Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Becoming Kareem, the Skyhook, and the Search for a Self [From the Archive]

0:00This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is the James Altiger Show. Presenting the archive. Classic episodes that remain timeless. The raw unfiltered conversations from the early days in which people shared their failures and showed us exactly how they rebuilt everything from the ground up. So, very excited to have Cream Abdul Jbar. Cream, welcome to the podcast. Thank you very much. Nice to be here. I always have to start off an intro with the obvious unfortunately, which is you're definitely one of the greatest basketball players of all time. You have the record of most points scored in your career. You played 20 seasons. Your team was the champion for so many years.

1:00I don't know how many records you have broken in basketball that still haven't been. When you haven't played, Professions is 1989. In your record still lasts. You would think by now somebody would have scored more than 38,000 points in their career, but it has not happened. Do you think basketball has changed? Well, basketball has changed a little bit. The three-point shot and the way they changed the rules with regard to defense now have changed the game somewhat. You can't play physical defense anymore. Hand checking and the close proximity and bumping people. You can't do that. If you could do that, the three-point shots wouldn't be falling like they do. But now that they've taken the hands off of the offensive players so that they can shoot those three-point shots, the three-point shot has become a lot more important. I'll give you an example. We won the World Championship in 1985. Probably the best team I played on with the Lakers. And we averaged about four or five three-point shots per game. And over that year, for the whole season, from the first game of the season until the last game of the playoffs,

2:04we shot about 95 to 103-point shots. In 2015, when Golden State won their first championship with Steph Curry for the season, they shot over 1,000 three-point shots. So basically, just the dynamic of scoring points has changed. And that extra point that you get for that longer shot can be a game changer. It can fill the balance of games. So having efficient three-point shooters out there will increase your team's chance of winning. So you have to know how to use that in today's game. Whereas when I played, it was a more physical game and three-point shot wasn't that significant. But what's interesting just hearing you say this, and this kind of segues into your book, which I'm about to mention and other things. But you've recreated and reinvented yourself many times. I mean, obviously, to look at you, people say, this guy's 7-foot-1,

3:04his cream-em-dolloged bar, people know and remember you as a basketball player, but you're so much more, you've written a ton of books on every topic, but becoming cream, growing up on and off the court, really moved me. And it seemed like a quest for identity. Like it's about you growing up, you going through college, you beginning to be a professional, and coming to grips with your identity as a basketball player, you know, as a great basketball player, you're coming to identity with your religion, you're coming to your identity with your race, and so much more. And you've continued that search for identity. It seems over the years like you're Sherlock Holmes writer. And just the way you analyzed the three-point shot strikes me as the way you probably think about how Sherlock Holmes things, just kind of analyzing what's the deeper, meaning the deeper layers of what's happening. But is my assessment of your book becoming cream? Tell a little about this, maybe, search for identity, because you even mentioned in the book so many people,

4:07and you point out so many people you knew who changed their names in their quest for identity, just as you ended up changing your name. Right. I think as a black American, there's a quandary there, because we've had identities imposed upon us as black Americans. People took away our African identity and imposed an identity and attributed it to black Americans that enabled white Americans to exploit them. They destroyed the family structure and made it impossible for black Americans to accumulate any type of wealth or power. And they were exploited for their labor for so long until the Civil War came along. After the Civil War, they imposed a different identity on black Americans, one that said that they were useless, they were ignorant people from Africa, and of no worth here in America, because they no longer could be forced to work for nothing. So we've had to deal with those issues, the Jim Crow laws that kept black Americans from achieving anything.

5:11In the middle of the 20th century, I'm growing up and I'm trying to figure out how I can become successful. And in order to do that, I have to reject the identity that has traditionally been assigned to me and try to change my identity to something that I can be proud of and something that I can relate to and identify with. This book, We Come in Karim, shows the process that I went through to get there, the mentors that I talked to that enabled me to understand who I was and help me to figure out who I wanted to be. It shows the importance of part of a person's individual identity comes from the quality of the people around them. Like you mentioned, everybody from Coach Wooden, who was your coach in college and Bruce Lee, Muhammad Ali, Will Chamberlain, all your influences in religion, even ones that I think it's important to recognize that virtual mentors are important. So the autobiography of Malcolm X had such a strong influence on you and his rise from a more militant form of Muslim to a more spiritual leader.

6:16And all of these things seem to come together to help you figure out what that identity is. And I'm wondering if someone who is not, let's say, blessed with the many talents you were and then on top of it, your dedication to developing those talents and to real skills that made you the greatest, over your advice to someone who's young and seeking to find their identity as well, because we're all sort of young and empty in the beginning, where empty vessels in the beginning. Well, I would say the strongest message I can impart is that knowledge is power. So find out about what your future could be and figure out what you want to do to get to that future. Don't let it be imposed upon you. Seek out all the knowledge that you can to figure out what motivates you and then pursue those things. And for every individual that might be a different goal, a different issue, but every individual has a unique spark. We have to find what that is and what it leads us to.

