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The Brian Buffini Show
Quick Cut: S2E349 Bigger, Faster, Stronger - a Conversation with Walter Bond
00:09:29
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- [00:04]
A
Welcome to It's a Good Life with Brian Buffini, founder of America's largest business coaching company. Here's a short classic cut from one of our all time favorite episodes.
- [00:17]
B
Our guest today is Mr. Walter Bond. Walter came on the scene as a basketball player in college, Played in the NBA for the Dallas Mavericks, Utah Jazz and the Detroit Pistons. And that was cool. But then when he retired, he's gone on to become a presenter, a speaker, TV host, you name it. But he has presented at a number of our events and literally blown our audience away. I call him my brother from a different mother. Walter, we are delighted to have you on the show today. Thanks for joining me.
- [00:47]
C
Awesome. Thanks.
- [00:47]
B
Brian, you often tell the story of your experience, you know, in college and going through it and getting to your breaking points and pushing through that. I'd love you to share some of that stuff with our audience today just because I think there's so much to be learned from it.
- [01:00]
C
Right. Well, you know, if anyone's seen the movie Rudy, I'm Rudy. You know, I didn't start on my college basketball team, you know, after being a high school basketball star. That was it, you know, because that's a minimum requirement to play Division 1 basketball. And once I got to campus, you know, everybody's a stud where they came from. And then you got to kind of recalibrate, right? And my freshman year I got recalibrated. I'm sitting on the bench, Brian, you know, with just no minutes, no playing time and all my. I almost gave up on my dream. But I had this dialogue with my dad and he would always ask questions. And the first question he asked my freshman year was, you know what? You're not playing, son. Why not? And I gave him an 18 year old answer. I said, politics, dad, it's political.
- [01:42]
B
Right?
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C
That's the corporate answer, right?
- [01:45]
B
Yeah.
- [01:45]
C
And my father asked me another question. He was like, how does your coach get paid? And I was like, dad, he gets paid to win. He says, okay, son. Well, if he gets paid to win, won't he play the players to give him the best chance to win? And I was kind of like a long pause, kind of like, hey, is mom home? You know, I don't want this tough love crap.
- [02:05]
B
I want a different answer.
- [02:07]
C
Yeah, but you know, that was a great moment though, where I learned accountability. And when I think about a person reaching their potential, you can't reach your potential without being accountable. Like my best selling book is titled all buts stink.
- [02:22]
B
Yeah.
- [02:22]
C
How to live your best life and eliminate excuses so if there's any realtors out here or any leaders, any managers that have excuses, I made excuses and didn't even realize it. I mean, that was my reality. And unfortunately, you can buy into an excuse that's just an excuse, but you can really convince yourself that it's true. And I'm sitting on that bench, and I convinced myself that my situation was out of my control. And boy, was I wrong. My father really empowered me to be accountable. And obviously, the rest is history.
- [02:55]
B
Such great stuff, you know, My wife, Beverly, played the Olympic team, and she said going from high school to going to college was like a different sport. And then going from college to going to the US Olympic team was like a totally different sport again. And there's a book I read years ago, said, what got you here won't get you there.
- [03:13]
C
That's a great title, right?
- [03:14]
B
And so you're. You're in a situation. You're a high school star, everybody's fawning all over you. You're the big fish in the small pond. You get to the next level, you have these expectations, hey, based on what I was in the past, here's what my presence gonna look like. And people like, nuh. Now you have to grow. You have to continue to grow. So what did you go about doing? Your dad holds the light up. He gives you the accountability, right? What did you go about doing?
- [03:39]
C
Well, you know, the old saying is, new levels, new devils. And so one mistake I made, I confused my potential with who I was at the time. And, you know, a lot of us have potential, but sometimes we don't understand that who we are and where we are today is a point of reference.
- [03:55]
B
Right?
- [03:55]
C
And, you know, I'm a big supporter of activity. You know, a lot of times, if you want to make more money, if you want to be more successful, you got to up your activity. And so in further review, I wasn't staying extra out to practice. I wasn't working hard as I could, and basically I had to change my activity. And I stole a key from a manager, and I would sneak into the stadium at night and shoot the basketball at night. It was just like a mental edge. And I got hungry, I got obsessed, and I began to put in the work. I gave it the energy. I got my passion back. And all of a sudden I realized that, you know what? Talent got me here, but talent's not going to get me there, what he just said. And so everyone was talented, right? And so I had to learn how to work. I had to be honest about my strengths and my weaknesses. And before I knew it, I got on this performance improvement track. And about four years later, I was in the NBA, starting for the Dallas Mavericks.
