Winning has a price, and leadership has a price. So I pulled people along when they didn't want to be pulled. I challenged people when they don't want to be challenged, and I earned that right because my teammates came after me. They didn't endure all the things that I endured. Once you join the team you live at a certain standard that I play the game, and I wasn't going to take anything less.

Once you join the team you live at a certain standard that I play the game, and I wasn't going to take anything less. You ask all my teammates, the one thing about Michael Jordan was he never asked me to do something that he didn't do. When people see this, they're gonna say, Well, he wasn't really a nice guy.

He may have been a tyrant. Oh, oh. Well, that's you, because you never won anything. I wanted to win, but I wanted them to win and be a part of that as well. That's how I play the game. That was my mentality. And if you don't want to play that way, don't play that way.

That's how I play the game. That was my mentality. And if you don't want to play that way, don't play that way. 📍  

 Hello and welcome to how to take over the world. This is Ben Wilson. Today. We're talking about Michael Jordan. I think Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time. We'll talk more about that later, but by any standard measure, he is at least one of the greatest basketball players of all time. He's also a great entrepreneur, business owner, and Olympian. I didn't say this last episode, uh, the one about Steve Prefontaine, but I am doing this series on athletes because the 2024 Summer Olympics are beginning this week.

And I thought it would be fun to get in the Olympic spirit. I also think athletics are a great lab for studying success in business, science, politics, so many other pursuits. There are just so many independent variables. And I think one of the attractive things about sports is it is that level playing field.

You control for all those variables, so to speak. And so it gives you a very clear picture of Of what it really is that contributes to success.  I think Michael Jordan, I think Michael Jordan in particular is worth studying because he was so successful. Few people in team sports have achieved as much as he did.

And because like Steve, and because like Steve Prefontaine, he has this infectious mindset. He was also a great leader, and even if you don't have much interest in basketball,  I think he is worth studying as a leader.   My sources for this episode are Michael Jordan, The Life by Roland Lazenby, the autobiography Driven from Within by Michael Jordan himself, and I also draw quotes and stories from the excellent documentary The Last Dance, which is where I pulled that opening quote from. By the way, if you want to learn more about Michael Jordan

founders podcast has some great episodes on him. I would especially recommend episode number three 40, where David talks about his takeaways from two of the books by Tim Grover, who was Michael Jordan's longtime trainer. I was like, it's great. Uh, that is actually one of my favorite founders episodes.

One of my favorite podcast episodes ever, but no matter which episode you listen to, if you like this podcast, I think you'll also love founders.

So it's an incredible podcast. If you love how to take over the world, you will love founders.

Go give it a listen, wherever you get your podcasts.  

One brief note before we jump into it, if you're completely unfamiliar with the sport of basketball, You should still be able to enjoy this episode, but I'm not going to go over the very basics of the sport. I'm going to assume going in that you have some knowledge of the game.  Sorry if you don't. Maybe, I don't know, watch a YouTube video.

So with all that said, let's get into it. This is Michael Jordan. Before we get into it, a brief reminder that we have the first How to Take Over the World event on October  Before we get into it, a brief reminder that we have the first how to take over the world event on August 22nd through the 25th, just outside of Quito, Ecuador.

If you're interested in taking over the world and you're interested in meeting other people who are trying to take over the world, this is a chance to meet people who can help you in that pursuit. It's going to be amazing. I think we have truly, it's going to be amazing. I think we have a truly transformational event set up.

You can learn more and apply at nowheresummit. com. I hope to see there.

Michael Jeffrey Jordan was born on February 17th, 1963 in Brooklyn, New York. He was raised in a small rural town in North Carolina. He was from a somewhat middle class family. Rural North Carolina was pretty poor, especially in the African American community. So yeah, like it wasn't super nice, but neither was it grinding poverty.

And actually, um, a little bit later in his childhood, they would move to a somewhat bigger city in North Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina,  Michael was the fourth of five children. He had two older brothers, one older sister and one younger sister. And one of the defining relationships of his life was that with his father, he was fairly present in his life.

James Jordan was a good father in many ways, but Michael really struggled to live up to his expectations. And that was. Like a fire that would burn in him for years, for his entire life. Really James Jordan had a pretty good job as a mechanic with GE.

James Jordan had a pretty good job as a mechanic with GE and Michael's older brothers, Ronnie and Larry were also somewhat mechanically minded like their father. And so they would help him work on cars and do odd jobs around the house. But Michael. Was not mechanically minded at all. He had no interest in mechanical things.

He was a bit like Picasso, actually. Uh, if you remember that episode, Picasso was obviously brilliant, but just absolutely could not be bothered to care about anything except for art. And he was feckless at everything else in his life could barely send a package. And Michael was very similar. It's one of the interesting attributes in his life.

He's extremely hardworking when it comes to athletics. And I mean, extreme, like he was genuinely extreme in his hunger to work more and work harder. But he was also kind of extreme in the other direction. When it came to anything else, he was very lazy when it came to things like household chores. Uh, the biographer Lazenby writes, that's the laziest boy I've ever seen.

James Jordan would say time and again, , If he had to get a job in a factory punching a clock, he'd starve to death. He would give every last dime of his allowance to his brothers and sisters, and even kids in the neighborhood to do his chores. He was always broke. Yet that laziness magically disintegrated when it came to sports.

If it involved a ball in the air, a contest to be settled, the switch came on. In his adolescent mind, Michael figured maybe he could be a professional athlete. That was really about the only thing that interested him, which made him no different from millions of other daydreaming boys his age. He couldn't see how to make it that,

he couldn't see how to make that happen, but rarely is there a clear or even a sane path to a life in professional sports.

Okay, so that was Michael. Very driven when it came to a ball or a contest, and very lazy in just about everything else. So the line that would come to haunt Michael Jordan was, Just go on in the house with the women.  Okay. So Larry and Ronnie would be helping their dad work on something in the yard and Michael would come out, but he was just useless when it came to fixing things.

And so that is what annoyed. And so that is what his annoyed father would tell him. Just go on in the house with the women. Uh, here's how Michael later recounted it. Quote, my father was a mechanical person. He always tried to save money by working on everybody's cars. And my older brothers would go out and work with him.

He would tell them to hand him a nine 16th wrench and they do it. I'd go out there and he'd say, give me, I'd go out there and he'd say, give me a nine 16th wrench. And I didn't know what the hell he was talking about. He used to get irritated with me and say, you don't know what the hell you're doing. Go on in there with the women.

Of the millions of sentences that James Jordan uttered to his youngest son. This was the one that glowed neon bright across the decades.

And Michael Jordan's responses to these kinds of slights would be a major theme of his life. It's interesting to see that it starts so early and he never really let go. Of this particular one,  his relationship with his mother was much, much different. He was a mama's boy. His mom could push him a little bit later in life, you know, tell him to work a little harder.

But for the most part, she was a doting mother, especially towards Michael, just, just really loved him. And it's interesting. I was talking with my father in law the other day, and he was talking about. Um, the Picasso episode where I mentioned this phenomenon of Picasso also had a very loving mother. And he told me about a time he was talking with a prominent basketball coach of a big college program.