7:16You know, if we can do that, we'll find our path. It's the one that we choose, the one that makes sense to us as individuals. I think every American in America, we celebrate the individual. Individualism is cherished here and encouraged. We want every individual to understand who they are and give them the opportunity for the most growth that they can achieve in their lifetime. I think there's opportunity and there's growth. So for instance, someone can say, oh, you're talking to someone who's seven foot one and who could dunk in, by the time it was in eighth grade, he kind of had a direction to know where he was going. But there's also growing that strength, which, you know, wouldn't reinforce you. And many coaches reinforce you that, you know, it's, it's play, practice, play, practice. Just keep working at these things that you're good at. So I think that leads to two questions. One is, how does somebody know or begin to know where their opportunity is because many people don't know?

8:17And then what did you learn about growth along the way that maybe not what was so obvious? For me, what I learned was that if you want to contribute to society, you have to have some knowledge. So the fact that I wanted to get a college degree and I stayed at UCLA until I did, I think that helped improve my life. And John wouldn't even told you, when you first met him, he told you you have to stay here for four years or he wants students who stay for the full four years. Well, John wouldn't said that he expected me to graduate, you know, and in those days, if you didn't graduate, it was very difficult to proceed as a basketball player. So, you know, I had a lot of reasons to want to graduate, but I am the first person in my family with a college degree. So it's a double thing. You do it for yourself, but you also do it for your community because as the community becomes better educated and more affluent, things in the community improve. So I think that is the one thing for individuals or groups, knowledge is power.

9:19Put yourself in the best position to do the best thing that you can for yourself. And now we live in this society that's almost attention-glutted. Like, there's so much social media, there's so many distractions for our attention. What's the best way you think for a young person to start improving their knowledge? Well, it all depends on what they want to do. For some people, they need to go and see if they can take a computer course. Or other people need to choose. I'm really interested in plumbing. I know that the plumbers get paid because they just left my house. And if they don't take care of you, you're going to end up with your house smelling bad and you still, and plumbing won't work. So, you know, there's plenty of means to become successful in America. You just have to figure out what it is that you want to do for yourself, then pursue it. And then it seems like, again, from Bruce Lee to Muhammad Ali to Wooden to many others, you learned about, okay, you've given that opportunity, given something that you're good at or interested in, what's the best way to develop those skills?

10:21Like, with Bruce Lee, you practice many years, more or not many years, but for a long time, martial arts. Obviously, you have great coaches in basketball. What would you impart to someone who says, okay, teach me something so I could be the best at something? You have to understand that fundamental preparation is essential to success. No matter what it is that you're doing, you have to be fundamentally sound. So, for somebody that's going to study chemistry, there's certain things that they have to know fundamentally, then they can make progress and become successful in that field. If you're going to become a legal student, you have to go past the LSAT, the legal scholastic aptitude test, in order to show that you have an aptitude to do well as a lawyer. And there are many different tests and ways of figuring out what your aptitude is, but once you figure it out and figure out what your past should be, you just have to be willing to pursue it and put it in the time and make the effort.

11:21And it seems like it's a little bit more than the sense of you also have to figure out what the basics are. And it's almost like you need guidance for that. In your first coaching session with Wooden, you describe, you thought maybe you were going to get basketball drills and run around the court, and he taught all the players how to put on their socks. Right. Yeah. And just so fundamental for a basketball player, but if they don't understand that if they have blisters on their feet from putting their socks on wrong, they won't be able to practice. If they can't practice, they won't be up to speed with what the team is trying to do. And if you're not up to speed, you won't get playing time. So all of these things have to do with preparation and understanding what your role is. And the more clearly that you understand that and the more work that you're willing to put into master, those fundamentals, the more successful you're going to be. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I really, really appreciate it. I mean so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at alcatraz email.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks.

12:39I'm going to take a quick break. I'm going to talk about the things that are going to happen in the next few days behind. And I believe that I've started, look, I've started over 20 companies, at least 17 of them failed. The ones that worked almost died for the same boring reason. I couldn't see what was actually happening cost over here. Inventory over there, CRM and another tab, people buried in busy work. And by the time I understood the problem, the market had already moved. The competition is only moving faster. There's next suite next. Probably know about next week. It's the AI powered business management suite that securely connects all your data, one unified suite, financials, inventory, commerce, CRM, a single source of truth, trusted by over 44,000 customers. Next suite next is the next huge leap in how business gets done because AI is now built into everything you do it. Automatically surfaces, custom insights throughout your day. AI agents work alongside you to solve problems and handle the routine work. And any time you have a question about anything, you just have to ask, like as if you're talking to a colleague next week, it's customized for a wide range of industries. So it supports the way your business actually works.

