Why Kings Wear Purple and Gold
“Today you need to also think of yourself as an entrepreneur at the helm of at least one living, growing start-up venture: YOUR CAREER.” — Reid Hoffman
We may be witnessing the most clear picture of someone who viewed their career as an entity, as a business — instead of as a cog in the machine of a business; or a role in a company or franchise — in the career path of LeBron James. Specifically in the way that he went about making a decision to add on to a legacy in Miami. . .
build a Legacy in Cleveland. . .
and continue a legacy in Los Angeles as a Laker. . .
My belief is that if we want to have a life, and career that we feel is meaningful, we have to look at the outline provided by LeBron James’ career. Not in the sense that we have to be the absolute best in a domain like basketball sports — follow the link and see domain definition #5 as it relates to mathematics — because for one being world class in one thing depends on a lot of factors outside of our control (some of which are described in this Foot Locker commercial with Russel Westbrook). Watch the below, it’s pretty funny and explains it better than I could.
I actually believe that is a good thing, not a bad thing (which I will describe in another post). But even more important it is not efficient to do so if you get the feeling that you are fighting an uphill battle in your quest to become the best.
LeBron James’ career is a model for how we should think about our own career, because those who make the observation that he keeps jumping ship to join new teams and he seems to constantly take them to a title, disregard the fact that the team gets built up from scratch when he does, and not only that, the team is constantly changing during the duration of his contract.
For the record I’m not saying that we should be job hopping.
Sure, LeBron joined Miami with two other superstars, but they lost the first year they went to the Championship. The Mavericks (the team that beat them that year) fizzled away . . .
Since they won the championship they haven’t been out of the first round. . . What does that say? Below are a few possibilities (a deeper dive into each point would reveal explicit data on whether or not it is correct)
- The style of the league has changed.
- The style of the league has changed, and the continuity at their head coaching position could possibly lead to continuity of the style of play as well. As a result they have gotten worse if their style of play is not conducive to winning basketball games.
- They happened to click at the right time (when they won the championship) and have not clicked since.
- Either other teams in the league have gotten better or the Mavericks have gotten worse. This goes back to the point of teammates getting shuffled around, traditionally once people get a ring it seems they go and try to get the money they feel they are owed.
- Other teams in the league have gotten better and as a result they have gotten worse if they haven’t gotten better. From the perspective of talent, while they have amazing young players like Dennis Smith Jr and Luka Doncic if they have not been able to add high talent at a rate greater than the rest of the teams in their conference, and then in their division, and gel at the right moments they have effectively not gotten better.
So back to my original point, LeBron and the teams he has been a part of have been able to consistently play at a high level because constant change is embraced.
Isaiah Thomas, Dwayne Wade, Jae Crowder, Channing Frye, Derrick Rose, Iman Shumpert all got TRADED. Damn near half the team was out of the door at the middle of the season. They still made it to the playoffs.
You could reply and say that LeBron individually wills those deals to get done. But he doesn’t structure the deals that get done. There’s a chain of command.
Player Haters (In the truest sense of the word)
“Frequently competition like saying well okay how am I the Olympic athlete, how am I the gold medalist at this is actually not what is generally required that’s in a few individuals or a few companies perspective. Frequently competition is local. It’s the question of well, of the folks that you know this business needs to hire or in providing this service as a small business, what does my competitive set look like and then how do I have a competitive differentiation at this set.” — Reid Hoffman
There are a ton of people who hate LeBron James. A few reasons are listed below:
- Why can’t he stay on one team?
- He’s not better than Michael Jordan, we need to stop comparing him.
- He doesn’t even have that many championships, the greats wouldn’t lose so much in the NBA Finals.
- If he was really great he would take the game over and finish it even when his teammates aren’t giving him help.
- He’s a selfish player, why doesn’t he get his teammates more involved. . .
Read those last two points again . . .
Yeah, people really say those last two sentences in the same breath. But whatever.
