Tony Parker is a retired NBA basketball player who won 4 NBA championships with the San Atonio Spurs. This remarkable story of a frenchman thriving in a very American market was recently featured in the Netflix special, “The Final Shot”. Watch my video for amazing personal development takeaways from Parker. There are timestamps within the video description for where specific takeaways appear. Below is an edited transcript off the video. Enjoy!
Introduction
Personal Development takeaways from the new Netflix special and Tony Parker the final shot right after this.
Hi everyone, and welcome to my youtube channel. This is Yoel Farkas so glad to have you.
We are doing a review of the new Netflix special on Tony Parker, the final shot.
Tony Parker is a basketball player from the NBA, of French origin. He played for the San Antonio Spurs. You can learn a whole lot more about him if you watch the actual special. But for now, I’m going to jump right in.
Purpose of this video
The purpose of this video review is to provide takeaways and personal development that you and I can learn from this special and apply to our daily lives. Obviously, you should watch the special, and you’ll get a lot more out of this video than if you watch it as video without having seen the special first.
Tony Parker’s childhood
So the series or the special starts off discussing Tony’s childhood. And what becomes abundantly clear from the odds from the early on is that from his very early age, even as a young child, Tony was fully immersed in basketball. This isn’t something new for a lot of athletes, obviously. But something that’s pretty common. And the reason why it’s so common, why a lot of these children that are immersed in the subject end up becoming athletes is because of that immersion. They become masters when they immerse themselves in the field. So Tony is no exception. That’s something very important to realize. When we want to master something we want to really become an expert to the point of becoming a professional athlete in Tony’s case, and whatever it is, whatever field or endeavor that we’re pursuing for ourselves. We have to really immerse ourselves in it.
Mastery
And by the way, just because we haven’t been involved with something from childhood doesn’t mean that we cannot master it. The point I’m making with Tony being involved as a child is that it goes to show you just how being around the game of basketball his entire life had an impact in him eventually becoming a professional. So same with us when we really, you know, immerse ourselves in whatever it is that we do. For me personally, it’s personal development. I read a lot every morning, when I wake up, that’s one of the first things I do is to read personal development. You know, no matter what it is, what profession, what career, you’re choosing any endeavor in life, you have to really immerse yourself in it to a point where it really becomes a second nature, almost subconsciously. And for Tony Parker, we can learn that from how he was always involved as a early child in the game of basketball.
Massive Self-Confidence
Now, something else that’s very interesting is if you listen to Tony’s own words, he has a lot of important messages, a lot of personal development of words that he uses. So he talks about having massive self-confidence. Okay, so self-confidence alone is an abundant word, and he adds a superlative too, and he calls it massive self-confidence. Okay, so Tony himself attributes his success, to his self confidence, to his mindset. In fact, he uses the term mindset a lot as well throughout the special, so pay attention to that term that Tony uses, the mindset.
No such thing as Impossible
Another thing that Tony says is that he believed in the impossible, okay. And that’s an interesting choice of words, because impossible, in and of itself, is a word that the personal development Masters, those involved in that, in the field of personal development, don’t like to use, we don’t like to talk about impossibility. We like to talk about limitless and things being unlimited. But he uses it in a sort of expression. He doesn’t really mean it, he says, believes in the impossible. Meaning, he believes that nothing is impossible, i.e. making it to the NBA, even though he’s a Frenchman was not impossible, and he showed the world. Indeed, that was the case when he entered the NBA.
Stay positive!
He talks about always staying positive. Okay, so again, talking about mindset, and our attitudes towards life positivity is such a crucial element towards achieving our goals. And Tony talks about the fact that he always thinks positive no matter what. That was at the beginning of the video, later on in the video, you see that he gets injured – spoiler alert – though anybody who’s followed his career will know that he has a significant injury, which the doctor said that he has at least eight to ten months recovery, it could be that he would never play again. He thought for a moment when he first decided he was injured, but then he decided he was going to be positive. His coach Gregg Popovich talks about his positivity and getting better and recovering. And he did it in seven months, and he was back in the NBA. And he was not a rookie at the time, he was already more advanced in his career. So it goes to show you the power of positive thinking.
Don’t self-condemn!
He also talks about not being hard on himself. Alot of times, people tend to criticize themselves, they self-condemn. They say, “Oh, I’m such an idiot”, “I’m so stupid”. “I’m never going to do this.” “I don’t have the skills.” “I don’t have enough brain power.” Whatever the case is, people tend to self condemn. Tony talks about being not too hard on himself. So that’s another very important takeaway to learn is to never be hard on oneself. Look what somebody can achieve, somebody like Tony Parker achieved which he also attributes to his never being too hard on himself.
Be Balanced!
In fact, he calls it a balance. He calls it a balance between being disciplined, which he got from his father, who was an amateur basketball player who was very disciplined, and his mom who was a little more easygoing. So he said he got the perfect balance. being disciplined, but at the same time not going too hard on himself and not taking himself too seriously.