13:43Not the way some software vendor wishes it worth whether your company earns millions or even hundreds of millions. It's time for next week next where your business meets AI. I use this and you should too. For first time ever, you can try next suite next for free. And if your revenues are at least in the seven figures, go to net suite dot AI slash James built for every industry ready for every boardroom net suite dot AI slash James. You mentioned the Bruce Lee quote, I fear the man more who practices one kick 10,000 times than the man who practices, you know, 10,000 kicks one time. Yeah, I guess in basketball for you, you became such an expert at what we came known as your sky hook. But at the same time, you still have to kind of have coverage of all the skills needed in any field. Right. You have to be able to be totally capable in basketball. You have to be able to play both ends of a court and make a difference at either end in some way. That takes dedication and an understanding of the fine points of in what you're talking about what we're talking about here basketball.

14:57But it can be the same for so many other different disciplines. I mean, you know, you have been playing basketball for many years at that point. Why didn't you think of pulling on your socks the right way. It took wouldn't to sort of tell you this basic fundamental thing that was so important. Well, I never had a problem with my socks, you know, I got past that earlier in light. So I was a what was the difficulty for you. I really didn't have very much difficulty in basketball by paying attention to my coaches and going to the places that I wanted I was able to be successful everywhere that I played basketball. You know, I was very fortunate in that sense. What like let's take now, you know, you've written a Sherlock Holmes novel, you're written a graphic novel. When you switch to a completely, I will say that's a completely new field, even though you make some analogies between basketball and the way my craft homes thinks. What was difficult in sort of that becomes an identity thing to you went from everybody who was a basketball player to I know I'm going to be a Sherlock Holmes writer. What was the challenge there?

15:58Well, the challenge is always do you know what you're doing? Do you know what you're talking about? So for me, I had to be a pretty well schooled on Victorian England and Arthur Conan Doyle's take on a homeless family. I just use that as a foundation to write about a character that got very little attention in Arthur Conan Doyle's original canon. My crop is only mentioned like five or six times in passing, but to me, it seemed like he would be a very important person in Sherlock's life because in talking about my crop, the Arthur Conan Doyle says that sometimes he was the British government. Wow, you know, on the Queen Victoria. That implies a whole lot. So from that, I was able to work it backwards and figure out what his backstory could be and that I'm being interesting enough for me to write a successful novel. So it's almost like you saw this blank space in something he said at times he could be the British government. Right. Oh, and it's a throwaway line almost. What does that mean? What does it mean? And you answered the question.

17:02I was able to exploit it and use it to write an interesting story. And so now I'm interested in relating this back to religion. Like obviously you had many influences who are turning Muslim and changing your names. Like for instance, you were friends with Cassius Clay, who became Muhammad Ali. You were being influenced by again, you mentioned the autobiography of Malcolm X and other sources. What led to, and I know I apologize if you've talked about this many times, but I'm curious for myself just in terms of the context of identity. How did religion impact the way you thought about yourself? Well, you know, I was raised Catholic and I had a strong belief in monotheism, but I had a problem with some of the things that the Pope and other Catholics did to people from Africa, exporting them as slaves. But I still had a strong belief in monotheism. So the type of monotheism most commonly practiced in Africa is Islam.

18:05So I decided to investigate Islam on that basis, reading the autobiography of Malcolm X, help me get a more fundamental and in-depth understanding of Islam and encourage me to learn more. And I eventually ended up becoming Muslim, but it was a process that I went through in learning what the facts were and how they related to me and how I wanted that to relate to my life. How do they relate to you? Like what's the strongest impact of, let's say the five pillars of faith in Islam? What's been the strongest impact on your life? Well, I think that Islam has given me a moral anchor. The fundamentals are the same as Christianity and Judaism, the golden rule, treat others as you yourself wish to be treated. This is very prominent in Islam as it is in Christianity and Judaism. So it wasn't a big stretch for me to become Muslim. So as you were writing this, what were you coming to grips with in terms of, again, everybody views you as this great basketball player or you're the guy who changed his name and that became this big impactful thing when the moment you did it, you were again coming to grips with who you are.

19:18Do you think you kind of reached that point where you were really sort of satisfied with where you were? Well, geez, that's hard. Does anyone ever get satisfied? I don't know if anybody gets total self satisfaction. But as far as I was concerned, I was satisfied with my belief system. I felt that my belief system made sense and it was helping me improve my life and that was the most important part of it in my way. In giving me a moral anchor and enabling me to understand the difference between right and wrong. And so many photos of you and I've seen also the documentary on HBO about you. And in a lot of the photos, you're so serious. In your soul, it almost looks like people can't see you because you're in your head somehow. You're like deeply reflective. What's stopped you from smiling all those in all these photos? I don't know if that's a dumb question or not.

