Clay Clark | The Road From Richmond To The NBA With Paul Pressey

Audio Transcription

So many different times in my life, I’ve played with broken or hurt things, broken foot, broken leg, broken hand, broken arm, broken sternum, broken collarbone. I could keep going if I just thought more about bones. Why, man? Because I loved it. I loved playing the game. I was passionate about it. One of the reasons I even get encouraged at seeing all of you here, you know why I get encouraged by that is because you could be anywhere doing a lot of different things, but you chose to be here Some shows don’t need a celebrity narrator to introduce the show But this show does in a world filled with endless opportunities Why would two men who have built 13 multi-million dollar businesses? five hours per day to teach you the best practice business systems and moves that you can use. Because they believe in you and they have a lot of time on their hands. This started from the bottom, now they’re here. It’s the Thrive Time Show starring the former U.S. Small Business Administration’s Entrepreneur of the Year, Clay Clark, and the entrepreneur trapped inside an optometrist’s body. Dr. Robert Zurnack. Two men, eight kids, co-created by two different women. Thirteen multi-million dollar businesses. We started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, and I’ll show you how to get here. Started from the bottom, now we’re here. We started from the bottom, now we’re here to climb Started from the bottom, now we’re at the top Teaching people systems to get what we got Colton Dixon’s on the hoops, I break down the books She’s bringing some wisdom and the good looks As the father of five, that’s why I’m alive So if you see my wife and kids, please tell them hi It’s the C and T up on your radio And now 3, 2, 1, here we go! We started from the bottom, now we’re here to climb Started from the bottom, let me show you how to get this Paul Shressey, how are you my friend? I’m doing well Clay, how are you? That’s my word. I know, well, the thing is, I heard you say marinate, it touched me in a spiritual way, so I’ve just taken that word and adopted that word here. Okay, okay. Now, today we’re gonna be talking a little bit about your journey from Richmond and before to the NBA. And now, currently you’re an assistant coach with the LA Lakers, is this correct? Yes, yes I am. How are you enjoying your tenure there with Coach Scott and the Lakers? Wonderful. I mean, it’s new to me. I mean, you know, LA is a different kind of city. One, the traffic is unbelievable. I don’t get on expressways very much, so I stay on the side streets. But the location where I’m in, I’m pretty comfortable where I am because I don’t have to hit the highway very much. Now, before we hop right into it, I’m curious, just on a basketball level, have you ever been tempted to install the Coach Richardson, you know, 40 minutes of hell style defense on the NBA level? Have you ever thought about trying to? No, I mean, other than playing that way. When I was a player and did incorporate some things with, some of the teaching things with some of the players, teach them some of the things that Nolan had taught me over the years on how to defend. So other than that, no, I never did it as a head coach because I’ve never been a head coach. Okay, okay. Well, today, we were talking about overcoming adversity and your path to really get to where you are. I mean, you’ve played in the NBA for 11 seasons, if I’m correct? Yes. You’ve coached on six different teams? I can’t count them, but I can run them all for you. So now tell me, how did you grow up? I mean, take me back to Richmond or before. Where what kind of house did you grow up? What was your environment? Wow. Wow. Youngest of eight, six girls and one brother. Williamsburg, Virginia, is where my roots really are. Probably. Oh, I would say 200 people in my community, really. And it was a village that we lived in, meaning that my mother, her uncles, I mean her brothers and her sisters lived on about eight acres. There was a house here, 50 yards here, another house, 50, all of us was in that house. It’s more of a village. Exactly. Now let me ask you this, were your mom and dad both in the house? No, no. My mother raised eight kids by herself. Your mother did? My mother was married to my father. And my mother had three kids by my father. Then my mother had two by this other man and three by… So I don’t know all of them. But it was interesting that my uncles and my aunties were mentors to me when I was a young kid. For anybody watching this who maybe has not had a dad in their life, I mean did you ever have any dad influence in your life? Did you ever have a dad that was in your life? It happened once I got to Richmond. Once you got to Richmond. So what sort of financial situation were you raised in? I mean were you guys middle class? We were dirt poor but didn’t know it. Okay. And what I mean by that is because of the small village, you know. Uncle over here had a garden. Uncle over here had raised hogs. Cousin over here raised chickens. So everybody drew from each other to live. We lived off the land. We fished. We hunted. That was our resource. My mother was a house cleaner. She went and cleaned houses. And as a young kid, I would go pick blackberries and blueberries and sell them a nickel for a pint. And that nickel was like having, you know, a dollar today. It was big, but everybody did that in that community. So we didn’t feel like we was dirt poor not knowing it, but we survived. Now, I know you didn’t know that you were poor, maybe, because of the village environment you grew up in. I’m obviously America’s palest man. America, America. So I’ve never really had to deal with any kind of racism other than people who are afraid of ghosts or albinos, you know, that kind of thing. But how did, how did, did you have any racist people that you had to deal with, racist situations growing up at that time in that state? I’m quite sure what’s happening, Clay, but you know, I was too young. Again, I grew up in a house where we didn’t have electricity, we didn’t have any running water. We had outhouses. And as a youngster, you know, seven, eight years old, I was out there helping push dirt, you know, or helping take dirt out of holes to dig a hole for an outhouse. So I wasn’t exposed to the media were at that time was three TV stations and So we didn’t have any electricity to have a TV was one House in our village that had electricity and running water So what was I mean you had your you know, you didn’t have the dad in your life You were a little bit of kind of this village environment you What was the biggest adversity that you felt like you faced up until high school the biggest challenge that you faced? probably the biggest thing was, you know, education. You know, to expand your mind, to grow, because we had to catch a bus to go to school, and sometimes you didn’t have the clothes to go to school, and so at times you didn’t get to school or, you know, you were cold that night, you didn’t eat that morning, whatever, and so your whole mindset was, you know, I’m too hungry to think about going to school and work. So a lot of times you didn’t go to school and that didn’t change until I left