always um i have an interesting scenario where you see the difference between talent and hard work of course if you're a talented hard worker then if if you put the talent with the hard work then then then now we're talking but i've seen so many times and so many people not reach their potential only because they didn't want to do the work the talent was there um i think even sometimes the love for the game or the love for the field that they're doing is there but you have to combine it with with that um toughness and hard work and you know there's no cheating the process um you know i think sometimes what is the process yes um you know doing things every day so i always like to work backwards so for instance if i'm a basketball player and i want to be a better shooter well i say okay i want to be a better shooter that is my goal what do i have to do daily to ensure that i can become a better shooter some people would say well you need a teacher that's not necessarily so you have to sometimes go and seek the information put in the work that could be a part of uh one of the days of the process to becoming a better shooter um you know so i always try to make sure that i put my the work in myself only because you see how so many people you know leave their talent on the table so to speak i mean you know and sometimes that can be a it's a gift and a curse right you can be the most talented person in the room that'll automatically bring your work ethic down a little bit and that's something you have to fight but i think sometimes especially in younger people you think it's going to last forever you think it's always going to be here and i don't have to try so hard i've seen so many people just be hard workers and then you know that gives them a seat at the table just by their work ethic we're not even talking about talent right now you know but when you when you combine that talent with the hard work i think that's when you get the lighter fuel uh to get you where you need to go one of the things you talk about so one you reference david goggins which you had me at hello with that one uh and so blown away by him and his notion of when you think that you're completely broken and spent you're actually only 40 of the way there you talk about ignoring your empty light what is that what does that mean um you know when we were in the playoffs when i got to the point where we could compete for a championship as a team uh with the miami heat back it's crazy to say 10 years ago you find yourself in a place where every game is difficult and i always like to use i always said the phrase man it feels like i'm scratching the depths of my soul and then after i scratch that i gotta get more i gotta dig more because in the heat of competition uh when you really really want something you're gonna be tired sometimes and there might be a loose ball that you have to get and you can't really think about how tired you are and in the daily practice of pushing yourself you have to know how far you can go and with that said like a lot of people will just stop only because uh you know their caps are burning if they're exercising or you're doing some pull-ups you might you could get two more you know um one of the best exercises that helped me uh in my adolescence and really in my training for the league as well was running a mile i had this coach ken roberson up in dallas we would have to run a mile almo pretty much three times a week and it was so hard because by that after that first lap you get that that little person on your shoulder saying please just stop can you please stop so that we could just stop and in getting through that um sometimes you find out like wow i didn't feel like doing it today but i ran my best time or i kept going and i had more left in the tank than what i thought you know there's that nice balance between um pushing yourself and not you know too much you don't want to go too far but i think sometimes with human beings we we don't want to put we don't want to limit our mind or our body you know you don't want to put limitations on it you want to push the limitations uh daily not nothing extreme are you are you saying nothing extreme you don't want to go too far because you don't want moms coming after you because like you can't quote goggins over here who like all but kills himself and by the way this is what i loved about your book man is you really like you get the nuance of the situation and so i get it look and i hedge sometimes too with my language but i want to i want to get beyond the hedge we'll just covet or caveat caveat right like of course you don't want people hurting themselves but in the book like you really go into what it takes to be great you want to play for real like now we're going to have to go beyond the pain we have to go beyond the suffering you have to dig deep and you talk about finding a why talk to me about that like when you're running that mile and you're on lap three and the voice that started at lap one is now shrieking how how do you keep going like how do you chris bosh keep going i think um you you take it one one step at a time i hate to be cliche but you take it one sec step at a time and you know you push through it you find a way to get through it whatever you do don't stop you know that was always the daily thing that i told myself because afterwards you don't feel too good especially when you know that you left something on the table and sometimes in success especially if you ever see a championship situation with athletes when you're training for those moments when you hit that wall of being tired that's when you're starting because essentially you know what i learned from competing against the best was that every single game we're knocking on that door i mean you're going