Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Interview with Bill Walton

I recently interviewed Bill Walton on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today has reached the pinnacle of success in college basketball, the NBA, and the world of broadcasting. Bill Walton has won two national championships, and was named national Player of the Year three times while at UCLA, goes one two NBA championships and is a member of the Hall of Fame. And he has been broadcasting college and NBA games on a national level for the past three decades. Bill, thank you for joining us,

Bill: Adam, what an honor and a privilege to be on 30 Minute Mentors. How are we ever gonna get through that mentoring is as important as anything ever in our lives. I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I had the greatest parents ever, the ultimate mentors, even though they had zero interest in sports. My coaches, my heroes, my role models, my teachers were absolutely over the top. I found Chick Hearn, the greatest broadcaster of them all, when I was nine or 10 years old, when he first joined the Lakers in 1962, I found them on the AM radio and never left. I got to play for John Wooden. My coaches are in the Basketball Hall of Fame. In the world of music and entertainment and the culture that I live in, I just get to meet and live with and learn from all these incredible people. So I'm embarrassed and ashamed. And dismayed, Adam, that has taken me so long to get on your show here. But in 30 minutes, we're going to try to get to it all. Never underestimate the value, the power, of a mentor. No one makes it to the top alone. I wanted to be great. I wanted to be the best, the best from the very beginning. I quickly learned and realized, Adam, that I could not get there by myself. And so my life has been spent in search of trying to find and then learning from the master teachers. And now here I am. on your show, Adam.

Adam: Thank you, Bill. Thank you, the honor is mine. And I know we could spend the entire show talking about your great mentors. And we could probably spend the entire show talking about your mentor, who I know has been your mentor for most of your life. And he was your coach at UCLA. And he's the coach to anyone who has any connection to college basketball or any connection to UCLA. And that's John Wooden. Can you share with listeners the best lessons you learn from Coach Wooden and talk a little bit about your relationship with him?

Bill: We only have 30 minutes. I need 30 years. Three years of my life he was my coach, it was fantastic. It was remarkable. He was incredibly influential, inspirational, and important in my life. And I first met him when I was, I'm gonna say 11, 12 years old. He didn't know that at the time because he was meeting all kinds of young little builders who were aspiring to be great. But he was giving basketball clinics because he liked it and gave up their lives so other people's dreams could come true. And John Wooden is the reason that basketball is popular in Southern California, my home, where I currently live and where I have lived most of my life except for when I was out chasing my own dreams with the Portland Trailblazers in the NBA in the mid to late 70’s. And then the Boston Celtics in the mid 60’s in the mid 80’s. And then I spent time in the early 80’s up in Palo Alto. But I've been on the road literally my entire life since I was 16 years old. But the essence of John wouldn't be, cannot be, explained or described in just a few short words. But what he did do was teach us how to learn and he taught us how to compete and from there, everything sort of comes down like the rain and a drip drip drip of Timothy Egan's The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest. And John Wooden was a teacher. It's easiest and best to start with what John Wooden than what he was not. We never watched Phil. He rarely spoke. He never spoke about winning and losing. He occasionally mentioned the sport of basketball. He was an English teacher by profession. He never used the blackboard. We never had a play, he never called timeout. In four years with the guy, he only mentioned the other team two different times. And we lost both of those games. Thanks a lot. Bill was very serious, he saw his job as being the human forklift, the human solar panel, which was to energize the situation, and then to pick people and things up and put them in a better place. So his challenge was to make us better basketball players, more importantly, to make us better people. And he worked tirelessly at it. And he gave up his life. And you know, he was married to his high school sweetheart, they had two children, and but he spent his entire time thinking about 12 young men, and what he can do to teach us and to train us, and to spur on in us a spirit of curiosity, a willingness to experiment, a willingness to explore to go to the edge, because he would always say things like, takes talent to get to the top, takes character to stay there. Never measure yourself by what you have done, but rather by what you could, or should have been able to do. Those who are not willing to risk going too far, will never know how far they can go. You'll never learn what you don't want to know. Talk is cheap, but vision is true. And there are no rewards for settling for something that you don't want. And so here was this guy who gave us this standard of excellence, and showed us how to pursue perfection on a constant basis. And he was just truly larger than life in his persona. But he was very cold. And one of the books that he always referenced was The Majesty of Coldness. And he lived the way he talked. Neil Young has a song in an album, are you passionate? Are you living like your talk? Are you dreaming like you're going to? That was John Wooden. And he made it so fun. He was a kind hearted, warm, loving, generous, humble, giving, selfless, firm, demanding, exacting, challenging, but fair, I guess we can say fair. It was a tough relationship. He was not your friend. He was your coach, and he was going to try to make you the best you could possibly get. All the life lessons that he told us that well, we didn't understand them. What we did understand, the little that we did, we didn't believe it. We were teenagers. What don't we know?

