How to Become Excellent at Something (with NBA Hall of Fame basketball player, David Robinson)
Audio Transcription
David Robinson explains the importance of becoming excellent at something as opposed to being a jack of all trades and a master of none.
Back to the conversation during today’s business coach podcast, we have a treat we are joined here with the nba hall of famer and my friend and partner david robinson david robinson is a basketball player. Yes, that was the basketball player. Ps I would say that is accurate. You can’t refute the fact that he was an nba hall of fame basketball player. You can’t refute the fact that he won two gold medals while playing on the nba’s dream teams for the for the u.S. Olympics there I guess it was the nba’s dream team. It was a a dream team, the us olympic team comprised of nba greats, and he was one of those players selected. Yes, he does own part of the san antonio spursbut. Beyond that david robinson is probably had more success off the field off the court off the sporting outside of the world sports. Did he had inside the world of sports? Think about that I mean he was one of the top basketball players of his generation. He was he he sent her a i, know. There’s ladies listening and guys listening or maybe not huge sports fan, but he was the center for the san antonio spurs and we started. We was drafted by the san antonio spurs. He wasn’t allowed to play those first a couple years because he had to sir he was. He went to the u.S. Navy academy, the u.S. United states naval academy, and he had to honor his agreement to serve his country before he was allowed to actually step foot on the basketball court. Once he did step foot on the basketball court. He joined the team that was known for losing a lot. The san antonio, spurs and heat transformed the organ isstation inside and out on the court. They won a lot of games, but outside of the court, he really took a april active approach towards being involved in the community since retiring from national, basketball, association and being inducted into the nba’s prestigious hall of fame. He has started the company called the admiral fund investment fund, call the admiral fund and it is generated massive net worth academy sports, the san antonio spurs, the omni hotels, the center plate company of all the companies in that portfolio in, but he has had massive success, and so during today’s interview, I’m asking david robinson. How do you how? How does how do i? How do you the listener? How do webuild a brand that represents excellence like he has done? How do you, personal branding or so many books out there about personal branding? But how has he been able to build up a personal brand based upon excellence, most people when they hear the name, david robinson, they think of excellence and class? So that is going to be the focus of this interview with david robinson’s any further ado, so whether we want to or not when people hear the name, david robinson, they hear something they immediately or an attitude or a business coach perspective.
It comes to their mind. Absolutely this is true, then, so some of us are no national anthem of those are known locally. Some of us are done within our neighborhood, but we all stand for something and we’re talking about is how that stand for excellence and david, the founder of apple or co-founder of apple steve jobs famously said, we don’t get a chance to do that. Many things and everyone should be, and everyone should be really excellent, because this is our life in your mind, what why is it so important to be excellent? Oh because it inspires people, it draws people to you it. It gives you credibility. It expands your influence and your your community there’s a lot of reasons to be excellent. Youtube. The problem is that it’s not that easy to be excellent, and it’s not that common to be excellent. So, but but certainly the benefits will outweigh any of the cost of being excellent. I am doing something I’m, not excellent at it, and I want to do something else that I’m not really excellent at and I kind of want to do something else, and so we look around. We go while I’m pretty below average in all these areas. Would you encourage me to then focus on one area where I could be excellent, or how do you mean it is important to choose? Maybe a few things that you can focus on to be absolutely being a jack of all trades in a master of none it at is is i, think a negative, because if you can do a lot of things, then you should be able to do one or two things very, very well. If you’re naturally gifted mean a jack-of-all-trades means you’re next, naturally gifted at some things, but that you just haven’t committed yourself to working towards that too. For those things, hoping I would always encourage people to focus, find out what you’re really good at and find out what you like, what you think you have your most business coach potential and because there’s always signs that point towards one thing over another. But you can’t you can’t multitask everybody talks about that. I, don’t think that that’s a real thing on your wii. We are all gifted in certain areas and I know almost no one who’s gifted in every area. So it’s the best for you to find those one or two areas where you can be excellent, where you can be the best and and end zone in in and go ahead and work on those and just to make sure the people watching. This are understanding. What time is it here if steve jobs and we say when he started apple and he ran pixar and he and lisa, and and and will not realize it for a long amount of time we’re talkin 15-20 years, he was focused in one area and then he went into the next venture for years, and so we look at your career at 8 when you go on forbes and you and you look at your age.
Venture takes a certain level of commitment to be excellent out if it’s worth doing it’s worth doing in an excellent way right. So for me, if I was going to play basketball, my goal was to be the very best basketball player, so I committed time, energy focus towards being the very best basketball player. When I open the school I said, I won’t open the best school. So we we got. The right teams, together, we spent the time and planning and putting it together and and bringing in the right community partners to be excellent. So every venture as I started. You know my private equity fund. My partner came from goldman sachs, that’s the gold standard in in private equity and capital. So I said, let’s be business coach excellent. Let’s put together a team that is going to do an outstanding and I know what my talents are. I bring my towns to the table in each equation, but but excellent is my goal in each area