to be the most exhausted that you've ever been in your life and there's still going to be things that you have to accomplish so you have to still be sound in body and in mind and you still have to remember what the game plan is what am i supposed to be doing right now because when you find and through that is finding the why so i always wanted to be successful i you know i wanted nothing more um than to be a professional basketball player and be successful and win games and be like michael jordan kobe bryant why did that matter to you i was a child when i was a child uh it was just so fascinating it was captivating um my my dad and his friends would be all around the tv watching basketball watching the game and then you know you see uh guys that you identify with guys that looked like me and i was already playing basketball with my friends on the playground um as i was discovering what it was but once i saw that you know how much of you know people looked up to these athletes and and how fun it was or or or the how fun the thought would be to play basketball professionally i mean i was just hooked after that and i couldn't get enough yeah it's interesting like when i think about greatness and what it really takes to get there and you think about why i have a hypothesis because i've thought a lot about this about why i'm so driven right so i never have to work another day in my life and yet i show up every day like my life depends on building the next gigantic company right and so i think a lot about evolution and like why the human mind is the way the human mind is so every species has a choice do you pre-program everything or do you basically give potential right and then based on your circumstances what potential do you need to develop into skill set in order to survive now nature incentivizes with pleasure and pain quite frankly the things that it wants to ensure that you do right so if it wants to make sure that you have babies sex is pretty amazing right so that it gets it's in the end right now with with the sort of grand why of things and this is actually what you say in the book is your why it was one of the things i was like yes you said i want to see how much of my potential i can actually manifest and that to me lines up with evolution if evolution shows with the human animal the strategy of i'm not going to pre-program very much so now i need to make sure that you get this internal reward for actually seeing how much potential you can turn into skills and getting people to understand that this is why i'm obsessed with your book getting people to understand this like you open the book saying i you've got a lot of voices in your head right now i get it you at one point you said i could practically feel you falling asleep but what you were saying was so important because when people are human you will have a void in your life if you don't translate potential into skills and so few people really like dig deep ignore the empty light scrape the bottom of their soul find more somehow some way take the time to build a why and think about like why in this moment when it hurts and it sucks am i going to keep going and absolutely that to me is that that is the money what do you think about when you think about your kids like i don't have kids so i never have to cross this bridge but if i had kids i'd be real honest you gotta you have to be willing to break yourself in half like you just have to for your own sanity you do and you know one of the challenges with that is finding not only finding your why but finding that thing that you love to do and you know so you know for me i was so lucky to have basketball you know to love basketball because there's actually programs there's teams um especially the communities that we were growing up in there weren't many resources so to actually have something to do to keep me out of trouble before and after school that was great i always empathize um you know with the young people who don't have uh extracurricular activities that one are not are in their communities or schools or something they're not interested in um i always try to challenge people not know you know of course we find a while we get to that point but find that thing you love doing because when you get to the why you know having a love for something from the beginning that's a great why that's a great start right there and then you can build on top of that because if you're not really loving what you're doing and then when it comes to the why you won't you'll kind of fall short a little bit or you'll struggle um and more so you know i want to challenge people to think about those things you know why yeah why are you doing this my children ask me why every day [Laughter] and you know just getting to that point of really thinking deeply and that's one of the things that uh we say within the book as well um to think deeply and you you know you you can get pretty deep pretty quick you know i want to do x well why because of why why because of z and then you know sometimes we'll get to a point where we can't even answer that question but the question is the starting point and and the love is the starting point to get there so when you get to those dog days of uh the day you feel that you can't do it or you don't feel like doing it or you just want to go away the love of it if you don't do anything you know if you if you're doing something you don't love you'll probably stop you know or when it's time to push yourself a little further you probably you might not scrape everything you might look at it but you might not scrape the depths you're gonna have to challenge yourself because you will get challenged by life by a game by business by entrepreneurship um there are always going to be challenges to overcome and you