Adam: Bill, one of the things that I know you've applied from Coach Wooden’s teachings that I wanted to ask you a little bit more about, he had a line that I thought was really interesting when he told his players that before you could become a great basketball player- and I know I'm paraphrasing here- but before you could become a great basketball player, you need to become a great person. What does that mean to you and how do you apply that to your life?

Bill: He was very concerned about building your own personal foundation, his desire for us to be great. He understood that the strength of the team is the strength of the individual. And that's all based on your character. And that's all based on your individual foundation, the foundation that he showed us, you know? He never insisted that any of us do what he said. But we knew that if we didn't, we had no chance to be part of the team. From the very beginning. You know, when he recruited us, he told us it's a privilege and privilege to play here at UCLA and a privilege to be on our team. But you’ve got to earn that privilege every day. And it was so fun. It was such a joy. We couldn't wait to get there with the other Greg Lee and Jamaal Wilkes and Henry Bibby and Marcus Johnson, Dave Byers, and Larry Farmer, Larry Hollyfield, Stewart Nader and all these amazing human beings that are still my best friends today. And it was this situation where he would always be working towards building that character, that foundation, based on his pyramid of success, based on the 7.3 that his dad gave him when he was in high school, based on the two sets of threes and then based on the the tools in the arsenal that is going to overcome the adversity that he knew was coming. We didn't know what we thought was just going to be perfect forever. What did we know? We were teenagers. We were convinced of our invincibility. We were going along, and we were reading everything and none of it really sat true and booked us until we started to lose. It all fell apart in 1974 for a variety of reasons. And then when we ultimately left and we realized, I have so much admiration for folks who wouldn't be in for so many different things, maybe. Maybe nothing more so that his patience, his patience and his sense of forgiveness, because he lived by everything he said. And the things that are appropriate here are they asked me why I teach, where else could I find such a splendid company. And it's not how we're what the teachers do or say, it's who the teachers are themselves. And then you have not taught until they learned. And so while the coach would constantly, constantly label me as his slowest learner ever, I think I proved that to be true.

Adam: Bill, you’ve shared a lot of great lessons in leadership just in talking about your experience playing for and learning under Coach Wooden, but you've had a lot of experiences over the course of your journey playing for other great coaches, leading teams, to multiple NBA titles. What can you tell us about your experience? What are the characteristics of a great leader and how can anyone become a better leader?

