This content explores the journey of storytelling, creativity, and personal growth, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, long-term vision, and the power of imagination rooted in truth, particularly for inspiring young people.
Mind Map
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to say okay it's okay to fail because
you're gonna be loved no matter what
i had to look at it from a long term
because i wasn't gonna give up on the game
game
right so i had to say okay this year i'm
gonna get better at that
next year this and so forth and so on
and then
the first question i want to ask you
because so much of your content right
now that you're creating here at granity
is aimed at helping young people aimed
at helping children
and as a father of four girls i wanted
to ask you what's the biggest thing
you've learned about yourself
by being a father uh you know it's
amazing like when you become a parent
things become much more you know life becomes
becomes
you know yeah it lines things up for you
a little differently
right like before you have kids me and
my wife we can travel anytime
you know there's work and you know you
become very uh
you have a very clear focus when you
have children it becomes about them it's
not about you guys anymore
right and so that shift it's a big one
you know it's one of
kind of a selfishness together
and then to being absolutely selfless
and doing anything you can for your kids
and so what i'm trying to do is create
content to teach them
first and foremost that's why i started
this whole thing it's just reading
stories to them that i felt like didn't exist
exist
you know our kids are athletes and
they love reading about princesses and
all these fairy tales and
you know they get a little sick and
tired about the man saving the princess
every time and
you know the same old stuff magical
wines and all that my kids are athletes man
man
they want to learn about soccer balls
and basketballs and volleyballs and
you know magic that comes from that yeah
and i love that you're encouraging young
people to think more imaginatively about
sports yeah
and i think that's where you go a step
deeper you know for me
observing you and learning about you and
hearing you speak in other interviews
and everything what i'm fascinated by is that
that
you've dealt with things in life pretty
head-on right you've always gone at it
what took you a while what was something
in your life that you were shy about
originally or
that took you a while to go head-on with
but then finally you got there and you
figured it out
uh writing dear basketball that was a
hard jump
you know because i had written before i
mean i started writing
probably about 17 years ago so
practicing every day
a lot of things that i wrote were were
ads and so
you write an ad nobody looks up at who
wrote the ad right you can kind of
there's a certain
uh anonymity that comes along with that right
right
but right there basketball was different
you know it's putting it out there for
the world to see it's trying to create a
short film
and i didn't know if i could do it man
and uh
you know it was my daughter who kind of
put things in perspective for me gianna
she's now
13 and she was like well you always tell
us to go for it so
so
yeah she put me on the spot she was like
you're gonna talk about it you're gonna
be about it basically and you know and
that that gave me the final push
i love that when you started writing 17
years ago did you envision that one day
you would move into this storytelling no
was it just something you enjoyed
no man it was something i enjoyed and i
enjoyed writing ads it was something
funny about trying to
distill a message down into 30 seconds
or a minute depending on the budget you
know what i mean
trying to say something important um
trying to speak to the you know brand
attributes but also speak to something
that's greater and
that has a stronger message stronger
philosophical message and how do you
connect those dots
so putting that puzzle together was
something that was really intriguing
yeah but like
you know i never thought i'd be writing
novels or movies and
that sort of stuff never man i love that
man i love it how everything evolves
naturally and actually hearing you say that
that
it reminds me so my vision when i was
sharing earlier became very clearly
making wisdom go viral
and i was like how do i take these teachings
teachings
that are like so sacred they're hidden
away in these books
and how do i make them really relevant
and accessible and practical to the
whole world
because i know that anyone can access
them they're universal right these
these teachers can apply to anyone but
sometimes they're just hidden away sure
and a young person doesn't know how to
find them so that inspires me hearing
them that's beautiful too because
especially in today's um in today's
world there's so much clutter
you know it becomes harder for kids to
try to weave through
a lot of the crap that's out there to
find uh stuff that's actually beneficial
to them
yeah it was i think you reminded me i
