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At this altitude I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking.
Hello, boys and girls, ladies and germs. This is Tim Ferriss. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferriss Show, where it is my job to deconstruct world-class performers, to interview them in order to tease out the frameworks, lessons learned, habits, routines, etc., that you can hopefully test and apply to your own lives. It may just be a mode of thinking, but there's always something that translates.
My guest today is Rich Paul. Rich Paul is the CEO and founder of Clutch Sports Group, the powerhouse agency representing some of the biggest athletes across major professional sports. Paul founded Clutch Sports in 2012 in his hometown of Cleveland, Ohio, where he forged a unique and personal approach to representing top NBA talent, putting athletes first and empowering them to build careers and brands on and off the court. And some of his numbers are just unbelievable. And we get into
Stories from negotiations and much more in this conversation. In 2019, Clutch Sports partnered with United Talent Agency, otherwise known as UTA. Paul serves as UTA's Head of Sports and is an agency partner, and he was appointed to UTA's Board of Directors in 2020.
In 2019, Paul was also named GQ's Power Broker of the Year and dubbed the Kingmaker on the cover of Sports Illustrated. In 2021, Time recognized clutch sports on its first-ever list of the Time 100 Most Influential Companies and Variety recently named Paul to their Variety 500 list of the most influential business leaders shaping the global media industry.
Paul is also credited with driving the reversal of the so-called rich Paul rule, which would have banned agents without a college degree from representing NCAA student athletes. In 2021, Paul and three former Nike executives formed a company called Adopt, a creative agency focused on sport, wellness, nutrition, tech, and other consumer facing products. In 2022, Paul joined the Board of Trustees of LACMA and the Board of Directors of Funco and Designer Brands. And this year, in 2023, he joined the Board of Directors of Live Nation.
is also a minority partner of the Spring Hill Company. His latest book is Lucky Me, a memoir of Changing the Odds. You can find him on Instagram at RichPaul and on Twitter, at RichPaul4, that is the number four. And without further ado, please enjoy a wide-ranging conversation with Rich Paul.
Richard, it is a pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you for making the time. Thanks for having me, Tim. I thought we would begin with something that came up in my research, and that is R&J confectionery. Could you please explain for listeners what R&J confectionery was?
R&J confectionary was, to most people, it was a store which my dad owned and operated community store, set on the corner of 125th and Edmonton on the east side of Cleveland in the Glenville area. For me, it was Harvard, Stanford, Penn. That's what it was for me. It was my curriculum. It was my education. It was where I was.
molded and built and taught so many different things just through interaction. And also what I would say was just being able to observe as well. Now, what types of things were you observing? What age were you and you first started spending time there? Could you just paint a picture for us? Yeah, I was very young. I probably first started spending time in the store when I was first able to walk. Yeah. So a lot of the customers there watched me grow up.
And over time, the neighborhood obviously changed. And so there were great days, fun days where you're a little kid running around the store helping.
picking out candy, eating candy, playing with your friends. And then there were days in which you started to see a difference. I started to see my friends, moms go from this vibrant, beautiful person to kind of strung out on crack. I saw young men go from playing sports to now interacting, engaging in things as an adult. I saw
a lot of violence. But at the same time, it was where you got to observe and see how people moved and people that you looked up to or you thought were cool. And so it was just this combustion of activity throughout the day. And my dad kind of sat as the air traffic control by him owning the store. And so I learned a lot of what to do. I learned a lot of what not to do. I had several influences, both good and bad, several instances in which
I was able to probably experience some things and hear some conversations that at that age, you probably shouldn't. But at the same time, when I look back on it, I'm so glad I was able to because it really put a lot of things in perspective, especially for the seat I sit in now. Now, on the cover of your book, I believe you're around 14, 13 or 14 years old. Yeah, that's correct. Yeah. I'm curious why you chose that photo or that age for the cover.
I think that's the age where in life, there's a fork in the road, right? And I think for me, and it's just in my experience, that's the age in which a lot of my friends started to go down a different road. And that's the age for us growing up where you actually feel like you're an adult.
I'm gonna make this decision. You're held accountable for the Muni League football games and the baseball games and things like that for some are not as exciting. Now I wanna make money. Now I wanna stay out all night and just do certain things. And so that was the age when I had several pictures to choose from, but I chose that picture because I think if you think about even now and today, especially in my community across America where I come from and all communities like that,
That age is just so important. That's the age where you start to go down one path or the other. And I started losing a lot of friends around that age.
Let's hop to the present tense and we're going to go back to a lot of things that I want to ask you about, including James Baldwin, who is endlessly interesting and fascinating to me. But I would like to ask you about something I know very little about. And that is the free agency period. So my understanding is that in the frantic period that ensued this past July, you negotiated something along the lines of close to $900 million worth of contracts.
I would love for you just to give us a behind the scenes glimpse of how you prepare for that and what that type of process looks like once the clock strikes and kind of the game is on. What does that experience like for people who don't have any familiarity for those who.