Williamsburg, Virginia. Now did you drop out of high school, is this correct? Yes. And this is when you lived in Richmond? Yes. Okay, so tell me the journey. How did you get from, you know, the village community you grew up in to Richmond? How did that happen? Well, some of my aunties and cousins all started to migrate to Richmond, which is only 50 miles drive back there You know one or two people had cars So you didn’t make that trip very often, but finally my mother decided to leave and move and we moved to Richmond I think it was in 68 68 and you just turned 27. So the math doesn’t work So now the question I have here so is it you see you’re you’re you’re going to high school now in Richmond, and then when did you decide to drop out? I mean, were you playing sports at the time, or when was the decision like, ah, I’m done? No, actually my freshman year, I did not play. And I dropped out that year. Got tired of school, you know, but I enjoy outside playing, and decided to drop out. And I only had like two months left in school. So what got you back on the right path? Setting at home waiting for all my friends to come from school so I can join them. And so I’m saying I’m here waiting, patting my feet and they’re in school. I need to get back to school. My mother’s like son, you need to be in school. I mean, she was constantly pushing me. And, you know, being a young kid, you know, hardheaded and, you know, was not disciplined enough to do it and found that it turned the corner and I went back to school. So did you have a mentor that helped you at that point in your life, like somebody who kind of hopped into your life to help you kind of get back on the right path? Yes, his name. Well, my older brother was part of that, but an older gentleman by the name of Ollie Jackson. Ollie Jackson. How do you spell Ollie Jackson? It’s O-L-L-I-E. Okay. Ollie Jackson. He was actually dating one of my sisters. Oh, really? Okay. And I’m sitting on the porch one day, and he pulls up in the car, and I’m sitting on the porch. And by this time, I was playing ball on the playground. I was kind of a playground legend, if you will. And he looks up and he says, that’s your brother. She said, yeah, that’s my baby brother. And wow, OK, I know him. And my nickname during that time was Ash. Ash. Yeah, because I had ashy hands. OK, all the time. Well, your nickname now is beautiful, beautiful man. So that’s that’s what I’m going to. But he was a mentor in a lot of different ways. Got me back on the right track, understanding you need to go to school, you’re too good of a kid, you need to start working, try and get your grades, da da da da da da, it went on and on. And he was that guy that changed me. David Robinson, who’s a friend of yours and a friend of mine, and he loves George Washington Carver quotes. So he’s got me turned on to George Washington Carver. I mean, I’m reading his stuff. One of the quotes he says, he says, where there is no vision, there is no hope. Or for people who read the Bible, it said in Proverbs, it says where there’s no vision, the people perish. Did you not have any hope before this guy and your brother kind of helped you? I mean, you got to a point where you’d lost hope. Is that why you dropped out, you think? I just think there’s so much going on. You know, again, when I was in Williamsburg, Virginia, life wasn’t hard. You didn’t have to worry about electricity bills. You didn’t have to worry about paying water bill. The house we lived in was paid for because the land itself was already taken care of. There was a shotgun house with three rooms in there. And there was eight kids staying in there. Can you bring some knowledge to the folks who maybe are just now in college about what a shotgun house means because I don’t think a lot of people watch this. But a third of the people are like, shotgun house? Is he like in some sort of militia? What’s going down here? Tell us what that means. It’s a tunnel vision. I mean it’s a straight look through the house. Okay. And there’s a room here, there’s a room here, and there’s a room there. It’s all straight down. That’s why I call it, you can take a shotgun and shoot straight through it. Okay. But coming from there, living in Living in that town of Williamsburg, Virginia, you didn’t have all those other issues of taking care of bills. And once I moved to Richmond, now you’ve got these other bills that you have to take care of, with my mother being a single parent and now still raising kids. Most of my older siblings were already gone by then, but three of us were still there, my youngest sister and my older brother. So we were in the house. She still had to take care of us by herself. And so the bills piled up and it was hard for her to continue to try to… So we went from being so-called dirt poor, but really living good, and moving to Richmond and going into poverty, if you will. Now she’s on government assistance. Then once she can find a job, she go back to get a job, get off government assistant. Then if it didn’t work out again, she had to go back. So that really was hard for her. And I watched my mother go through this. And it also pushed her into, you know, started relying on alcohol to relieve some of her pain. And that was, as a young kid, hard to swallow. How did you get to college? Because you eventually went to college at Western Texas Junior College, is that right? Yes. So how did you go from, you know, your mother struggling with alcohol, your family struggling financially, and how did you go from there to the college? Wow, it was my mentor Ollie Jackson who just picked me up and help take care of some of the bills in the house with my mother. He would, I would go, he would pick me up Friday, we’d play ball all day Friday because he was a baller. Come Saturday morning he’d pick me up, we’d play all day long. Sunday he’d come pick me up, we’d play all day long. During that time, that three day, he would say you need anything, are you okay? I said well yeah, you know, I was embarrassed at first. But I was hungry, the water was cut off, the lights, the electricity was cut off, and he would say, look, here, take this. Without him in your life, you’d be in a very different situation. Absolutely. No question about it. I think that’s one thing for any of the Thrivers watching this, I think we all have an opportunity to help people around us. I think people like to do missions, work, nothing wrong with that. People like to travel overseas and give money and help. But there’s a lot of people sometimes right there in your neighborhood. And I’ve seen that in your life. And it’s interesting how you have become sort of like a mentor now at the NBA level for young men who are going through different challenges. So at this point, you’re now going to college. And you’re going to college to play in Western, Texas Western Texas Junior College and when you’re playing there and they recruit you or you recruit yourself Long story, but we got time though. Yeah I think the gentleman name is Jerome Myers. Okay. Anyway was assistant coach at Texas Tech. Yeah, I was a junior, and he came in and saw me play at a tournament in Norfolk, Virginia, and told Nolan Richardson, who was the junior college coach at Western Texas Junior College, Nolan, this kid, heck