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- [00:00]
Mike Pesca
The gist is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations. Introducing Family Freedom from T Mobile. We'll pay off four phones up to 3, 200 and give you four free phones, all on America's largest 5G network. Visit t mobile.com familyfreedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phone via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement. Example Apple iPhone 16128 gigs $829.99 eligible trade in. Example iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end in balance due if you pay off early or cancel Contact Us. It's Tuesday, November 18, 2025 from Peach Fish Productions. It's the gist. I'm Mike Pesca. I understand the appeal Trump of his foreign policy or his military engagement. Sea boat, bomb, boat. It's pretty simple, the pushback you get. I don't know weenies who like you to follow the law. You could just say, I got a boat. They were druggies. They were going to kill 250,000 people. Sea boat, bomb, boat. Now, the Europeans do it a little differently. For instance, Vladimir Zelinsky and just a side note, Volodymyr, as Alanski was supposed to say right below the mirror. And I'm sure that's how you say it, but Vladimir Putin, friends, he has none. Someone once called him Vlad because that's what you call Vladimir. If you have a Volodymyr in your orbit, do you call him Vlode or do you say Vlad? But it is sort of like Vlode because in the Ukrainian way of saying things, Vlad becomes Vlode. What I'm trying to think and it's kind of a vloaded phrase. I think we might be going overboard with the Vlodomir. I think that maybe the Ukrainians like, yeah, it's, you know, it's just like Vladimir, but we just say it a little Vladimir. They have a different Alphabet, you know. So Vladimir Zalinsky was in France the other day and Emmanuel Macron said to him, you will get some planes. Our famous Rafael fighter jets here. Either speaking through an interpreter or doing a cool trick where he simultaneously speaks in French but louder English. Here was Mahomes announcement and the acquisition of up to 100 Rafale fighter jets. The state of the Art jets with their full armament systems. The downside of this, and it sounds great, right? So I started off by speaking about how Donald Trump likes being straightforward. It's kind of straightforward. Here are some planes, all right, that's not going to be delivered until 2035. So it's really the idea of planes. But how are the Ukrainians going to pay for the planes? Well, they have a plan. The European Union is going to use frozen assets to give a Russian frozen assets to give a loan to Ukraine to buy planes that maybe will come 10 years from now. And the loan, like I said, backed by the Russian frozen assets will not have to be repaid unless Russia pays reparations. And then Russia, Russia will essentially, through a series of interlocking trusses and pronunciations of Vladimir and some Rafael fighters, they'll actually be paying to have their own armaments and people blowed up. I don't know if this will work. You know who else doesn't know if it will work? The European Union. Many member states of the European Union, including Belgium, where the assets are frozen, are saying, I don't want to be on the hook for this if Russia wins a lawsuit and says something like, you can't do that. See, this is also what Trump thinks. If Russia wins a lawsuit. You know, if you were a real strong country or a collection of countries, you wouldn't even be open to this possibility. Here's another complication. I'll read this to you. They're asking many other European nations firmly commit to taking on some of the burden through guarantees. A suggestion that has been met with pushback from Slovakia. That from the New York Times, again, Donald Trump, he knows a thing or two about the Slovaks and the Slovenes, and he definitely knows, just don't open yourself up to push back from Slovakia. I'll read what I think was the standout phrase from the New York Times assessment of this plan, to give Ukraine some money that it's definitely going to never pay back to get some planes that might not get there until 2035. The frozen asset loan plan will come together, not because it is without complications, but because the backups are so unattractive at a moment when so much is at stake. Headline of this piece was, if Ukraine loan plan fails, Europe has no good Plan B. And that's why Donald Trump is like Plan B. I'm bombing the boats. Plan A is going great for Donald Trump. Normally I would say, well, these are the prices of doing things by rule of law.
- [05:21]
John Amici
But.