know really to be quite frank i get you know it is disappointing to hear people you know fall short because they said oh well you know it was hard or i got something happened or you know it's always a description of some obstacle you know and um i always tried to make sure that i had my why intact but also to have the love first you know because if you don't love it first then you know you're not gonna get very far what do you think when people blame a bad call or coaching or whatever what do you what do you think about that so i played um you know like i say hundreds of teammates and you have those teammates or that friend or that person that's always it's always something else right um and eventually i got to the point where you know i said okay you can still complain about the referees or the situation or my friend or some sabotage but did you win or lose at the end of the day that's pretty much what it got down to because you know and then one thing that i noticed the same people complain about the referees it's a great point but just you know it's a part of the game and if you continue to deflect off of something else you're never going to get better because it's some extremity that's you know keeping you from from doing what you're supposed to do so and you know that was one of the things that i always tried to embody i would never even think about the rest it's a passionate game you'll get into it sometimes they've got a job to do just like you they don't want to mess anything up you know they want a fair game to be played and you know you know you can't think too much like that like that's the all about me me me syndrome right the breaths made the bad call and that's why we lost it has nothing to you know it has nothing to do with your mistakes you sure you know if you externalize you don't you never look within and you you'll never get to the point where you know you're thinking like how can i what what could i have done better to ensure that we could have been successful and what will i do better next time that's the better thought because if you're always blaming it on something else you know it's uh it's always going to be there because there's always going to be referees there's always going to be challenges all right so you've had a lot of teammates played against a lot of people you're a student of the game you've seen people come go if you had to pinpoint like the sort of main theme or a couple themes that really trip people up and stop them from becoming great what are those things oh man i would definitely say uh one of the words i always like to use is perseverance um just like we were kind of uh you know uh talking about you know pushing yourself and the david goggins um reference you know you have to have perseverance because you know like i said before not every day you're gonna feel like doing what you do you're not gonna feel good every day every day your goal will not be accomplished like that you know we're gonna spend a lot more days working than we are celebrating and that's if you have massive celebrations that's at the pinnacle of success or at least what i think it is right but you know eventually you're going to have to have that perseverance to be able to have the toughness to keep going you know i've seen so many people stop you know and then the best analogy was kind of you have you ever seen the races where the guy or the girl is running and they look at the crowd and they're doing this somebody's right behind them and catches them that's kind of like the analogy that i like to use because i've seen so many people stop short and i mean they'll be right there on the precipice of getting drafted in the nba and well the coach and this conference isn't what it used to be it's back to blaming other things just because challenges arose and i would say the other one is probably teamwork you know i learned so much just about working with others you know trying to be successful and that in a lot of people what a lot of people don't even understand about a championship situation in any situation i believe is and especially in basketball was like like a hidden thing is like the wives the team of wives how much they put in you know we always said hey everybody's got to be all in so the wives will make sure they're hey at the games we're going to get the boys together after the game and we're going to have dinner and we're going to have play dates with the kids you know we're going to do everything necessary as a part of this team so that they can um can do the best job that they can do and then even within that um you know working together on the court uh with my ex-teammates i mean it's just so many facets to the game um that i had to learn but putting the team first over myself gave me the ultimate success and it's not easy but when you're working together with people um when when you throw that no look pass or or you make that schedule and you know that person is going to be there and they're going to do that job is no better feeling especially when you're going after something that's hard to go for yeah i think it's worth going into that a little bit for basketball fans i think they'll be pretty aware that you are uh one of the things that you're famous for is your ability to figure out what the team needs and then to deliver on that but put it in context so you're you're killing it in toronto you're the star of the team um and you now have an opportunity to go to the miami heat to be part of the sort of dream team i mean this was like the first time a real like super team was put together um and first year you guys kind of have issues but then what was it that you realized for that second season when you guys come back and just light the world on fire i think the bravery that you have