And he asked the, and he asked the coach what signals he looks for in a prospect.  And he asked the coach what signals he looks for in a prospect to know that he would excel, stand out. And this coach said, you know, it's a funny thing, But guys who have a totally over the top, loving, doting mother and an a hole father almost always turn out to be my best players.

So I look for that.  And it's interesting to me because that is something that I see over and over again through these stories. From Napoleon, to Thomas Edison, to Michael Jordan. I see that trend, complicated, difficult relationships with their fathers and incredibly loving, nurturing mothers.  And I do think that part of that is it's good to surround yourself with people who believe in you.

And for many great achievers, that first person who believes in them and that constant presence who always believes in them throughout their entire career is their mother.

And so it was an uncomplicated relationship, a very loving relationship with his mother. And like I said, very complicated with his father. You know, there are these stories like he's playing a rec league basketball game as a 12 year old, and he's on the same team as his brother, Larry.

And it's a very close game. Michael steals the ball and scores the winning basket one game  again, like he's 12 and his brother is 13. And so this dramatic moment of triumph for him. You know, as you can tell, he's trying to impress his father and his father's at this game and he gets, you know, the winning steel and basket.

And so he's beaming and he gets in the car with his dad and his brother and all his father says is, Larry, that was great defense you played.  He doesn't say anything about Michael's performance or the fact that he scored the winning, or the fact that he scored the winning basket.

Okay, so this is someone who clearly, like is trying to drive his son in some way, I think, but as is so often the case with these great achievers, Michael, you know, he doesn't shrink because of these slights. He doesn't clam up. Uh, he just gets more and more determined to do something that will finally impress his father.

So I mentioned that sports was the one thing that Michael really tried hard at. At first that meant baseball. He was a good baseball player as a boy. In fact, at 12 years old, he was the best baseball player in the state.  But then his talent level started to taper off and, um, he, he stopped getting better as he got older.

In fact, you know, he comparatively got worse compared to the boys, his age, who were continuing to get better as he was not. And I think in part that was because he grew up before he grew out. So he wasn't super tall, um, but he was getting taller and, uh, you know, He was kind of gangly at this time in his life.

So he didn't have the strength to throw or hit hard enough to be a great baseball player.  But, you know, at the same time, he is becoming quite good at basketball as his baseball career is flatlining. And so finally it's in high school that he gives up on baseball and goes all in on basketball.  His freshman year, he plays for the JV team.

So if you're non Americans, most high schools will have a varsity team. That is the main team with the best players. And then a junior varsity team, JV. That is mostly ninth and 10th graders who aren't yet mature enough to compete at the highest level. So as a ninth grader, Michael Jordan plays on the junior varsity JV team.

And he's by far the best player on that team. He really comes into his own. At this point, he's a little bit below six foot. I think over the year he grows to about six one. Okay. So that's about 185 centimeters for those of you who don't use freedom units. He's a good athlete at this point. Um, you know, he, no one has any idea that this is someone who's going to be a professional athlete, let alone a great professional athlete.

A contemporary said about this period of his playing career, quote, the thing that really set him apart is he had tremendous competitiveness, that X, Y, Y chromosome in terms of competitiveness. That's maybe been his downfall in other areas of his life, but in basketball, that defunct.  That's maybe been his downfall in other areas of his life, but in basketball, that defined him, that transcended his athleticism.

Okay, so he's a good athlete. He can drive to the hoop, elevate over others. He's a good shooter. But it's really that competitive fire that defines him and that will continue to define him.  Now, for a normal basketball player, usually you play on JV as a freshman and sophomore. And then you progress to varsity as a junior and senior.

But for good players, it's not uncommon to jump to the varsity level for your sophomore year. That was actually my experience. I played three years of varsity basketball in high school. Yes, I'm comparing myself to Michael Jordan. No, no, my point is not that I'm as good as Michael Jordan. My point is, you know, I didn't even play college basketball.

I was a good basketball player, but not a great one. My point is, like, it's pretty normal for someone who's just pretty good to make the varsity team as a sophomore. , let alone, like, Michael Jordan, right? He should have had every expectation. of playing on the varsity team as a sophomore. But when the final roster was posted for the varsity team his sophomore year, Michael Jordan's name was not on the list.

And in all likelihood, the coach just wanted him to get more experience playing at the JV level. Even though Jordan was obviously better than some of the players on the varsity team, the coach probably reasoned that he would develop more as a player if he got to play for the entire game on the JV team than if he spent more than half the game sitting on the bench on the varsity team.

So it's not a totally unreasonable decision, especially since Laney high school. Uh, the high school where he went did have a very talented team. The team was actually returning 14 players from the previous year. And a basketball roster is only 15 players, sometimes less, right? So, so there really wasn't a lot of room for underclassmen to make the jump.

But of course, like it's Michael Jordan, right? So that's not how he's seeing it. He was furious and he was crushed that he didn't make the team as a sophomore. He went to his room and wept and he took this as a major slight. And once again, used this. As motivation, I'll show these people who cut me from the team.

Okay. So it's incredibly painful for him. Michael actually has a good quote from his autobiography about this. He says, learning is a gift, even when pain is your teacher.  And I like that. I like the idea of reframing pain as a teacher.

And so he was going through a lot of pain, but again, he wasn't letting it make him bitter. He was letting it teach him. Right. And that was another thing that set him apart. He was a great learner, although that wasn't always obvious, especially later in his career, but early on, it was one good story about this.

I'm skipping ahead a year, but he gets recruited a year later by a college scout and that's a big moment for him, right? It shows he's got the ability to take his game to the next level. Not just be a high school player, but be a college player. And most. You know, basketball players would be trying to sway the scout, show that they really are good enough for their program.

But here's what the scout says, quote, I saw a 6'3 player with explosive athletic ability. Gibbons wrote after,  I saw a 6'3 player with explosive athletic ability. But what impressed me was what Michael said when Bobby introduced him to me. Mr. Gibbons, what do I need to do to be a better player?  

Okay, so even in this moment when he's being recruited and it's like a chance to break through and Excel, he's still just thinking about, okay, how can I learn? How can I get better? So that teachability is another thing that sets him apart. He's always looking for any possible way to elevate his game.  So back to a sophomore year and that intensity, what does this new level of intensity look like for him?

Uh, I like this quote from a contemporary quote.

The first time I ever saw him, I had no idea who Michael Jordan was. I was helping to coach the Laney Varsity. We went over to Goldsboro, which was our big rival, and I entered the gym when the JV game was just ending up. There were nine players on the court just coasting, but there was one kid playing his art out.

But there was one kid playing his heart out. The way he was playing, I thought his team was down one point with two minutes to play. So I looked up at the clock, and his team was down 20 points, and there was only one minute to play. The way he was playing, I thought his team was down one point with two minutes to play.

So I looked up at the clock, and his team was down 20 points, and there was only one minute to play. It was Michael, and I quickly learned he was always like that.