- [05:22]
Mike Pesca
But all those European unions together, it's rules of laws and sometimes things don't get done on the show. Today we go to Europe, to England, in fact the UK to speak with a proud tall Englishman. John Amici played college basketball, first Vandy, then Penn State and then went pro. He was the first Englishman in the NBA. Like real Englishman, Englishman with an accent Englishman. And he then became one of the first out NBA players after he left the game. And now he is just a kind of brilliant psychologist. He has his degree and plenty of training as you will hear, and he just has business insight, life insight, a little insight about what to do when Rasheed Wallace is on your hip. Do you pull the chair? All right, we won't be getting into NBA talk, but we will be getting into the life career. An insight of the author of It's Not Magic the Ordinary Skills of Exceptional Leaders, John Amici. I'm going to quote the National Institutes of Health. I defer to the experts. 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Mars Men gives me constant energy. I have to say, the lifting, the dead lifting has gone well. I kind of can't believe that my back is taking it, but I'm gonna keep doing it until it doesn't. I'm setting personal records, trying to contain my pride in myself. Thank you, Mars Mention. For a limited time, our listeners get 60 off for life and two free gifts. When you use gist at men, go to mars.com that's mengotomars.com and use code gist at checkout. After your purchase, they will ask you where you heard about them. It's very important to say the gist. Please support our show and let them know our show sent you. John Amici, the former basketball player, NBA player, current psychologist and thought leader, is out with a new book. It's called It's Not Magic, the Ordinary skills of Exceptional Leaders. If you wanted to really riff on the subtitle, he could have called it something like It's Not Magic, how not to be Cavalier in business and all that jazz. And that would have incorporated the NBA teams he donned uniforms for. But John, as you will find out, I think almost immediately in this interview, does have this interesting past also as a pioneer, as the first or one of the first out, at least former gay NBA players. But what I'm teasing is that he really knows what he's talking about. I've been listening to a lot of podcasts and reading the book, and I said to myself, if I could afford this guy, I would pay him. Hello, welcome to the Gist.
- [11:43]
John Amici
Oh, thank you. Love to be here. Thank you.
- [11:46]
Mike Pesca
So what drew you to the part of psychology that is broadly the broad applications or for the business world in particular?
- [11:55]
John Amici
So it's. It's for organizational growth, and I suppose it's. It's the idea that all of us are in some kind of organization, and yet many of us don't thrive in them. And I could never understand. It's almost as if some organizations, and especially businesses, they don't think that they can operate effectively if their people are happy. Like, if there's something that makes their people happy, they want to stop it because they think that somehow pain and suffering is what delivers results and sustainable success. And, you know, part of. Not everything translates. Right. A lot of people use the lessons of sport as if they're magical information for businesses. But the reality is that there are lessons you can take from sports that do teach you something. Like the idea that nobody looks at a sports person and says, yeah, I was up all last night practicing. I was. I was absolutely doing lifts. I was lifting weights at 2 in the morning and then is surprised when they don't perform the next day. There's real lessons to learn, and I wanted an opportunity to not just tell stories about it, but actually have some theoretical knowledge behind it. Which is why I did the kind of studying part of this too.
- [12:58]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. In fact, in sports, especially something like Olympic sports, the opposite is true. Over training is true. And these driven people, quite often, or at least the ones we know about at the heights of sports, have to be stopped from training stupidly and training too much. Is there an equivalent of that in business?
- [13:15]
John Amici
Well, the equivalent is that currently we're seeing levels of burnout like we haven't seen in a long, long time, people who are driving themselves into the ground. But it isn't just the number of hours of labor. Right. And it isn't with athletes either. It's not just the number of hours, it's how you're applying those hours. It's whether you see a sense of personal purpose. It's why most athletes last longer before burning out than people in regular jobs. Right. Because for them, the real, the purpose of what they're doing is completely clear. I know why I've set out on this journey to try and be the best. I don't. Runner, figure skater, you name it, in the world. Whereas if you're someone who feels like you're just pushing widgets around inside a business unconnected to the success of that organization, your likelihood of burnout is much, much higher.
- [14:01]
Mike Pesca
Were you happy playing basketball, per se?
- [14:04]
John Amici
I was very happy to be playing basketball, but mostly not for reasons that people imagine. I. I started playing the game at the age of 17. I was aware every single time I stepped on an NBA court and even in college that I was playing against people who'd been playing from 2 and 3 and 4 and had had great coaching, often at very young levels. And I'd been eating pies and reading books at that age. And so there was something about the sense of, I'm on the same parquet floor as you, with people cheering or jeering at me the same as you. But I just. I did. I started this at an unbelievably late stage. My high school coach, when I came to this, to that country, to America, to Toledo, Ohio, was my first introduction to America. And I came there and my high school coach told me, maybe six weeks into training, he said, look, have fun this year because this will be the last year you play for fun. It won't be the last year you have fun playing, but it will be the last year you play for fun. And I took those words to heart, and I enjoyed some elements of my playing career, but it's not. It wasn't what I had planned for myself in the long run. There was more that I wanted to do.