Winning Mindset
And another term he uses is winning mindset. So it’s very important for us also, when we’re thinking about our aspirations, that which we want to achieve, to have that winning mindset that I am going to win. I remember when I was a lawyer, I was trying to think of a good tagline for advertising that I was doing for my website. And my client said to me – you know, I was talking about being compassionate and – which I am – and all those sort of things – and my clients says, “People want a lawyer who wins”. So I started changing my advertising to say that I win. And that made a huge difference. So a winning mindset is very important. And when we’re talking about looking towards success, winning is a very big part of success.
Using one’s mind as an advantage over an opponent
He also talks about using his mind as an advantage. So despite the fact that he was small in stature, small is relative in terms of an NBA basketball player, I don’t think he’s short by the average standards, but by the standards of an NBA basketball player, he was not tall. And he said that he was able to use his brains and his mind to his advantage. So where he had deficiencies in some areas, he had strengths in others. So that’s another important takeaway for us, which is that nobody is perfect. We all have deficiencies, we all have things we want to improve on, or we have things that we maybe can’t improve on, like height, you cannot change your height, he could not make himself any taller than he actually was once he had reached the end of his growing stage in life. But he said that he was able to make up for it in other strengths that he had that other people didn’t have. So really leveraging your skills and your strengths is a huge part of success as well. And a big personal development takeaway from Tony Parker.
Taking action and putting the work in
He also talks about the fact that he knew that he worked for something that he would get rewarded for. So, obviously, mindset is a big thing. But we have to put it into action. We have to do the hard work. I say hard work somewhat hesitantly because I was reading today, the second time – more than second time – from Think and Grow Rich – I read it a lot. And he talks about the sort of the terminology of working hard, and that’s not used a lot of times in the right way. And that’s a subject of a different video when I’ll do the review on Think and Grow Rich, which is in the works, and we’ll get into that. But at the end of the day, there is work that has to be done. And there is hard work that has to be done. But hard work, in and of itself, is not the secret to success, but it is important for anything that we’re trying to accomplish. And Tony talks about that as well, that if he did the work, he knew he would get rewarded for it. And that’s what happened. Talks also about unshakable confidence.
Absolute Faith
Again, we talked before about another double superlative, where he said massive self confidence. He later on in the special talks about having unshakable confidence. And another way of saying that is absolute faith. He had an absolute faith in himself that he would achieve, and he would succeed. And sure enough, he did.
Setting Goals
Setting goals: So he talked about a lot that when he wasn’t even in high school, when other kids didn’t necessarily have goals, they just went to play basketball, they enjoyed it. They did it as a hobby, or whatever the case was. He had goals which was to make it to the NBA. And he followed through with that goal, and he achieved it. So having goals – I mentioned Think and Grow Rich – is a big part of Think and Grow Rich as well, which is to have goals. Having goals is enormously important towards achieving whatever it is that we’re looking to achieve. So it’s very important to always have goals and stay focused on achieving those goals, just like Tony Parker did.
Passion
He also uses the term passionate. There are so many key words that you see that come up again and again in personal development, and Tony uses vritually all of them. I actually wonder if he reads a lot of personal development because the words he uses are so ingrained in the personal development world, and he talks about having passion, how he had a passion for basketball. Now a lot of you can say a lot of basketball players who never make it to the NBA also have passion for the game. That’s where the other elements that I’ve talked to you until now, make the difference with the mindset and confidence and having goals. And having passion is clearly an important element towards achieving success like Tony Parker did.
Failed before he succeeded
Plus I wanted to point out that it’s interesting that when Tony first joined the Spurs at their training camp after he was drafted, he did not make a good impression on his coach early on. Tim Duncan, that star basketball player also with the Spurs, says that he didn’t expect to see Tony around for a long time. His coach Gregg Popovich said he did not have a very good first practice training. ButTony didn’t give up.He kept persisting. Persistence is another huge one. He kept persisting. He had a good second training, he had a good training camp with other teams that were interested in him. So maybe this was before the draft, actually, I don’t remember. But the point is, he kept having good, better and better trainings to the point where he was able to impress the coach, even though he didn’t impress him the first time,and this is a lesson in not giving up. Okay, so just because he didn’t make it the first time. He didn’t succeed. The first time he didn’t give up. He kept persevering and kept persisting. He was determined, and he was able to impress Popovich the second time around to a point where the Spurs did decide to draft him. Awesome.