Okay, so he's known for that competitive fire. So he's good as a sophomore, but he's limited by his height. Okay, and the bad news was, the genetics were not looking good. Okay, so he's about 6'1 at the end of his freshman year and he was already the tallest member of his family. His father and all his brothers were all under six feet tall.

And so Michael had this tremendous anxiety about getting taller. I don't believe that you can wish your way into growing taller. But if you can, Michael Jordan is one of the few people with the strength of will to make it happen. All right, that's what I believe. Here's what Lazenby Here's what the biographer Lazenby says about . Michael Jordan's quest to grow taller. He says he spent hours hanging from a bar in the backyard, hanging anywhere on anything that afforded a good grip, trying to make himself taller. His mother had witnessed everything that had unfolded and talked with him about his anxiety.

They prayed together about it, and Jordan prayed alone at the end of each day, and then he woke up in the morning, and all during the day as well. Please, Lord, make me taller. Let me grow. At 5'10 he already towered over the males in his family.

Oops,  cut that the prospects for that seemed slight. His parents counseled him to think about growing in his heart and in his mind.  Okay. So he's literally praying  morning, midday and night, and, and just thinking and meditating on getting taller and hanging from a bar, I guess, to like, try and stretch his spine to somehow get taller and, uh, and it works, you know, by the end of his junior year, he was six, four  and his junior year, he was Of high school is in many ways, his breakout year.

And it's ironic considering the eventual course of his career, but the main problem his coaches had his junior year that's his first year on the varsity team. Right. Right. And the first problem that they had with him was getting him to shoot more. He was too unselfish with the ball passing too much. So his coaches had to convince him to shoot more and this works.

It's good for Michael. It's good for the team. Lassenby writes at this urging, Michael began to take on more individually, which in turn revealed even more of his gift. It was then that the pattern, it was then that the pattern was established. The more he did, the more his coaches and his audience wanted him to do, and the more it began to please him to discover just what he was capable of doing.

His game and his image then began to feed on themselves, still only subtly in those early days of his career. But it would soon enough come to an end. But it would soon enough become clear that everything about him was beginning to multiply.  So as a junior in high school, he averages 24 points per game and 12 rebounds.

And those are great numbers.

So some local North Carolina scouts, , from various teams start to notice him. And he gets an invite to the nation's premier basketball camp. It's called five star.   He kind of, I mean, he makes it in so, so people must think he's good. , but there's no expectations that he will stand out, right?

This is the best of the best, that five star camp. And so he's not going in with buzz that, you know, Michael Jordan is going to be someone who can make a splash. He's just an attendee of the camp, but North Carolina, assistant coach, Roy Williams summarizes what happens pretty well, but.  Uh, he does stand out North Carolina assistant coach Roy Williams is one of the people who sees him and here's how he summarizes what he saw.

He says, Michael Jordan was clearly the best player there. He was out of sight. Michael came and he just destroyed everybody in the camp.

Okay. So he doesn't come in with a big name.  And one of the ways he stands out is once his workouts and games are done, he keeps sneaking back into the gym to play with other groups. And so scouts are seeing that he isn't just good. He had a real thirst to compete. So that camp happens in the summer between his junior and senior years.

And so going into his senior year now, um, at Laney High in Wilmington, North Carolina, He's kind of a big deal now. Lots of scouts are coming to see him. Uh, he's recruited by the University of North Carolina, which had one of the great college programs in the country, and he commits to playing there before his senior year.

And so he goes home now, you know, what college recruiters are saying doesn't mean much to the average person. But, uh, when people hear that you're committed to the university of North Carolina to play basketball, that does mean something. And so it's a big deal when he goes home now, he's sort of a minor celebrity.

In Wilmington and everyone comes to see his games. People have to be turned away at the door because these little gyms reach their capacity. One story I love from this era is that the Crosstown rival also had a lot of great players and some of them played in the NBA. Some of them played in the NFL, just like tremendous athletes.

And they play four times. That year, if I recall correctly, and, uh, Michael Jordan leads Laney to victories over this Crosstown rival in the first three matchups. Um, and then in the final one, the rival school wins and listen to what their star player had to say about it. Okay. This is the star player from the Crosstown rival.

You got to understand what fuels that guy, what makes him great. He took the pain of that loss. For most people, the pain of loss is temporary. He took that loss and held onto it. It's a part of what made him. Yeah. And it made me, he beat me three times. Two of those were in my own gym. Then we win the fourth game.

And to this day, I still feel bad about it.  Did you catch that at the end? I still feel bad about it. I think that is one of the keys for ultra competitive types like Jordan. People can sense your will to win. They can just sense how much he wanted it, right? He wanted it more than anyone, more than anything.

And so they know that you want it more than they do. And they feel bad about beating you. And I think that makes a difference. Some small voice in the back of their brain is telling them  you want it more than they do. And so they will feel bad if they win because you want it more. So do you think Michael Jordan would have ever said that about a win?

I still feel bad about it. Like,  of course not. Right. Of course not. Because winning meant everything to him. And so I do think, um, there's something to be said for just  Wanting it so much  that people, even your competitors in small, maybe subconscious ways, like kind of conspire. To help you win in little ways.

It's not going to work out every time. Didn't for Jordan who lost this final game. Um, but it works out more often than it doesn't. Right. Anyway, Michael's high school career does end with a little bit of heartache, but he's still a star and he's bound for the university of North Carolina.

It's interesting to see these little parallels between great athletes. This passage about Michael's start at UNC is amazing to me because it's exactly what legendary runner Steve Prefontaine did when he showed up at the University of Oregon. Here's what Michael did.  I saw it then, Worthy said, that was one of his teammates, the star of UNC before Jordan showed up, James Worthy.

Um, I saw it then. He had raw talent. And that was all he was. He came in very confident and seeking out the best and trying to target who he's going to dismantle. The freshman began telling his new teammates he was going to dunk on them. That irritated Worthy the most, it seemed. Others mostly laughed off his talk, but the behavior triggered a concern among the team's veteran players.

And he goes on. So according to Worthy, he is seeking out the best players and trying to target and dismantle them. So in practice, what that meant was challenging them to games of one on one at practice.  And at first, Michael didn't win every time, but as time wore on, of course, he began to dominate. And that's just like Steve Prefontaine, Pre, who showed up at Oregon and immediately started challenging everyone to races.

So there is something to this, this competitiveness, this desire to compete and show that you're better.  Once again, he's of course very intense. He's also extremely coachable. He's got this thirst to learn still. His coach Dean Smith said, I had never seen a player listen so closely to what the coaches said and then go and do it.

 Michael shows himself to be exceptional in the practices leading up to the season. And so he's put into the starting lineup from the start, which was quite rare at the time. You know, most of the time it was kind of like a replay of high school. Right. Um, except there's no JV team in colleges, but you know, freshmen generally would not start, didn't have the chance to start.

Um, so it's kind of a big statement that Michael Jordan is put in the starting lineup of one of the best college programs in the nation. Even so. James Worthy was the star of the show, and Jordan was a role player. A very good role player, he averaged 13. 5 points per game, 53 percent shooting,  you know, not a star.