Bill: When I'm looking for a leader, I'm looking for a good person, someone who lives a life of integrity, of credibility, and of honor. I'm looking for a person who has values, who has standards and who has character. And then I'm also looking for somebody who can teach, lead, inspire, build, and develop. As soon as I find that guy, man, I just latch on and say, let's go. Take me to the promised land. Just go up and over the top, let's still be on the edge. And one of the most important elements of a great coach, a great leader, a great mentor is to know when to pull back and when to say no. And when you look at the elements of leadership, let me just throw a couple of them out here right now for further discussion. Number one; illuminate the path forward. Tell us where we're going, why how we're going to get there, what it's going to look like. Never ask anybody to do something that you haven't already done or are willing to do yourself. Pull the team together. Define the terms of the conflict, make them play your game, do what others can't and won't do. Leave the relentless offensive attack. At first offense wins, embrace, understand. Delve right into the notion that risk of failure and doubt hesitation indecision. They're all part of every encounter, every endeavor you're ever going to experience. And so you've learned to love that life of uncertainty and not knowing what's going to happen next. I love being on the edge. And then a leader has to be able to say no; if a leader can say no, and the team still buys in, anything is possible. And finally, when things go wrong, and they do when they go wrong, it's on the leader, and the leader has to own that stuff to the front and say, I got this, I'm gonna fix it. I'm responsible too.

Adam: Those are words of wisdom and applicable in basketball, applicable across all sports, and applicable in any industry.

Bill: And you have all these different silos that are part of your life. And for me, they've all blended into one. And you know, there's the business side and there's the cultural side, there's the athletic side and it does all roll into one. You know, being a deadhead now for 53 years, you know, I've learned to live by these mantras. Okay, no coach wouldn't be at a billion mantras that he would throw them out there at all the appropriate times. Things like be quick but don't hurry. Failing to prepare is preparing to fail. Happiness begins with selflessness and never mistake activity for achievement. The worst thing you could do for the one are the things they could and should do for themselves. What everybody thinks in life nobody thinks. And it's not how big you are; it's helping you play. It's not how high you jump; it's where you are when you jumped. And the one that he wrote for me the day I graduated from UCLA, June 1974; to build all this, the things you learn after you know it all.

Adam:  One of the things that I think anyone who knows anything about you loves about what you bring to the table when you're calling a basketball game is that you're not talking about basketball, you're talking about life, you're talking about life's lessons. And I wanted to talk to you about how you got into broadcasting and how you become a great broadcaster. Something that our listeners might not know is that until you were in your late 20’s, you had a debilitating challenge around stuttering.

Bill: I stutter in basketball. That was the easiest part of my life. Academics were the next. My challenges in life have been orthopedic health. I've had 38 orthopedic operations. I've got a couple more down the road, staring me in the face. But my biggest challenge with all the injuries that I had, I missed nine and a half full seasons out of a 14 year career. And when I went into the Basketball Hall of Fame, the guy from the NBA, Brian McIntyre, who was there monitoring the situation, because we knew he knew we had to keep the program going. And so at the 16 minute mark, and my five minutes have a lot of time. Finally Brian McIntyre perks up from the back of the room, he says, come on, we'll wrap this speech. Your speech is lasting longer than your career. My greatest challenge has been my speech. Yeah, I'm a lifelong stutter. I could not say a word.

Adam: Bill, I wanted to really dive into that with you because that's been a challenge that you've had, but everyone in life is facing some kind of challenge. And I wanted to ask you, how were you able to number one, overcome and fight through your stutter, and number two become as successful a broadcaster as there is in America? And number two, how were you able to come to whatever level of peace that you've been able to come to- and you just brought this up- with the amount of pain and suffering you've had over the course of your career in life, all the injuries? What advice do you have for listeners on how you were able to gain that perspective and get there?