- [15:21]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, I understand that the NBA is a business, and so you can have fun while playing it, but over 82 games and the grind and of course, a lot of losing teams in your particular situation, starting off with one of the most horrific teams in the NBA, the Cleveland Cavaliers, where people refused your autographs because they didn't want the mark of shame.
- [15:42]
John Amici
Yes.
- [15:42]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, that's not fun.
- [15:43]
John Amici
Yeah.
- [15:43]
Mike Pesca
But the. What about the college level, especially before it was explicitly professionalized, which is to say the nil system, the. The players there really. I know it was transactional, but the players there really weren't playing for fun. Some of them weren't playing for fun.
- [15:59]
John Amici
No, it's a job. It's a job in the. In the college ranks. And most people will be thinking, yes, if you're talking about North Carolina or Duke, yes, if you're talking about the very top teams, it doesn't matter where you are. It is so serious. I had one of my teammates from high school went to a Division 3 school in Ohio where he went on to become a doctor. Proper, good academic school. But his role with the basketball team was deadly serious. It was a commitment that other people thought should equal his commitment to becoming a doctor and going through pre med. So it is a serious job and the amount of time it takes is also a serious job. Getting to the gym before your 8 o' clock classes to do workouts, having a quick shower, going to an 8 o' clock class, going to classes through till 4 o', clock and then getting back to the gym to lift weights before you sprint in the preseason or train in the season. It's a job job.
- [16:56]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. I imagine that among the players on your teams and you played for Vanderbilt and then because of the requirements to sit out a year, you transferred to Penn State. There was a year you didn't play and then you went to Penn State. But I would imagine that among the players, you were probably one of the few who wished that be doing the academic parts, not something else, or not using this as a training ground for the NBA, which I'm sure they all aspired and probably. Will you tell me if any of the other teammates actually made but was that the case? Oh, I wish I just could be studying whatever it was that your intellectual interests led you to.
- [17:35]
John Amici
I don't know. I mean, I'd love to say yes to that because it would make me sound so wonderful, but I'm. I'm not sure I was that wonderful. My perspective was my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer before I left for America. And so here I am doing what I felt was deeply gratuitous. Right. This is all about me. I want to go, I want to achieve this remarkable thing of playing in the NBA. And I'm leaving behind a mum who could use my support. A woman I wanted to spend more time with before she wasn't around anymore. And so for me, it made everything that I did much more seriously. I knew that I'd have to come out of this with a degree and then I'd need an advanced degree, then I'd probably need another advanced degree. So that part was. It wasn't that it was what I wanted to do more, it was just ultimately serious. I couldn't. Failing a class would have felt like a slap in my mother's face. But on the same side of it, failing at basketball, spending years away from my mother while not succeeding at playing in the NBA would also feel like a betrayal. And so everything just felt really consequential.
- [18:39]
Mike Pesca
And your mother was a doctor and she was. I've heard you talk about her as having some aspects of sunshine, such that when she talked to you, she felt that one would feel that they were lit up, but their eyes weren't seared by the intensity of the sun. Those kind of pleasant, bright days that weren't at all. Yeah, so. But playing the sport. And you weren't drawn to the sport. The sport. An anonymous man on the street said you'd be great at basketball. And you kind of. You were not feeling great about yourself. Not even took him up on it. Just gave it a go and got into a gym in England where basketball is really the, I don't know, 11th most popular team sport.
- [19:25]
John Amici
That's very kind.
- [19:27]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. A lot of people in that situation. There are a lot of tall people in the NBA who play because they were made to play. And I mean that in a couple of ways, or just to be logical, if they're ever going to make a million dollars a year, this is. This or the lottery. It was really the only way to do it. And they've already won the lottery by being 7ft tall. How did you escape that? How did you escape? And you talked about your mom. But psychology is what psychology is. You could still have resentment of, you know, being thrust into this thing that you never wanted. But as you write, it's clear that you were dedicated and you learned to want it.
- [20:08]
John Amici
I learned, yeah. I mean, I just. I can't imagine spending the amount of time I spent in sport and not taking it seriously. Not trying being average while. While being away from my mother. I saw her for days in the year before she died. I saw her for one day before she passed away. My Penn State flew me back so that I could say goodbye. I can't imagine how selfish it would have been and how much regret I would be filled with now if during my time there I had fritted it away by giving half efforts, by giving 75% instead of 100%, by. By not taking advantage of every possible thing that could have got me where I wanted to go. And I know for the avoidance of doubt, I'm not unclear that I was an. A very exceptionally average NBA basketball. Right. I. I'm not under any delusions.