think eo wilson said
we're drowning in information starving
for wisdom
for sure especially that's why i think
your work is cutting through because i
think what you've managed to do with
your new work is that
you're finding ways to connect with what
people care about but you're taking it a
step deeper
yeah right you're not you're not just
settling for like let's talk about
sports it's not just about sports
for life right it's about the metaphor
that sports has for life i mean you know
sports is the greatest greatest metaphor
we have
in terms of dealing with life because
you know even if you listen to music
music will give you guidance right that
you can then
meditate on and think about how you
would apply it in sports you have to
apply it
in the here and now i mean you're faced
with challenges moment to moment you're
faced with pressures and anxiety and
communication or the lack thereof and
also their stuff like it's in the moment
so you have to live it
and when you practice those things you
become better at it but i just feel like
in this day and age
our children have become less imaginative
imaginative
about how to problem solve and parents
and coaches have become more directive
in trying to mandate or give orders or
teach kids how to think and teach kids
how to behave versus
and tell them how they behave versus
teaching them how to behave and so
that's why i'm creating these stories
and creating this content yeah i love
that i think it's so true when you treat
people as
kids then they always be kids right even
when they grow up
and for you it was really powerful
because you've talked about this before
where your father said to you like
whether you scored zero or 60 yeah like
i love you
yeah tell me what that statement meant
to you at that time and and how did it
actually motivate you to continue
scoring 60
rather than go oh i'm all right it's
zero well it did more than that
right so like the basketball stuff
speaks for itself
in terms of what that comment made you
know did for me
in terms of giving me stability and
giving me
confidence to say okay it's okay to fail
because you're going to be loved no
matter what and that
that doesn't just mean basketball that
means anything in life
that means writing that means being an entrepreneur
entrepreneur
that means um having the confidence to
go for it
and um i've seen too many parents do the
exact opposite
and it terrifies children and children
become paralyzed by their own fear
because they don't have that security
blanket of love and comfort
yeah absolutely how have you been able
to in your life
see past the cloud of emotion
to actually execute on things because i
think what we were speaking about
earlier this
challenge that young people have today
everyone has today of just so much information
information
so much cloud of emotion so many
feelings so much childhood baggage that
you're bringing like how have you always
cut through that
and execute them you know i what i try
to do is just try to be still
and understand that things come and go
emotions come and go the important thing
is to
accept them all to embrace them all
and then you can choose to do with them
which you want
versus being controlled by emotion
you know a lot of times i've seen
players even myself you know when i was younger
younger
being consumed by a particular fear um
and to the point where you're saying
okay nah it's not good to feel fear
i shouldn't be nervous in a situation
like not and it does nothing but grow
versus stepping back and saying yeah i
am nervous about the situation
yeah i am fearful about the situation
well what am i afraid of and then you
kind of
unpack it and then it gives you the
ability to look at it for really what it
is which is
nothing more than your imagination
running its course you know
yeah absolutely yeah i love that because
what you're saying is that when you're
dealing with something it's almost like
how can i get to the root of it
yeah because sometimes what we're
dealing with like you're saying it's an
imagination an illusion it's not really
it's not it's not really a thing you
know like you think about game-winning
shots and
or game-winning free throws and people
go to the free-throw line and you're
nervous about it well what are you
really nervous about if you unpack that okay
okay
you're nervous that you're gonna miss
the shot all right so you missed the
shot then what happens people are gonna be
be
embarrassed you're going to be
embarrassed because thousands of people
millions people see you missed a shot
all right and then what people are going
to talk bad about you okay
right and so you're looking at you go
are those things even important
you know what i mean if that that is my
fear like what is you worried about
letting your teammates down
okay have you let them down before well
i'm sure and practice and things of that
nature right they're still there
yeah you know and so when you're able to
unpack it you kind of look at it for
what it is which is really nothing
yeah i love that breaking it down i