to have like i was saying perseverance earlier i really learned what that meant back then i really learned after uh coming up short um losing in the championship in uh 2011. you know that internal voice you know the good one pretty much told me okay well that's what it feels like and we really do have to get up pick ourselves up and get back on the horse um and it was you know it's devastating um you know going through a losing situation when you don't think you're going to lose especially when it's on national tv but one thing that i learned was okay that's that's what it feels like that's what that's what we're dealing with here so the next time i'm scratching you know scratching the depths and i'm pushing myself when i'm by myself in practice i'm going to push a little more because now i know what the real pain is you know i thought i knew what pain is when i was working out i thought i knew what pain is when i thought i was pushing myself but then when you play 82 games plus preseason and you know off season workouts just to get knocked off the mountaintop it hurts tremendously and one thing that did was taught me how to bounce back but you know it toughened us up a little bit and we were okay and ready and willing to put the correct work in and when it's time to push each other or pull each other through situations when it gets hard we're willing to do it because we know that you know it doesn't really feel good so later on if you think you know if you think you heard now try losing right that's all i see though all all over gems everywhere so i always try to you know keep that in mind and in pursuing a title again and going after it we just want it to be you know stern and hard and make sure we're going after our goal and if we're not um putting something in that day toward the greater good of accomplishing a championship that we're cheating ourselves everyone there's no way to build an 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house or even download to listen offline 15 million people are already using blinkist to broaden their knowledge in 27 non-fiction categories including self-improvement personal growth management leadership and mindfulness and happiness two books from their library that i've listened to and highly recommend are start with why by simon sinek and the power of habit by charles duhigg right now blinkist has a special offer just for our audience go to blinkist.com impact theory to start your free 7-day trial and get 25 off a blinkist premium membership that's spelled b-l-i-n-k-i-s-t blinkist.com impact theory to get 25 off a blinkist premium membership and a seven day free trial all right guys take care and be legendary talk to me about having the um i'm not sure what word you would use actually but the willingness to go from being the star to being one of three stars how did you deal with that i mean at a minimum it's gonna sort of cut your start time you know into a third and i would say that that seems the most dangerous thing when you think about you know putting a team together with big personalities huge talents um you know the three of you are all if not already in the hall of fame certainly will be in the hall of fame so um how do you manage that and how do you find the teamwork necessary to win well i mean it's a learning curve let me uh i'll be honest there was uh there was a learning curve i mean you know one of the things that uh that was important for me like i said before was winning i always just wanted to be successful and uh the opportunity came up to uh join another team and it all sounded great three stars and it was great of course eventually but in the beginning you don't really think about the work it was just all good times and we found out that it does take you know uh um some thinking but most importantly it took sacrifice you know um sometimes the ego can really really get in the way of of yourself being successful because you want to average more points or you want more money or more notoriety or i guess a better position or promotion quote unquote you know and and it can kind of backfire sometimes um you can either be you know an individual on on their own or the part of uh the greater good that's uh that's a great team in our case you know for me i was uh the thing that really helped me out was learning how to sacrifice uh for some things of course i was known as a scorer i wanted to score a lot of points i wanted to get a lot of rebounds and with that comes a lot of notoriety but eventually i have to understand that okay these two guys are really good too and if we're top five or ten players in the world they're in the upper half and i had to realize that and understand that and you know what for if it was best for the team because that allowed if they operate then that allowed everyone else to work to better work together a little better because within the system that we needed that we made up as a team in order for us to uh run efficiently and properly you know that was necessary and i had to get over whatever was in my head of of what success was because at the end of the day i was still able um to continue to be a perennial all-star but this time i'm playing in the postseason i'm playing when it's winning time i'm playing when when when i was always sitting on the couch uh watching in the summertime and so for me i just you know you find a way to sacrifice and get better at it and you know find out what the team needs before you find out what you needed and after that it kind of works out a little better man that's it's one of those things you you make it sound not necessarily easy but so many people fall apart with it they really can't do that and this is why my obsession is getting people to understand everything starts with the goal and if