- [04:50]
B
For people to understand, to go from, there's hundreds of thousands of kids who play high school sports. There are thousands and tens of thousands of kids that play college basketball, but there is very few who get to be in the NBA. There's 30 teams, there's 10 to 12 guys. It's a very, very small, limited group of people that make that number. And what I heard you just say is you increased your activity, you increased your energy, you got hungrier, and it led to getting your passion back. And so that disappointment fueled you as opposed to letting that disappointment define you and depress you. That's the road less traveled, right?
- [05:28]
C
Well, you know, I believe in honest self assessment. And basically it can be hard to have an honest self assessment. And I think in business you have to be fundamentally sound, right? So in basketball, can I dribble better? Can I shoot better? Can I play better defense? So basically, I had to up my game and I had to master fundamentals. And so honestly, Brian, when I got into business, I had to focus on business fundamentals. How good do I market? You know, how good of a sales guy am I? How good am I with people? I had to really begin to be honest about my business skill set. And when I first got into business, I knew nothing. Right, right. But one thing I did had going for me is I had the mindset. Once I made it to the mba, I realized the journey and the work ethic and the process. And a lot of times people don't understand process. If you can process down and understand that I got to get bigger, stronger and faster every year. So we have a concept called the off season, and it's a sports concept, but it should apply to all of us. If pro athletes have an off season, why not you?
- [06:28]
B
Right?
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C
There's got to be a little break you take every year where you don't work in your business. You work on your business, and that's how you get exponential growth. Because when you're competing, you're going to do what you do well. But how do you get better? How do you get more leads? How do you get more acquainted to your software? How do you actually use your technology 100% instead of just 10%? You know, I mean, what do you need to do? And we have a concept called the power of two. What are the two things that if you did them relentlessly and consistently, will get you to the next level. And once you figure out what that is, you got to schedule it done. You know, once I determine what these two activities are, now I gotta go and do them. And so when we work with professionals or companies, we talk about it like, what are your activities? That if you do these two activities, gonna have a huge impact on your bottom line. And once you determine what they are, let's go get it done. And you gotta become relentlessly anal about doing these activities every day.
- [07:23]
B
Right? And this is what I love, is. Cause I always believe your past leads to your future. Success leaves clues. You had a crisis moment where you go, I either gotta get better to make a college team or I'm done. You persevere through it, gets you to the NBA. Now you got to go, okay, now I got Akeem Olajuwon. And I got people that are, you know, dunking on top of my head that can jump taller, you can jump higher, run faster. And now those same principles break through. And here we are jumping into business. And the same things that got you the fundamentals that got you in college, the fundamentals that got you through the NBA are the same fundamentals you had to apply to your new career. That's the power of it. It gets to come with you, right?
- [08:03]
C
Well, here's what's interesting. You know, I was so focused on getting to the NBA. The reason I'm a hall of fame speaker right now, Brian, if I can be honest and totally transparent that I didn't have a vision for the NBA, all I wanted to do was get there.
- [08:18]
B
Right.
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C
I had no game plan on how to stay. And before I knew it, I was back out the NBA.
- [08:24]
B
Yeah.
- [08:25]
C
Right. Yeah. So it's like going to the top of the mountain, and as soon as you get there, you plant your flag and then fall back down the mountain, right? So when I started my new company, the training and development guru, the night I got inducted into the hall of Fame, a woman came to me. I'm sitting there with my tuxedo on best night of my life. And she was like, wow, aren't you excited? I was like, yeah, I'm excited. She says, well, you're not acting like it. I was like, one, I expected to be here, and two, I'm focused on how I'm going to stay, right? And she looked at me like, wow.
- [08:54]
B
Yeah, I learned my lesson. I learned my lesson.
- [08:56]
C
Right? Thank you.
- [09:01]
A
Well, we hope you enjoyed this. Quick cut. Head to the show notes to listen to the full episode. If you'd like to elevate your business to achieve your goals. Talk to one of our experts on a free business consultation. Visit It's a GoodLife.com BC to schedule yours today.