think that's so important i think
everyone who's listening and watching right
right
now next time you're facing a fear next
time you're going against something do
that like literally
unpack it don't just settle for your
first answer because
the first answer is really the right one
don't hide from it you know you got to
be able to look at it
and you know and and and deal with it head-on
head-on
yeah i love that man and and you talk
about that because you talk about
you know when you talk about missing uh
five throws and you talk about
uh getting over yourself yeah right like
getting over yourself how did you get
that mentality of just being like
i need to get over this like i need to
get over myself you know trial and error
you know you grow up and you make game
winning shots and it's awesome you come
back the next day and miss a game when
it's shot and it's misery
and then the next day comes and you're
back playing again and you understand
that life has this cyclical nature where it's
it's
you know what you do on monday it's
fantastic but then tuesday's a bad day
but guess what there's wednesday
so we just supposed to live our lives
like this the whole time you know
versus just staying like this and
understanding that it's really just a
journey of
evolution every day it's just constant
improvement constant curiosity
constantly getting better
the results don't really matter uh it's the
the
figuring out that matters yeah and we
all get obsessed about the results
yeah like we get obsessed about like the
output yeah not the input of not
figuring it out and not like changing
things what you said trial and error
like the experimenting
yeah we forget to do that it's
unfortunate man like i've seen a lot of players
players
um especially now you know in youth
basketball dealing with that
um you have players that are like bigger
and faster and stronger
and you know their coaches are just
coaching them for results
you know we're just going to use your
size that because you're bigger than
every other 12 year old out there
to dominate today and but they're not growing
growing
right so they're just based on that
result but they're not focused on growing
growing
this young child yeah into becoming a
better athlete and through that
teaching them how to become a more
well-rounded person
and we're missing that yeah see what
you've said there just
i want to ask you this and i'm not
saying because i you know like you know
yourself best and you know how you've
got there so i'm asking it from a place
of humility of
learning when i look at you i'm like you
know your superpower isn't just your
work ethic
your superpower isn't just like figuring
things out your superpowers like you
think strategically like that's a very strategic
strategic
thought of saying this person
could be this in the future if they were
developed as a whole individual
right rather than just like let's use
them for the short term right and
where did you develop that from that
ability to see beyond to think deeper to
to reflect deeper where did that come
from well i had to do that because
you know i grew up growing up in italy
when i first moved over there it was
you know i didn't speak italian i didn't
have any friends
you know i had the game of basketball
and through sport and playing soccer i
was able to make friends and build connections
connections
but it was a lot of time spent alone and
and when i came back to the states i
wasn't the most athletic kid
you know i was really scrawny like
really really skinny and had
like major knee issues because i was
growing so i was the dorky kid with hot
socks and
big old knee pads it's fashionable now
it's fashionable now it wasn't then
and so um i had to look long term
because in the here and now i couldn't
compete with these kids i mean there was
kids that were like
12 years old with beards like i can't i can't
can't
what am i supposed to do with that like
they're doing windmills and dunking
backwards and i'm happy to like tap the
backboard you know so
i had to look at it from a long term
because i wasn't going to give up on the game
game
right so i had to say okay this year i'm
going to get better at that
next year this and then so forth and so
on and then
patiently i was able to catch him yeah
that's i love hearing that
because i think so many of us kind of
you believe like when when you see
people like yourself it's like
it's so easy as an excuse to ourselves
oh you're destined
for it right you were made for me it's
kind of like that kind of you know like
oh yeah you know but but when you talk
about saying oh actually when i started
i didn't have the
physicality that meant that i was gonna
make it like you had to figure it out
and i love it figure it out man it's
just piece by piece and it's the
consistency of the work which
i feel like a lot of parents are missing
today because we're not teaching that to
our kids we tend to say like kids don't
want to do the work but in reality it's
when we're failing them because we're
not leading them
the right way and teaching them yeah you
