NBA Hall of Famer and Successful Entrepreneur David Robinson Teaches About Investing In Something Bigger Than Yourself

Audio Transcription

David Robinson explains why he decided to invest the vast majority of this time and a large portion of this networth into the funding and founding of the George Washington Carver Academy.

Learn more about the school founded by David Robinson (George Washington Carver Academy) – https://www.ideapublicschools.org/our-schools/idea-carver

Alright thrive nation. Welcome back to the conversation. It is the thrive time show on your radio. Now on today’s podcast, we were very special guest. We have david robinson, the nba hall of fame basketball player, turned successful entrepreneur and business coach on the show and I have not paid to sit down with david robinson owner of the thrive time shows, an investor and then thrive he’s a mentor on the online videos. I had a chance to sit down with him and to ask him about why he decided to invest in building a school for underserved, inner-city kids I mean built up a fortune and he decided to risk a large portion of it to I start a school that wasn’t even named after the school was called the george washington carver academy. If you get a chance to look up the george, washington carver academy to school, very, very well right there in san, antonio, texas, and so the topic of this interview this this discussion is on. Why? Why does david robinson encourage others and himself to invest in something bigger than yourself? What why would they do that? Why would he not just a lot of for-profit companies take a considerable amount of his time and his net worth and risk it on investing into the wives of kids, who do not have the opportunity to pay him back when you play that you don’t need nba for all those years, you come back and you start a school called the carver academy to help inner-city kids. Why did you do that, because you know looking at all the kids that I had visited with grew up in the virginia and went to school in annapolis, maryland, near dc and and when I was graduating, I went into dc played in the summer league. Is there got a chance to visit at a ton of high schools with the police athletic league? We went from high school to high school, probably 15, to 20 high schools there in the maryland northern virginia area, dc area and and what I saw there was a lot of minority kids who didn’t have the motivation didn’t have the focus to to utilize their talents, and you know there was a big drug culture at the time in dc. I, don’t know if you’ve been through as a business coach. You know if you followed that time, but but it was, it was a big issue throughout high school, but my focus was telling them say no to drugs.

You don’t get your education stay focused. It’s a great way to get yourself in a position where you can succeed, but it was interesting. The feedback that I got when I talk to these kids on a one-to-one basis that you know it was easier to sell drugs in the opportunity. Was there all the people that they admired with the guys that had money, cars and all the things that they got from selling? They were kind of entrepreneurs and business coach. Almost they were at me. They were using their talents in it in a destructive wave with our society, but you know what these kids are. The only thing at the time I can tell them was and I just respect you more. If you do the right things that aren’t hurting other people, but that’s what that was the impetus to start carver academy to to go in to get these kids at an early age at the four and five year old age to understand, hey work, ethic man. If you start walking now you start getting the right habits. You study you yourself, motivated by the time you get to high school you’ll, have a thousand options that are amazing actions as opposed to getting stuck having to do something illegal and said:hey I’m here! Well, I only have a limited amount of resources. Personally and I didn’t I didn’t know how much money I could raise doing it. So when I said, if I have a limited amount of resources, do I get, you know how do I start with middle schoolers, who might be too great behind already or do I go to kindergarteners? Who I can get off jump, make a jump start and then create leaders who will go out and perpetuate the mess? It seems like the kids in it in san antonio as east san antonio, that has sort of a rough area there. Where is the rough area all over? What’s traditionally, the east side has been known, as is as a as a very aware. You know we we have higher need families, but but they’re they’re, all over the city. They really are spread out, but I focused largely east area. How did you cuz I know? There’s lots of success. Stories of kids have now work their way through the program and their lives have changed. How did you implement a progressive disciplinary structure or system while also wanting to love on the kids, and then how did you? How did you find that balance? I just was really like. You said loving on them. I took the family situation, the family organization, because if we go way back in and I always look at the bible always look at scripture. But if we go way back in scripture, no god created the family before he created the church. So I think that whole. That idea of the family is very strong institution and until we build the school in a in a in a way where it was a family and we wanted the older kids in mentor, the younger kids.

So you know just like in an business coach organization you get your leaders to be in tune with your message and then they would in intern spread that message throughout your organization.