Coach Dean Smith, that was his coach at UNC, he was big on playing within the system, okay, playing within the offense. And that is mostly what Michael did. But as the season goes on, his role grows, especially in the playoffs, the NCAA tournament. UNC makes it all the way to the championship game. And as they're going through the tournament, Jordan is playing more and more.

And he's standing out more and more.  They play Georgetown in the final. And it's a very close game. Coach Dean Smith calls a timeout before the final possession with his team down one,  and according to him, according to Dean Smith, he makes the decision that Jordan, Michael Jordan should be the one to take the final shot.

Okay. The idea being Georgetown. The idea being Georgetown was going to have a game plan around stopping their best player, James Worthy, and that would leave Michael Jordan relatively open. So UNC passes the ball in, and they pass it around for a bit, and then they reverse it to Michael Jordan, who without hesitation, rises up, and with 14 seconds left on the shot, rises up, and with 14 seconds left on the clock, knocks down a jump shot.

Okay, the crowd goes berserk. Actually, Georgetown still has a little time to try and score. But they come down, turn the ball over, game over. Everyone celebrates. Michael Jordan is the hero who has scored the final shot, the game winning shot of a national championship.  Some people have questioned whether the play really was drawn up for Michael Jordan, and it's true that if you go back and watch it, it doesn't necessarily look like a designed play for him, but either way, whether it was called for Jordan or not, it's a Testament to his nerves, the way he just steps into the shot, no hesitation.

Jordan later said that he visualized the shot on the team bus ride to the game. He also said, quote, It was predestined. It was destiny. Ever since I made that shot, everything has just fallen into place for me.

I find it very interesting that both he and Napoleon had this firm belief in destiny. That's an interesting concept to me. Obviously, there is something very powerful about believing in your own destiny.  So that shot was Michael's arrival on the national stage. And for the rest of his life, he would be a major celebrity.

Like from that moment on, he does well for the rest of his career at UNC. Although there were some criticisms of his coach, Dean Smith, that he didn't let Jordan shine enough.

You know, as I noted, he was a system coach. He liked his players to stay in that system, to pass the ball around, to only shoot when they had the open shot, not really break down the defense and make one on plays. So Jordan averaged 17 points per game the next season. And there was a joke that people would tell who's the only person who can hold Michael Jordan under 20 points per game.

The answer, Dean Smith. All right. In other words, no defender could stop Michael Jordan from getting 20 points a game, but his coaches stopping him from doing it. But Jordan himself never leveled that criticism. He actually loved Dean Smith. They had a very tight relationship and he didn't mind playing in the UNC system, even though it meant scoring, you know, fewer points than he might have otherwise.

So he played for two more seasons, his sophomore and junior year. And, um, so he played for two more seasons, his sophomore and junior year. And the team is very good, but there are some injuries, you know, just little things happen and they never managed to win another championship.

And then with the advice of coach Dean Smith, Michael Jordan decides to leave college and enter the NBA after his junior year.

Michael Jordan was actually surprise, surprise, a very light eater. I believe the phrase was used that he ate like a bird and he was very conscious of what he put in his body.  You just can't expect to perform your best if you're not consuming high quality ingredients.

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 Coming out of college, Michael Jordan was considered one of the top prospects, but not the top prospect managers really like to select seven footers when possible because they were viewed as necessary to a winning team and more of a sure thing, right?  You can't teach height. Right. And how bad can you be if you're seven feet tall?

So, you know, these, these managers, these GMs who are selecting picks, especially at this time, they really liked seven footers. So the first overall pick was Hakeem Olajuwon, big, you know, seven foot something center. And of course it's never good to pass on Michael Jordan, but this is a defensible pick, you know, Hakeem Owajuwon ended up being a multi time all star.

He's a hall of famer. He's one of the greatest players in NBA history. He's not Michael Jordan, but most people rate him as somewhere between like the 10th and 20th best player of all time. So like it is a good pick. With the second pick the Portland Trailblazers select Sam Bui  and Bui is widely regarded as one of the worst draft picks of all time.

The truth is. He wasn't that bad. I mean, actually, if you go look at his highlights, you can see why someone would pick him second overall. He's kind of a crazy athlete and he's got great hands. I mean, huge wingspan, but his problem was he was injury plagued. He broke his leg. He had a bunch of injuries. And so, um, that ruined his career and, you know, he never got to stay on the floor much.

And, you know, he's obviously dinged because the Blazers picked him instead of Michael Jordan. So Jordan is selected third by the Chicago Bulls. He's viewed as a flashy and promising young player. But at this point, no one has expectations that he could be  anything like the greatest player of all time.

The first hint. That he might be something special comes when he leads the USA to a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics before the start of the NBA season, he wasn't necessarily the most highly regarded player coming in, but he really seizes control of the team. But he really seizes control of the team.  One of my favorite stories is when they show up for this warmup tournament, the Pan Am games.

Uh, they get to their accommodations and, uh, they walk inside this, um, you know, athletes village. And the conditions are just horrible. Uh, they have not been well planned and they are just these empty cement rooms with no furniture.  And so you got all these basketball players and they're looking in and they're just staring and no one knows how to react.

And Jordan just drops his bag on the floor and says, let's get to work.  One of the coaches remembered quote, Michael Jordan stepped up and said, this is the athlete's village. We're okay. And when Michael said it, everyone else was good with it. We're here to get our metal. Jordan told his teammates, let's go about our business.

So yeah, I'd like, uh, you got to love that leadership, right? Of no one knows how to react. And it's like, they just needed permission to believe that it was okay.. And it's like, they just needed permission to believe that it was okay. And he gave them that. That's what leaders do, right? So, yeah, um, they play really well.

Jordan is the leader of the team, and they win the gold. It's a special moment for Michael. Twelve years earlier, at age nine, Twelve years earlier, at age nine, he had been watching on TV as the United States he had been watching on the TV as the United States had lost to the Russians, the Soviet Union, in the 1972 Summer Olympics.

And it was an extremely controversial ending to the game. In fact, , the Americans refused to show up and accept their silver medals. They thought the game was rigged , it was, yeah, it was, it was horrible. Right. And Michael Jordan's just a nine year old watching this and he's so fired up and he goes to the kitchen and tells his mom.

Uh, quote, I'm going to be in the Olympics one day and I'm going to make sure we win. Okay. And, uh, you know, she doesn't think much of it at the time, but now it's 1984 and at 21 years of age, Michael Jordan fulfills his promise that he made at nine years old and he wins a gold medal for the USA.

That's not the only thing he does. It's a very momentous summer for him before he begins in the NBA. The other big thing that happens at the time is that Nike was about to make one of the best decisions in its history. Uh, their executives had a two point something million dollar budget for pro basketball shoe endorsements.

