Podcast #1 – From Basketball Greatness to Pickleball Stardom: A Conversation with Rick Barry

Doug Dvorak (00:00.758)
Good day Mission Possible Podcast Nation Doug Dvorak, your host here, your one stop shop and source for all things possible with some incredible individuals. It’s a high honor and privilege today to introduce Rick Barry. Rick is a retired professional basketball player who starred in the NCAA, ABA, NBA. He ranks among one of the most prolific scores of all around players in basketball history.

He is the only player to lead the NCAA, ABA, and NBA in points per game in a season. In NBA finals, he had the most points per game on average of 36.3. And he is widely known for his unorthodox underhand free throw technique. It’s my honor and privilege to welcome Rick Berry. How are you, Rick?

Rick (00:51.086)
Well, if I was any better, I’d be making a comeback in the NBA.

Doug Dvorak (00:54.398)
Well, it’s nice to be with you. And really the purpose of our Mission Possible podcast is to bring unbelievable people like yourself that have had a storied career either in sports or in business. And even after enjoying that success, they are on and doing other things, following their passion. Tell us a little bit about what motivates you and what you’re passionate about today.

Rick (01:21.102)
Well, mean what motivates me is my father was a perfectionist and my father, you know, I got that from him a little bit. As I got older, I realized I can never be perfect, but it didn’t stop me from trying to be perfect. I think you should always strive for excellence. He instilled in me the one characteristic that I think is really great is that is to always give your best effort in everything that you do and then along with it you should never be afraid to fail because nobody’s perfect you’re going to fail and intelligent people learn from their mistakes and you just try to minimize those mistakes.

And that helps you grow as an individual. And I’ve always been of a very competitive nature. That’s one of the things that after I retired from basketball, I had to find something else to do. And I did. I got into world-long driving in golf and won four world-long driving championships in my advanced age category. Then they got rid of that and I couldn’t compete anymore because they said they didn’t want all the old farts around anymore, I guess. And so I got into pickleball and I’m on the…

the cusp of doing something special in pickleball in my age and skill category of winning the four major tournaments, both in what’s called the triple crown and singles mixed doubles and men’s doubles. And I just won the USA national championship in pickleball this past week. And I’m going to go for the seniors next week. I won the US Open and also the world seniors. So it keeps the adrenaline flowing and gives me something to look forward to. think in life, you always have to have challenges and you should set goals for yourself.

and try to make yourself perform at a level as high as possible. And that’s just kind of what my makeup is.

That’s the way I approach life and I’ve been blessed with good health and have a great, you know, great families and all of my children are all doing well. Nobody’s done anything foolish to get themselves in trouble. I just was blessed with another grandchild for my oldest son, Scooter. So I have nine grandchildren now and they’re always fun, especially now that I got another little one. only 19 months old. All the other ones are, most of them were grown. Some of them were through college. So it’s really, tell you the truth, Dave, it’s hard for me to believe that I’m not 80 years old. I swear to you, I mean,

Rick (03:26.918)
It’s just mind-numbing to me. just I don’t feel 80 years old I mean, I I really don’t feel much differently than I was in my 50s In fact, they just had a lot of testing done at the World Seniors they do a lot of health screenings and My screenings are absolutely awesome and off the charts and they even a lot of them said heck you you’re like you’re a 50 year old I mean so and when I had a bad bicycle accident in a few years back and fractured my pelvis in six places The doctor told me after he said Rick you’re very fortunate and I said in what regard he said because if you had the

bones of a man your age I could never even have operated on you because the screws and the pins and all never would have held so because I’ve taken care of myself and which I’ve seen a lot of former pro athletes who who I see a lot of charity events that I go to

Doug Dvorak (04:00.016)
Wow.

Rick (04:12.808)
And they’ve let themselves go. I just don’t understand why because health is such an important part of life. mean you can have all the money in the world if you don’t have your health. What good is it? I mean you know it always brings to mind when I saw a talk by Steve Jobs when he announced you know that he had the cancer. I mean all the money he could possibly do anything in the world with but you know he doesn’t have a life anymore. He’s gone. mean so take care of yourself folks. I my heavens. And I was mad my mother didn’t go in for checkups and wind up having a stroke and then the second one and it killed her.

had gone in and got her daily checkups so she could have lived much longer. So health is really everything. You want to have your health. If you have your health, it’s an easy way to stay happy and feel good. And in life, you can’t make other people happy if you’re not a happy person.

Doug Dvorak (05:02.014)
That’s really good input. Rick, I’m gonna pause real quick. It’s Doug, not Dave. That’s okay, don’t worry about it. Okay, keep going, yeah. Rick, I really love your positive attitude and really embracing life. And as you’ve shared at age 80, how do you keep that same passion and that same focus on being engaged, you know.