- [21:08]
Mike Pesca
Right. But what does that mean?
- [21:10]
John Amici
It means I'm better.
- [21:10]
Mike Pesca
It Means you were the 200th best in the world.
- [21:13]
John Amici
Yeah, yeah. And it, and it's, and even on that level, it's like I did the best I could with the equipment I was given, right. This, this is. I perhaps wasn't destined ever to hang off the, off the rafters of some team, but that's probably the thing I'm trying to achieve now in terms of if there's all start to be done, it will be in the sphere of psychology, not in the sphere of basketball.
- [21:38]
Mike Pesca
For me, what your experience reminds me of is the immigrant experience where they're working so hard for their families who they might not even see. There's no equivalent of Penn State letting you leave for a day and then actually allowing you to come back. And you know, it's interesting, it's interesting to compare to the complacency of the native born who never has to sacrifice like that. So do you think, do you think that it's innate in the human cond. Condition in psychology to have that within most people, but most people's circumstances aren't desperate? Or does the immigrant who tries to do it or the John Amici type, are they already exceptional and in a way pre chosen?
- [22:22]
John Amici
Well, I think people who choose to move away from their home to go to a foreign place, it's not, I don't know if exceptional is the right word, but they have characteristics and qualities that mark them different because not everyone's an explorer. You know this in America herself, right? The idea that many Americans never get a passport, they don't travel and it, it's, I think it's reductive to suggest that it's about a closed mindedness alone, but it is the fact that people's sense of adventure is limited to the very vast space that you have. And their sense of the worthiness of other places is limited too because of the sense of American exceptionalism. Whereas even Britain, who was, let's face it, one of the most, one of the country's most interest, interested in suggesting that we're exceptional. As we import ourselves and export ourselves across the world, we have a sense that there might be something valuable on offer somewhere else. And if you're an immigrant coming to another country, you aren't subject to the same affinity bias that makes what's familiar and similar around you feel boring. So when I came to America and I had air conditioning, I got into a car and it was a thousand degrees outside. I'd never experienced a temperature like when I landed in Toledo, Ohio in the summertime. I got into my coach's car and the seatbelt folded over my chest and the car was cold. And I was like, I'm in kit from Knight Rider. And from that moment on, it was. I got into a gym and the floor bounced when you walked on it. Because I played on tile floors with backboards pinned to the wall and no reflex. And I was in this space, my first game, and 2,000 random strangers for our high school game, we're in the stands. And so every day something blew my mind. And I never got to the point where I was like, yeah, take this for granted. I was like, this is incredible. I think that's an immigrant view. I think that's an immigrant view of the place they go. It's not that it's better, it's just that it's extraordinary.
- [24:27]
Mike Pesca
Yeah. There was something about you, though, that made you appreciate that, that made you say, this is extraordinary and I want to or need to be part of it. I mean, there are. If you look at the NBA or the NCAA rosters of certain teams, the St. Mary's Gals will sometimes have two American players on the team. So there. There are so many foreign players who wash out or don't make it. And it's something about homesickness. Or they go to the gym where there are thousands of people and they say, what is this? This is wrong. This is not I want what I want. Or they say they don't have the Knight Rider reference. Hello, Michael. There are two people in the house and one is armed and D. Right. But they're so different from you. And this is. Must be so interesting and extraordinary. And you talked a little bit about why you were different, but some of it must have been your coaches and the leadership and what they did to instill these ideas in you, to make it seem as a fun and worthy journey as opposed to an off putting, unfamiliar experience.
- [25:34]
John Amici
Yeah, I had tremendous coaches. My coaches in the United Kingdom were remarkable. The first place, back in the day, the first place I would go to when I flew back into the country, this was after my mother died, but I was still in. In college, would be to go to my. My coach's house. Joe and Maggie. Joe Forber and Maggie. And they were. They were like grandparents or parents of some description, pseudo parents. And then in. In America, Ed Heinchel, who's my coach in Toledo, he only just retired ago. He still looks the same as the day that I met him. Remarkable man. My coach at Penn State. Well, my coach at Vanderbilt even. He did me a Favor. Eddie Fogler, I think his name was.
- [26:23]
Mike Pesca
He's an expert, right?
- [26:25]
John Amici
He's.
- [26:25]
Mike Pesca
He's a. He's a legend. And he had great hair.