of a player, blah, blah, blah. He don’t have the grades right now, but if we can play some there in junior college, because they were thinking, if I predict one year there, I can go to Tech, which is only like 90 miles from Michigan. And so OK, so Nolan brings me to El Paso, Texas, where he was living. Visited with him for about a week, week and a half. Went there, visited with him, went to the junior college. It was like a six-hour drive. Drove there, checked it out, came back. And he just, he was that father figure from right from the beginning. I’m going, wow, this is, you know, he was the first black man I ever heard speak Spanish. Really? Yeah. Was he was he thinking he confused that he think that you spoke only Spanish? Was it sort of a deal? What was going on there? I don’t know. But just, you know, El Paso is 95% Hispanic. And I’m sitting around, I’m watching and listening, watching them talk and all the Spanish right here, I’m going, are they talking about me? You know, I’m just, but beautiful people. And from that point on, I went back home and I said, I’m going west. So you, you played for him. Now this guy, just to give a little context to the Thrivers who are watching this, Nolan Richardson was known as being one of the most intense coaches in terms of just passionate. He brought, what was it like playing for this guy? What was your first experience like playing basketball for this guy? The biggest thing was teaching you how to work. He pushed you to the limit. And there was, as you say, it was an intense moment all the time. Yeah. On the court, off the court. He never lets you see him at a weak moment. Yeah. So he was good for me because I needed structure. So what type of adversity did you deal with playing for him at this time in your life in college? Meeting my girlfriend. What’s that? Meeting my girlfriend. Meeting your girlfriend? Yeah, who’s my wife. That was adversity to me. Really? Yeah, of course it was. When I met her, she was already in love. With you? With the high school sweetheart. Oh, that was not you. That was not me. Okay, I just want to make sure. It’s kind of this love triangle. I wasn’t sure. No, no, no. It was not me. Okay, so she was definitely liking another dude, loving another dude. Yes. And then you came in. This? You are a wild man. No. What did you do? What happened? She was very focused on schoolwork and her home life. Her home was only 50 miles away. my teammates. Someone who has a prettier smile. But she helped me also because her first thing was if you want to even have a chance, first of all she would talk to me. It’s hard to get to know someone they won’t talk to you. That’s research. One day I was going to practice. I said, I said, coach, what’s up with this girl, that hoopla girl? She played basketball? Yeah. Okay. They were practicing after us. So he said, what you mean? I said, she don’t talk to nobody. He goes, she’s in love. I said, love? I ain’t never seen her with nobody on campus. Where her boyfriend would come and pick her up on the weekends. I was like, oh, we live in a Korean dorm, you know, one of these. Oh, you did? There’s girls over here, boys over here. Okay. You know, one of these. Oh, you did? So there’s girls over here and boys over here. Okay. You know, and so that was, it wasn’t a big adversity thing, but it was adversity for me in the sense that I had to deal with, you know, me taking care of school. Now I got this girl. You’re trying to impress her and you got to get your stuff together now to get her. I do this with my wife every week, you know, I’ve tricked her to stay married to me for, you know, we’re 13 years now, going on 14. It’s like every week I’ve got to get my stuff together, hide the stuff, fix the stuff, act like I’m a decent person to trick her each day. It’s tough, very challenging. It’s very hard. A lot of stress. It’s very hard. Now, let me ask you this here. Now, Webster’s Dictionary, they define a mentor as somebody who teaches or gives us advice to a less experienced and often younger person. What kind of mentorship were you getting from Nolan Richardson at the time off the court or on the court? What kind of how is he helping you develop as a dude? Well, you know, I’m sitting here watching a man that has three kids, two boys and a girl. And he made us part of the community. Okay. Okay. We would Okay, we would go to roundups, this and wild game dinners and you know stuff I’ve never been to. I had like rattlesnake and quail and rabbit and you know hog. You ate rattlesnake? Oh yeah, I had all that stuff. You still feel kind of sick? No. No. Sash is pretty good. I’m not going to tell you what it tastes like, but they say it tastes like chicken. Really? Well, okay. But he, I’m watching the father figure. Yeah thing going on here and At home taking care we would go to his house and eat have dinner His wife will cook we would get five dollars For the weekend because you know school is done. No, no cafeteria food So yeah, we’ll get five dollars for the weekend eat on so what he did was he said you guys just give me the five dollars. I pulled it all together. My wife will cook for you guys. We would get Saturday, we get breakfast, lunch and dinner. OK. Saturday and Sunday. So I’m watching this. I’m taking care of us on the weekend. You didn’t have to do this. He got five dollars. Good luck to you. And then he would come to work and teach us how to be young men, how to be respectful to these women, because at that time I could say we were all really dogs. Not a bunch of good dudes at this point in your life. Yeah, I mean we weren’t bad guys, but you know what guys do. Yeah, I’m just real quick, on behalf of any of the Thrivers watching this who are ladies, I apologize, it’s for mankind. We’re just a horrible species. We’re somewhere between the dog and the monkey in terms of evolution. We’re bad. Roll it all up together, you get us. Now, Paul, I was born in 1980, yet I have a very, very impressive memory of the first year of my life. And I think I remember that you won the National Junior College Championship in 1980, is that right? Yes, yes, we were undefeated. Really? 37 and up. Wow. And again, that was, Nolan really, I mean, he was about winning. At any cost, just win. And it was amazing, the guys he recruited was from all over the United States, from New York to Alabama to California to Mississippi to Texas. We just had them everywhere. Now you guys, after you won the championship, you know you didn’t go to Disney World. No. But apparently you guys were like, we’re going to go to the next best thing. And people who are watching this who aren’t aware of the next best thing, you got Disney World and then there’s Tulsa, Oklahoma. You know it’s right in that top tier. So you guys. We’re close to Branson, though. Yeah, well, Tulsa is the birthplace of tourism. And then Branson just sort of just feeds off of that. So many people, it spills over. People just come from miles to Seaside Farms and stuff. So so now walk me through this transition from Western Texas, the University of Tulsa. How many players did Nolan choose to take with him from the junior college team up to the Division one level? Very interesting. This is going to really mess you up, but it’s a true story. The rattlesnake thing