know how to fish you know what i mean
and so like the consistency of work monday
monday
get better tuesday get better wednesday
get better right and you do that over a
period of
time you know not like one month or two
months i mean it's
three four five six seven eight nine ten years
years
and then you you know you can get to
where you want to go yeah i think it was
bill gates who's talking about that he
talks about how like we
we overestimate what we can do in one
year and underestimate what we can do in
ten years no doubt
right like it's like that yeah like i
think everyone thinks about like what
can i do right now like how can i make
it happen but like
with you i think people always ask you
also like you know how do you deal with
losing or failure what i'm intrigued by
is how someone like you deals with
winning because you've won
again and again and like i was saying
earlier you you know you want obviously
we know
you won in basketball big as an athlete
but you you're winning now even in the
work you're doing here as a storyteller
as a producer right it's amazing to see
so many incredible awards coming through
how have you dealt with
winning like when you win what goes
through your mind
to help you to continue well it's a
little different like in basketball it
was different because
i expected to win you know like i
expected us to win championships i
expected us to win five quite honestly i
expected us to win eight
um and so when you have that vision in
sports it's a direct competition like i
know how hard they're working i know how
hard we're working i know what
their strategy is i know what r is it
you know so it's a little different so
we went in the nba it was like
yeah we expected to do that but now we
we're going to come back and
we're going to do it again you know and
so it's that constant like all right
you're churning you win one championship
i'm back in the gym the next day working
getting ready for the next one
now uh it's different because it's not
about the awards you know you just wind
up trying to create something that's
that's going to inspire someone that hopefully
hopefully
you know through that inspiration they
can inspire somebody else and what i've
come to learn as my career went on is
that's more significant than any championship
championship
is how do you connect with somebody that
can then connect with another
and then with whether the awards come or
not you know that's
for you know um you know
the academy of the word uh um
body to decide but you know like for us
it's just to try to create things
yeah well i guess now that's what
shifted that now the intention isn't
even expecting to win it's expecting to
change lives
right right like your content is really
about making a difference and an impact
on young people sure
i'm sure which i which i think is like
the biggest way of winning
i think so i mean you know we're looking
at 62 percent of young children are
dropping out of sports
62 and they cite the fact that it's not
fun anymore
well what does that tell them i mean
that's telling us us as grownups are
getting in the way
get out the way let these kids be
imaginative which you know like in our
stories it's important that yeah there's
a fantasy
nature to it right but it's rooted in reality
reality
right when we have uh fire-breathing
winged horses and things of that nature
those are actual drills that are taking
place right now we don't have fire drink
you know
fire breathing winged horses actually
performing that but we do have ball machines
machines
that are spitting balls at tennis
players right and so
all of our all of our stories are all anchored
anchored
in an element of truth so that children
feel like when they are
doing these drills with these bald
machines they can envision maybe it's a
fire breathing winged horse
yeah to keep them excited yeah yeah they
can envision gus throwing fireballs at them
them
yeah yeah and uh even the plays like
when the you know
in the wizard art series when the basket
is opening up and shrinking
these are things that we experience as
athletes like some days i feel like i
can't make a
shot man in the basket feels like the
size of a keyhole yeah
you know and other days it looks like a
swimming pool
yeah you know yeah that's magic and so
we we
root our magic in reality so that when
kids experience these things
particularly the failure side of it they
can connect it to one of our stories and
say okay
i've seen this before i know how to deal
with this yeah that's beautiful man i
love that that analogy of like
feeling the basket bigger or smaller and
then be able to vision that i can vision
it right now
like yeah it's all right like some days
it looks huge and i love that that's
such a great way of thinking about it
and i guess so much of this is from your
real life
vision oh yeah yeah this is like some
days i've experienced this yeah
but i love that because it's also giving
them the permission to say like be
imaginative about this right yes and and
that obviously gives so much
i think when we imagine it changes the