- [26:28]
John Amici
He. He sat me down with my roommate and told us both that we weren't talented enough to play at the Division 1 level, and if we wanted to play, we should go to a Division 3 school. And it was me, and it was my roommate, Matt Maloney, who may be known as somebody who won an NBA championship with the Houston Rockets. And so his talent spotting was perhaps not as accurate as he thought, but even that was an impetus forward. I got to Penn State, and all of a sudden, Bruce Parkill, my coach there, he sat me in the stands in old rec hall, this gym that didn't look like a Big Ten gym. No other Big Ten gym is that small and that old and that. That accessible to random people, students who would run around and play there. And he said, look, I don't know how good you can be, but if you want to be exceptional, I'm willing to work with you. And if you're willing to work really hard, maybe you can make an impact here. And I was like, God, this man just told me the truth. It isn't the truth I wanted to hear. I like the story I heard at this other school where I walked in this massive arena and suddenly they started playing like a pseudo game with my name inserted to John Ameche with the ball on the baseline. He turns, he fires, we. And this guy told me the truth, and that's why I went to Penn State. So I had people all the time who kept me grounded and helped me to see everything that I did as a possible opportunity.
- [27:48]
Mike Pesca
You talk about that in the book. You talk about how important it is to have the right lessons societally and from the leader. That is based on, if you're willing, these conditional statements, if you're willing to put in the work, if you're willing to work correctly, what are the best ways to phrase that statement, to communicate that statement, to get the best out of the right people, if you have them on your team, you've got to.
- [28:11]
John Amici
Tell them that you think there's something in them. And that can't just be fantasy, right? You can't just say to them, yeah, you'll be great. It has to be. You paid enough attention to them as individuals to say, here are some things I think you could excel at. And then the if is nobody excels, and you're not going to get to the level that you should get to if you don't put in this specific type of work. You know, it could be, you know, with my coaches, it was the idea that for me, I thought conditioning was optional. I thought I could play my way into shape, as many people think NBA players do, but that you can't. And he said, if you can do these three things, this gives you the chance to get your scholarship. And that was the news I needed to hear. I needed to know that he thought I could get a scholarship legitimately because it's the only reason I was at his high school. And I needed to know what are the steps, what needs to be true for me to get where I want to go? Do you share my vision and are you going to challenge me and support me in equal measure? Not just yell when you feel angry, though. Coaches will yell occasionally. But to challenge and support me in equal measure, that's what we need to do in workplaces too. I see your potential. Here's some things that might get in the way. Here are some steps you can take to get where you want. And I am going to be moving and cajoling you along the way. Not micromanaging, but cajoling.
- [29:26]
Mike Pesca
It's a little hard in the workplace. I mean, the coach, especially when the coach has 20 years of experience and has all the power and the kids aren't even, especially in college, aren't even, even full fledged employees. And often the coach really does know a lot with all that experience and the kids know nothing. The dynamic in businesses, especially businesses of today, where everyone is a free agent and maybe the founder is, you know, years younger than the people he wants to hire, that dynamic is different. How do you overcome that?
- [29:56]
John Amici
The dynamic is different though, because we just don't respect leadership in the same way that sports respects coaching. I mean, that's just a reality. And I'm not saying that every coach is great or even every coach is successful, but we at least recognize that there are tangible and intangible qualities that are required. And it isn't just about your technical expertise, your ability to do X and O's right. Whereas in business we elevate people not because we think they have the qualities to lead others, to enable thriving, to allow other people to really operate effectively. We raise them up because if we don't, we lose them. We don't care if they have a duty of care for other people. We don't care if they've got leadership skills, interpersonal skills, so we could teach those things. And that's what my team and I do in a lot of organizations, we teach people and it's simple, basic stuff. It is not esoteric, simple, basic things. Things like the number of leaders who don't realize that if you get your phone and your phone and the person you're talking to are competing for attention, you're going to lose that person. Because nobody likes to think that they are less important than a chunk of Silicon. Right. It's just, it's not hard. And so that kind of learning, that focusing on individuals is energy, expensive but worth it, is a skill.
- [31:12]
Mike Pesca
Do we not respect leaders to some degree because leaders themselves have acted with disrespect?
- [31:20]
John Amici
Yeah, that is fair. Not even with disrespect, but with, you know, like visceral impunity with a total disregard for the impact of their power. Yeah. That makes people suspicious of all leadership. It's a real problem because one of the things that's required to be a great leader is a desire for power. If you don't want power, you will be an ineffective leader. You have to want power. It's just that you don't need to want power so that you could knock down the east wing of your office. You don't need to have power so.