And generally they spread that around a bunch of players, right? And they had this very interesting, uh, promoter named Sonny Vaccaro. Vaccaro, Vaccaro? I think it's Vaccaro, Sonny Vaccaro. Um, and he had seen Michael Jordan play and he said, Hey guys, this year, instead of spreading around our budget,  I want to give it all to this Michael Jordan kid to make sure we land him  because I think it's, it's transformational.

And of course there's all this, uh, this backlash and people saying like, what are you talking about? This kid hasn't even played in the NBA yet. Why would you give him our entire basketball marketing budget? And Sonny Vaccaro says, yeah, it's Vaccaro. Sonny Vaccaro says. Just believe me. Okay. Believe me. And, and Nike ends up trusting Sonny Vaccaro and Michael Jordan did not want to go with Nike at all.

He liked Adidas much better. But they offer him this contract 2. 5 million  and he goes to Adidas. And he's like, look, you don't even have to beat their offer. Can you just get kind of close to it? And they're like, no, this is crazy. We can not get anywhere close to it. He's like, all right, I guess I'll take the Nike deal.

And it ended up being, you know, one of the greatest business deals of all time for both parties.  Michael Jordan became a billionaire off of it eventually. And it basically made Nike, . It made them a household name. So. Incredible deal for both parties involved. Sonny Vaccaro, by the way, the next time that he would say, Hey, I found another athlete that I think we should go all in on.

It was Kobe Bryant. So like, this is someone who could really evaluate talent., would love to study him someday and learn what his secret was.  So, uh, he signs this deal with Nike. He's getting a lot of money from them. Uh, he's a gold medalist. And when he shows up in Chicago, he finds a franchise that is just pitiful.

This was a time in the NBA when players were making tons of money, For the first time, , you know, in the fifties and in the sixties. And really in the seventies, they just hadn't been making that much money as professional basketball players. But now, you know, they're millionaires, they're making tons and they just really were not ready to deal with the amount of money that was coming to them.

And so lots of NBA players made bad decisions of partying cocaine addiction was especially prevalent. And Chicago was one of the worst teams for this. Uh, A lot of their players were addicted to cocaine. A lot of them were partying. A lot of them didn't even really care about basketball. And besides that, like the franchise was just in shambles.

Uh, the facilities were really bad.

The facilities were really bad. Their practice court, like sometimes they would have to wait on high school and even middle school teams to finish before they could practice and no one cared about the bulls. Chicago was a football town. Uh, there,  Chicago was a football town. That's all anyone cared about.

They were lucky if their arena was half filled. For a game. It was just a bad situation in Chicago.  The good news is that the team was so bad and so rudderless. The Michael Jordan has no problem making himself the de facto leader in the locker room.  He really does this first in practice. Okay. Before games even start his teammate, uh, said that quote, he came to practice every day, like it was game seven of the NBA finals, he would destroy you in practice.

That's what set the tone for our team.  And once the regular season starts, Jordan is good right away. You know, he's a rookie, never played before, um, but he acclimatizes to NBA basketball very quickly. He scores 45 points in just his ninth game. And then he starts rattling off 40 point games, 42 against New York, 45 against Atlanta, 45 again against Cleveland.

So his intensity had managed to turn around the morale and focus of the team. And they actually sneak into the playoffs with a 38 and 44 record.  They're beaten in the first round by the Milwaukee Bucks.

So that's Jordan's rookie year. In his second year, Jordan broke his foot and missed a few months of games. He made it back in time for the playoffs where they played the dominant Boston Celtics in the first round. And, um, one of the very famous lines of Jordan's life comes from that series. So in game two of that playoff series, , they had lost game one.

. And Michael Jordan determined that he was going to have to do just about everything if they wanted to win against the Celtics. And so he was determined to do just that. And so he comes out gunning in game two and he went off for 63 points and the Celtics try to defend him with everyone. They put, uh, Danny Ainge on him.

They put Kevin McHale on him for a while. They put Larry Bird on him for a while and no one can stop him. 63 points. It was the most points ever scored in a playoff game. But  even so the bulls fell just short. Losing 135 to 131 in double overtime.  Afterwards, when the Celtic star, Larry Bird was asked about Michael Jordan's performance, he said, Oh, that wasn't Michael Jordan.

That was God disguised as Michael Jordan. Okay. And that becomes one of the all time great NBA quotes as God disguised as Michael Jordan.

So in his first two years, Michael Jordan had already elevated the Bulls from bottom of the barrel. One of the worst teams in the league. To a fringe playoff team, right? They're just barely making the playoffs. And the next year, the Bulls hire a new head coach named Doug Collins.  Okay. So the first year of Doug Collins, Michael Jordan averaged 37 points per game, which is the most points per game ever scored in an 82 game season.

And that record still stands by the way. But the bulls were once again, uh, they make the playoffs. They do a little better, but once again, even so they're swept by the Celtics.

You know, he's, he's averaging 37 points a game, which is like jaw dropping. It's amazing. But his ball dominance became somewhat controversial. And after one game, as Michael Jordan walked off the floor, one of the assistant coaches barked at him, Hey, Michael, there's no I in team. And Jordan shoots right back.

Yeah, but there isn't win.   Becomes controversial, but as you can see, Michael Jordan does not really have a mind towards slowing his scoring pace at all. The next year, Michael Jordan wins MVP, and the Bulls win 50 games for the first time in franchise history.

And they made it past the first round for the first time, beating the Cavaliers.  And this time, in the second round, they face not the Celtics, but the Pistons. The Pistons were very physical. Their nickname was the Bad Boys. Okay. You hear people talking about the bad boys, Pistons, and they would knock you down, throw elbows.

They're kind of dirty, especially Bill Lampier is one of their forwards. They just beat you by beating you up. Right. Very physical,  like physically punishing to play the South. It was like physically punishing to play the Pistons. They were also great. They're great teams. They won two championships, one in 89 and 90, I think.

And the Pistons would beat the Bulls in the playoffs for three consecutive years. Okay, so this is who they have to try and get through, and year after year they're failing. Uh, one of the things the Pistons use is something they call the Jordan Rules, which were a specific set of rules for guarding Michael Jordan to make sure he couldn't do too much damage against them in the playoffs.

And so they would double team him, force him to the middle of the floor, where there was help defense, try to deny him the ball as much as possible, all sorts of stuff. And it really worked. The Bulls just couldn't deal with the Pistons.

It's this great rivalry.  The teams genuinely do not like each other. Like hated each other, but they all,  the cheap, the teams do not like each other, like genuinely hated each other, but they also brought out the best in each other. There were these amazing games between the two teams, the Pistons, uh, main star,  uh, Joe Dumars, actually, anyway, one of their main stars described it this way, quote, those games were intense, emotional.

It could be the middle of January, but it was always like the playoffs, incredible intensity. Everybody was emotional in those games. Nobody wanted to lose. And we would sit there with tears in our eyes when we didn't win. I'm fortunate and blessed that I played in that kind of atmosphere.