20:20No, that's not a dumb question. That's actually a very good question. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that I've been scrutinized so much because of my height. And I'm always feeling that people are watching me because throughout my life, they have watched me. They see me first. So I kind of have that weariness of somebody that's in the headlights all the time. It can be daunting. Again, is this what, I mean, even your documentary is the documentary about yours titled, you know, Cream and Minority of One. Do you often feel that this scrutiny has led you to kind of just withdraw in word and just be in your thoughts so you could kind of avoid all the people looking? Well, you can't avoid the people looking, but it probably makes me feel that I need to be on guard more so than the average person who can disappear in a crown. I can't do that. So I always have to be on guard. I mean, in that sense, you know, and again, I think I think your experience is with coach Wooden who you even wrote a book about probably helped you figure out as well who you were in a crowd and who you and what inside of your you can respect and contribute to your identity.

21:31What are some of the main things he taught you that really still affect your life today? Well, coach Wooden helped me understand that I could be whatever I wanted to be. A lot of guys go to college and figure that if they get through the basketball program, they'll have a chance to play professional basketball and they neglect their academics. I never had that problem and coach Wooden encouraged me to be successful academically and as an athlete and it worked out for me very well. But you know, a lot of people don't want to go to the effort and coach Wooden helped me understand that that effort was worthwhile. How did he do that? Just by showing us his life, you know, he was very successful. He was an all-American. He played professional basketball and yet he went on to do great things. So what you go through on your way through life always prepares you for what the next step is. That's how it was in my life. In terms of skill development, how much you think talent, what percentage you think is talent, what percentage you think is skill and work?

22:38You know what I think it has to do with people's competitive nature. You know, guys that like to compete, that enjoy it, they're not disturbed that they want to go out there and crush the opposition. You know, they have that desire and the ability to do that. Those are the successful people in various fields. I think really competitive fire really determines the championship athletes from the ones that don't make it because it's that desire that gets you across the finish line. Like regardless of, not regardless of, but on top of talent. On top of talent? Because clearly you were talented. I've seen, you know, I coached in the NBA now. I coached six years with the Lakers. I was an assistant coach. And I saw players come in that had all kinds of physical talent, but they just weren't into it. They didn't have to work ethic. And they didn't have the competitive fire to go out there and compete. And they didn't do as well as other players who might not have had as much talent, but were into the competition and knew how to fit themselves into a team and contribute.

23:45And so how do you think someone, I mean, obviously it would have benefited these guys to have the work ethic. What separated them out from the people who had the work ethic versus the people who didn't? Like what internal thing were they missing? I don't know. You were their coach though. That doesn't mean that I know what's going on inside their head and inside their soul. You know, it was my job to try and get guys to give their best effort and to play at the top of the game. But there's only certain guys that are able to do that and be effective. You know, I think part of it for you was also that, you know, in the 60s or early 70s, you being a great athlete in an African American. You kind of had this voice that people listened to at a very early age for somebody. So you were involved, for instance, the so-called Cleveland Summit where Jim Brown and Cash's Clay were having the debate of whether or not Cash's Clay should go to Vietnam, Muhammad Ali should go to Vietnam. And did you feel, oh, wait, I'm really young to be in this group and having this kind of influence?

24:51No, I didn't feel like I was too young. A number of people in the civil rights movement were very young when they lost their lives. I'm thinking about the four girls in Birmingham in 1963. And then I met Till in 1955. He was only 13. So, you know, the fact that the civil rights situation in America touches you when you're a child doesn't change anything. It's still the same set of circumstances and they still need to be changed. And so, you know, you wrote, becoming cream, it basically ends at the beginning of your professional career. Many things happen to you after that. Do you see the kind of a part two of this? I'm sure we all want to know how you kept on evolving as a person after this. And I think the key to is helping people figure out who they are. Because I think we're all to some extent a minority of one. We all go through this. You know, we all have to figure out what our path will be. And so often it's not what our parents did. And we got to figure it out for ourselves. I think every generation has to do that.

25:54Well, cream of the old Javar becoming cream. I think this is a very moving book. I think you dealt with so many different issues. And I think you're just, I don't know, so much thought comes through. And the way you dealt with these issues as opposed to just being like, oh, the greatest basketball player ever. You really see your identity coming through in this book. And I really appreciate it. You're ready to get in me reading it. Oh, well, thank you. You know, it's nice to be able to communicate these things at this time of my life. You know, I never thought that people would be interested. And the fact that I can write these books and people are curious enough and wanting to be knowledgeable. I'm very flattered by it. And I'm happy to share. So thank you for having me on your on your podcast. Thank you, cream.

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