So with that being said, they are right to an extent, LeBron James embraces one thing, a career with “Permanent Beta” as described by Reid Hoffman, founder of Linkedin and Partner at Greylock. He can’t seem to “make up his mind” on a team to play with. But that’s because the league doesn’t quote “make up its mind.” This isn’t high school, or middle school. He’s not forced to stay with one team.
The NBA as an entity is constantly changing, the landscape of the league is constantly changing, coaches, teammates, and General Mangers shuffle across the league on a constant basis. To say that the greatest player in the world should stay put is completely missing the point.
It would be closer to the truth that LeBron James, in combination with his skills and his talents, as well as his knowledge of the game, is able to remain the best player in the world because his approach to the game constantly changes. That is why LeBron’s career should be a model.
I’m not saying that we have to job hop, or jump from place to place in our careers. What I am saying is that we need to understand what makes us who we are, and operate in that. While also looking for the changes that are happening in the world and realize that it creates opportunities that we can leverage to add value in the positions we find ourselves in!
The NBA is different than the days of Michael Jordan.
Gone are the days where players can rest cozy in their situation with a franchise. It would be foolish to take lower pay when the market is offering you more, and where if a better opportunity came around next year the team would willingly trade to better position themselves to deal with the changing times. Like the Cavs CLEANING HOUSE and trading nearly half of their team.
Because funny enough if we make career decisions based on salary choices (quoted to us as an annual number without considering how the nuances are important to the growth of our career, the interim opportunity cost, and the subsequent delay of progress towards a greater broader vision we have for our future) we miss the point that the true “value” of a business is it’s ability to generate cash flow. And forget the fact that salaries are paid off of the cash flow that the business generates over the period and bonuses are only handed out once the clients of the company you are a member of have been invoiced and have received payments for those invoices (that last sentence is a general statement I am well aware it depends on the kind of business and the company that dictates what cash is used to pay out payroll).
So What’s Your Competitive Advantage?
“You now no longer just think I discovered my passions I kind of sit in a room and I meditate about what I’m good at and I just go do that. You have to think about that you are there along with thousands of other people and so for interesting jobs there’s always competition. There’s a question of how do you get product market fit in relative to that competition and so you have to think about what is your competitive edge. And the only way you can really figure out competitive edge is when you’re thinking about the market and industry around you. You’re thinking about what the competitors look like in terms of how am I best at that, how am I good at that.” — Reid Hoffman
“Competitive advantage in one’s career, seems to be, a result of conflating your experiences; interests as a result of those experiences; key takeaways from both; and your own unique talents; putting those puzzle pieces together in a way that is logical for the progression of the market and industry you find yourself in.”
Put differently. . .
“ For example, if you said at the beginning of LinkedIn what was my differentiation — my differentiation was I understood virality. Am I an expert on careers and the job recruiting marketplace and hiring? No. So “I’m the unique, perfect person” doesn’t mean that when you line up every attribute, you turn out to be the only person. It’s actually that you’re taking a unique shot, and you have a unique ability to take that shot relative to competition” — Reid Hoffman on the Masters of Scale Podcast
The Reason For a Foggy Vision
The difficulty with this constant beta is that when trying to ask ourselves the questions where do we see ourselves in 5–10 years our thinking is clouded. There are more factors to consider than ever before and so we see 10 years from now as today with more weight on our shoulders. The vision of what you want your LIFE TO BE LIKE isn’t some snapshot set in stone rather it is a guiding principle for how to make decisions today, and then you reassess. Because your life is always a constant work in progress you do not experience the future as the future, you will experience the future as the present. So your current emotional, mental state and attitude toward your career, as well as your environment changes when you align your life in the “present” with that vision for the future that guides your decisions.
“Inner Purpose is aligning your life fully with the present moment so that you are no longer out of alignment, which leads to the state of dissatisfaction. . .” — Eckhart Tolle (in the below video)