Bill: People have always been nicer to me than I deserve. And no one more so than my wife, Laurie, who is the most important human being in my entire life. And she's just this incredible angel of mercy, who makes me happy, makes me smile. She brings me coffee, she brings me tea. She brings me every two hard things of the jailhouse deeds, of all the challenges. And as with John Wooden growing up, I just thought that everybody's feet would hurt all the time. I was born with birth defects, the stuff that everybody had bad feet, they all heard all the time. And the more you ran, the more you played, the more you did, whatever your feet do, they hurt more. That was the life that I thought everybody could do. And I thought that only the lucky people could talk because I could not speak at all. But I love life. I love learning and the joy that I have, that I get from life, that really stems from the culture that I grew up in with my parents. My parents had no interest in sports, but they loved me more than they cared about themselves. And then my first coach Rocky, who was the volunteer coach at our elementary school for 59 years, never took a dime. When he finally passed away just a couple years ago he was the richest guy I've ever met and he was just happy. And he taught us the value and the purpose of sports. And as we all are going through COVID-19 right now, we're all going through all these other incredible global intergalactic challenges, the economic collapse and crises, the political crises, the environmental crises, you name it, it's happening. And that sense of, okay. Here we are. That sense of joy, that sense of hope, that sense of purpose in life, that is not- you're not born with that, that that comes with your life experiences. And during the course of these crises, as everything, you know, has changed, it's constantly in flux every single day. And now folks are coming back, to a limited degree, and more and more show all the time, thank goodness. But we see now how much sports mean to us. And you see the teams, and you see the effort, that collective sense of effort and purpose of people just going for it. And then when it happens, how joyous and how wonderful, and just everybody is hugging and kissing, and crying and laughing and just saluting the sky. And then when you lose it, just all the worst ever. And I love that about sports. I also love that about music. And, you know, I grew up in a classical music household. And I quickly transitioned. I still love classical music, I love all kinds of, but you know, rock music, I mean, that's for me. The dancing and the singing and the drums and the piano, guitars, and the crowds. And I love that sense of being part of a species that is able to just travel, wherever it is, only limited by your own mental restrictions, self imposed. And so as we keep going, I just have learned about what it takes to get what you want, particularly when you're up against it. Because I've had so much experience in starting over. I've had to start over again this time because I live in the world of live events and live events were the first to go and they'll be the last comeback. And so I've had to start over 21 different times in my life. And this is the first time, this is the 21st time and it's the first and only time that I've been healthy when that has happened. But right now it's the world that's sick. And that carries with it the obligation, the duty, and the responsibility to do what you can to lift the burden and ease the pain. And so the path forward for me- I have learned through experience, devastating experiences that have taken me to the to the brink of not even wanting to be alive, the brink of suicide because my life was just not worth living. If your body fails, you can't move it, there's no hope. And you're just in constant, debilitating, excruciating, and unrelenting pain, you just say I gotta get out of here. But I'm just so fortunate that other people have helped me to get out of that pain. Now I'm doing fantastic. But when I am up against something, I have to rely on all the past experiences of how I'm going to get to where I want to go. That starts with the dream; what do I want, and that transitions quickly into, I got to have a coach, I got to have somebody who's going to show me the way. And the best coach to have is to find somebody who's on their way back from where you want to go. And then you have to join a team. Nobody makes it to the top alone. And collaboration is the key to everything. You have to immerse yourself in the culture, dive right in, let's go. Don't hold back. You cannot finish what you don't start. And then your own personal foundation. And while we've mentioned all those things that led up to through John Wooden as to how you build how and what you focus and concentrate on with that personal foundation, he always raced through that stuff. Because you know, he lived by the four laws of learn, demonstration, invitation, repetition, demonstration, invitation, correction and repetition. And did we ever repeat. Did he ever demonstrate, did we ever imitate, did he ever correct. He did it all constantly. And so here was a situation where we had all these positive aspects but what he was really trying to get to, we had no idea what he was talking about. But he was talking about what do you do when the ball bounces the other way? What do you do when the phone's not ringing? What are you doing when you can't close the deal? What are you doing with your feet on that ground, your body is feeling good. What are you doing when nothing is going wrong? Then you have to have something that is going to get you back on track. And so he always talked about these elements, motivation, critical development skills, balance, quickness, speed of imagination, empathy, and sympathy. We talked about confidence, and he talked about perseverance, persistence, discipline, can't always get what you want. But if you try some time, and real hard, when you do get what you need. And so that whole sense of how it just keeps coming at you when things go wrong. It's not about minor adjustments on the perimeter of art. It's about your foundation for bringing it all back home, getting started one more time from ground zero. And so this sense of how I became the broadcaster there I was lying in the hospital bed. You know, having my ankle fused, knowing I would never play again. Just be it. For me, I thought that basketball was it forever. And now I'm never gonna be able to play again and I'm 37 years old when this happened. And so I'm just lying there in that bed and it dawned on me right there. The lightning bolt flash of inspiration shared across the smoking crater. That's my mind. And it just became crystal clear. Bill, your son got red here. You got a big nose, frickin’ goofy nerdy looking face. You can't talk, you’re a lifelong stutterer and you're a deadhead. Did it for 53 years now or what, a thousand shows on television? They looked at me like get outta here. Well, we are not putting you on television. You're gonna start spitting and stuttering all over everything. And everybody gets Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan, get out of here. No, no, no. I took that no and I ran with it. That no is a great motivator for me.