Rick (05:06.498)
Doug, I said Dave. I’m sorry about that. I’ll correct it. Let me correct it. I mean, just keep going. We’ll keep going. I’ll get it.

Doug Dvorak (05:29.19)
I’m 63 and I play a lot of pickleball as well and I think we share the same mindset but I have some friends that did well in business, retired and they’re couch potatoes and I see when growth stops, decay begins, how do you keep that same focus, passion and energy at 80 as you did when you were competing in the NBA?

Rick (05:47.958)
Well for me it’s kind of easy and you know what I just realized something because your last name DAV I said didn’t I call you Dave instead of Doug I did I did anyway so I apologize for that but that’s a senior moment so yeah I I don’t know I just always I just always strive like I said like you know being a perfectionist and try to be the best I can never be satisfied a perfect example of that is I was the best free throw shooter in the history of the NBA during my career and had the highest average for a long time

Doug Dvorak (05:54.994)
You did. That’s okay.

Rick (06:17.912)
But yet I wasn’t satisfied and Tiger Woods reminded me a lot of Tiger Woods doing what I did. Tiger Woods is the greatest golfer in the world and changed his swing twice to get better. And so in my case I was the best. I changed my free throw technique. My last six years I shot over 92 % average my last full six years which is better than anybody ever did so I still think I’m the best free throw shooter and I brag about it because it’s the only part of the game you can be selfish.

and still help your team. And my last two years, I shot over 94 % from the free throw line. And I’m proud of that because, but I was never satisfied. So I was a better free throw shooter at the end of my career than I was in the beginning. I’m kind of mad at myself that I wasn’t smart enough to figure that out at the start of my career so I could have had that technique and I could have put up even better numbers.

Doug Dvorak (06:58.494)
Hahaha

Doug Dvorak (07:03.312)
Excellent and in terms of your your new passion, which is pickleball Can you tell us a little bit about your your training? Regiment because I see at most of the big tournaments and you’re a very engaged and active pickleball or with some great titles Tell us a little bit about your your current training regiment

Rick (07:24.11)
Well, I’m actually two things in my passions is that and fly fishing. So, you know, I’m much better pickleball player than I am a fly fisherman, but I’m getting better at fly fishing and totally different. know, one I’m competing against myself and trying to catch the fish and the other one I’m competing against, you know, other individuals, which is totally different. But the pickleball after the.

eliminated the older people from the remax long driving championships, it was called back when I was doing it.

I said, I got to find something to do. My wife said, why don’t you try pickleball? And I said, what the hell is pickleball? So it is a strange name, but it’s really a great game. just, love it so much. I’m involved actually in a lot of different businesses. Picklezone is something people can check out. Picklezone.com. Check that out. And another number of other ones and involve other companies doing things there and involving some cannabinoid companies, which I use on a daily basis because you don’t have any THC in it. And it just helps and you don’t have to take all of those other crazy

drugs that can screw up your body. So I researched it and I said how can I get to be good at this? And so I found out there’s a place in Florida where I spend the winters, I’m actually a Florida resident now, and called the Villages north of Tampa and they have tremendous

Pickleball facilities there and you know so many courts and so many great people playing a lot of Hall of Fame older guys playing there and I was hooked up with the guy named Dick Scott and I called them up and he said we’d love to work with you and also I Would get up at 6 in the morning and drive two hours to get to the villages to go and play pickleball all day long and I got no dick and some of the other players and eventually some of the people say hey Why don’t you just stay over at our place which I said that made more sense so that way I could drive, you know drive get done

Rick (09:12.338)
lunch, whatever, hang out there, get up and do it the next morning and then come back the next day so I get a lot more practice and a lot more playing. And the way to get better when you’re doing something, anything in life, especially if you’re competing, is to compete against better people. It forces you to have to elevate your game.

And so I said, okay, I’m going to work at this and get to the point where I’m good enough to be able to compete and try to win a national championship. And so I worked at it, practiced it, stuff didn’t play in any tournaments. And in my second year, my friend, Jeff Johnson, who I met down in Florida, was a really good competitive player. was only in his, was in his early fifties. He calls me on the phone one day, he says, Rick, would you like to play? There’s a new pickleball facility opening up down here and they’re having a tournament. Would you like to play with me?

Doug Dvorak (09:36.126)
Wow.

Rick (09:57.068)
And I said, you really want me to play with you? Because I know he’s competitive. And so I knew that if he asked me to play, he has to think I’m good enough for him to win because he wouldn’t ask me to play because he doesn’t like losing either. And so I said, sure. So I get off the phone and I say, honey, I’ve made it. She goes, what are you talking about? You made what? I said, Jeff called me and asked me to play in the tournament coming up next week.