- [31:54]
Mike Pesca
That you can take one example, which I'm sure is going, for example.
- [31:58]
John Amici
For example. But you don't need it just for self. It's not, you can't buy yourself a nice car with your raise. But it's the idea that if that's your only goal and you don't realize that the 80 people that now work for you are a part of your duty of care and responsibility and can drive your success, that's the problem. You're right. Right.
- [32:17]
Mike Pesca
I also think that to take Elon Musk, it's, you know, he just got this huge pay package. Is an interesting case. It's probably actually true of a lot of NBA players and a lot of NBA coaches. He's all things. He's in many ways a great leader. And people couldn't have. He accomplished what maybe no one else could. But he's also a dissolute and disrespectful and excessive leader in so many ways. And I don't know, maybe we convince ourselves that, that you have to take the whole package. I don't know what it means if he is the most successful or at least the totemic businessman in the world.
- [32:57]
John Amici
So we have to. I think the language is important here because he, his success is measured in one or two ways. Right. And his success is not necessarily measured by the success of his shareholders. It is not necessarily measured by the success or the happiness of the people who buy his products. And it is not necessarily measured by the harm that he has done. But there's some combination there. It's not, yes, he is the wealthiest man on earth. I would suggest to you that his background is exactly what you'd expect of the the person who becomes the wealthiest man on earth. The idea that handouts were part of his youth systemic advantage was a part of his background and build up, you know, this is just what's going to happen. But if you are a person who harms others, you are not a good leader. And if you do it in a way that is is mendacious and purposeful, you're not a good leader. You're just somebody who's got a lot of power and doesn't care what harm they do with it. I talk about this all the time because I'm massive. I'm a unit, right? Even now in my old age, I'm a massive person. And every day I enter rooms where I think these people are irritating. And if I wanted to dismember them like a Wookiee in a bar on Tatooine, I could do this and there'd be absolutely nothing anybody in this room could do about it. But I don't because that is the kind of self serving thing that would mean that I am too not a good luck leader.
- [34:32]
Mike Pesca
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- [37:40]
Mike Pesca
NBA okay, not legend, but player. John Amici is now a psychologist who advises businesses and teams and his book is called It's Not Magic. The Ordinary Skills of Exceptional Leaders. Let us rejoin our conversation. Do you buy into any of the critiques, the generational critiques of either the mindset or what we've done to in terms of operant conditioning for the younger generation, if they are harder, represent unique challenges in terms of crafting both the workforce and the future leaders.
- [38:17]
John Amici
So, no. In short, I wrote a paper on this the other day actually because most of the conjecture around generations is is just. It's not backed up by the evidence. For starters, the generations are completely arbitrary. We need to just acknowledge the fact they're completely arbitrary.
- [38:35]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, they're like signs of the zodiac.
- [38:38]
John Amici
There you go. Right. And the idea there's technology.
- [38:40]
Mike Pesca
I will say there is technology. Or if you were born in the year of the pig and the year of the dragon, it might. That is very random. But if you were born in the years between 1980 and 1990, the technology you're familiar with will be different than if you're a net native for sure.
- [38:54]
John Amici
And yet we've got 70 year olds right now who can use their iPhone with aplomb, a device that didn't exist 10 years ago. They use it differently perhaps than a person who's 12 and 13. Certainly differently than my nieces use WhatsApp. I use WhatsApp to arrange in person meetings with people that I like a lot. I've noticed that my nieces use WhatsApp to have full, strangely worded, but intimate conversations with people that really are talking about their friendships and their love for each other, which I don't. Right. So it's a different use. But it isn't just generational. What we see with this generational stuff is that there's a lack of consistent evidence across cultures. So all you have to do is to say, like, is a 16 year old from Karachi really, on a generational front, have some similarity with a 16 year old from Toledo? Is there. Is there really a similarity there? And then that starts to break down. And then there's other parts. Like there's significant factors beyond generations. You mentioned technological advancements. That's one of them. But also economics conditions. Imagine growing up as I did. Perhaps you did with the idea that if you keep your nose clean and you work hard, you'll definitely be able to afford a house, you'll definitely be able to go on a holiday, maybe you'll have an rv. All of that stuff is possible. And then you grow up with an environment where that's still being talked about, but as an actual reality, it's impossible. So will you be more cynical about the promises of older authority figures? Hell yes, you'll be more cynical about those things. Things. So there's. There's a case for individualization. Sorry, Individualization. I think for this when you look at generations and just being more targeted towards people and the experiences you know they will have had, rather than it's because you're 20 and stupid. Which is often how generations get brought down.