Adam: Bill, not only did you run with it, but you are the only broadcaster who I can think of and certainly the only sportscaster who I can think of who is so completely comfortable in his or her own skin. To the point where as a kid I remember watching Clippers game after Clippers game when you were the color commentator. And I would just sit there watching the games thinking, how does Bill Walton get away with saying this? How is Donald Sterling not firing him? And I think a lot of fans who watch you now probably think that and a lot of fans who've watched over the years wonder that and I wanted to ask you, how did you develop a level of comfort in your own skin to get to the point to basically be able to go on the air, go on national television, and just say whatever you feel. There aren't too many other people who have that level of confidence. How did you get there?

Bill: Your question about how did I survive Donald Sterling? Quite the chuckle from my wife Laurie who's working across the room. She had to get up and leave because she was laughing so hard. But I got fired every year. I worked for Donald Sterling for 13 years, I got fired every year. One year, I got fired four times during the same season. In one year I got fired at halftime of the game. In consequence, you know, just be yourself. Poise, confidence, competitive greatness at the top of the pyramid of success. All of these things are really easy to say. But you try to implement them. And that's why you really have to work on them when you're on top because when you're on the bottom, you cannot think clearly, you cannot act and nothing makes sense. It's just the weirdest and worst place to be. So, you know, one of the things in the seven point creed from John Wooden's dad, was to prepare for the tough times that are sure to come out. That is a hard thing to do because you just think it's just gonna go forever and you just convince yourself that, okay, that's what's gonna stop me but it doesn’t. And the problems always arise. And so you have to be ready and I'm more ready now than ever, ever fun. You never wanted to happen. You're never in control of it. You're never gonna use it. Okay, now let's have some problems, right? Nobody has failed or made worse stakes, but the level of confidence to get the job done that comes from a lifetime. And while John Wooden, with his pyramid of success, which he spent 14 years putting it together- that's a long time to organize 15 words- and what he were talking about industriousness, enthusiasm, friendship, loyalty, cooperation, tenderness, initiative, alertness, self control, physical fitness, skill development, commitment to the team, poise, confidence, attitude, greatness, and then you realize shortly thereafter he'd already finished, in 14 years, that he left out a bunch of words so he just kind of put them up there as clouds and the two at the very top; faith and adventures. Do you believe? And are you willing, with the lifetime it takes? But a coach wouldn't- his last public comments covered a lot of ground. And he said at his last public event, publicly, he said that he made a mistake, and that he left the word love out of it. Pure love is the single most powerful important word in our language and culture. And until the power of love supersedes the level of power, we have no chance whatsoever. We all have our responsibility to constantly be aware; that sense of recognition of the needs, of the help, that others are searching for. And it's hard. It's hard when people are always asking. It's hard when people are always reaching and always clamoring. But it's important to have that open and extended here because that's how we got it. Somebody helped us along the way. And nobody's been helped, or that read it. So I'm right there. And some of the most interesting experiences of my life, whether it was fascinating opportunities in my life, have come through complete strangers, who might have just shouted out, or who might have just sent me a random email. What do you think? And you just never know where life is going to take you. And that's why you have to have that open mind and open heart, that open spirit. Because that constant balance between being a mentor yourself, or be the student, be the pupil, being the boss, being the employe-, that's being the coach for you. The player is to be able to oscillate back and forth between that- it's just such a spectacular time.