I said, you know, he’s not going to ask me to play, but he doesn’t think I can win. So I went and played with him and we won the tournament. So my first ever tournament was the 50 year olds and I was in my seventies and we won the tournament. So that really made me feel good that the time and the effort I put in obviously was paying off. And so I’ve played and I play with a lot of people who are younger and then.

Doug Dvorak (10:34.93)
Wow.

Rick (10:45.858)
I won a lot of national and world senior championships in mixed doubles and men’s doubles. And of course, when you do that, you have to have a good partner. So I’ve been fortunate enough to have some really good partners. I play with a good buddy now, Fred Shewey, who’s my partner, plays with me, in the seventies. Now we played in the eighties and we’ve won two titles again this year. That’s helped me to get that triple crown. And then I had to find some other women. got Sue Matthews down in Naples, Florida, was 80 years old and she was great. We dominated and then she doesn’t like to travel. So I had to find someone else to play.

I played and won two this year and two of the other events and Alice Timm who was a former pro women’s tennis player who had Billie Jean King at match point at Wimbledon one year. She was actually 13th in the world in tennis and so I played with her and we won and I’m gonna play with her next next month and same with Fred and then I started this year said I gotta have another challenge.

Doug Dvorak (11:27.634)
Wow.

Rick (11:39.702)
And so I said, you know what? I didn’t start singles because I was afraid I had no cartilage in my left knee from my operations in basketball. And so I didn’t know if it would beat me up too much. And so I take a thing called Biogenesis, which is an amazing product that’s natural and all, because I had to take Celebrex from my knee and then I had to take Prilosec to protect my stomach lining from that in order to be able to use my knee and not be in all kinds of discomfort.

And this new product was unbelievable. I haven’t touched any of those things for years. And so my knee was feeling good and I said, well you know what? If I’m playing in the 80s, there’s not going to be very many long rallies. Because I mean come on, we’re freaking 80 years old. I we can’t run all over the court and hit the ball 8, 10, 12 times like some of these guys do. And so…

Doug Dvorak (12:18.11)
Ha ha.

Rick (12:24.338)
started to train again with younger guys. know Doug Eden, a guy who does some investing for me who was a top junior tennis player as well and some of my other friends, Dave Mariano and they’re all younger and you know and my buddy Jim I mean anyway they’re younger and so I played with them and so

After playing with them and getting training ready to play the singles this year, when I went to play against the older guys, it was like no contest because I’m playing against these young guys and I had to play really high level to try to win and do well with them. And eventually with Doug, especially with Doug, my thing was how many points can I win hopefully in a game because I didn’t accept, but I eventually last year got a chance where I actually beat him a couple of times in one game. And so when I played against the other competition again, because I prepared

I just in the last one, I mean, some really good guys I played against, my two games in the semifinals and the finals, it was 11-2, 11-1, 11-

to 11-0. I mean so it was yeah I felt badly but not so badly that I didn’t crush him because I always learned that you do something you got to crush somebody I mean you don’t try to make friends out there you’re trying to beat somebody and and I don’t try to rub it into him but you’re really good guys and so anyway that’s that’s kind of what happened and that’s the way that I approach things and yeah I love it the same thing with fly fishing I’ve always want to get better so when I go out I tell the guys look if you see something

Doug Dvorak (13:31.375)
Wow.

Doug Dvorak (13:42.93)
Right.

Rick (13:58.88)
something I’m doing wrong, tell me, because I don’t want to grew a bad habit, and tell me and give me pointers what can I do to be better.

And so I’m always striving to get better in anything that I do in life. I’m never satisfied. I tell people when I talk to businesses and all, when you get to the point that you think you’ve really made it and you stop trying to improve, that’s the start of the old downward spiral. That’s the start of your failure. You’re gonna go downhill from there. You can’t be satisfied when you reach a certain level or a certain plateau. You always need to strive to improve and get a little better.

Doug Dvorak (14:32.1)
I totally agree and that mindset. Rick, you’ve had a storied, collegiate, professional career as a professional basketball player. You’ve also had a fair amount of success in business. Can you share a specific moment when you faced significant failure or setback and how did you bounce back from it?

Rick (14:55.128)
Well, I still like, I probably remember the bad things in basketball more than I do the good things. I remember that two pick and roll plays between Nate Thurman, my teammate and myself with Will Chamberlain from the 76ers in 1967 finals. Had those two plays gone our way, we might have won in six games instead of the 76ers who were picked as one of the great teams in the history of the league. And those things to this day still haunt me.