your goal is to be a rock star then you make a different choice than you made and you don't have the trophies to show for it you probably have a lot of frustration and sort of unmet potential but if your goal is i know what i want is to win championships and you know i'm here to to have a legacy and to build a dynasty and to see your jersey which of course you eventually do see your jersey raised into the rafters where it will stay forever i mean that's nuts man but most people cannot get that kind of clarity and i'm curious yeah was that the ability to start with a goal is that what has allowed you now because you're so prolific now outside of basketball is that part of like okay wait i just have to sort of change my goal but i'm gonna do that same thing of knowing what i'm aiming at knowing why i'm aiming at it and then being willing to put in the work oh yeah absolutely and that's that's definitely what this book is about um i i had we had challenges writing the book about overcoming challenges you know so you know that's always going to be the sticking point and a lot of people what you what you say reminded me of how some people dealt it like i said you know they'll quit because it got hard or just because something isn't coming to them right away um they'll let up a little bit uh kobe um he's known for saying something uh that was quite profound um he said you have to you know jumping on what you love what you do every day you have to love what you do every day because those days that are hard those days that suck that's where the magic is you go do it and you get your work in anyway because that's where you're going to find out who you are that's where things are going to continue to happen and you have to just love putting in the daily work because that's another token in the bank if you will um if you're showing up you know striving uh towards your goal and you know yeah you know rockstar or nba championship or or whatever i've i've always had challenges i'm not and that's another thing when people get the challenges they stop you know it's not just going to come to you there's those eureka moments usually come in the moments of frustration [Laughter] but you have to just stick with it you have to you have to really really believe in what you're doing and you have to have faith that it's going to work out but you got to keep putting the work in because if you don't it's not going to come to you and it's just not um you know going to fall in your lap and sometimes when you know that all right i'm going through it right now this is tough let's just let's just take an inch forward let's go inch forward today that'll be better than going backward you don't want to go back but i think sometimes just man just just knowing that it's going to be a challenge i think sometimes that's a that's a good thing to know we know okay i want to this is my goal boy it's going to be a lot of obstacles in there so let me get in shape let me get a shape in my mind and my body to be able to navigate to get to where i need to get to how do you think about when you're playing basketball it's easy to know what to aim at we've got a championship everything is sort of centered around making the steps very clear now post basketball i know you've you've been very honest that it was a struggle certainly for a hot minute um but in terms of how many things you have going on now you didn't just stay in basketball you're not trying to be a scout or you know um a coach like you've you've gone completely in a different direction with the writing obviously and i've already been just very clear about my feelings about how well the book came out but uh also being a music executive actually making music are you fearless in terms of starting from the bottom again like how do you wrap your head around like going from being dude one of the greatest people to ever do what you do in like extraordinarily public ways to now going oh and i'm also going to go demolish these things over here but i'm going to start at the bottom starting from the bottom now we're here right you know that's a part of the process like we were talking about the process earlier i had to understand the process what what what parts of those processes are right it's easy to say well do the process when you're on top one of the things that music taught me and that was another one of those questions that i answered well what am i gonna do well what do i love next thing you know i had a guitar in my hand okay am i good of course not my fingers are bleeding yes they are but you just you know that was me pushing myself in that situation and a part of pushing yourself is understanding that you're a beginner it's okay one of the things i don't like is when people say oh yeah you got to learn a language when you're young that doesn't make any sense you know i talk to my kids and they're five and they know spanish but you know not it's not like that yet a lot of adults and you know kids sometimes too going through that process of being beginner a beginner is a frustrating process and if someone is feeling frustrated i say good good job that means you're that means you're working that means you're doing something you know a lot of people will think that they're supposed to play the guitar like led zeppelin as soon as they pick it up you know and it's just not gonna happen it does not happen like that you cannot cheat the process you have to go from a beginner to advanced beginner intermediate and so on and so forth but you know you have to be okay with knowing that like you know the word of the day challenges right are going to arise and you're going to feel like you suck and all of these things that is totally normal i think sometimes people need to know that that feeling is normal oh man you