So they keep making it further and further in the playoffs,  but they keep facing the Pistons every time these three years. So, um, and I should mention actually, that is during this era that you have one of Michael Jordan's most iconic moments is now simply known as the shot. It was a last minute shot against the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The Bulls were down one with three seconds remaining  and

the Bulls were down one with three seconds remaining. So the Bulls call a timeout and Doug Collins, the coach actually draws up a play for someone else. Uh, cause he's figuring, well, they're going to double team Michael. So someone else should get the shot.  Michael smacks the clipboard and he yells, just give me the effing ball.

So that is the play call. Just give Michael the effing ball. And, uh, so they're inbounding it. They do double team, Michael. And so he breaks out from this double team, gets the ball,

breaks out his double team, gets the ball. He takes two dribbles to the top of the key where he pulls up for a shot and he jumps and for a moment, his defender, Craig Elo catches up and has his hand right on the ball, but Jordan just hangs in the air while Elo drifts past him. And he double clutches and shoots the ball.

And it goes in and game is over bulls win. And Michael Jordan is there in the middle of the court, just pumping his arm wildly in the air. While ELO like dramatically throws his arms up and collapses on the sideline, like in total despair. It's honestly like,  if you have never seen.  Just go to YouTube right now and search Michael Jordan, the shot and watch this.

It's like a Renaissance painting. Like the reactions are so amazing. It's so poetic. It's almost unbelievable that it actually happened. Anyway, I didn't want to skip over that.

So regardless, I mean, that is one of the all time great Michael Jordan moments. They win that series, but then they play the Pistons the next round and they lose.

In that series that they lose to the Pistons, you can see how Jordan pushed people. So, um, it's a, it's actually a seven game series. Okay. It goes to game seven. It's best of seven.  The Bulls have won three, the Pistons have won three. It's going to game seven.  And, um, two of their best players,  uh, were injured.

So Paxson, he's a good shooter and he had a sprained ankle. And then Scotty Pippen, who you might've heard of, had some really bad migraines. He'd get migraines sometimes. And so before game seven. He has these horrible migraines, right? And it's looking like he's not gonna be able to play through him. And so, uh, this is what happened according to the team trainer, Mark Fail.

He said, he actually came to me before the game and said he couldn't see. I said, can you play? He started to tell me no. And Michael jumped in and said, hell yes, he can play. Start him, let him play blind.  Okay. So, uh, that was how badly Michael Jordan wanted to win and how badly he was willing to push other people.

He's like, I don't care if Scottie Pippen is blind, he's playing tonight. Okay. He pushed people, he gave everything and he expected everyone else to give everything as well when they were playing. Okay. So obviously Pippen does play.  But regardless,  they lost game seven and they lose to the Pistons again.

However, a few things turned around for them the next season. First of all, they had a new head coach in 1989 named Phil Jackson. Phil is a character. He's like a Zen cowboy. Okay. So on the one hand, he grows up in a very rural area in the U. S. It grows up in Montana and North Dakota. Like really, it doesn't get more  rural than that.

And so he has this hardworking cowboy background,  but he was also big into the counterculture movement. He had done LSD in the sixties. He was big into meditation and native American rituals and yoga. He would burn sage in the locker room to ward off bad spirits. Okay. He's like this very interesting guy.

And he was a very keen student of psychology and human nature. He was very hands off for the most part, but he knew just when to push someone's buttons, to push them to a higher level of performance. So the Vols really improve under, um, so the Vols really improve under Phil Jackson. And a big part of that is him getting Jordan to realize that for the good of the team, he needs to share the ball more.

In fact, one of the strategies of the Pistons had been, let's let Michael Jordan shoot as much as he wants through the first three quarters. And then in the fourth quarter, we double team him.  And so the other Bulls players have basically not shot the ball through the first three quarters. So they're cold, they're out of rhythm, and they're not ready to knock down open shots.

So when they start double teaming Michael Jordan in the fourth quarter, you know, he's throwing it to these open guys and they're bricking all their shots.

So Michael Jordan's kind of selfishness with the ball had gotten so bad that other people were using it as a part of their strategy. So in Jackson's first year, there is quite a bit of improvement though. They were still knocked out of the playoffs by the Pistons,

but the Bulls are even better in Phil Jackson's second year with the team. Part of that was due to the improvement. Of Scotty Pippen, who we just mentioned, uh, he became an all star that year. So he had been improving, but that was the year he really arrived as an elite player in the NBA.  One thing that Phil Jackson figured out was he could turn Pippen and Jordan on each other in practice.

He would organize games with Jordan on one side and Pippen on the other. And the competition was absolutely fierce. Jordan had always brought a high level of intensity to practices. But this was the first time, at the NBA level at least, that he had a teammate who could actually push him to another level.

You know, before on these horrible Bulls teams, like, Michael Jordan was one of the only things they had going for him. Whoever's team Michael Jordan was on was going to win no problem. But now with another all star, you know, Scotty Pippen on the other side, like it's intense. These, these games are good

and they're just, I mean, we'll hear more stories about it later that they're extremely intense practices and that gets the Bulls, you know, and that gets the Bulls playing at a very, very high level.

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 1991 season is the first time that the Bulls get past the Pistons. So they play them in the conference finals in the Eastern conference. Finals, um, but they beat them and they make it to the NBA finals. And in that series, they were playing the Los Angeles Lakers. The Bulls went up 3 1 and in the fifth game of the series, you can really see the influence of Jackson's leadership.

The Bulls went up 3 1 and in the fifth game of the series, again, it's best of seven, so if they win four games, they win. So game five, the bulls have a chance to close it out. And it's in that game that you can really see Phil Jackson's leadership. He was very tight. And as the game went deeper into the second half, Michael Jordan was trying to do everything himself and struggling in the process, right?

Obviously the Lakers can then just key in their defense on Michael Jordan. And so during a timeout late in the fourth quarter, Phil Jackson turns to Michael and says, Michael. Michael Jordan is like kind of stunned, doesn't know if he actually wants an answer. And so he doesn't say anything. And he says again to him, Michael, who's open.

And finally, Michael looks up and says, Pax. And Jackson says, we'll throw him the effing ball.  And so, uh, Jordan's like, okay, I guess we'll see. So he goes in, he drives, kicks it out to Paxson who knocks down a three immediately, and he does that a few more times. Uh, john Paxson had a huge game, knocked down some clutch threes and they win. They win the championship.

It's a huge celebration in Chicago, you know, as I said, Chicago was not a basketball town. No one cared about the bulls when Michael Jordan came to Chicago. But over these, what was it, six, seven years before they won the championship, you know, Michael Jordan was such an outstanding athlete. He's such an exciting player that he was a global phenomenon.

People came to see him wherever he played. But, you know, the bulls had become huge in Chicago. And so there's a, uh, Big party, uh, when they get home, big parade and a huge celebration when they win their first championship,  they win again, the next year, this time they beat the trailblazers in the finals, and then, um, they win a third time in a row, the following season.

And shortly before that third championship, Michael's father, James Jordan had been killed in a robbery gone wrong. He had been driving somewhere and had pulled off the side of the road and, uh, and gone to sleep in his car. And someone had come to rob him and, uh, and killed him.

had a huge psychological effect on Michael Jordan, who had this very complicated relationship with his father, but he loved him very, very much and always was really trying to please him still in his life.