I got stuck on it. The second pick and roll play was the one that was worse than any of the first one the official should have called a foul and he didn’t. And the second one, I came off and used Nate, went up for a jump shot.

saw Nate roll to the basket and was getting ready to throw it to him to get an easy basket and Will Chamberlain took the biggest step I’ve ever seen a human being take in my life and he cut off my passing angle and so I had to double clutch the shot and I missed it it was such a critical critical play late in the game six so I kind of remember that and you know and those are the things that you just have to get over I mean you know here’s the thing

People have a tendency to get wrapped up in their emotions with things that happen to them.

on a continual basis and they just let it linger. Once it’s over, it’s over, it’s in the past. You can’t ever change what has happened. I don’t think unless I can get the car to go back to the future. You can’t change it. And so it astonishes me, but I’ve learned over time that most people, the majority of people, do not have the ability to do what I call compartmentalization, is to take things and stick

Rick (16:44.436)
it on the back burner in your head and don’t think about them because you can’t change them and if you think about them they can make you disappointed they can give you I mean anyway you can I said the cry get over it forget it I have the ability to do that fortunately so I don’t think about like when people ask me Ricky you miss playing basketball and I say no they look strangely at me really I said no because what I said I don’t think about it

Doug Dvorak (17:06.002)
Really?

Rick (17:11.062)
Why would I think about the fact that I never again am going to be able to play the sport that I love so much that was such an integral part of my life and I’ll never be able to do it again at a level that I was able to do it at? like many people ask me, do you still play? I say, what are you crazy? Why would I want to go out and play? I used to play at a high level. Why would I want to go out and play, possibly get hurt and not play very well?

And so I just don’t think about those things and I’m lucky to do that. And in lot of ways it’s helped the same thing like with the passing my mom and dad passed you know and I actually prayed for my mom and dad to die and I thank God every day for that because they had situations that were just not good. so…

I said, you know, thank you God, that’s a great thing. But I don’t think about all those things because it was very sad. I mean, you don’t realize, nobody sits around thinking your parents are gonna die one day and then all of a sudden the reality hits and the next thing you know they do it like, well I got up, my brother talked about my mother, I got up to do my father and man, I couldn’t believe how emotional I got.

during that time and once I got over that I don’t think about that all that much because it’s very sad. Why do I want to think about something that makes me sad? I mean I don’t want to continually feel that way and be depressed. And the same thing, I talk to a lot of people who’ve had lot of tragedies and things happen in their life and I say look, you lost someone you love. Not an easy thing.

The last thing in the world that person that you love so much would want to see is you being depressed and being in the state that you’re in right now. For no other reason for yourself you should be doing it, but if you love them so much do it for them. They wouldn’t want to see you like this. so but it’s easy to say. Fortunately I can deal with it but a lot of people can’t which you know I feel I feel sorry for people who can’t.

Rick (18:57.698)
deal with tragedies and things of that nature in a way that doesn’t screw up their life.

Doug Dvorak (19:02.942)
Yeah, the passes the pass, compartmentalization. Rick, you were a player coach for the Golden State Warriors. You had to balance.

Rick (19:04.492)
Yeah.

Rick (19:09.794)
No, I wasn’t a player coach. I was never a player coach. No, no, no, no. I was never a player coach. No, I coached in the minor leagues. I coached in the minor leagues some, but I was never a player coach. A lot of people said I was like having a coach on the floor because I really understood the game. My father was a semi-pro player coach and he taught me the game. And again, you know, I thought the game. I understood the game. I didn’t just go out and just play.

Doug Dvorak (19:12.466)
You were not.

Okay, then my bad.

Rick (19:35.146)
I I studied the game, I understood the game, and I tried to do the most intelligent thing that you could do during the course of the game. I still remember people say, some idiot on the internet put something up, or the video thing, that I quit on my team against the Phoenix Suns. my God, whoever that guy is, he should be punished somehow, someway. Because anybody that knows me, there’s a…

not a chance in the world I’m not going to try to win every game I ever played in anything I’ve ever done and to say that I quit on my team and then the idiot runs some video and stuff showing you because I’m passing because I’m not shooting all the time well we were having a struggle and like I say I do what I think needs to be done sometimes you have to try to take over and sometimes you maybe you want to need and include your other people so I was passing to guys who had better opportunities than me and so I wasn’t shooting the ball because I was trying to help us win

We did get back into the game and unfortunately we lost in a close game seven against Phoenix, which still to this day haunts me more than anything else because we would have been one of the few teams ever to have back-to-back championships. And so, yeah, it’s hard to lose and all, but again, I don’t know. I shouldn’t even brought that one up because see, I’m getting upset about that one again. I can’t believe this guy said that about me. Anyway.

Yeah, I was mad that I got in a fight with Ricky Sobers from the Suns and I went to the locker room at halftime and I looked at video. We didn’t have a chance to go in the locker room at halftime in those days to watch a video of the freaking game, you know? And I saw that my teammates didn’t come to my defense and so I quit on my team. I was upset with them. Why do you… I mean, come on, give me a break.

Doug Dvorak (21:07.102)
Hahaha

Doug Dvorak (21:16.062)
A lot of misinformation, a lot of people wanting clickbait at somebody else’s expense.