threw your guitar down yesterday and stormed off man i did that i did that last week you know people just have to be okay if you want to really go for something and start over you have to be okay with being a beginner and you know i've had no problem with that i've tried to really really dive into it and put myself you know submerge myself into uh being a beginner and to love you know love the struggle love not knowing what's gonna happen next not knowing how i'm going to overcome this next thing because i'm gonna figure it out eventually because i'm not gonna quit do you have and maybe what you just said is it but do you have magic phrases or anything to deal with self-doubt like i know you've said you had self-doubt in basketball and it's like jesus if you are going to doubt yourself in basketball like what are the rest of us left to do with virtually anything that we touch you know it's visualizing it's visualized one thing that helped me all the time and i think it kind of doesn't get as much credit uh with a lot of people is how much i visualized anytime i had self-doubt i would just dream of just man well when i'm holding that trophy man when i get it and that kept me going because that's the goal it doesn't matter how i'm feeling right now or if i can do it and when you have self-doubt i mean you can only go one of two ways there's no mech you know there's no in between there's either i can't do it or i'm gonna do it even if i come up short i still want to have that confidence you know i still want to go after uh what i want as opposed to just giving up and saying ah well the referees yeah and and just go home i would rather go down trying as opposed to you know just just not trying at all talk to me about confidence so when you're having self-doubt obviously you're not feeling very confident is part of visualizing just sort of steeping yourself in living that success so you can reignite the confidence or how do you think about that well i think confidence comes from work ethic um you know first and foremost you you can't be confident and not do anything you know uh that would be uh you know considered poolery but i always had confidence from my work you know the work i put into the game i remember uh me and lebron had a conversation he had an amazing uh game seven to to win our second championship and and it was just me and him in the locker room afterwards and i remember asking him i said man why how did you you know he was shooting he wasn't shooting the ball well all series we all had our own dots that we were dealing with and i mean he came out and had an incredible night and i said man what what you know why'd you what happened he said man i put too much work in i put too much work in so when you know if you put the work in you know when you get to those situations that can give you confidence if you're frightened that's fine if you're if you're scared that's fine you eventually have to rise to the occasion you know that's a that's a big point that's a word that i always say rise to the occasion because you know when you practice you have to put yourself in those moments continuously over and over and over so that when they come you just do what you've done you do what you visualize that's what i use uh visualization i always use that as well to kind of put myself in situations before they happen hopefully and you know to to to give myself confidence to say hey i've been here before you know i know what this is going to be like i'm going to give my best this is why i put the work in time after time day after day night after night so when and if that situation arises i can trust myself i know that i can be confident because i know without a doubt that i've done what needs to be done i'm confident and you can be brave about that and go into it and be confident yeah there's a awesome bruce lee quote that i love where he said you want to kick until you don't think kick you just kick and yeah i always thought that that makes all the sense in the world and it's one of those right it's a great quote there's another one i forget who said it but i don't fear the man who's practiced 10 000 kicks once i fear the man who's practiced one kick 10 000 times and it's like there really is and you go into this in the book i'd actually love to get your thoughts on it the notion of you have to get your mind and your body in the right place yeah what what's the importance there how do we do it i think i think exercise has a lot to do with that you know there i truly do believe there is a mind-body connection i don't know the word for it i think what appropriate section or something like that but um you know there is i think you know when you exercise when you use your body that is an intelligent it's an intelligence that we have and if we're not using it then we're probably it's we're not using as much as of our brain as we can i think some a lot of those things will naturally come through exercise because we're human beings right we were talking about evolution earlier we used to run and catch our food you know now we can relax and just push a button and it comes right to us you know so we have to make sure that we're continuing to stay active um i think when when you activate the body when you move the body and make sure it's flexible and strong who knows what could happen you know that's just a good uh habit to have um and there have been moments to this you know to to get a little deeper i guess there have been moments in in games or working out or instances where you ever had one of those moments where you do something like how did i do that your brain just kind of takes over that always kind of continuously happened with me in basketball quite a bit and and i would try to reenact the same thing and i couldn't do