messed me up. I’m still trying to just kind of get my bearings here. When he took the job there, it was, I think, six spots he needed, maybe seven spots he needed to fill. And so, you know, I got hundreds of letters to go to schools all over the United States. And his wife, you know, had all the letters, who today I wish I had them, just to have them in a box and be that treasure you can open up and just reminisce a little bit. Yeah, marinate. But God knows where they are. But my wife, or at the time my girlfriend, also played and they had a very good team. So at that time, now I’m past that side where I’m in love now. Oh, you’ve made the transition. Oh yeah, I’ve made the transition. You’re not totally a man-bear pig. Now you’re kind of starting to be nice. Are you opening doors? I was a one-lady guy. Yeah. You know, I had two women in my life. So you were going to class, you were going to school, you were doing, you’re not a complete man-bear pig. Now you’re kind of civilized, refined, that kind of thing. It caught up with me a little bit. It’s like, you know what, this is where I need to be. And part of that was from my upbringing, watching my aunties and my uncles and all them take care of the household. So I’m in love with her. So Nolan, the first thing he does is he said, I am going to recruit her first. Really? If I recruit her, he coming. Really? Absolutely. So it was like the first female point guard on the men’s team? What happened? How did that go down? Well, he recruited my wife and three of her teammates. Really? Went to Tulsa. And then Nolan brought myself, David Brown, Greg Stewart, and Phil Spradlin. And you guys came up from the junior college level to, boom, now you’re at University of Tulsa. University of Tulsa. Now, when you played for the University of Tulsa, who were your mentors there? Was no one, continue to be a very strong influence? Oh, yeah. Do you have other mentors now? Oh, yeah. I had another guy by the name of Jake Jerushy, who is still a dentist in Tulsa. Yeah. He was another guy that just say, Hey, I heard you like to fish. So absolutely. So he would take me fishing every chance I got. We went fishing and we was able to grow and I was able to get to know him and his family. Was that dude a good father figure? Well, not really because he, you know, he wasn’t married, never had kids. But his mother and father were good mentors. You know, when you look around and see other people with their cousins and other relatives, and you watch other people raising their kids, you know, you draw from that. You go, man, they got these kids in order, you know, they’re well-mannered, you know, they’re all in school and doing well. Those things, you know, Your normal started to change, though. You started realizing, like, over here’s how I live. This used to be my normal, but this is another normal and I kind of want that. Yeah, that’s what I wanted. I mean, it slowly began to change in that way. And then of course, you know, again, my girlfriend was still a big part of that. Yeah. She was a mentor to me from the standpoint of being a friend and teaching me how to respect a young lady, teaching me how to treat a young lady, teaching me how to be a one-woman person. I mean, like stick to this. This is who you are. How long have you two lovebirds been married now? 32 years. Boom! I got a boom there? Boom! Awesome. Now let me ask you, you’re at the University of Tulsa, and you guys did pretty well. Did you guys go to some NCAA tournaments? How well did you guys do? First year there, we won the NIT. Won the NIT, boom. Second year, we went to the tournament and lost to Houston at that time, the five slammer jams, as they called them. Now, real quick, before anybody watching this starts to hate on the NIT, the NIT used to be a big, big deal. Now it’s kind of digressed over time the NCAA is taking over as the fifth But then when you guys lost to Phi Slamma Jamma, can you clarify who Phi Slamma? Jamma was cuz I don’t think people are ready for it. I mean this is remember two little guys. Okay. Yeah, just give us the two Elijah one. Yeah, Hakeem Elijah Elijah the dream Elijah one and Clyde Drexler on the same team same teach sick that makes me nauseated. And the kid that Cleveland drafted, Wiggins, his father played on that team. Really? Mitchell Wiggins. That team was ridiculous. That’s two Hall of Famers on the same college team. Yeah, they were very good and we lost on the last second shot, but it was a good game. Now you were a defensive specialist. That’s what they tell me. Did you ever actually score a point in the college level? Yeah, a couple. Okay, so you were good at defense, but also you could score. You could score a little bit. You know, I talk about, like my son, for example, it’s about winning. And I could average 20 points, and probably still would have won. But when you see what’s around you, just like any other business you’re in, when you see that can help you get to your goal, then you try to pull from everybody and get the best out of them all. My thing was to be a playmaker. Move the basketball. What amazes me is that you were a guy who your team could win and your team won. How many points did you average in college roughly? Eleven maybe. You’re averaging eleven points a game. The reason why I’m mentioning this for the Thrivers is that you, at 11 points a game, you were still good enough and your team still won enough that you got drafted. I’m going back to my memory here. I have a very good memory. But I was 2. I don’t remember anything before 5. I remember it like every day, just bam. But you were drafted, I think, 20th overall by the Milwaukee Bucks. 21st. 21st by the fact-checking department here just really just what’s going on? It could be that. I could be wrong. Yeah, so you were drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks and what was that feeling like getting drafted in the NBA? I had no, I had no clue. I mean really it just totally shocked my head. You know how guys talk about today, oh I just dreamed I could be in the NBA. It wasn’t me. I was about, my next move was to coach if I didn’t get a chance to play on. Your story is more like you grew up on the village, you go to college, you meet a lady, you’re falling in love, boom, you’re in the NBA. That’s basically it. If your wife didn’t beat you into submission, you would not be in the NBA. That’s how it happened. I would just imagine it can be a little bit scary playing with 10 to 15,000 people watching you every night. Was it a little scary? Or what was it like your first game in the NBA? Do you remember? No, it wasn’t scary at all. Because again, I was about winning. People didn’t bother me. It was about what was on the court. And I’ve always believed in playing at a high level because of the mindset that Nolan Richardson put in my mind. This is the way you play. And at that time, 40 minutes of hell, this is what I want. So the competition level, the fans never bothered me. Actually I would thrive off of that because I wanted to give them something to feel good about. You were one of the first guys in the NBA who was a forward who brought the ball up to court consistently, right? Yes. You were one of the first dudes. I’ve watched some NBA games. They talk about how you’re