Rick (21:18.668)
Yeah, but that’s the problem. People when they see stuff and they believe it, you know, like you read in the newspaper, come on, especially in today’s days, everything is so freaking biased. I mean, come on, it’s so hard to find the truth anymore today. You just never know what’s the truth and what isn’t the truth. So it’s, you know, it’s great what we have with technology and the internet and all that other good stuff, but there’s a lot of bad things as a result of that too that cause a lot of problems.

Doug Dvorak (21:43.25)
Rick, what role did mentors play in your development and how do you approach mentoring others?

Rick (21:50.818)
Well, I had a father who was a semi-proprietary coach and it was great. Then I had an older brother, Dennis, who was helpful to me as well. And then I had coaches who were helpful to me. I had some who weren’t so helpful. You have good and bad and everything in life and so you have to be intelligent enough to take the good things and avoid the bad things or just disregard them and go about your business.

So yeah, think mentoring is critical, especially for some kids who come from broken families, you know, to have someone that you can look up to and you can respect and that you’re willing to listen to what they have to say. But then again, the person, you can be the greatest mentor in the world if you don’t have a person who’s willing to accept what you’re saying.

want to try what it is you’re trying to get them to do you can’t be successful I mean you can’t necessarily change someone’s mindset you can hope you try but the person has to be They have to be willing to listen to what you say and want to get better

And if they don’t want to get better, you’re not going to help them. I don’t care what you say to them. All you do is hope that eventually something gets through and when they’re off on their own, just like with kids, you try to tell your kids all the other things. The greatest thing for knowing whether or not you’ve done a good job raising your kids is that you have the parents of their friends.

say to you, wow your child is so great, what a wonderful child doing. Then you know you’ve done the job because the way they act away from you is what matters. Not with you because kids always challenge their parents and whatever they think, this kid’s I’m gonna kill him. But when they go away all the stuff you said they don’t act that way. And so when you hear the best thing in life is to hear the parent or someone in school or maybe talk to you and tell you how wonderful your child is. That’s the true indication of whether you’ve done a good job raising your child.

Doug Dvorak (23:43.27)
Rick, I was watching the Summer Olympics and I saw your son Canyon on the three on three and what a great player. Talking about son legacy life lessons, your son Canyon’s a professional basketball player. He’s also a nuclear engineer and what key life lessons did you make sure to pass down to him?

Rick (24:04.28)
Same thing my father told to me, always give your best effort in everything you do in life. Learn as much about whatever it is that you are going to try to make a profession. It doesn’t matter what it is, whether it’s science, music, it doesn’t matter. Learn the fundamental principles and concepts because that’s the foundation that you put down. You can’t build a tall building on a small foundation. It’ll topple over.

And so that’s the critical element, the fundamentals. And that’s what I did with all of my boys, because I would have camps, I would bring them there. So my sons were fundamentally sound players who understood the game and who were blessed like I was with some good natural ability and talent. But it was up to them to utilize that talent and to put the time and the effort into helping to develop themselves to become good at what they were doing. So the only credit I take is I helped lay the foundation. They were the ones that had to build on it.

Doug Dvorak (24:58.302)
Excellent. Excellent. Now we’re going to do the, as we close out this podcast, we’re going to ask you the rapid fire round. A couple of questions. What’s your definition of success?

Rick (25:09.518)
Hmm, interesting. Knowing that every day you gave your best effort in everything that you did and I am a big believer in that everything in life happens for a reason and I’ve had personal experiences that have proven that. know, one time it took two years to figure out why something happened but when it did I realized, now I know why that happened. It took two years and it hadn’t been for those two years. I wouldn’t have the unbelievable wife that I have now.

Because I had a lot of baggage, okay? I had a lot of baggage, Older, married kids. So I had overcome a lot. She doesn’t let me count the five years of relentless pursuit chasing after her. But had it not taken two years for my divorce to go through, I never would have had a relationship that had developed with her in those two years that could have overcome the fear that she had of me asking her to marry me.

And so that’s just the greatest example of anything that I’ve done in my life to show you that everything in life happens for a reason.

To be successful, just always give your best effort. If it’s meant to happen, it will happen. If not, it’s something else for you. There’s always something else. So don’t get down on it. Like I say, if it’s something that makes you sad, cry, get over it, move on. You get knocked down, pick yourself up and start moving forward again. And so success is being a person who is always going to give their best effort, who is never going to accept failure and is going to always try to do better that day or the next day.

Doug Dvorak (26:46.257)
Rick, I love your mindset perspective on dealing with loss, dealing with failure. And you obviously dealt with a lot of challenges in your life on the basketball court. What was your relationship with failure?