it another time you know there there is just this magic that happens when you you know when you do a lot of repetition in any given subject and it's it's time to flow you can trust that it will happen if that's what you do and and i just love that and it's indescribable uh people have to experience it for themselves but you definitely gotta get active i think um that that could be tremendously beneficial in some kind of way whether that's a walk whether that's push-ups sit-ups you know that's that's a part of pushing yourself um that's important get that heartbeat and get that blood flowing and then you know i don't know just something happens um you know whether that's creatively or or or just thought provoking but i just really do feel when you use use the body and move the body and combine that with um actually analyzing and thinking man it um it really it really can be very special one of the things that i liked about the book is the way that you talk about criticism when you're in the public eye the way that you were and people get so passionate about their teams uh how did you deal with criticism because not all criticism is coming from hecklers like you know sometimes yeah it's actually really useful feedback no absolutely some people's job is to criticize right um you know you know i found myself in a unique position um joining miami coming from toronto um there is a difference and there was a difference between canada and the united states um especially with the coverage that we were getting um and you know we did come together in quite a boisterous way so that was a lot of that was well said the parade before we won right so you know me looking back i i do understand and especially how passionate people get about sports i understand those things now uh but going through it at the time i mean you know you don't understand it i i just wanna i had to eventually learn that just because i want something doesn't mean everybody else wants something and just because i've made up in my mind that this is what i'm gonna go after everybody is not going to agree with it and you know i i was not even that nature i mentioned that as well i probably i thought everybody was going to be excited like oh man this is going to be like the early 2000 lakers or the 90s early mid and late 90s bulls man people are going to be so excited to watch us play not so much the case it's sports you know and i kind of let my euphoria in my uh my naivety tay or however you say it um i let it get the best of me pretty much i started looking over and i started caring about what people think and you know it can get you know in the media it can get quite nasty sometimes and the minute you look and you give it attention oh man it gets louder and i found myself kind of in this whirlwind of of doubt because someone else would put it there and so that's one of the things that i had to learn i had to listen to myself do my preparation get my mental preparation in for the game and what i need to do of course the media always is going to have their job to do they they have to feed it's a business as well right people have uh kids to feed and you know i took it as that and that's just what it is but the the thing that really helped me was just knowing that it can't help me or hurt me and if you're to criticize me that's cool criticize me winning [Laughter] you know and criticize me being successful criticize me going to the gym again even a win lose or draw i'm back at the gym twice a day as a matter of fact because i'm successful i'm reaching that criticize that so i let it fuel me but you know i let it fuel me in the right way if it was uh some criticized criticism i would i would look at it you know objectively and and i think there's magic in there too you want to learn from it from something like that you just don't want to have your head in the clouds and think you don't have anything to work on you do want to take bits and pieces but that's all it is bits and pieces and then you take that you have to be motivated you have to go back in and continue getting the reps in one of the things you talk about in the book that's related to criticism you said for a brief period you played angry and you said okay that that wasn't going to be the way right it's just too hard to stay angry all the time and you got to find joy dark energy though has has power in it how do you leverage that how do you think or maybe you don't allow yourself that at all um but one thing i found is that i try to spend at least 80 percent of my time focus on the beautiful things i'm trying to do with my life the lives i'm trying to touch the people i'm trying to help but sometimes like they say fatigue makes cowards of us all i think it was vince lombardi that said that and when i'm just spent man and i'm i'm well past empty i've scraped the bottom of my soul and i'm still like i need something to reinvigorate me in those very acute moments i go to thinking about the people that want me to fail the people that are excited that i might fail and yeah while i try not to spend much time there it's really powerful no it you know what it is um and you know it's different strokes for different folks right whatever works for you and i have used that as well there are so many different methods and yeah you don't want to just not look at it at all and just totally be oblivious i i used to use that uh for energy as well anytime i love it when somebody tells me i can't do something you know that's that's cool like challenge game on you know what i mean don't put don't don't project your feelings of how you feel about yourself onto me i can do it you know and that always got me fired up too and especially in athletics that's that's definitely one of the huge huge motivators that i think a lot of