Look at it on ESPN online. It's like, okay, it's midnight July 1. Phone lines are open. Everybody can get the work. For me and for us, my team, free agency doesn't start July 1 in terms of your preparation.
You start prepping beginning of the year, probably before the season, summer league. There's a lot of things that you need to prep for. There's a lot of posturing. There's a lot of conversations, information, just watching what other teams do, as well as development and kind of giving your guy some insights as well so he can position himself better and understand what the team is looking for or whatnot. And so by the time you get to July,
You pretty much have a decent board. There could be sometimes you don't know, and there's teams pop up out of nowhere. But once that hits, now you're taking meetings with different teams. And if you're lucky enough to have a guy that has multiple teams, then he's trying to decide what fits best for he and his family.
On one end, and then you're trying to decide a number on the other end with that team. And so it's pretty hectic. It's a lot that comes with it. I know it looks easy, but it's not easy. Doesn't look easy. Yeah. And we were blessed to reach that number. And I'm still in negotiations right now with a couple guys. And so it never ends.
When you're doing the prep and you say, when you have a decent board, and again, I apologize before we start recording, but I'm coming in very uneducated with this type of thing. I just don't have the familiarity of I followed a few sports, but mostly boxing and fight sports. So with that in mind, what does it look like to have a decent board in front of you in terms of what you've decided or strategy or anything else? What does that look like?
You know, when you talk about a decent board, I'm speaking about the options that you may have based upon the players you represent. This year, we had a number of players that were sought after by a number of different teams. And so when you have those options, that's incredible. Any agent to tell you.
That's very hard to do. And then it's just a matter of getting things done in a timely matter. One thing about it, teams like to be able to move. And so if you're moving your feet slow, they have to jump to somebody else. Very few people, teams going to wait on. Very few people, teams going to wait on. And so when you do have somebody that teams are actually going to wait on, you also have to balance that too, because you want to be respectful to them as well and their time. And so I try not to string people along.
At the end of the day you have to give yourself time but there's definitely a balance. So i'd love to get into maybe a story or some specifics of the negotiating process because by all accounts you're considered a master negotiator and i'll give one example maybe if you could speak to this.
How did information that you received negotiating for draymond greens contract which i think was four years and a hundred million inform how you then approach the market for jeremy grant which ended up being five years hundred sixty million.
Actually, Jeremy's was done before Draymond's. But to answer your question, Draymond was in a much different situation than Jeremy. He, obviously he's older, he's been on the team, one team for 11 years at the time. He's a guy that his stats may not necessarily show his value.
But when you plug him somewhere, he brings a tremendous value. He brings a championship experience, a chip. He's one of the smartest guys in the court every night. And so when you're looking at, when you're negotiating for somebody like Draymond, analytics and all those things don't really matter. In Jeremy's case, we had already understood what was happening in Portland and with their star player at that time, but we also
kept the conversation and communication to understand that they valued Jeremy there as well, regardless what was going on with their star player. So that was great to know. And then there were some other teams around the league that anybody can use a 6-9 athletic wing, like Jeremy Versatile, the whole nine. And it was a matter of if he wanted to stay important despite what may have taken place.
And so he did. And he had other teams with cap space that would actually spend the money where Draymond was a little bit different in order to get to his number. There was very few teams with the cap space to do that. So now you got to look at a sign and trade, which we had a sign and trade lined up. But ultimately Draymond wanted to stay with the Warriors. That's where he was drafted. That's where he had a success.
And so at that point, you just have to turn and make the best deal with the team that he was on. So that's what I was able to do. So I'd like to, and this may be pushing for a tie in, but I'm curious what type of gambling you were referring to when you were younger. That's when you were a kid. We gambled on everything. If two people had a discrepancy, the next word was bet.
So that was my mentality since I was seven, eight years old. My dad taught me how to shoot dice and play cards. And then that led to horseshoes or betting on any sports that you were capable of doing, whether it was racing from in the end or whether you decided to shoot jumpers at the park from the top of the key, like you would see on white man can jump.
We really did that in our park. You know, I practiced it to the point to where I perfected it to where I could shoot with one hand. And so allow me to, if I'm betting a guy and I'm going to shoot with one hand and he has to, his bet has to be more than my bet because I'm at a disadvantage, you know, sort of speaking. So everything we did, whether it was ping pong, whether it didn't, it didn't matter what it was shooting pool. I didn't want to play pool unless we were betting. I didn't want to bowl unless we were betting. And so I just had that mentality growing up.
Just everything was about a bet. And so that's the type of gambling that was street gambling prior to me playing the casino, but I don't really gamble as much as the casino as I would in the streets. It's a totally different vibe for me. What are some of the things that made you effective in street gambling and whether any particular games that were your specialty or types of bets?
Shooting dice. I was special. I had a, you know, like Steph Curry has a great three point shot. I had a great shot. You know, I was, I was Steph Curry a dice shooting for sure. But there's also a confidence and there was also for some real weird reason. I felt like I can actually talk to the dice and they could speak to me. That was my pet. Like everyone has a dog or teddy bear and like the dice was kind of my pet.