Adam: I live by the mantra of failing to prepare is preparing to fail. And though that's a line that the listeners of this podcast have heard me use multiple times. It’s one of my favorite lines from Coach Wooden, so I'm with you 100% in there, and you know, I, we got a show coming, right? It's got a time start to it, you know who's gonna be there, you know, if you don't know what's gonna happen. But, you know, you've got to allocate all your time to get the stories with the notion that you anticipate the best, but prepare for the worst. Because this could be the greatest event and entertainment show ever that needs very little addition to it or it just could be awful. And it could be atrocious, and you better have something then so I love preparing, I love researching. I love knowledge. I love learning about people. I love knowing other people's journey, their path, and how they got there, how they feel. I came into this interview prepared with lots of questions to ask you and I think I've only asked, maybe a third of them because of the free flowing nature of this conversation. But this is going to be a little bit different. And I don't know if this is within your wheelhouse might be pushing your comfort zone a little bit here. But I want to do something a little bit more rapid fire, and I'm gonna throw some names out to you.

Bill: I'll give it a go.

Adam: I want to throw some names out to you. And maybe if you could just share with listeners a few words a very, very short either anecdote or lesson you've learned from this person who you've encountered along your journey. And the first one I wanted to mention is my favorite writer of all time. He's written too many must read books to name, but one of them was a book that features you and that's The Breaks of the Game. David Halberstam.

Bill: I love David and I missed him terribly and The Breaks of the Game was the only David Halberstam book that I was unable to read. It was just too personal to people. And I generally don't read about myself. I like to create my own sense of who I am. But I was told it was an excellent book and David knew I didn't read the book. And he understood it. But I love that guy and I was very close to him and learned from him. He became basically my personal librarian, because I love to read. My mom, I'm in her profession. She's 93 and she was delivered in the same family home. We all grew up in her profession- it was a library. So I grew up in the world of books. I am an avid reader to this day. David Halberstam? Boy he sent me on a soaring spiraling cartwheel through the universe billions of times.

Adam: That's amazing, Bill. I'm actually teaching a class this quarter at UCLA. It's a graduate level class on leadership and I added The Best and the Brightest to the syllabus, David Halberstam greatest book, in my view, as reading for the students about the coldest winter, about the children. About the 50’s, all his different sports books, Michael Jordan, the baseball books, the roar, the amateurs, the rowers. I mean this, you can see the education of a coach. I mean, we can go on and on and the best, the greatest Jack Ramsay.

Bill: Jack made me the best player I ever was. And he was a brilliant coach. He was like so many of my coaches. He was a professional educator and a teacher. That's why they call him Dr. Jack because he had a PhD in education. And he thought things through and he wouldn't have- all the great coaches, they think through that they have a plan. And Ramsay was just absolutely brilliant. What he did for our team franchise state, just absolutely incredible over the top and we love that guy. We've missed him terribly to read our back. We miss him terribly. There have been a lot of guys that have passed on that, you know, to have played, you know, because the Celtics, that was my- that was my boy. Even though I grew up in Southern California in the heart of Laker country, the way that Chick talked about the sentence, the way that he read about their culture, and their leadership, their players in their town with their style, and I just fell in love with that even though Chick wasn’t with the Lakers.