one of the first dudes to do this. They call it a point forward. Point forward. So the point guard, I was a forward playing the point, running the offense. And Don Nelson, who was my head coach at that time. Don Nelson, by the way, has got some weird coaching philosophies that didn’t get accepted later as being normal, right? Well, he was the first one to go up for the European players, the first one to really do the point forward. He’s just kind of a little bit ahead of his time all the time, isn’t he? Winner. Just a winner. The thing that I learned from him most of all was the fact that he was able to get the most out of his players. If you was a shooter, he put you in position to. That’s all you could do. If you was a rebounder, I mean, if you was a multi, like I was a defender, I could handle the ball, I could get to the basket and shoot. I mean I could make open shots, but that wasn’t my strength. So he said, I want you to get the ball to my players like Moncrieff and Marquette Johnson, Bob Lanier, these are the guys that can score. So it would have looked like me shooting 12 shots when you got these guys that can score. For anybody who is watching this who maybe is struggling in a funk, if they are watching this and they haven’t had the kind of mentorship that you had that helped you go from the village to the NBA, what advice would you have for that person? I think the biggest thing is you have to find people that you trust. You have to find some people that you trust and rely on their ability to help mentor you. That’s basically what I did. It just didn’t happen. Even when I got to Milwaukee, now, you know, I’m married right out of college. And I meet this couple in church. My wife first said, we’ve got to find a church home, you know. I said, okay, let’s go to some churches. And we met Oscar and Jimmy Johnson who was mentors to us again. Because then once we started our family, they were the people that helped us raise our kids because they had two boys. And you know, so they was raising kids, going to church, you know, going to work, you know, going to Bible study, dah, dah, dah. And going, this is all right, this is cool. This is how I want to raise my family. So through all that, as you get on a level of being in the NBA, it’s such a wild and crazy business that it’s very easy for you to. I want to bring that up because Napoleon Hill, the author, I’m a big fan of him, bestselling author. He has this quote where he says, every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit. With three kids, you’re trying to raise three kids, you’re in the NBA. Not yet, I don’t have three yet. How many kids do you have at this point? Do you have any kids yet when you’re in the NBA? When did you have your first child? 84. So you were in the NBA for about two years before you had any kids. Yes. As you’re trying to be a family man, you know, like Wilt Chamberlain as an example. He describes in his book the NBA life in pretty vulgar detail, but basically there’s just a lot of temptation from sex to drugs to alcohol to nightlife to whatever. What kind of challenges did you face as you’re trying to keep a family together at the NBA level? What’s that like? for players, especially married people, that you’ll time off. You know, during the season, you know, your relationships are pretty good because you get that break. OK, I’ll see you in three days. I’m going on the road. Come back. I love you. You love me. And you go again, go back out for two or three days, you know, so you get that break. But the summertime when it hit, you know, back then you used to play in a lot of charities events whether it was bowling, golf, you know whatever and you would go. But that whole time if you got a family you leave your family home and you go and do these events. By the time you come home for two days you got to go to the other one. These events are like you know four or five days. So now you don’t have no time with your family. So at some point, where do you learn to grow and bond? My thing was to override that. And I didn’t know I was doing this. I said, you know what, if you want me to come to this event, I had one child at the time. I said, I got to bring my wife and my kid when I’m not constantly going. That’s one thing as I’ve got to know you and David Robinson and Dr. Zellner and different guys I’ve talked to have been great mentors on the Thrive team. The idea that they keep mentioning that, that the importance of bringing your wife with you on it. You know, my wife’s on the set today, which is why if I keep like drifting my focus, I just keep hitting on her. I’m trying to hit on her. I’m just going to look over and try to… So I keep going… But no, but seriously, bringing your wife with you and incorporating your wife and your kid in your business. I bring my son up to work all the time. I’m like, what’s he doing? You know, I bring him up there because he’s a big part of my life and I want to know what’s going on. And someday, you know, I’d like him to be involved and work with him. And I think that’s awesome. Now, I want to ask you this though. You played in the NBA with some crazy dudes. You played with some awesome players. Question number one, you played 11 seasons in the NBA and you’ve coached now for I think what? 22. So, who is the guy you played with who is hands down the best player to play with on and off the court? You’re like, this is a great player, but also just, I mean there’s a lot of good dudes, but who is the guy where you go? This is an awesome dude off the court and on the court Wow Terry Cummings was one Terry Cummings He was probably the guy that you know We hung out a lot. Yeah, you know he would pick me up We go to the airport together, you know fly together whatever pick me up go to the games together because one we lived in the same neighborhood, but Dave Robinson was another one who I thought was just, he stood up for all the things that you would want your kids and, you know, grandkids to see what a professional athlete slash businessman slash father figures on. How hard is that to do that at the NBA level? When a guy like David or Terry Cummings stands up for their values at the NBA level, how hard is that? It’s hard, but I think if you keep a humble heart and stay focused on what life is really all about. For example, I never lived beyond my means as a rookie because of the Village. A dollar still had the value of a dollar to me. I never lost that sight. I want to ask you, you’ve obviously coached, I’m going to list off the teams, and if I miss a team, you tell me. You’ve coached the Hornets, you’ve coached the Cavaliers, Golden State Warriors, you have the Cavaliers and the Hornets, you have the Boston Celtics, the Magic, the San Antonio Spurs, and now with the Lakers. Is there one I’m missing? No. What is the biggest challenge that you face as a coach on a daily level. People are watching this who aren’t really into basketball or pro sports. Most of these guys are making now in the NBA. The league minimum is, you know, I think $800,000 a year or something. Not that much. $400,000. A lot. So a lot of guys, the average player is making several million dollars a year. They’re making a whole lot more than the average person. Okay. Let me ask you something. You’re