I would go around and just, you know, just gamble. I would gamble against anybody. It didn't matter who it was. You know, I would shoot dice against my grandmother. She had some money and wanted to bet. And that was just my mentality. So it was great. It was good though. And, you know, but it was dangerous at times. And I think about it all the time, sometimes like just being behind abandoned buildings or in the basement of abandoned house and
You got this money and for things to go the way they went for me, I'm extremely lucky. And if we come back to the free agency period, I'm curious if, for instance, if you were for whatever reason, sidelined, and you had to coach someone to step in and in your place to have a lot of the conversations, to do a lot of the planning that you're talking about,
Are there any key pieces of advice that you might give them or warnings that you might give them? Do not do this. I tried this once. It's a bad idea. Any advice that you think would be key? There's several things. You got to really watch out for friendly fire. There's a ton of friendly fire out there. Friendly fire in terms of giving too much information to somebody and then they share that information, not knowing who they're sharing it with.
And it comes back to its backfires on you. Yeah, I bet you're in the ass. Yeah, that happens a lot. You know, you've got to prepare. We've seen things happen this year with guys and it's not necessary therefore they wasn't prepared. You know, you're going into a meeting with somebody. You have to know pretty much what they're looking for and being able to kind of try to feel the answers to the test already. Patients can't panic.
You can't take any of it personal. It's not a personal thing. And I always say some people define the business card and some people are defined by their business card. And so I don't carry a business card. So it puts things in perspective for you. But ultimately every year I learned something new. I'm a sponge man. I like to be educated. I have a different temperament.
then most would probably have. And at the end of the day, you're only going to be as strong as your client. If you have a strong client, they trust you and they are lying. Then, you know, I've been in situations where a deal got done in one day and I've been in situations where it took three and a half months and I was fine with either one. How did you first meet LeBron? We met in the airport, acting kind of airport. What was the way in which you guys met? Did you go up to him? Did he say something to you?
I had a warm moon Euler's jersey on that kind of caught his attention. And then he asked me about the jersey. And that's what started the conversation. And then that led to us bumping into each other again at the baggage claim. And I gave him my business car because at the time I was, I did have a business car. And I was selling jerseys to a store that he can go to locally in Atlanta. And then when he got back to Ohio, they reached out to me again. And then that kind of started the relationship. How did the relationship evolve from that point?
When I was young, I just, my life had really gave me so many different tools and experiences. And so when you were a young kid, like they were, I had all the things. I had the clothes, I had the jewelry, I had the car, I had the know-how, I had the confidence. And I had the experience and we would just talk. But I think the thing that drew us together and closer was our moms.
I was able to see him and observe things and have conversations with him where he could be himself and not feel the need to protect himself, because I was going through the same thing, or I had gone through the same thing. And so that was really brought us close together. Was the family similarity? Yeah, the family similarity. Yeah.
So I know I'm bouncing around a lot, but that's sort of the nature of my mind. So I'm trying to tease out some of the influences or models that you've had. I know you have portraits of a number of different people. And I understand that one of those is James Baldwin. And I was wondering if you could just explain what the significance is of James for you or why you're attracted to him.
Obviously, I didn't grow up with him in that space, but just watching old videos and things like that. Just what he stood for, how articulate he was, how he saw things and broke it down and the way he did it. I think it's important to really pay homage to people like that. That room that that pictures in, I have a number of people from entertainers to activists to
Actors from some of my favorite movies, both, you know, mob movies and movies that was created by the John Singleton and huge brothers and so on and so forth, as well as different legends and music and sports. That's a room of inspiration for me. But James Baldwin in particular, at a time where it wasn't popular to be as blunt as he was, it wasn't ideal for someone who looked like him to be as smart and articulate.
as he was and not just on the surface, but in depth, that moved me. And that was somebody I felt like I wanted to have on my wall.
Yeah, I encourage everybody who's listening. If you are not familiar with the name, look up James Baldwin. I mean, so brilliant. So as you mentioned, articulate and also very good at presenting the messiness of life in a way that wasn't overindulgent, but very truthful and bold like you mentioned and very complicated life.
himself like a lot of people, but I've collected quotes of his for the last year or two, just an incredible, incredible depth of character. So I encourage people to check out James Baldwin, if you haven't already.
You have been incredibly successful in a world that on some level, at least at points, has prioritized or highlighted formal degrees. How has that lens affected you? Well, I finished high school at a very high level.
I just didn't need college. And I actually made an attempt to go to college and I actually enjoyed school. I really did, but my life was different. And for what I needed to do, I felt like, you know, I was prepared. My dad did an unbelievable job in my environment, did an unbelievable job of preparing me and equipping me with the tools necessary for me to persevere through life. I think society
paints the picture of that you need a higher education for certain things. And I think that when you go to get a job, they go by with your education status, which again, for some jobs, I understand it, but most kids that graduate college, they're not working in their field that they got a degree in anyway. So I don't know how much that actually matter. Indicator it is. Yeah.