Don’t overestimate being underestimated
Another thing I noticed is that a lot of people underestimated Parker because of his size because he was, you know, because he was a Frenchman. There had never been a Frenchman in the NBA before. I don’t think there was a Frenchman in the NBA, certainly not of his caliber, of Hall of Fame, caliber. So a lot of people underestimated him. And he just used that as a motivating factor. So a lot of times in life people will underestimate you. People will try and rob you of your ideas, of your creativity, your passion, your energies, your ideas. Don’t let them do that. People will underestimate you, but that doesn’t dictate whether or not you’ll succeed. So don’t let anybody’s underestimation dictate your success. In fact, you can use it as a motivating factor, just like Tony Parker did. And I would say the same By the way, in another amazing Netflix special about Michael Jordan about the Chicago Bulls, really. But obviously a big profile of the bulls involves Michael Jordan, and how everybody underestimated him in different parts of his life. He was cut from his team in high school famously. When he left him go play baseball and he returned, people thought he was over the hill, he wouldn’t be as good, he wouldn’t lead the bulls to championships. And Jordan just used that underestimation as a motivating factor to succeed. So underestimation can actually play a large part in one’s success. Don’t underestimate the power of underestimation of others!
Rising to the challenge
Another thing is that the coach Gregg Popovich, he really challenged Tony and got in his face. You see all sorts of clips of Popovich yelling at him and getting in his face. So don’t let adversity get you down. And don’t quit when you have adversity. Tony had to deal with a lot of adversity. When he first joined the Spurs, it wasn’t like he joined and was a star from the beginning. It took a while for him to find his role to get comfortable to put up the numbers. I was gonna say “abuse”which is a strong term because his coach was doing it for his own good, but it’s sort of the verbal abuse of Popovich was, you know, his tirades, his yelling his ranting and raving. Tony persevered, again he persistent he was able to succeed.
Attitude of Gratitude
Also, Tony talks a lot about being gratitude. He was grateful for what Popovich put him through. That’s why I hesitated to use the word “abuse”, because it’s not abuse. But he said he was grateful for how Popovich challenged him, that’s a better way of saying it, for challenging him. And gratitude is a very big part in terms of dictating our success. If we’re not grateful for things that we’ve achieved, and even for our failures, it’s going to be hard to build off of those. So always maintain that attitude of gratitude.
Thinking Big
Another thing, Tony Parker talks about it, I think this was with respect to his injury was that he took a broad view. And it’s also very important to not look at the small picture, you got to be a big picture person. So if he had certain minor setbacks, or things didn’t always go his way, he joined the French national team for example, and they didn’t succeed, they went out early in the round robin, whatever the case is, Parker talks about having a broad view, which matches up and aligns with the idea of thinking big. So Parker is definitely a big thinker. And it’s not a surprise that he thought so big to the point where he’s able to make it to the NBA, the National Basketball Association. I didn’t spell out what the NBA is, I assume anybody who’s watching this video knows what the NBA stands for, but just in case… And it’s not just big thinking, it’s also big dreaming.
Burning Desire
Another thing Tony Parker says – there’s so much here, that’s why I’m doing this video – he says you have to keep wanting it. You have to have that desire. In other words, with respect to Spurs they kept winning championships. A lot of times is a lot of teams that are one hit wonders, they win that championship, they don’t do it again. Like I said, you have to keep wanting it. So you always have to have that desire which again is quoted often by Napoleon Hill in Think and Grow Rich. You always have to have that burning desire for something. So when you want to go out to achieve something, maintain that desire, you’ve got to want it you got to want it bad. It’s got to be a burning desire.
Don’t be a victim
Another thing is is that a lot of people have the “poor me” mindset, the “poor me” attitude, why did this happen to me? Why was I victimized, the self pitying attitude. Not Parker, he was he was just focused on getting to work and doing what he had to do to rehabilitate himself. I mentioned before he was back on the court in seven months, even in less time than the minimum time that the doctor had predicted. So it’s very important if one finds himself in a “poor me” or self pitying mindset, realize it, be aware of it, and then refocus our thoughts, shift that mindset into get into a “what do I have to do? What’s the next right step? What do I have to do to to get success” mindset and not let ourselves dwell on the poor me or the negative. That seems to have happened because a lot of times, by the way, oftentimes in that negative, there’s positivity.
Taking care of the body
And one last thing I wanted to talk about at work, I mean, it’s a passion of mine, it’s hard to even call it work, as a mentor and coach for divorce recovery, in my men’s divorce recovery group on Facebook and whatnot, I talk a lot about this. A very important element to personal development is to take care of oneself, one’s body, with nutrition with exercise, meditation, and Parker talks about the fact that this is what helped him get over his injury. He said “All those years that I was going to bed early”, – which I talked about as well going to bed early so that one can get up early – he talks about getting up early, and “Taking care of my body paid off that I was able to get, recover and recover from my injury that much quicker”. So you see here is another reminder how important it is to take care of ourselves, to diet, to exercise, go to sleep early, get up early and really taking care of ourselves is a huge part of personal development. Taking care of our bodies is just as important as taking care of our minds.
Wrap-up
Okay, I see it’s getting up to close to 15 minutes. So I’m going to sign off over here. I hope you enjoyed those personal development takeaways. Hope you enjoyed watching the special on Netflix, and I look forward to seeing you on the next movie review. Have a great day.
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