reality of oh i'm just sitting out here
taking shots
yes right which can get boring and
tiring comes mechanical
mechanical that's the only way to get
kind of cool like our job is to try to
inspire the creativity inside of our children
children
so that they can think through how to
problem-solve situations so like
you know when i coach my daughter's team
it's not about giving them answers
it's about asking them questions and
getting them to process things
right when the game is being played i'm
not sitting there giving them answers or
barking out things on the sideline i sit
down and i'm quiet
my assistant coach sits there and she's
quiet and the kids figure things out for
themselves or they don't
and then they come back and there's
always questions and then you kind of
ask them more questions and you help
them figure it out
but then you see their level of
excitement the practice every day increase
increase
because it's something it's a process
that they are owning right they're not
coming to get orders barked at them
every day they're coming
for for for kind of their personal quest
to get better yeah and how did you how
do you
feel about you coaching i guess that
style makes them feel comfortable but
how have you been able to
manage that with the pressure of you
being there no it's no pressure because
you know it's their process to own like
i i have knowledge information that i've gained
gained
you know through playing so like the
little details of things i can teach at
a high level
uh but ultimately it's it's it's them
yeah you seem you seem very still and
detached about it
yeah yeah i mean it's it's you know the
kids love playing basketball so that's
the anchor of it all
they come and they play and they learn
and they have fun and you know and they compete
compete
and you know they challenge themselves
and one another and
um you know they just get better every day
day
yeah how have you seen that with
obviously with legacy and the queen you
you chose tennis yeah like what was the
what was the choice of sports about i'm
intrigued by the
why tennis yeah so like the first novel
we did was the wizard series it was
important that for that to be basketball
because i wanted the first story to be
one of empathy and compassion
and in team sports if you don't have
that you can't win
right and so it was important to tell
the tale of a basketball team
uh dealing with their own personal fears
and have those fears and insecurities
lead to empathy and compassion for
others right with the second story i
wanted to look more
internal individually and and look at
how do you deal with the inner
challenges the kind of the self
negotiation that takes place inside of
our own heads
and there was no sport better than that
than tennis there's golf
uh but tennis you have more movement
which to me
symbolizes life in general because life
is there's a lot going on
right there's the elements in tennis
that you have to deal with as you deal
with in golf maybe not to the same
extent but they're still there
and then there's the confrontation with
the person across the net from you
yes right as well as the strengths and
weaknesses in your own movements
and how you feel in your own body and
because of that it was important for
this story to be a tennis story um i
love that that that makes complete sense and
and
give me an example of that self
negotiation i love that word and
yeah i get that can you expand on that a
bit yeah like you know
you're you're you're out running on the track
track
working out and you start talking to
yourself saying man
my knee is really sore right now maybe i'm
i'm
maybe i'm doing too much sounds like me
maybe i need to back off
you know man my lungs are burning am i maybe
maybe
i can just slow down here i'll do like
an extra two sets tomorrow
you know it'll be okay yeah right that
sort of stuff yes
like that stuff's dangerous yes and
that's you just gotta say you know what
i'm not negotiating with myself yeah the
deal was already made the deal was made
when i set out at the beginning of the
summer and said this is the
training plan i'm doing i sign that
contract with myself
i'm doing it you know throughout the
that process you'll start talking to
yourself like man i gotta
i think i need to maybe if we nope
no it's non-negotiable negotiable
yeah yeah i love that and for you
empathy and compassion were things that
you'd been through like that was that
was personally inspired work
yeah when did it come to your awareness that
that
empathy was something missing for you
and that you wanted to develop it
um i had a teammate that that
spoke to me and said hey cole you know i
just want to feel like as a teammate
you need me i was like
well duh i can't i can't you know
like that was my immediate reaction like
dude yeah of course
but i had to kind of think about really
what he was saying and where that was
coming from
for him and his story and his journey
and what that meant to him
and that opened my eyes that there's a
bigger game being played it's not just
basketball but it's the emotions of each individual