But I always felt prepared, especially for what I do, for sure. At some point, and again, this is me just looking at some reading and the process of preparing for this, but the NCAA announced a rule at one point that agents could not represent college athletes unless they themselves had a college degree. Now at face value, that seems ridiculous.
And then that LeBron dubbed on Twitter, this particular regulation, the hashtag the rich Paul rule. Why do you think they tried to put this into action and how did they justify it also? There was really no justification. I think they tried to put it into action to prevent the next rich Paul as much as it was about me.
It wasn't nothing they could actually do to me, but they could discourage someone else. And it's no different than, again, you have to have a college degree to become this person. If you look at it, if you do the data, that basically carves out a specific group of people that are going to be given opportunity based upon the completion of a higher education, because one thing about life
Life don't always afford you to pay attention to higher education, especially when you grew up the way I did in terms of, and I know people had it worse than I did. And so when you talk about just trying to survive and trying to survive the day, the week, the month, you know, younger siblings and lights are off, gas is off. It's just a different dynamic. And it's unfair in a lot of ways because
You basically feel trapped a lot of times. And so I feel like again, that's just a discouragement. That's just an excuse to be able to say why you didn't give somebody an opportunity because they didn't have this. But I think there's more people that can actually learn on the job training, unless it's something like you have to code at Microsoft or Apple or you have to, and even that, like,
You know, there's geniuses that learn this stuff at home. They're not learning from a textbook. And so I just think is all bullshit, to be honest with you. Yeah. Seems like people came around on it, whether they like to or not end up on the same page. What would you say are any of the best investments you've made? And I'll explain what I mean.
You have taken a very unorthodox path to get to where you are. You have studied and you've learned and observed like you mentioned from a very young age. So for instance, I'll just give a couple examples. Warren Buffett would say one of his best investments, maybe his best investment was taking a public speaking course, Dale Carnegie, because it sort of amplified everything he was able to do.
A lot of people on the podcast have put time into something or energy into something that paid dividends later. What have been some of the best investments of time or energy or money that you've put in in terms of something that laid the ground for something that happened later? For me, it was the drive runs, getting out on that road, driving to get in front of a family and coming up short. I think it really allows you to decide if this is something you really want to do.
And if so, now I have to figure out ways to get better because I didn't play the money game when I got into this business. I didn't play the money game. I didn't play the cut your fee game. I didn't do any of that. All the stuff that's still going on now. I didn't do that. And I was up against the bigger agencies that had the perception, the cache and they had the alliances.
within these universities and things like that to help them, give them information, give families the number or give the number of families and then sit up a kid in the room and tell them, don't tell them not to go somewhere because they don't want that on them, but they will tell them why they should go here. So now when you call the coach, they say, well, I didn't tell them not to come with you, but you didn't tell them they should either. But you told them they should for this company that you happen to be represented by and stuff like that. And so I had to deal with,
All those type of things and navigate my way around that, which I did, but that was one of the best investments for sure. And then I think the other thing was just kind of investing itself, you know, knowing that and believing that despite the shortcomings, just stay at it.
It'll turn. And then again, in the dice game, we used to have to be able to say, can you stand the rain? You know, a guy is throwing point after point after point. And, you know, you would have to stand in there and send the rain and eventually they turn and things go the other way. So I was prepared. So when you mentioned you weren't playing the money game, do you mean that you were not cutting your fees as a way to try to make yourself more attractive? Could you say a bit more about that?
Yeah, not cutting my fees is a way to make just because everyone, you know, people don't believe in your work practice or your expertise. And then the bigger companies, they're able to do that because they're just rolling it all into their annual revenue. So if you got right, the large, large, 25 different verticals. Okay. So sports is one of them and you roll it into it. And they look at it as, you know, will charge the higher less will charge the middle more and will charge the lower the max and they'll be
I'm appreciative to be here because we probably shouldn't be representing them anyway and then we'll roll it all up. And at the end of the day, it goes on our books and I have a clear understanding of the business. And so when you are on your own, you don't have that, you can't do that. And so I was able to get players despite that and it actually drove them crazy and still does to this day.
Yeah, I bet a term crazy. So what were your selling points? The big agencies have all of the stuff that we could probably guess they would use to sell, right? We've got all this coverage. We've got all these verticals we can expand in these following ways, etc, etc, etc. What did you find over time as you're putting in reps and learning after coming up short and then improving? What were your main selling points that allowed you to get some of those key early folks?
I think there was a genuineness that can fill that in the room. There was an actual real care for who they were as individuals and as families. I just thought different. I lived with education. I wasn't selling anything because I found out very early, just nothing to sell. You can go in with your PowerPoint, back in the day we put the CDN and show all these other people that the company represented. But the reality was those people were never going to touch those people. And those people don't actually care about the people that's in this room.
You know, you're showing that as if it's all that one family and it's not. And so I just really shine the light on that. And the people that gave me an opportunity, I did right by them, which got me the next opportunity.