And so he's got this major stress in his life. , it's causing depression, frankly, from the death of his father. And at the same time, stress had been building on the bulls for multiple directions for years now. There were conflicts between management and the players, conflicts between players, especially when a book was published called The Jordan Rules.

And it was a tell all that exposed what the team was like on the inside. And it showed Michael Jordan in a very unflattering light. It talked about these intense practices, and how he would yell and scream at players, and  push them, and, and, you know.  He came across as like a tyrant, very abusive. And it became clear from reading this book, that some players had spoken to the press about this.

And so, uh, You know, Jordan is like, okay, well, we got some traders here on the team. So, you know, he's got the stress from all this pressure plus the death of his father. And so Michael Jordan, after three straight championships, he feels like he has nothing left to prove and he decides to retire  and he decides in his retirement.

And he decides when he retires, you know, he's only 30 years old.  He's extremely young still. Uh, so everyone's saying, what are you going to do? And the thing he decides to do Is play baseball instead. And I think there was some deep seated psychological issues with his father at play.  Some  somewhat how

I think there was some deep seated psychological issues in his decision to play baseball. Um, his father had loved baseball. That was his favorite sport.  And he had loved watching Michael as a little leaguer when he was very talented at baseball..  And he was the member of the family who was most reluctant to see Michael give up on baseball to play basketball.

Although he obviously did come around eventually. So anyway, uh,  for whatever reason, Michael says, I've proven everything I need to prove at basketball. , I'm sick of this. I'm sick of the stress and the pressure. I want to go play baseball.  So he signs with the White Sox, which is a team in Chicago. He plays for their program.

He never makes it to the big leagues. He never plays actually for the white Sox, but he plays for their affiliate programs, it's called the minor leagues. Okay. So like, uh,  not the top league, um, but he plays professional baseball. He's actually not terrible,  he's actually not terrible.

He's not good, but he's not terrible, which is pretty remarkable actually. Cause as gifted as an athlete, you know, Michael Jordan was, you can't just take 15 years off of a sport and then expect to be able to compete at a professional level. Like that is pretty insane. The fact that he could complete.  The fact that he could compete and do okay in the minor leagues is pretty remarkable in and of itself.

Um, but he is actually, he's pretty bad at the start, but over the course of just a year, he makes a lot of progress and he's hitting like around 300, which is like a pretty good batting percentage by the time he stops playing baseball.

But eventually there's a, a lockout in baseball. They can't make an agreement between the players association and the owners of the teams. And so he's like, Oh, great. I left basketball to play baseball. Now I can't play baseball. There's no professional baseball happening.

So he's like, Oh, what will I do? I was like, Oh, I wonder what's happening at the, uh, at the bulls facility. And so he just starts showing up at practices. And he's shooting around a little bit and, you know, doing some drills with some guys playing. And, um, he's like, huh, I really miss this. You know, it's dangerous to get him back in the gym because he, he, he realizes what he'd been missing.

And so, um, he starts showing up to practices and then he finally decides, all right, it's time. And he issues what is one of the greatest press releases of all time. It's two words long. It just says, I'm back.  That's it. It is literally a press release that just says, you know, from Michael Jordan's agent, dah, dah, dah.

I'm back.  I would love to know who on his team was behind that move because, uh, I haven't found that information anywhere, but it's brilliant. You know, the greatest slogans and statements are always just a few words. You know, I'm back. Just do it. Think different. Um, veni, vidi, vici. Right. Just a few words.

If you can capture something, you In just a few words that sticks in people's brains.  Well, Jordan's first year back, uh, he joins late in the season. He's still playing himself into shape and they actually do make the playoffs and they make a run, but they're not able to get it done. They don't make it to the finals.

However, that summer they get a full summer of training camp. According to everyone who's there, it is like  an insane level of practice and intensity. You know, Jordan's practice. I've said it a bunch of times now.  They're always insanely intense, right? But he's just ratcheting it up year by year. It's getting more and more intense,

And you get some crazy stories from this training camp, uh, by now there were new teammates who had not experienced Jordan's practices. One of those was a player named Steve Kerr, and he described the experience this way we had no idea. He was so intense and condescending in many ways. None of us felt comfortable. On a daily basis, he would just dominate practice. Not physically, but emotionally. And in an intimidating fashion. He was going to make us compete. Whether we wanted to or not,

There's certain days where it's like, you're an NBA player and you're exhausted. Every team goes through this. There's just days that you're not There's just days and you're going to go and get your shots up, but you just need your rest. And Michael doesn't need rest. He doesn't sleep even today. He doesn't need rest and the other guys do.

And so on those days when people were tired, he would ridicule us and cajole us and, you know, just yell at us. It was tough. It was hard to deal with.

Okay. So like, it sounds like borderline abusive, right? And then one day it actually boils over in practice. And, uh, well, here's what happens according to Steve Kerr. And, uh, well, actually here's what happens according to Steve Kerr.  This is what I remember. We had a scrimmage and the starters were beating up on us.

We were the red team and they were getting away with fouling. Michael was just being incredibly physical. And Phil had left to go up to his office. He had to go tend to a phone call or something. And so Phil's absence definitely led to a situation where it was a little out of control. Michael was talking all kinds of crap.

It really is a kind of blur as to what he was saying. But I got really fed up, you know. Because I felt like they were fouling every time. And Michael was fouling. The assistant coaches are reffing and they don't want to call a foul on Michael. He's talking and I start talking back. I'm not sure anyone had done that before.

He was guarding me, and I think I used my off arm and threw an elbow or something to get him off me, and he kept talking. Then I'm yapping, and the next play, I'm running through the lane, and he gives me a forearm shiver in the middle of the lane, and I give him one back. And he basically came after me. I was like the kid in Jurassic Park who got attacked by the Velociraptor.

I had no chance. It was just mayhem. We were screaming at each other, and our teammates, thank God, they all ran in and pulled us apart. But I ended up with a black eye. Apparently I got punched. I don't even remember getting hit.  Michael stormed out of practice, and Phil came down and came over to talk to me.

He said, you and Michael have to patch things up. You gotta talk to him, and you gotta patch it up. I got home, and there was a message on my phone on my answering machine from Michael, and he apologized. And it was weird. It was like from that day forward, our relationship was great. Like, you know, a few days after that, where it was a little weird, just because of what had happened.

But clearly, he accepted me from that point on.  Okay, so it takes a fist fight for Michael Jordan to fully accept Steve Kerr. As a teammate, and that was classic Michael Jordan, not necessarily the fist fight. I mean, that's the only time I heard about that, but he liked to test people to push them. And if you folded and gave into him, that was the worst thing you could do.

And you know, a lot of people made that mistake, but if you stood up to him, then he would respect you. It's very Steve jobs ask, right?  He did that exact same thing. You know, he would needle and push and push his employees.  To see if they really believed in what they were saying, and if they stood up for themselves, then he respected that.

And if they folded, oh, then he was just going to walk all over them.