in a lot more than the average coach is, though. So what’s it like as a coach? What’s the challenges that you have as a coach coaching men who are a lot of times making five, 10 times more than the coaches and these are guys that are young men just coming into a lot of money, a lot of success, a lot of opportunities, also a lot of temptations. What’s it like coaching on the NBA level? What are those challenges? You know, for me, since I’ve been around so long, Clay, it’s like raising my own kids. Okay. It’s really as simple as that and I talk to them like my own kids. Okay. You know like hey what you doing with your money? Hey what you going? You going out tonight? Where you going? You know they look at you with their little smirk. Hey coach come on I ain’t going out. I look at them like really? You know? Yeah. I said oh you different right? Are you going into that next level of dadness where you put like GPS’s on their cars and you waiting at home at night? You know what I tell them? You see what I tell them? I go, you know, as an assistant coach, part of my responsibility is to make sure where you are and where you’re going. And they’ll look at you and go, oh, coach, you’re right. I say, all right, that’s okay. So I throw them a little curve because, you know, I’ve heard some things. Well, I understand you was at Sunday Sessions last night. And they go, how do you know, coach? Who told you that? And I don’t know. But I let them think I know. Oh, the Yoda. Yeah. We’re not going to let the NBA players. We’ve got a unique thing in our Thrive system, our database for NBA players can’t log on to the website. So we can talk about this. They can’t notice. Oh, we don’t use no name. Very sophisticated technology we have. But another thing that I tried to do, and I think I mentioned this to you maybe a month or so ago. One of the quotes I heard over one of the gospel stations was that, about mentorship. Yes. And mentorship, which it just hit home, was like mentorship is wisdom without pain. You called me, you called me. Yeah. You’re like, hey, hey, I want to tell you this. Yeah. I think that’s huge. Wisdom without pain. And that being said, it’s to share your experience. Yeah. And your heartaches. Yeah. And your hard times that you’ve been through. Yeah. Okay. With these young people or even your peers to say, I’m telling you this, I’m sharing this with you so you don’t have to deal with some of the pain that I dealt with when I dealt with it. Yeah. I’m sharing this with you so you don’t have to deal with some of the pain that I dealt with when I dealt with it. So to me that’s part of the mentorship that, you know, I’m trying to help you grow so you won’t have to deal with it. How do you stay positive on a daily basis? Let’s just do an example. You’re a champion of freedom for being here. But you get in from Phoenix last night, I believe, 2 in the morning. You have a young man on the team who breaks his leg. You have a challenging game. How do you stay positive on a daily basis? Those kind of things are happening all the time. How do you do it? Well, first of all, and I tell people all the time, you got to have balance in your life. And I put it in these three, these three prioritize it. You know, having God in my life first and knowing where I am. It keeps me with a humble heart. He keeps my spirit up. You know, I talk to him every morning to help me get through my day. Yeah. And secondly my family, my kids, my wife, I talk to her ten times a day if not more. I have grandkids. Oh, really? And I try to FaceTime them so they can see my face, hear my voice, especially my youngest one. Yeah. Who’s only going to turn two in a couple of months, but that helps keep balance for me. Yeah. And it is my job. So when I get to my job, my life is already laid out for me. And then when I get to, you know, talk about my family, I know why I’m here to help take care of them and continue to mentor them and love my wife and, you know, help lift her up. And she, you know, we draw from each other. So by the time I get to work, I’m all joy, nothing but smiles. And I pass that on to the young men that I coach every day. Now on your journey, as we kind of come full circle here, last question I have here for you. As you come from the Village, now to the NBA, a lot of people go from the Village to the NBA, from the Village to the top of their career, from somewhere to the top, and then they explode. They’re like You know they You know so they get to the top. It’s just it’s like they just say It’s like this space shuttle that doesn’t get into the app. Here’s a line for you Say it all the time. I said you must go through the process Before you get the product so a lot of time people, like you said, boom, get the product. Yeah. They ain’t been through nothing and have not absorbed that information. Okay. They’ve seen it. They haven’t paid attention to it. They just went through it. Yeah. They didn’t learn anything. And to go through the process, meaning you have to learn. As my mother said, well, you got to learn to crawl before you can walk. You got to learn the little steps before you get to the big steps. And so when you get to the big steps, you know how hard it was to crawl. Yeah. But if you do have that product without going through the process, you don’t really know how to handle it. Or if you kind of get the wealth without the wisdom, I guess the proverb says, it’s a wealth gained through folly, you know, as quickly as quickly as it disappears So you’re just saying you gotta get that foundation going. Yeah, you got to have it and you know And I want to give you two stats. Yeah One of the stats in in the NBA life is 80 plus percent divorce rate. Yeah 80 percent active 80% active slash non-active 80% of divorce rate. Now you look back and you go, how did all that happen? Y’all had all the fame all that money you stabilize. It’s all the things that I’m talking about Foundation. Yeah, you know commitment, you know, having God in your life, you know, you we all make mistakes. Yeah, I was perfect. But at the same time when you make them say are you willing to change you know are you willing to sacrifice and willing to give yourself to other situations and other people well a lot of them don’t feel that that they have to until they hit rock bottom and then lose everything. The other thing is if you really look back on some of the you flashback and watch a lot of the interviews with some of the players, for example, and they talk about, you know, what they’re thankful for, you know, God bless me, you know, with the ability to play and da-da-da-da-da-da-da. They go on and on. And they say, and, you know, and my mother, and my mother, and my mother, and very rarely, you know what I’m saying, anything about my father and my mother, or my mother and my father. It’s just a single parenting. So now when we get these kids on a professional level, and we’re talking to them, trying to get them to do certain things on and off the court, they don’t know how to respond to us as a male figure. So it’s tough for them, so now you have to hold their hand Because that’s the first day I hit him with that’s how you’re doing. I said, uh, you know, how’s your mom and dad doing? Well, my mom I don’t know. Yeah, my dad is