Just a quick thanks to one of our sponsors and we'll be right back to the show. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Shopify is the all-in-one commerce platform that powers millions of businesses worldwide, including me, including mine. What business you might ask. Well, this year, one way I've scratched my own itch is by creating cockpunch coffee. It's a long story. All proceeds on my end go to my foundation, Sysay Foundation to fund research for mental health, et cetera. Anyway,
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You said in a GQ interview, which I had a great title. So rich Paul Powerburger of the year that the biggest obstacle or one of the biggest obstacles for young players in learning how to become a pro or be a pro is establishing infrastructure. Yes. What do you mean by infrastructure? Most guys, that's athletes, especially. They've come from an environment to where everyone along the way has made it about them. And so if you have them and tell you that it's only about me,
then you're not going to value other people and what their capabilities are, what their expertise is. But if you're a walking corporation, we can't name one corporation that does not have infrastructure. Organization, they have an organizational chart. They have people that do certain things and there's clarity within that infrastructure, but it comes with the cost. And so most athletes don't want to do what, they don't want to pay anybody to do anything because along the way,
Everyone has did things for them for free, but it wasn't really for free. It was to be able to be standing there next to them at a time where there was actually something to gain. So I'll sacrifice this now. You're an amateur to be able to stand next to you to get some crumbs or whatever the case.
when you become a pro and whatever their aspirations were, if it was to hang out, the girls, the travel, whatever it is, the money, whatever it was, but you see what they did. Basically, you created something that ultimately became your own demise because upfront, you taught them wrong. You talk to them, oh, I'm doing this out of love. I'm going to pick you up. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that all to turn it around on them when they start making money and say, remember, when I did this or I did that,
Well, that's not fair to the player. And it's also not fair to yourself. What the conversation should be like is, look, I understand you don't have the ability to pay for anything. And if you're a parent, I'm doing it out of love. I love you. You're my kid. But if you're somebody else, just be honest with it. Hey, look, I'm going to do all I can to help you get to where you need to go.
Once you get there, if there's an opportunity for me, then I'm going to do all I can to position myself to where if you give me that opportunity, I can then be of value to you. Very simple. When free isn't free, it's an unclear prepayment for things to come later. That's when it seems like things can get extremely messy.
How do you help them when they say sign with you or even just start to develop a relationship with you to take the first steps for building out infrastructure? What are some of the first steps that you might recommend? I would say checks and balances really getting the proper financial team in place.
And that's everybody from a CPA to the guy who manages your investment portfolio or the company that managed your investment portfolio, really having somebody monitor that because that's a very fragile thing there.
But at the same time deciding what it is that you want, I like to live a certain way, now that I understand better on how to live. And so if you are a single man with no family, do you really need a 20,000 square foot home? Probably not.
And that will be home half the time. Do you really need to fly private? Probably not. So there's different ways to go about it. But what's most important? Should you hire a chef? Yes, you should. Should you take a shortcut on that? No, you shouldn't. Do you know the difference between a chef and a cook? You should find that out because this is very important. Your chef should then go and sit with your nutritionist on your team and figure out you should do all the testing, everything you need because your body, ultimately, is the engine that keeps you running.
That's how you make your money. What are some of the key ingredients for emotional support and stability? I'm just imagining young athletes who are suddenly in the limelight. They have all the temptations. They have a lot of pressure.
There must be, and I've been, I know, a few professional athletes who've gone through these periods, periods that are very challenging, and certainly after retirement or the end of their playing years, some very challenging times. What have you seen in terms of the best ways to support that could be from your side? It could be other ingredients, player health on that side of the ledger.
Nowadays, I think there needs to be someone that players need to talk to and be open mind to having a therapist to get stuff off their chest because they deal with a lot. They deal with a lot. I think it's also important for players to not feel entitled to do things. Oftentimes, they feel like they have to take on all of this onus to do something.
for other people, and that's not real. Because when it comes down to it, if you ask probably 80% of the players that aren't in position, they used to be in and ask them who can do for them. It's not going to be many, if any, for that matter. Meaning people who are willing to help them. Yeah, of course. Yeah. And then how are they positioning themselves to where when the ball stops,
It's not about just having a ton of money. Like how can I do something else? How can I be perceived while playing as someone who can transition and do something else? There's this idea that
I made a lot of money on how to do nothing else. Well, that's not true because you made a lot of money, but you didn't diversify your portfolio unless your money is making money for you and you live a lifestyle in which you're 8% or 10% or whatever it is return each year is able to pay your bills and your taxes on your home and stuff like that.
then you got to go to work. You have to go to work. And it's a big difference when you, when you made $50 million this year and then next year you made nothing. It's just tough. Yeah. What do you say to the players when they start to take on that onus you were mentioning, right? So people come to them and ask them for things. I'm sure it happens all the time from many different directions, from people they've met along the way, from new people. When you see someone who's about to take on too much or
accept that. What does that conversation look like? They come to me with the conversation. It's very real. You know, I don't really have a lot of gray in me. It's pretty black and white, even though I have a great clutch athletics hoodie. It's pretty black and white for me because that's how life is, right? Life is
There's no gray in it, man. It's outside of the days, 300 of the days, including Ohio. That's great, but there's no real gray in it, man. And I just want them to understand how important it is to get their ducks in a row at their youngest age, because that's when they make their money at their youngest age. The average person makes their money between the age of 45 and 65.