Rick (27:02.444)
Hated it. I still to this day hate losing. I hate losing. Absolutely can’t stand losing. I can accept it, but I am not happy losing. I remember in the long driving competition, I had a chance to win another championship when we played. wasn’t artificial turf at the time. And Steve, I’m trying to remember his last name, but Steve was the guy. He was down to the last swing. It was…

It had rained all day long and so the whole field was muddy where you hit on the layout of the yardage and stuff there. And so I had the longest drive but my ball had hit and plugged. He took the last swing of the competition, hit a ball that hit short of mine but it wasn’t soggy and it rolled and beat me by about 8-10 inches.

That was a crushing one. That was a crusher. But I went up to him and I said, Steve, congratulations to you. I said, I’m not happy that you beat me. I said, but you should be proud of yourself to be able to take as good a swing as you took and to hit a shot that good on the last swing of the competition. You should be proud of yourself for being able to do that. And so you can be a gracious loser, but

You don’t want to be a loser. You should not want to be a loser. Like Vince Lombardi, think, said, show me a good loser and I’ll show you a loser. But a good loser. I mean, you can be gracious, but I hate losing. I mean, it’s just that simple. Anything I do, it doesn’t matter what I’m doing or playing a board game. You should see some of our games. My son’s so smart, my wife, we play a lot of games and stuff. It is so freaking competitive. It’s unbelievable. And it’s great. And I love it. And so, yeah, that’s…

Doug Dvorak (28:27.592)
Ha ha ha.

Doug Dvorak (28:47.614)
That’s great, great.

Rick (28:47.682)
That’s just kind of who I am. That’s my makeup. Never satisfied perfectionist, whatever it is. But not to a perfectionist to the point where I used to get real upset with myself when I was younger. And my father said, son, you can’t allow something that happens to get so upset that it impacts your performance to a negative aspect. You can’t do that.

Doug Dvorak (29:08.178)
love that. Rick, share with our audience one book that changed your perspective on life.

Rick (29:16.268)
I wasn’t a big reader. I mean, I was never a big reader. I enjoy reading. I’m a big, huge movie buff. In fact, reading, I’m so mad at myself because I read The Godfather. Well, ruined the movie. I knew everything that was going to happen. I would have much rather watched the movie and see all that stuff and gotten surprised by the horse’s head in the bed and all that other good stuff. And so, I mean, it’s not like…

Doug Dvorak (29:36.168)
Let me ask it another way. What one person changed your perspective on life or your…

Rick (29:40.622)
My father, my father, my father without question. mean, because he’s the one that formed the foundation and you know, and that’s the sadness of so many young people who unfortunately grow up with not having a father around. I mean, if you have a father, can be such an important aspect of your life if indeed they are a good mentor, a parent and a mentor, because you really are as a parent, you really are a mentor for your child.

And so that’s what you need to try to do. I think most parents try to give their, do something for their children that they didn’t have for themselves. But you can’t overdo that to the point that you spoil them. They have to understand. Like my father said, like today we grew up in a world of the kids, young kids here. It’s entitlement. They think they’re entitled to things. I always remember my father say, son, the only thing in life you’re entitled to is what you earn.

That’s what you’re entitled to. so kids today are growing up and they spoil them rotten and it’s crazy, especially in sports when they get younger, they have show talent and all. They spoil these kids rotten and it’s a shame, it really is because you’re doing them a disservice by doing that.

Doug Dvorak (30:54.64)
Absolutely. Rick, I wanted to touch base on, we talked about, you know, some of the common threads or foundation for you is commitment to excellence, persistence, winning, processing, loss, moving on. A lot of young people, you know, the pandemic and the challenges and global warming and all those issues that young people have.

Mental health is really important now. Do you have any suggestions beyond what you shared for some of our younger viewers on mental health, mental preparation for university, school, life in general?

Rick (31:34.04)
Well, I was actually just talking to my friend who’s home on here. The biggest thing for me, the difference between being good at something and great at something, people who are great have the ability to stay focused. Focused on the task at hand. Keep yourself in the moment.

In basketball, I’ll give you great example. People say, well, you you got to get by your guy, you got to beat your man. I said, no, no, no. It’s a fine, fine little edge here. I don’t have to go by my guy in basketball who’s guarding me. I only need to get him on my shoulder and I own him. That’s a half a step. As a coach, I know I can get my players to play hard because they know if they don’t put the effort forth, they’re not going to play, first of all.

But the ones that become great are the ones who can stay fully focused. If you’re not focused, even if you’re playing hard, you’ll be a half a step late reacting to things. And a half a step in sports, in most sports, is a disaster for you. A total disaster. And that’s the critical element, the focus part. When I coached in the minor leagues, my thing to my players is, guys, we’re playing, this is pros, minor leagues, 48-minute game. I’m asking you,

to give me 36 minutes where your head is in the freaking game. Just 36, three quarters of that game. And I guarantee you that if we as a team stay focused defensively, offensively, and we’re into what we’re doing, and we can get 36 minutes, we’re gonna win a lot of games because most teams aren’t going to be able to do that and you’re gonna beat them.

