Starting a Business 101 (with NBA Hall of Fame Player, David Robinson)

Audio Transcription

My name is clay clark, business coach and former ussba entrepreneur of the year and drink. Today’s business coach podcast I had a unique opportunity to interview my friend and partner david robinson, the former nba basketball player in two time:olympic gold medal winner in two time, world championship winner and a chance to interview him and ask him what it’s like to start:a business in 2004 the reduced startup 101 with david robinsondavid after he retired from 14 years in the nba, you made the transition from athlete entrepreneur which a lot of athletes don’t do very well, unfortunately, unfortunately barber academy and now you start a successful capital equity fund there and it seems as though transition pretty smoothly, or at least on the outside, on the track into entrepreneur. I ended, morgan entrepreneurial endeavors. What made you believe that you would have the skills needed to become a successful, entrepreneurwell I think I’ve always been able to translate things from one area to the other. So I translate my faith into my life. I translate my basketball into my business. You know, there’s I think there’s always correlation when you learn lessons a lot of those lessons, crosslines and and and to be competitive at the highest level. You need to be resilient. You need to be creative. You need to be disciplined that you need me focus, there’s a lot of things that I think work in all arenas. I, just try to find those areas that I can bring to the I can bring things to the table. I may not be the smartest real estate guy out there, but I can find smart real estate guys, but but there are things that I bring and and I tried it take advantage of those but you’re, not conceited, i think a lot of people watching this they’ve always wanted to start a business, but they feel like i. Just don’t know if I have what it takes, it’s terrifying you know I suck with a with carver carver with the charity stuff out, you know, starting a foundation.

Building a school is a terrifying prospect and I had I’ve had a guy sends come to me and say what like to build a business coach school night. Who are a lot of very very smart people out. There is. This is a little bit scary, but you have to have confidence in who you are and what you know what you bring to the table, because you may not be the smartest person, but that’s okay, but as long as you have the passion in the purpose and you get the smart people around you, you can still accomplish anything. You want to mess up your checkbook and mess up the life of kids. Make sure that your school give me feel like man. It doesn’t go well I’m going to spend a lot of money and I can potentially a mess with the lot lines of lot of kids if it if the education is not very good to me.Okay yeah me i, just I just felt like I needed to get the right people in place and get the right expertise, because it’s out there in the same with anything, if you’re going to start a new business at the right expertise, you have to know what you’re doing, if I’m going to be an educator, I have to be a good educator. The reason I’m starting to schools, because I think I can do it better than the school that already exists. So that’s I just need to put the right expertise or business coach together. I have to make myself an expert so that we can produce what I think we can produce, and so that was the key. Knowing that I thought we could do it better. I thought we could take some of these kids, who weren’t getting an opportunity and I thought we could point them in their direction and make them become the next leaders of this generation.

So that was my passion and and the reason you’re starting your business cuz, you have that passion, and-and so you need to understand that that can carry you a long ways. I love. This quote that you said and I know you’re, not a super big fan of me, quoting you but youmccoy are you said:i, don’t care what your background is:i, don’t care where you come from. You can’t tell me that you had a worse situation than george washington carver had as a kid you have all the tools you need. God is giving you everything. You need start where you are use, what you have and never be satisfied, keep pressing half of that co2 stolen from carver I mean you know, that’s that’s what I got a lot of. My infant is from I’m at you, I’m living on standing on the shoulders of giants right, george, washing carver went through. You know the whole coming out of slavery in and out and in a situation where he didn’t have as much opportunity as I had, but he he carried the torch for me so that now I can have a great job. I can have an influence like a business coach. We have a black president, but but without a guy like george washington carver, this could not have happened so I I take those things. I try to learn from the past