you know, so So now I know how to approach him. Yeah, you know, I know how to find out where he is And how can I help him and I’m not gonna be your mother because you already got that This is what you have to do. Trust me, I’m not going to tell you something that’s going to hurt you because I want you to have success. You have success, I have success. The organization has success. I’ve done that from my first day of coaching in the NBA. I have one little mentorship tip if I can give the guys tonight before the game. Tomorrow I think you’re playing the Clippers. Just a few tips that you can sprinkle around the locker room. It’s just tips I have. I was really good in like seventh grade. Can you get rid of three guys, three starters? Tip number one I’ve got is they need to do the old left hand scoop shot more often. You don’t see the left handed scoop shot very much. That can happen because we’ve got about three or four left handed guys on that team. I want to see more of you guys. You know, hey, maybe you guys might want to do, Kobe could try that. It might help him a little bit. And then the whole runner, you don’t see enough runners and then the third tip i have is the backboard that’s our friend oh my friend that’s their friend i like it okay so hey thank you for letting me harass you my friend it’s my pleasure clay all right jt do you know what time it is um 4 10 it’s it’s tebow time and Tulsa Roseland baby tim tebow is coming to Tulsa Oklahoma during the month of Christmas December 5th and 6th, 2024. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the two day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Growth Workshop. Yes, folks, put it in your calendar this December, the month of Christmas, December 5th and 6th. Tim Tebow is coming to Tulsa, Oklahoma, and the Thrive Time Show two day interactive Business Growth Workshop. We’ve been doing business conferences here since 2005. I’ve been hosting business conferences since 2005. What year were you born? 1995. Dude, I’ve been hosting business conferences since you were 10 years old. And a lot of people, you know, have followed Tim Tebow’s football career on the field and off the field. And off the field, the guy’s been just as successful as he has been on the field. Now, the big question is, JT, how does he do it? Well, they’re going to have to come and find out cuz I don’t know Well, I’m just saying tip team is gonna teach us how he organizes his day how he organizes his life How he’s proactive with his faith his family his finances He’s gonna walk us through his mindset that he brings into the gym into business It is gonna be a blasty blast in Tulsa, Russia folks. I’m telling you if you want to learn branding You want to learn marketing you want to learn search engine optimization? You want to learn social media marketing. That’s what we teach at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive workshop. If you want to learn accounting, you want to learn sales systems, you want to learn how to build a linear workflow, you want to learn how to franchise your business, that is what we teach at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop. You know, over the years, we’ve had the opportunity to feature Michael Levine, the PR consultant of choice for Nike, for Prince, for Michael Jackson. The top PR consultant in the history of the planet has spoken at the Thrive Time Show workshops. We’ve had Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, a company that creates apparel worn by celebrities all throughout the world. Jill Donovan, the founder of rusticcuff.com, has spoken at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshops. We have the guy, we’ve had the man who’s responsible for turning around Harley Davidson, a man by the name of Ken Schmidt. He has spoken at the Thrive Time Show two-day interactive business workshops. Folks, I’m telling you, these events are going to teach you what you need to know to start and grow a successful business. And the way we price the events, the way we do these events to be affordable for you and we want to see you live and in person at the two-day interactive December 5th and 6th Thrive Time Show Business Workshop. Everything that you need to succeed will be taught at the two-day interactive Thrive Time Show Business Workshop December 5th and 6th in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And the way we do these events is we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a question and answer session so that wonderful people like you can have your questions answered. Yes, we teach for 30 minutes and then we open it up for a 15 minute question and answer session. It’s interactive. It’s two days. It’s in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We’ve been doing these events since 2005 and I’m telling you folks, it’s going to blow your mind. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the Thrive Time Show two day interactive business workshop is America’s highest rated and most reviewed business workshop. See the thousands of video testimonials from real people just like you who’ve been able to build multi-million dollar companies. Watch those testimonials today at thrive. Time show.com simply by clicking on the testimonials button right there at thrive. Time show.com. You’re going to see thousands of people just like you who’ve been able to go from just surviving to thriving each and every day. We’re going to add more and more speakers to this all-star lineup, but I encourage everybody out there today, get those tickets today. Go to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. And some people might be saying, well, how do I do it? I don’t know how to do it. How does it work? You just go to thrivetimeshow.com. Let’s go there now. We’re feeling the flow. We’re going to thrivetimeshow.com. Again, you just go to thrivetimeshow.com. You click on the business conferences button, and you click on the request tickets button right there. The way I do our conferences is we tell people it’s $250 to get a ticket or whatever price that you can afford. And the reason why I do that is I grew up without money. JT, you’re in the process of building a super successful company. Did you start out with a million dollars in the bank account? No, I did not. Nope, did not get any loans, nothing like that, did not get an inheritance from parents, anything like that. I had to work for it. And I’m super grateful I came to a business conference. That’s actually how I met you, met Peter Taunton, I met all these people. So if you’re out there today and you want to come to our workshop, again, you just got to go to thrivetimeshow.com. You might say, well, who’s speaking? We already covered that. You might say, where is it going to be? It’s going to be in Tulsa, Russell Oklahoma. It says Tulsa, Russell. I’m really trying to rebrand Tulsa as Tulsa, Russell. I’m sort of like the Jerusalem of America. But if you type in Thrive Time Show and Jinx, you can get a sneak peek or a look at our office facility. This is what it looks like. This is where you’re headed. It’s going to be a blasty blast. You can look inside, see the facility. We’re going to have hundreds of entrepreneurs here. It is going to be packed. Now, for this particular event, folks, the