And I used to keep statistical things when we, how well we did. And I said, I want to show you something. When we were into the season, I had my assistant guys run this up. I said, let me show you something here. This game, we won this game by six points. We had 26 minutes that we figured we played focus.

Rick (33:33.208)
Okay, we won this game by 12 points. It was 30 minutes that we stayed focused. We won this game by 18 points. We stayed focused for 38 minutes. This game, it was the correlation and relationship between the amount of minutes that we played really smart and were into the game was the difference in the point spread, the difference in winning the game by a larger margin because we stayed focused for that long. Now, sometimes you might only win by two,

but you stayed focused a long time because the other team was in the game for a long time but it was enough to give you that two-point margin and so it’s a critical that’s really critical for that to have happen the same thing on your job you know whether you’re you’re sitting at a desk whatever you’re doing

Stay focused. What do I have to do to be able to do my job as well as I can possibly do it? What’s going to happen? You’re going to get a promotion before the guy who doesn’t do that. You’re going to advance. You’re going to have an opportunity to become an executive in that company. Because why? You consistently perform at a high level.

Doug Dvorak (34:40.286)
That’s great. Rick, as we close out our time together, the title of this podcast is Mission Possible. What does Mission Possible mean to you personally?

Rick (34:52.436)
is to set goals for yourself. Like just like me, come on, I’m 80 years old. I set a goal for myself to try to go out and win the triple crown and freaking pickleball. I mean, always set goals for yourself.

Because set goals you stay still focused on what you’re doing and it makes life so much more enjoyable now You might get disappointed it might not happen. All right, it doesn’t happen. What happens learn from the mistakes. What did I do incorrectly? What did I do wrong? What can I do better the next time I go out there to perform it or to play in whatever the sport is and Always be looking for a way to get better at what you’re doing and don’t get discouraged if you’re unsuccessful because as I said early in the

You are not a perfect human being. You are going to make mistakes.

Learn from those mistakes which will help you to become better and better and never be satisfied just like my free throws better and better and better and change What can I do to get better? Same with pickleball. I’m learning how to do it. I had to learn my game is getting better I’m still working on getting better. I’m still going to keep getting better Because i’m learning more about it i’m learning about the game learning about the strategies behind it Making like I knew if I was going to play singles I had to get my backhand top spin better I had to get my backhand slice, but I had to be have a backhand that wasn’t a

weakness because what will happen in life if you have a weakness in sports the premise in sports is this you always exploit the weakness of your opponent

Rick (36:19.958)
So if you have a weakness, they’re going to exploit it and you’re going to lose a lot because of the fact that they will beat you because you’re not very good at something. That’s why I had to learn when basketball you got to be able to shoot so they have to guard you normally. You have to respect their shot and if I can drive left and drive right you have to play me honest. But if I couldn’t go left really well, well they’re going to take my right hand away and the only way I’m going to get to do anything is to go left which I’m not as good at.

And so it’s the same thing in everything in life, is that don’t have any glaring weaknesses. like after the off season, I didn’t go out and practice free throws all summer long. I was going out practicing what I didn’t do as well to make that better. And so what I used to do as a coach in the minor leagues, and I never had any coaches, I never had this happen before, and I just figured this makes sense. I would ask my players to start this, I said, I want you to come back tomorrow.

Doug Dvorak (37:01.694)
Mmm.

Rick (37:16.886)
I want you to do two different things. Number one, want you to give me an evaluation of your skills offensively and defensively, your strengths and your weaknesses. Then I want you to give me at least two plays that you have either had run for you or you wish had been run for you. Now, why I did that, number one, first of all, I know what the hell they can and can’t do. I want to see if they’re being honest, right?

Are they going to be honest with themselves to say what they can’t do as well and what they can’t And that’s the things you need to work on. So anyway, that just gives you an idea of the person himself. Is he honest about his own skills and talents? The second thing was critical. A lot of coaches have systems and they want to run this and run that and do that. Well, I have ideas of what I’d like to do. think offensively, I think I’m very creative and I love offense. I love to create stuff.

They’re going to show me in those two plays where on the basketball court they have the most confidence in their skills. They’re going to show me where they want the ball. So if I get you, you show me, you give me two plays and you show me that you want the ball on the left wing. Right? Am I going to run something in my offense? Can I do what I’d love to do and I want to run some patterns? Can I put the ball in your hands where you’re showing me you want it? And if I can’t, I might just use your play.

change things around a little bit so I’m not gonna run something into the ball and give you a ball in the right block if you ask it for the left wing so it tells me where my guys are and so I want to make sure that anything that I that we run or do something if I’m gonna try to help him out I want to make sure that I give him the ball where he has the most confidence in his ability to perform just pretty simple

Doug Dvorak (39:00.075)
Yeah, that’s really great. I’ve really enjoyed our time together. It’s flown. Our guest and the Mission Possible podcast has been NBA retired professional basketball player Rick Barry Naismith Hall of Fame, one of the top 75 players, NBA players, top 50. I’m sorry.