Adam: I’ll ask you about another Celtic, Larry Bird, your former teammate,

Bill: Larry Bird, the greatest player I've ever played with. Yeah, Larry was the greatest opponent or was the greatest teammate but Larry Bird was just over the top spectacular and you talk about playing basketball. I mean, playing basketball with Larry Bird is like broadcasting with Ralph Lawler. It's like, it's like playing music with Bob Dylan and Jerry Garcia and Mozart and Beethoven. And Chopin. Schubert. What am I? Save me from myself. He was my teammate. And he enabled my basketball career to continue. He was my broadcast partner. And he enabled my broadcast career to continue. He was fantastic. He's passed away to David Stern. He started as the most important man in the history of basketball, never shot a basketball. You know? Yeah. Who knows how tall he is. But, he's the true giant teacher of a game and made it into a business in the world of sports that we have right now- is in all sports in large part due to David Stern, David Falk, Michael Jordan, Phil Knight, Jerry Buss, and ESPN. They all came together in the early 1980’s. And from then on, everything has just been just exploding and expanding exponentially. It is absolutely remarkable, incredible. And we say David Stern, and we love that. We miss Adam Silver. He has carried on beautifully, magnificently in his place. But for me, it was sad that David died so quickly after he retired because he had so much more to give, but he knew he knew there was a time to step aside. And yeah, that's another aspect of leadership is absolutely absolutely brilliant. It's so smart.

Adam: Bill, we've all had good bosses. We all have bad bosses. We've all been around leaders. We've all been around bad leaders. I wanted to ask you about a questionable leader who you work for, Donald Sterling.

Bill: Well, I'm glad you're moved on from editing. Glad to be on NBA dot two, because that was a part of my life that I still scratch my head about, still wondering about my own personal failures. Yeah, and the choices that I made. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so bald right now.

Adam: What about a leader who we all admire in today's sneaker seekers? 

Bill: He’s fantastic. In every aspect of his life, you go back to the list I gave you earlier. But how can a coach and mentor, leader, I'm looking for search with a good person integrity, credibility and honor? Check, check, check all that down the list. Value, standards, character, the ability to teach, inspire, lead, build, develop, check, check, check. That Steve Kerr does fantastic. Gregg Popovich, a stand up guy. Dale, I love it.

Adam: Before we go, I want to ask you one last question.

Bill: Sure.

Adam: You've been involved in giving back in a number of different ways throughout your life, including the bike for humanity rides that you've been leading. How can anyone pay it forward?

Bill: Be in the game, and really listen to this, and understand that their responsibility that we all have, for our Earth, for our fellow humans, and for all the species on the earth, for the rocks, for the water for the sun, in the respect that we have for ourselves, for each other, for the earth is critical to our survival. Like for humanity, check us out our website, fightforhumanity.com. It's a response to the problems, challenges that have been mentioned during this conversation. And what we do is we try to raise awareness, consciousness, and resources for people who are having a tough go. And so we move it around, you know, as things change, as problems arise. When people are in trouble, we're there. But that's what being a part of a team is all about. That's what to be a part of something special is all about. I should be alive. That’s what it's all about. Please, wear a mask, vote, and fight for humanity.

Adam: Bill, I think listening to this podcast is being alive. Talking to you as being alive. Listening to you call basketball is being alive. So I could only imagine what biking for humanity is like, and thanks so much for being not only a part of the show, but for sharing so much unbelievable advice and wisdom over the course of our conversation.

Bill: I'm the luckiest guy in the world. Thanks for having me. I wish you continued success. And that was the fastest 30 minutes that I've ever been apart of.

Adam: I think this might be the longest episode in the history of 30 Minute Mentors. But, Bill, if there's any person who is worth stretching beyond 30 minutes for it's you and to be honest with you, and to be honest with our listeners, this conversation, from my perspective, could probably go for 30 hours. So, Bill, thank you for all of your time for all of your wisdom and thanks for being a part of 30 Minute Mentors.

Bill: Keep shining the light, Adam. You're doing a fantastic job. There we go. Really appreciate it.