seating is always limited because my facility isn’t a limitless convention center. You’re coming to my actual home office. And so it’s going to be packed. Who? You! You’re going to come! I’m talking to you. You can get your tickets right now at ThriveTimeShow.com. And again, you can name your price. We tell people it’s $250 or whatever price you can afford. And we do have some select VIP tickets, which gives you an access to meet some of the speakers and those sorts of things. And those tickets are $500. It’s a two-day interactive business workshop, over 20 hours of business training. We’re going to give you a copy of my newest book, The Millionaire’s Guide to Becoming Sustainably Rich. You’re going to leave with a workbook. You’re going to leave with everything you need to know to start and grow a super successful company. It’s practical, it’s actionable, and it’s TiVo time right here in Tulsa, Russia. Get those tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com. Again, that’s thrivetimeshow.com. Hello, I’m Michael Levine, and I’m talking to you right now from the center of Hollywood, California, where I have represented over the last 35 years, 58 Academy Award winners, 34 Grammy Award winners, 43 New York Times bestsellers. I’ve represented a lot of major stars, and I’ve worked with a lot of major companies. And I think I’ve learned a few things about what makes them work and what makes them not work. Now, why would a man living in Hollywood, California in the beautiful sunny weather of LA come to Tulsa? Because last year I did it and it was damn exciting. Clay Clark has put together an exceptional presentation, really life-changing, and I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll And I’m looking forward to seeing you then. I’m Michael Levine. I’ll see you in Tulsa. specifics, the specific steps on what you need to do to optimize your website. We’re going to teach you how to fix your conversion rate. We’re going to teach you how to do a social media marketing campaign that works. How do you raise capital? How do you get a small business loan? We teach you everything you need to know here during a two-day, 15-hour workshop. It’s all here for you. You work every day in your business, but for two days you can escape and work on your business and build these proven systems so now you can have a successful company that will produce both the time freedom and the financial freedom that you deserve. You’re going to leave energized, motivated, but you’re also going to leave empowered. The reason why I built these workshops is because as an entrepreneur I always wish that I had this. And because there wasn’t anything like this, I would go to these motivational seminars, no money down, real estate, Ponzi scheme, get motivated seminars, and they would never teach me anything. It was like you went there and you paid for the big chocolate Easter bunny, but inside of it, it was a hollow nothingness. And I wanted the knowledge, and they’re like, oh, but we’ll teach you the knowledge after our next workshop. And the great thing is we have nothing to upsell. At every workshop, we teach you what you need to know. There’s no one in the back of the room trying to sell you some next big get-rich-quick, walk-on-hot-coals product. It’s literally, we teach you the brass tacks, the specific stuff that you need to know to learn how to start and grow a business. I encourage you to not believe what I’m saying, and I want you to Google the Z66 auto auction. I want you to Google elephant in the room. Look at Robert, Zellner, and Associates. Look them up and say, are they successful because they’re geniuses, or are they successful because they have a proven system? When you do that research you will discover that the same systems that we use in our own business can be used in your business. Come to Tulsa, book a ticket, and I guarantee you it’s going to be the best business workshop ever and we’re going to give you your money back if you don’t love it. We’ve built this facility for you and we’re excited to see it. And now you may be thinking what does it actually cost to attend an in-person, two-day interactive Thrive Time Show business workshop? Well, good news, the tickets are $250 or whatever price that you can afford. What? Yes, they’re $250 or whatever price you can afford. I grew up without money and I know what it’s like to live without money, so if you’re out there today and you want to attend our in-person, two-day interactive business workshop, all you got to do is go to thrivetimeshow.com to request those tickets and if you can’t afford two hundred fifty dollars we have scholarship pricing available to make it affordable for you I learned at the Academy at Kings Point in New York octa nonverba watch what a person does not what they say good morning good morning good morning Harvard Keosak University radio show today I’m broadcasting from Phoenix Arizona not Scottsdale, Arizona. They’re close, but they’re completely different worlds. And we have a special guest today. Definition of intelligence is if you agree with me, you’re intelligent. And so this gentleman is very intelligent. I’ve done this show before also, but very seldom do you find somebody who lines up on all counts. And so Mr. Clay Clark is a friend of a good friend Eric Eric Trump but we’re also talking about money bricks and how screwed up the world can get in a few and a half hour so Clay Clark is a very intelligent man and there’s so many ways we could take this thing but I thought since you and Eric are close Trump what were you saying about what Trump can’t, what Donald, who’s my age, and I can say or cannot say? Well, first of all, I have to honor you, sir. I want to show you what I did to one of your books here. There’s a guy named Jeremy Thorn, who was my boss at the time. I was 19 years old, working at Faith Highway. I had a job at Applebee’s, Target, and DirecTV. And he said, have you read this book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad? And I said, no. And my father, may he rest in peace, he didn’t know these financial principles. So I started reading all of your books and really devouring your books. And I went from being an employee to self-employed to the business owner to the investor. And I owe a lot of that to you. And I just want to take a moment to tell you, thank you so much for allowing me to achieve success. And I’ll tell you all about Eric Trump. I just want to tell you, thank you, sir, for changing my life. Well, not only that, Clay, thank you, but you’ve become an influencer. More than anything else, you’ve evolved into an influencer where your word has more and more power. That’s why I congratulate you on becoming. As you know, there’s a lot of fake influencers out there, or bad influencers. Anyway, I’m glad you and I agree so much, and thanks for reading my books. That’s the greatest thrill for me today, not thrill, but recognition, is when people, young men especially, come up and say, I read your book, changed my life, I’m doing this, I’m doing this, I’m doing this. I learned at the Academy, at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. I learned at the Academy, at King’s Point in New York, acta non verba. Watch what a person does, not what they say.