- [40:42]
Mike Pesca
Right. And we've all been 20 and stupid. I would say as a slight critique to that. There's something about the information environment that certainly plays a role. And I was thinking of that when you said not able to afford a house, I know that's the message that, that this generation gets and I've seen home prices. But I've also looked at factors like if you wanted to move to Toledo, Ohio, there are houses there and it might take more years to earn a house, but generally speaking, it is still a product that is affected by supply and demand. And the housing supply will meet the demand ultimately, not always. There are other ways to think about the impossibility of rising that might have more to do with hearing that message over and over than the fundamental truth of the message.
- [41:26]
John Amici
So. So all I would say is that the more caveats you have to add to a generational promise as you're talking about it here, the less relevant it becomes to people. When you say, because the promise is never that nuanced. The promise is if you work hard and keep your nose clean, then you're going to live in a society where this thing that your parents now enjoy, a paid off house by the age of 50 is going to be possible for you. Marriage at an earlier age, getting sick may not end your financial career. These things are not real. Because, yeah, you could go to a certain part of Toledo and hope that you could buy one of those houses that's been foreclosed on and hope that the environment you're in is not one that is toxic because of a lack of schools and everything else that comes with being in a neighborhood where the housing price has dropped. Because in America at least, all the schools are based on the housing prices. So you get in this part where it's like, yeah, okay, so I get it. Yeah, I can find a way where I'm not living in rented accommodation, but is the kind of accommodation I'm living in renting better than the kind here? And then the truth of it is the promise is still not made.
- [42:36]
Mike Pesca
Right. Fair point. The American dream doesn't have four codicils and seven caveats. Yeah, I get it. It's not a dream then, just to.
- [42:44]
John Amici
Be clear, because oftentimes with this accent, people think it's just about America. This is, this is, this is a British problem. This is a problem across Europe. It's a problem across north and South Africa. This is a, this is a world problem, A Western. A Western problem at this stage.
- [42:58]
Mike Pesca
I haven't asked you about your sexuality. How important. And I. But I've read about it. I've read you're writing about it. I've heard you talking about it. You compartmentalized, I guess, would be the phrase that we use now. But psychologically speaking, how much did that play into the fact that you saw yourself as a little outside? Because there are other things that made you an outsider. Your. You were English, like one of the only Englishmen or the first Englishman to play in the NBA. And you were, I think, working on a different intellectual, I don't want to say level, but plain. You thought. You probably thought about things a lot differently than a lot of your teammates. But that is the question. How much did being gay make you an outsider and an observer and lead you to maybe a career or interest in psychology?
- [43:45]
John Amici
I don't know that it did. I think it's such a. So something can be. And that part of your identity can simultaneously be incredibly important, but also only when integrated with the whole. When isolated. When people talk about, oh, you were gay. It's like it suddenly for me diminishes in its importance when I integrate it into who I am as a person. So integrate being gay with the fact that I'm also a Star wars nerd who. Who buys replica lightsabers from production companies. It's like that because. Which is more informative about who I am. If you were really trying to get to know me. The fact that I can do chapter and verse on Jolie Bindo, the most obscure Jedi anybody watching this show has ever heard of and probably has never heard of, is more informative about who I am as a person. The fact that I studied for my master's and PhD in psychology while I was playing in the NBA, I think I would suggest is more informative about me. But it doesn't mean that being gay is not important. It's just that I am a 55 year old man now. And so, you know, welcome to the world where being gay is not quite as interesting when you're an old man with a gray beard as when you're a young man with a lithe body.
- [45:02]
Mike Pesca
By the way, old man with a gray beard, doesn't that describe Jolie Bindo also?
- [45:05]
John Amici
It. Well. Oh, color me surprised. Okay, okay, I stand corrected. That right there, that's a quality piece of work. You actually. I can't believe you know that. Yeah, it's amazing.
- [45:18]
Mike Pesca
I'm not. I. I don't know. I'm not as huge a nerd, but some. Sometimes you'll say something that will spark a memory in me. Who's your favorite former NBA teammate?
- [45:30]
John Amici
Favorite former NBA. So for different reasons. Oh my God. His name just slipped from Ben Wallace. So Ben Wallace was a remarkable teammate. I don't think anybody ever wanted to play against him, but as a teammate, stoic, quiet, very few words. But if you ever played with him, the sense that he had your back, always remarkable. There's a guy called Michael Cage, and I know that's. That's way, way back in the day.
