In this transcript, business coach Clay Clark (US SBA Entrepreneur of the Year) talks with David Robinson (NBA Hall of Fame basketball player and founder of the $300 million Admiral Capital Fund) about leadership and vision on the best business coach platform, Thrive15.com.
Clay: So, David, as a business coach, I am curious…what is the vision that you have for your life as a father as and as husband?
David: Well, number 1 just be the best husband I can. Looking at my wife, at the end of the day I’m responsible for her. How she develops and how she grows as a person is my responsibility. How our family goes is my responsibility. Yes, both of us work together to achieve it, but at the end of the day as the husband I’m held responsible for it. So I see every day as an opportunity for me to build into my relationship with her. I think the best thing that I can do for my children is to have that example of a loving husband and father. That’s what I see, I see every day as an opportunity for me to build into what this family, which I’ve said before, is I think the most important foundational institution in our society. I get a change to build into this family and into the future families represented by my 3 boys.
Clay: Now here’s the big business coach challenge here. You obviously have a few dollars that you’ve earned over the years. It’s somewhat public information about the value of the fund and some of the success you’ve having. A lot of people do this and you could do this. You could get yourself involved in 50 business deals, you could be making your own rap videos. I don’t know if your rap career is –
David: I’m not much of a rapper so.
Clay: Okay, but I mean you could be doing a lot of things though. And you could never be home.
David: Sure.
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Clay: You were gone for a long time and now you’re home. You could put yourself in a situation where you’re gone all the time. And we could as a business coach culture celebrate that and put you on the cover of a magazine and say, “Look at this guy, he’s lost his family but he’s made some money here.” How does your vision for your family impact your daily decisions?
David: Dramatically. It is a priority for me. I just think that the family is the greatest measure of who you are as a man. It’s the greatest measure of what you’ll be able to accomplish out in the world. I mean really accomplish in people’s lives, not just on a financial stats sheet, but in people’s lives. The legacy that you’re going to leave, it starts with that family. So to me, I have to invest in that. Because I can’t affect the kid across the street, or a kid in another neighborhood if I can’t get through to my own children or to my wife. I just see this as an important testing ground. It’s a marker, a measure of what type of a man I am and if I can listen to my wife and I can hear what she’s saying and I can understand my children and the relationship that we have, then I’m prepared to go out and try to be a positive influence.
Clay: I can say this, in preparing to interview you and researching all things David Robinson, that’s been the biggest thing that I’ve got out of researching you, is you really do put your family first.
David: I try to, yeah. I don’t always do it well. Sometimes I get excited about opportunities and I’ll sign up for things, and my wife will say, “You didn’t talk to me about that.” So, we have discussions about those things but I try to, yes, that’s the part where we all try to figure that stuff out, day by day we learn.
Clay: Why I want to celebrate you and your business coach what you’re doing is not because I want to build up what David Robinson is or to try to lay on praise there, I guess what I’m saying is you are a person in a society where very few people stay married. You are a person that has had success but is having success in the family and I just want to tell you thank you so much to talk about vision and how this all plays into leadership and it means the world to me and I know a lot of people watching this. So thank you for trying to do things the right way.
David: All right, well thanks I appreciate that.