And look, that approach, it's not for everyone, but I mean, jeez, I mean, it seems to work in terms of getting high level of performance out of your team, whether in sports or in business.

You know, the other thing I'll say about it briefly, Is Bill Gates joke that any biography about Steve jobs should be called. Don't try this at home. And I do think that,  um, if that's in you, if you have that dog, like Michael Jordan or Steve jobs, then accept it and don't be afraid to test people and push them.

Uh, apparently it works in certain contexts and that's great. But if you don't, there's nothing worse than someone unnecessarily being a jerk. Because they're pulling an Elizabeth Holmes and they're, you know, consciously trying to do a Steve Jobs impression. So I wouldn't necessarily try to emulate Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs in that regard.

If that's who you are, then don't be ashamed of it. It's a great approach for those for whom it works. Um, but if that's not you, don't fake it.  So this is extremely intense training camp. Um, kind of whips the team into shape. Jordan leads his team to three more championships in three consecutive years, once again.

In the final NBA finals series in the 1998 season, they played the Utah Jazz in the finals. And in game six, the Bulls were up three, two in a best of seven series. So if they win this game, they win the championship.

And it came right down to the wire. The Jazz actually had the ball.  They had possession of the ball and they were up one point with only 20 seconds left. And Carl Malone was probably their best player. And he's holding the ball. And Michael Jordan comes up behind him and strips the ball from him. He dribbles up the court.

And waited out the clock on the left side of the court.

He dribbled up the court and waited out the clock on the left side of the court, a little bit above the three point line. And then with about nine seconds left, he started his move toward the center of the court. He takes a couple dribbles and then crossed the ball from his right hand to his left as his defender went skidding by.

He pulled up for a perfect 18 footer, which he sank. He held his high.  He held his hand high in the air. It was a perfect follow through to a perfect shot. That capped a perfect career.

The bulls actually might've had another championship run in them.  Um, Michael Jordan actually wanted to try and run it back, but the team was broken up by mismanagement. Uh, the time was coming to renegotiate Phil Jackson's contract and the bulls didn't want to pay him the going salary for top coach in the league.

They thought it was too much. And their general manager, Jerry Krause kind of wanted to prove that he could win a championship without Phil Jackson. And so they said they weren't going to bring back Phil Jackson. And Jordan said, well, I'm not going to play for anyone else other than Phil Jackson. So pay him, bring him back or I'm gone.

And, uh,  they didn't pay him. They let Phil Jackson go and true to his word, when the Bulls let go of Phil, Michael Jordan retired.

And so that, that final shot  did mark the end of his career. Uh, he actually did come back a few years later. But by this point, uh, I think he was 40 when he came back 40, 41. And, uh, he played for a really bad team, the Washington wizards.  Uh, it was not a glorious comeback. Uh, I like to always think of Jordan eternally posed with that perfect follow through and I tried to never think about his diminished playing days from 2001 and 2002.

After that, Michael Jordan retires for a third time. It's time for good. And he became the owner Of a team, the Charlotte Bobcats. He was a pretty terrible owner, to be honest, the team did really poorly under his management. And he recently sold them  in other ventures. He has done better. His deal with Nike is the most lucrative deal of its kind ever from both sides.

And it has made Michael Jordan a billionaire. Um, Jordan brand is a separate brand within the Nike company and Jordan shoes. There's like a whole culture.  Of Jordan shoes. They sell for hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars. And, uh, it's a very successful brand and it has made Michael Jordan. Um, I mean, there were years in which he made hundreds of millions of dollars in a single year.

I  mean, there were years when he made hundreds of millions of dollars in a single year, just from his Nike contract, like not from playing basketball.

And, you know, I could go more into the business side of things, but the truth of the matter is,  Michael Jordan is not a great businessman.  He's fine. Um, he's done some things well with Jordan brand. He's done other things, you know, not so well. Uh, I know some people who've worked in Nike and  most of them did not consider Jordan brand a, uh, a paragon of effective management.

Um, so yeah, I mean, that's fine.  You know, so yeah, and that's fine. Michael Jordan was a great athlete, a great competitor. And my attitude is who cares what else he may or may not have been good at.  So, uh, I'll close with one of my favorite Michael Jordan quotes. And here's what he said. I can accept failure.

Everyone fails at something, but I can't accept not trying. I can't accept it.

But Michael Jordan was a great athlete, a great competitor, and who cares what else he may or may not have been good at. You know, as an athlete, as a competitor, he is eternal. He's the greatest basketball player of all time. He is, I mean, all you have to say, he is Michael Jordan.  I'll close with one of my favorite quotes that he said.

He said, I can accept failure. Everyone fails at something, but I can't accept not trying. I can't accept it.  Thank you for listening for you. Premium subscribers. The show goes on. I'll run through my takeaways and I'll talk about the show. For you premium scribe,  thank you for listening for you premium subscribers.

The show goes on, I'll run through my takeaways and I'll talk about some of my end notes. Talk about Michael Jordan's gambling a little bit about his philanthropy, how he helped to orchestrate the famous Jordan dunk pose photograph. I'll talk a very little bit about LeBron versus Jordan and whether Jordan,  is the greatest player of all time or LeBron is, , I'll talk about whether Jordan pushed off.

Whether that famous last shot was actually an offensive foul. I actually found some pretty interesting information on that.  Anyways, if you'd like to hear all that, you can go to takeoverpod. supercast. com and subscribe. Or if you're an Apple podcast, you can subscribe right there in the app. Also as a reminder, if you would like a premium subscription, but for whatever reason you can't afford one, maybe you are a student, maybe you just got laid off.

It doesn't matter the reason, go ahead and send me an email at Ben. at takeoverpod. com and I will give you one year of premium for free. You don't have to explain yourself, just say, Hey Ben, I want premium and can't afford it, or I'm a student, or whatever, and I'll get that all set up.  Okay, until next time, thank you for listening to How to Take Over the World. 📍  

Michael Jordan was always benchmarking.

   One of the things that Phil Jackson would do to motivate his players is hand out books. And not like the same book to the whole team. He would give personal books as gifts to his players. Um, and they were often like kind of weird esoteric stuff. So song of Solomon, he gave out Shantaram, like very 60s, 70s, hippie stuff that he'd grown up with that had motivated him.

Right. And inspired him because  he really believed that reading the right thing at the right time could affect someone's performance. Well, the only problem is how are you going to get through all the reading that you want to do? Well, the problem is if you're like me, how are you gonna get through all the reading you want to do?

There's a million things I would love to read. Just where do I find the time?  Where I find the time is with Speechify. I think it's so great. I put my Kindle books on there, articles I get recommended, uh, even emails and files you can upload. They have great AI voices, which matters if you're trying to be efficient.

Cause they're understandable even at 3X or 3. 2X speed, which I've been known to use sometimes. You can even listen to my voice if you really, really want more of this. So anyway, check them out at speechify. com slash Ben and how to take over the world. Fans can get 15 percent off speechify premium. Check them out. You won't regret it. That is speechify. com slash Ben.

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