The average athlete makes their money between the age of 19 and 25, maybe 30 if they get that far. It's so hard. And then learning when to jump off that dream train, right? Yes, I know you thought he was going to be a Hall of Famer. You thought he was going to be an all NBA guy. That's going to pay 15 years in the league.
But if you play two or three or five, save your money, do the things while playing to learn how this business actually operates and start to position yourself to where I can still be around the game in a different form. When you look at guys, there's a reason why top coaches aren't really ex players.
or X star players, let me say that, X star players, because they wasn't allowed to have the ego that most star players have. And so they actually become better coaches.
When you look at a Tyloo, when you look at a guy like Agent Griffin's getting the opportunity now in Milwaukee, well-deserved, overly deserved, when you look at guys like Quinn Snyder, who, you know, Quinn played ball, he was a good player, you know, he wasn't John Stockton, right? But he's a hell of a coach and he's gonna make more money as a coach than he would as a player.
Tealoo has already done it. Darv and Ham's going to do it. When you really think about this, because I studied this stuff, a guy like Jamal Mosley, he tried to play ball and play ball a little bit, but whatever. But as a coach, he's going to be what he paid his dues, you know, went from development to this to that.
and just have the time, give yourself time and be patient and do the little things necessary to continue to reposition yourself. And it's going to happen for you. And that can be a part of the ecosystem of sport and any sport for that matter.
So you mentioned ego, and I'd love to focus on this for a second, because it seems like LeBron has never been known as someone who's ego-driven. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, of course. But as someone that talented and that driven, obviously putting in intense amounts of work and dedication, one could imagine a world in which
A person like that be very ego driven and certainly their account or examples. What do you think it is that has led him to be that way or is he just that way right out of the box? I think he's that way, but also LeBron's from Akron, Ohio. If you ever been to Akron, there's not much there. So there wasn't these things that allowed him to develop this.
ego per se, when you think about his friends, same guys he went to high school with, same guys he go back with now. They, yeah, he's LeBron, but they still talk crazy to him and they talk about things and they laugh and joke or whatever and fall out and get back to get, you know, just life. And then when you think about his business infrastructure, myself, Maverick, Randy, et cetera,
We don't really care that he's LeBron per se, like he values our opinion. We value him. If we have a discrepancy or disagreement of something, we're not going to hold our tongue because he's LeBron.
That's one aspect of it, but that's not even what's the most important. The most important thing in all of that, though, is he's not going to look at it as if he can overpower or just do something for the sake of doing it because he is LeBron. See, it takes two to tango.
And that has helped him along the way. We all have disagreements and meetings and so on and so forth. But one thing about him, he's ego less enough to know when he should listen.
And that's just showing people respect and believing in them. And so I think that's helped him tremendously. Now, we all have ego. So don't get me wrong, you have to have an ego to have confidence, but you're not invested in your ego. You're not leading with the ego. You know when the ego is supposed to come out the room and when it's not, when he's at that, I still call this Staples Center.
He has an ego. He's LeBron James. That's his show. That's his stage. He's here to perform and put on a great show. Sometimes too great of a show. If you ask me, I would like to be a little bit more precise with things. And we debate about that as well. I'd like to talk about how you think about luck. So the name of your memoir is Lucky Me. Why Lucky Me?
Why lucky me? Look, when you think about it, I grew up in my dad's store. I learned math through playing the numbers and selling beer, wine, cigarettes, etc., candy. I was extremely lucky to have that environment. I was extremely lucky to have a dad who
believed in me enough to stress education and to teach me things that he knew I was going to need to be successful in life. Not successful for the moment, but successful for the duration and success, not necessarily meaning from a finance perspective, but just from a humanity perspective. Extremely lucky, I was extremely lucky to go through
some of the things that I went through to help shape me and mold me to understand life's challenges and to be able to survive those thunderstorms emotionally and things like that to get out on the other side. And so in addition to Jay Z's lucky me being my favorite record, there's a number of things I was extremely lucky for. I was able to make it out of an environment to where many didn't. And when I say they didn't, not because they're dead or in jail, but because mentally they just can't see past what's in front of them.
And I'm extremely blessed and lucky to be able to do so to the point to where it's gotten me this far. At the same time, it's a little sarcasm to it because I didn't have my mom. I didn't have many options. My entrepreneurial spirit led me down the road of what some would say was detriment and darkness. At the same time, I was able to persevere through it. And so there's a number of meanings in between it or amongst it. But ultimately, I felt that was the right title.
The great title and can you say a bit more about the sort of entrepreneurial impulse leading you into darkness if I heard you correctly. Could you say a bit more about that chapter? Growing up, we had very little options. And if you had an entrepreneur spirit, you only could be that entrepreneur through hustles.
You know, and that hustle could have been everything from selling jerseys to selling drugs, selling candy to selling inner tubes from a bike or every, everything was a hustle. There was no real jobs. There was no real.