Rick (39:20.152)
Top 50, top 50, top 50, let’s go. Here’s the thing, people always come up to me and say, I made the top 50 and they say, congratulations on the top 75. I said, why are you congratulating me for that? I was a top 50 player. I sure as hell should be in the top 75 if it was a top 50 to begin with. That’s okay, no big deal.

Doug Dvorak (39:34.109)
Top 50, my apologies. Rick, I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you better. If our listeners and viewers want to find out more about you, Pickleball, how can they do that?

Rick (39:49.016)
Well, actually, I’m actually in the process, before I got on with you, I got on with a friend of mine, Larry Macy, who’s very creative, but I’m actually gonna finally put together and have a whole website to go to. I have all kinds of products and things that are just amazing that I use, the cannabinoid products, and people can get discounts and things of that nature. I’ll give those to you now because I don’t have the site to tell them to. It’s Medisaleaf, M-E-D-I-C-I-L-E-A-F dot com, Medisaleaf dot com. The other one is, and the product there is this Platinum Pro.

Sav that’s unbelievable. I mean, I just had some I put it on this morning and I just I’m just thinking about now my back was a little stiff when I got up and my back feels really good right now and the other and there’s a lot of other products that are good that have all kinds of liquids and things of that nature and then the other one is alo a lo d.com and the great product there is called ultra repair X. yeah and ultimate repair X and

That’s a that’s a salve that has an aloe base that that product by itself was great and I got the owner of the company to put some cannabinoids a combination of like people here CBD. CBD is one of 130 cannabinoids in the cannabis plant. I mean there’s it’s crazy. They’re going to come out with more and more things I think with this plant when they start doing all of this experimentation but this is a great product as well. I use that on a regular basis and they have a lot of other great products there also for women with face creams and things.

And then there’s one last one called ghost sleeves. Ghost sleeves. They’re sleeves for your knees, for your calf, it helps with the Achilles, the elbows, all kinds of stuff and developing all new things. And Kinesio tape is built into it. I never play pickleball without my ghost sleeves and I use it on my elbow and what have you. And every one of those, if you put the code in RB, small R, small B, 24, you’ll get a nice discount on any of those products if you check them out. I use them all on a regular basis. They’re absolutely fantastic.

And there’s a whole bunch of other things I’m doing. But eventually I’m gonna have a website that I have to figure out what URL I’m gonna get. there’s so many things I’m involved in that are so exciting and so much fun. I’m probably more busy now than I’ve ever been in my life. I still kind of work for a living because they didn’t have three zeros, Doug, on my contract. Yeah, I’ll give you a perfect example. The lowest paid player in the NBA this season.

Rick (42:10.04)
will have made more than twice as much money as I made in my best year and he never plays. Never plays. If I were 30 years old today I would have a five year $300 plus million dollar contract which I can’t even fathom that someone would pay me that much money to play basketball. But yeah, no, so that’s the biggest difference between when I played and these guys are playing. It’s a totally different lifestyle. But yeah, RB24 is the code. Check him out and then eventually I’ll…

Doug Dvorak (42:15.941)
Wow.

Rick (42:40.342)
I’ll have the website for people to go to. It make it a lot easier. Then I have to give all those URLs and stuff. It’s just a little simple thing. You go to there and you can do everything on the website. anyway, it was a pleasure. I hope everybody who is listening, if they listening to this and Thanksgiving hasn’t come, I hope you have a blessed and happy Thanksgiving with you and your family. And same thing with a Merry Christmas coming up as well. And whatever other holidays, I know there are other ones going on, people celebrate. So I hope that all of those are blessed and more than anything else, good health to everyone.

Doug Dvorak (43:08.904)
Thank you, Rick. Our guest has been NBA star Rick Barry Pickleball star winner of the Triple Crown and a businessman and entrepreneur. It’s been a high honor and privilege to have you on the Mission Possible podcast. Rick was sure. Sure. Sure. Sure.

Rick (43:24.75)
One last thing, one last thing, wait a second, Mission Impossible. It was Mission Impossible, I love those movies, right? But Mission Impossible actually was Mission Impossible because they did those missions, right? Because he was focused, he was focused, he put the effort forth. When they failed, what did he do? They came back and they found a way to make it possible.

Doug Dvorak (43:35.112)
Right.

Doug Dvorak (43:42.77)
Mission Possible. Thanks, Rick. Thanks, viewers. Check us out on missionpossiblepodcast.com. Carpe diem.