leaders and coaches use is that yeah they think you know they think you can't do it yeah that can fire you up and you need that sometimes especially on those days when you don't want to get out of bed um i remember in particular uh it was that next year and and we were just working so hard in the summer time and we didn't know if basketball has come back because it was a lockout situation and i remember one particular day i was so tired and my wife she didn't wake me up but like i woke up and she saw me get up and not get up physically but just wake up and i was like yeah babe i don't think i'm going in the gym today say yo we got to win a championship you're supposed to win a championship right i said ah that's a good one times might be you know sometimes might be hey you wake up i'm sore they knew i'd be sore today they don't think i'm going today so i'm getting up you know just whatever gets you in that spirit you know because you do have to have that fire and that spirit to be able to go after something you definitely can't attack the mountain without a running start i do believe in that i do think you do have to have some fire and some intensity so in getting that you use whatever fuel you can as long as you're positive and working toward that goal like i keep saying man and if and if something if somebody says something you didn't like and that fires you up man use it use it all day every day talk to me about hunger that that might have been my favorite part of the book you got to be hungry man i mean i wanted i i know how i felt going i know how i felt aspiring to be something before anybody ever knew you know i know what it felt like to to be in the gym by myself when nobody cared you know and i wanted to be successful so bad i wanted to be a basketball player so bad every part of me you know was was going to put everything into that you have you know you can't be satisfied even when i was good in high school or middle school or if i'm finally on varsity you might have finally you might be a young athlete and finally got on varsity and you're man you're the best player that doesn't mean you're satisfied that doesn't mean you stop working you know we can get content so easily sometimes and and when i say these things these are these are coming from my own experiences um you know we can get intent i mean uh content sometimes and we'll just kind of stop we don't show up every day anymore it's you know okay we're doing a three-day week this week then you start to see slippage and then you start to see see you coming up short time after time and trying to reach something you know uh uh for me the hunger part of it you you got to be willing to do those things within reason that nobody else is willing to do you know i'm i'm gonna man um i saw this one speech man i you've had him on your show the gentleman's name is slipping my mind um but he had a uh i saw he was a prolific speaker he was talking about being hungry he was talking about this story about being a dj and he just kept coming back kept coming back that reminded me so much about my basketball career before it became a career you know i had coaches tell me i pick you up every day i said okay they got tired of me man that hunger because i was so hungry okay it doesn't matter if we were successful the night before and i had a great game i just wanted i'm seeing success i want to do more and i first started seeing that when i was a sophomore going into my sophomore year there was a tournament you i think i read i wrote about it quickly in the um in the book as well if i'm not mistaken and i wanted it was this trophy it was an mvp trophy that i wanted so bad i had just started really seriously lifting weights i was working out more and i wanted that trophy so bad and i went after it because you know the hunger in me just wouldn't let me give up we were losing the game when i was having these thoughts and we end up winning and then the trophy's in my room and i'm just sitting there looking at it like wow i want i want something else i'm not satisfied i want to do better i want to be more successful i want to help my teammates even more you know let's get to practice earlier let's put up more shots you know if if you want to go after something you have to be you have to have that hunger in that fight because that's going to give you that edge to overcome stuff dude i i believe in that so much uh hunger hunger is really everything like if you've got that then you might be willing to push through to run the miles to do the work to go for that loose ball to play guitar until your fingers bleed um i am super excited to see where your hunger takes you now man i think that given what you've accomplished i wouldn't necessarily think that the next chapter was going to be exciting but given what you wrote i i am convinced that um you will play whatever you do to the fullest where can people follow you and go along for the ride with you oh yeah absolutely at chris bosh on twitter at chris bosh on instagram uh official chris bosh on facebook chris bosh on tick tock we're everywhere man and um if uh if people are ever curious i have a newsletter as well it's called the last chip it's at thelastship.com love it dude thank you so much for coming on the show thank you for putting so much energy into the book it really is an extraordinary effort um i cannot wait wait for people to get a hold of it amazing man well thank you again so much for coming on the show and guys speaking of things that are far broader if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary take care to me anger is a reaction to what somebody else said to you it creates an emotion all right the dark side turns your anger into controlled rage now you're in control now how long can you stay in control