- [46:03]
Mike Pesca
Oh, he had great hair. He had Jheri curl.
- [46:05]
John Amici
Right. And he. I think he's still doing broadcast work. Oh, cool. And he, he. I remember when I was in Cleveland and Bobby Sura was the rookie with me, and Bobby Sura bought a car, and then he bought another car. And we were driving into the arena and. And Michael Cage was behind us. He stopped Bobby and says, this is another brand new car. He said, no, give me the keys. He drove him back to the dealership and made the dealership take the car bag.
- [46:35]
Mike Pesca
That's great.
- [46:36]
John Amici
And I was like, this is what they were talking about within that. That era of. Of veterans really taking an interest. I remember him talking to me about suits. He said, look, I know he. He was aware that I had bad suits from. From university. And he's like, look, I know you're going to be tempted to buy tons of suit. Buy one suit, buy three different shirts. You've got tax to pay. I'll never forget that conversation.
- [46:58]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, yeah. Those guys had very similar games, too. They didn't care about scoring, they cared about rebounding.
- [47:05]
John Amici
No. Ben Wallace once, when I was doing really well in Orlando, he was like, look, Meech, I don't care that you get all the shots, but don't take my rebounds.
- [47:17]
Mike Pesca
Yeah, yeah. Don't take my re. That's so interesting. I'm in charge of the grunt work, not you, literally.
- [47:24]
John Amici
I mean, it's not that I was a prolific rebounder. Anybody can look at my stats and know that's not true. But you will see games where a ball goes up and it's an equ. Cool. An opportunity, and they'll see me with my hands, like, arched backwards because I know that this is Ben's.
- [47:36]
Mike Pesca
So what's the equivalent? Who's that kind of worker?
- [47:39]
John Amici
Listen, there are tons of those work. Those people who recognize contextual expertise. That's what it is. Those people who recognize, hey, I'm the boss. I am the named leader in this room. But you know who's got something really great to offer? Corey. Corey's the person who can give me insights right now. And that person is. I'm going to just rotate them right to the front. I'm not going to bother trying to make myself. Myself Insinuate myself into their expertise. I'm just going to say you've got it. I've got psychologists that work with me that are just better at statistical analysis. I'm better at interpretation. But when analysis comes by, they step to the front, in front of clients because that's their expertise. Why deny them that opportunity to shine and me the opportunity to learn, frankly.
- [48:17]
Mike Pesca
So the last thing I want to get to is you fired yourself as CEO of your own company. Is that true?
- [48:22]
John Amici
That is true. That is true. You've got to know what you're bad at. You know, you've got to know. And, and at some point we work quite a little bit with, with founders especially who've got some PE backing or early funding. And it's amazing the number of them who cling to this role because they're supposed to be the CEO when really what they are is they're the, they're the kind of innovation hub or they're the technical expert or they're the something else. And I was bad at being a CEO and my current boss is good at being a CEO and I'm good at generating new ideas, telling stories and engaging people with stuff that they might not think they were interested in. So let me do that all the time instead of. Because the stuff I'm bad at takes a lot more energy. And if we're trying to get somewhere amazing, which we are trying to get somewhere amazing, trying to really grow and let people see there's a new, there's an opportunity here with behavior change and leadership. We're not going to do that with somebody half assed at the helm.
- [49:23]
Mike Pesca
John Amici is a former NBA player. He is a. He now has a substack called. Plug your substack please, sir.
- [49:30]
John Amici
It's just John, am I g. I don't know how they work. I've only got one article up there right now, but it's just. Look me up John Amache. You'll find me.
- [49:38]
Mike Pesca
And we should tell you that Amici is amazing, as he says A M A E C H I and his new book is called it's not Magic. The Ordinary skills of exceptional Leaders. Thank you so much.
- [49:51]
John Amici
Thank you, Mike.
- [49:57]
Mike Pesca
The Gist is produced by Cory Wara. We had help today from Leah Yan. Kathleen Sykes helps me with the gist list. Text Mike 233777 and you could see what's behind today's paywall pageant chicanery in the Philippines. Jeff Craig does so much with the video and the socials and the visual. He's a master of the visual in this a primarily audio form. Michelle Pesca also works with the visuals but is mostly the visionary. Improve and thanks for listening.
- [50:43]
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