Understanding of corporate America there was no opportunities and there was no examples more importantly to see someone go to work every day, get a raise, get promoted, then go from being promoted get promoted again and then become partner and we didn't have these examples that I have today.
So if we flash back, it seems like, at least based on some of the notes I have in front of me, one of the through lines for you, one of the themes is possibly how you do one thing is how you do everything. And I wanted to ask about the creasing and ironing your jeans as a kid. Is that something that you did? And if so, why did you do that?
My sister taught me how to earn my jeans first and foremost. And then once she taught me, it made me feel like I was an adult and a very young age. And then I started to decide that just the detail in it and earning my jeans, the way I did and having the creases line up. And then I perfected that. And then from there,
I realized that, oh, I can earn really good. So I started to advertise my ability to earn. And so when I would go to my uncle's house or somebody's house and they get dressed to get ready to go to the bar or the club, they can't do two things at once. So I said, hey, I'll earn your clothes for you. And there's going to be a charge for that.
And I made money, ironing clothes, no problem. And I think that the detail of it and my preciseness of it allowed them to trust me more. And the more they trusted me, the more I can charge. So now ironing jeans is one thing, but if I'm ironing silk pants or silk shirt and I knew how to adjust the iron to wool and linen and so on and so forth. And I built a good business. I made money every which way.
Like that right and but then me understanding that and willing and wanting to Align those trees is properly and take my time to do it and prepare as such with the iron and the water and light starch and things like that that quote that you made. How you do one thing is how you do everything that's at its foundation and your approach to it because whatever arena you're in.
Just your approach to that, that detail, staying that detail oriented will allow you to progress. So that's what that meant. Usually I wouldn't ask about something in the background, but I have to ask, what is the polar bear statue in the background behind you? Looks like a polar bear. That's just interior design, you know. Okay. I have a thing for polar bears. That's why I was asking. Yeah, but that's the Ernie Barnes behind me, that picture.
Okay. Yeah. Can you tell me more about the Ernie Barnes piece? You seem like somebody who chooses things. I mean, imagine these things aren't just thrown in your house. I mean, no, no, they're placed. Yeah, properly. But the Ernie Barnes, Ernie Barnes is a well.
known Black artists. He's most known for the cover of Marvin Gaye's album. Yeah, I recognize the style. I've never seen that piece, but I recognize the style. The picture at the end of Good Times, that painting is called The Sugar Shack. Eddie Murphy actually owns the original one from my understanding. And I was fortunate enough to be able to purchase this piece. This is called The Runway. You know, growing up, I watched Good Times a lot, didn't know anything about art, saw that picture.
The whole time and then as I got more into art, I started to learn different artists and Ernie Barnes was somebody I wanted to make sure I had my collection. What is player empowerment? What does that mean? Player empowerment.
I know that people use this a lot, but it's really player choice. I think that oftentimes people say, as player empowerment, you get confused with like, or a player can just do whatever they want. No, that's not the case. I think player empowerment comes through the lens of education, understanding that you do have a choice, flexibility,
And just having a mindset that I don't necessarily have to play my career or put my career on the same track as somebody else's because that's what the media or anybody would.
around my game would expect me to do. And the example of that is Reggie Miller was a great player. He spent his whole time with the Indiana Pacers. Dr. Navisky was a great player. He spent his whole time with the Mavericks. Kobe was a great player. He spent his whole time with the Lakers. But LeBron and Katie are great players.
They've been on several teams. That doesn't make them any lesser than a legend or icon as those other guys that just name. But because these people get on these media platforms and try to create a narrative of what's right, what's wrong, and how something should go versus how it should know. Everybody's career in their journey is their journey. But I think it's a misconception with player empowerment.
because it's not like they can write their own checks or their own teams. So it's only so much power within that empowerment. But I think the empowerment is for players to give, to empower other players to do as you feel necessary within the lines of your professional positioning and obviously your contract, but don't feel the need to have your journey look like someone else's.
Yeah, self-authoring, I mean, with choice and educated choice, like you mentioned. Who are the most important influences in developing your confidence? Again, going back to my dad, first and foremost, my brother, even to this day, when I call my brother about something, he's like, and I'll be talking to him like, brother, you know, I'm thinking about doing this. And what do you think? I'm thinking it may work. It's like, bro,
It's going to work. I've been telling you this since you was a kid. It's going to work. Don't even worry about it. Like this is this exact conversation. But outside of family, you know, I've had a lot of people still confidence in my Uncle Warren when I played many football, you know, they would put the confidence in you.
You may not like the words, but you know that they're still in the confidence in you. What kind of things might he say? Like, how did he do that? I played quarterback when I was a mini league football player. And, you know, if I switched to receive or safety, you know, we just, you know what you supposed to do. You know how to do it. You know, we worked on, you know, we practice on, you can do it. And that was the mentality. And they had, we had the expectation of,
when Belichick was leading the Patriots, when the Patriots were, if they didn't want to go to the Super Bowl, it was a failed season. Like that was our mini league team. Like if we did not go to the city championship, something was wrong. And so you go into practice with that understanding and that mentality and that expectation on you, that's what it was. And then even when I was young, you know, gambling, shooting dice, my dad wouldn't steal that confidence in me. And like I've had some unbelievable
come back. You think the cash came back from 3-1. You don't know what it's like to have $100 on you down in your last dollar.
And you 11 years old and you got $1 left and you turn that dollar into 200. You roar all the way back. It's just the redemption trail. It's an unbelievable feeling to do that. And I had plenty of nights like that, whether it was on the basketball court or whether it was at the dice game. And I think about those moments all the time. Those were some fun times, man. It really was.
Yeah, formative times. So why do a book? There's so much involved. You have to prioritize it. You have to promote it. Why do a book? What does it mean to you and what do you hope it will do in terms of impact for people who read it? I think a book
brings a seriousness to it, right? Instead of just kind of doing a visual, I think when people really sit down and read a book, you can really dive into his chapters and read it again and go back. And so the book form was important. The timing of it was important. Just, you know, you look at the state of the world. How are you sees the world today? The different perceptions that people may feel like they have without
being able to have someone hear them. And so I wanted to write a book to where I shared my experiences, I shared my journey, but also wanted to let people know that you're being heard, and not only are you being heard, you can be in a different place as long as you stay in the moment. I know it may seem dark and gray and bleak and challenging, but you tend to think that
Everyone's paying attention to you and what you got going on and so you get discouraged But in reality, they're not everyone has their own problems
So just get through yours, get through them, continue to push, continue to persevere and you can end up in a different spot. And I wanted to give kids that example and just people in general, regardless of race, regardless of gender, I just wanted to give you that example. And it was the right time for me because I made a place where I'm honestly comfortable enough. And I feel like I've accomplished enough to allow people in because today people want to be.
Rich Paul, they want to be due to things that I do. They want to be an agent because of me. And once I got to that point, I wanted to help them understand who I really am and why I do the things I do because it's very misleading to say, oh, this guy became a top agent. He'd done $4 billion in contracts and he didn't go to college.
Well, there's more to it. Yeah, actually, but a kid, like he playing Mortal Kombat, it's like just sitting there dizzy, you know? So I wanted to give them an example and understanding and paint a picture through storytelling that they see themselves in that same mirror and like, damn, I don't have to go out here and rob somebody. I don't have to go out here and kill somebody.
I don't have to go out here and feel like I'm not being heard. He had the same problems I did. Wow, I see myself in that. And here's an example that I see every day. I can see him, I can touch him, whatever. I'm accessible to people. I like to talk to people when they see me out in the street.
That was encouraging for me. What I didn't want to do is write a puff piece. And that's what I said to my team. I said, if I do a book, it will not be a puff piece. I don't want to write a book on look what I did. Look how much money I made. Look how I don't need to do that. That could be the second book. That can't be the first book. The first book people need to know who I am at my core, what I've been through. And it was therapeutic for me. And I'm glad I did it. It was something that I'm proud of. And hopefully when people read the book, they feel inspired by it.
And the subtitles is great also. I mean, I love everything about it. I mean, lucky me, I'm more of changing the odds. And certainly you've demonstrated that. And just a few closing questions for you. The first is, if you could put anything on a billboard, this is metaphorically speaking, just to get a message out to billions of people. Could be image, could be a quote, could be a word, could be something that's inspired you, anything at all. What might you put on that billboard? You have any ideas?
I would put kindness never hurts. Love is never wasted. Unity starts with you. Trust makes it possible. Community is a mentality and honesty keeps it real. And I think we need all those things to change the way
People are living today for the better and all those things to help uplift somebody. You need all those things to unite and collaborate and you need all those things to be clutch.
Richard really enjoyed spending time with you. Be looking find you on Instagram at rich Paul Twitter at rich Paul for the number four. And certainly they can find the new book. Lucky me a memoir of changing the odds everywhere. Fine books are sold. Is there anything else you'd like to say or anything you'd like to ask in my audience? Anything at all that you'd like to add before we wind up. First, I would like to say thank you for having me on.
I know you're not into sports like that, but obviously, you know, I'm doing something right to get your attention. So I'm happy for that. And to the audience, you know, I just think you don't have to be in sports. Don't feel like, you know, I have to be in sports to read this book. You don't even have to know how to spell sports per se. And I think that it's important to really care about what other people are going through, despite what society teaches us. I think it's important to really dive into other people's experiences because
It allows you to try to have a better perspective and a better understanding of people. And so I'm glad to have mature to the point where I can honestly say that because I grew up in an environment where we didn't care about nothing at all. Well, Rich, I can barely spell sports, but I can spell human and your story is intensely human. And I think it will resonate with a lot of readers.
And it's a hero's journey of changing the odds. And I'm very excited to see what it'll do in the world. So lucky me, I'm more of changing the odds as the book, everyone. So please check it out. And thank you so much for taking the time, Rich. This has been a lot of fun. And everybody listening will include links in the show notes as usual to everything at 10.blog slash podcast until next time. Be just a bit kinder than is necessary to others and to yourself. And thanks for tuning in.
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