When there's big decisions that need to be made, it seems like everybody looks for the scapegoat. Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. I love the community we're creating, the purposeful conversations we've been having over the past few weeks have just been absolutely phenomenal.
And today's guest is going to take us to another level. I've been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time since we connected on Instagram and through a mutual friend. And today I'm getting to hear about a story that I think a lot of us may know very little about but has had such a big impact on our lives. Today's guest is the one and only Jeannie Bus, one of the most respected names in all of basketball.
She's a controlling owner of the beloved NBA franchise, the LA Lakers. Jeannie started her stellar business career at a young age, learning from her father, who's widely considered to be the greatest owner in the history of the sport. She's also shown that she's unafraid to make big moves and under her leadership, the Lakers won the 2020 NBA Championship, their first championship since 2010. Please welcome to On Purpose, Jeannie.
Jeannie, thank you so much for doing this. And Jeannie, thank you for all the inspiration that you provide on an everyday basis, you know, little gems that sometimes just write when you really need to hear something. Your voice is so inspiring and your messages are well received and very appreciated. Well, that means the world coming from you.
You inspire so many through the work that you do. And so if my work's tattooed in any way, I feel extremely blessed and grateful. But I wanted to start off, first of all, by thanking you for the championship from last year and all the success. I've been a, I always talk about this.
There's very few teams that are known internationally. I was born and raised in London. And so the only two teams we ever really heard about were the Chicago Bulls and the LA Lakers. Those were the two biggest teams.
I've been a Lakers fan since. And when I moved to LA only two years ago, I think I moved here at the same time LeBron came across and I was thinking, oh, this is, this is, I was like, this is great timing for me. And it was absolutely amazing to watch. But I saw that Adam Silver, the NBA commissioner recently called you NBA royalty.
What does that mean to you? How does that feel? I guess you could say I was born into this position. And so maybe that's how royalty fits into the equation, because I don't feel that I've privileged or, you know, have just been given something without a lot of work.
But, you know, to have Adam Silver say that about me, I think it's just because I've been around 40 years in this business. No, I completely agree with you. And that's what I want to dive in today. I think from what I know of you, what I've learned about you, you have so much depth and such a journey to share with us today.
And you're absolutely right that often the media and the news, like in the three minute interview, you miss that context of someone and who they are. And today I hope we get to learn that. I wanted to start with your childhood. And because I think childhood is so important in framing who we are.
Tell us about a memory that you have from being a young girl that you feel has had such a big impact or impression on your life today. Growing up, I always wanted to work in the family business that I loved being around family and being connected and contributing some way to the whole, to the unit, to the family. You know, I think my dad saw that passion that I had for work at that time when he was building his wealth. He was in real estate.
That's how he made his money. And so I always thought someday I would be working in real estate and development. But as soon as he had the opportunity, sports was his love. And he felt that if he could, you know, buy the Lakers, he also bought the King's hockey team and the forum where they played, that he wanted the opportunity to build a team and make them successful.
He wasn't born in Los Angeles, but he moved here like so many people who lived here to have. And the city embraced him. And he loved the city. And he wanted to give back and do something that he felt was important.
And he felt at that time, there was such a bias for teens on the east coast. We heard about the Boston Celtics and the New York Knicks and the Philadelphia 76ers. You know, he wanted to make the Lakers great. And that would be his love letter to the city of Los Angeles.
And that's what he did. And in 1979, I was a high school senior. And he purchased the team and our family business pivoted from real estate and to sports and entertainment. And that's when I started to work.
I've loved it ever since. I never thought I would be sitting here today as the reigning, controlling owner of the championship team. But here we are. That's beautiful.
What do you think was one of the biggest lessons or skills? You obviously have so much love for him and the work he did in the path he took. What was one of the biggest things you learned from him? And what do you think one of the biggest things you taught him that maybe you shared back with him?
He taught me how to treat people, how important it was to give people respect, no matter what their circumstance was. You know, I still to this day, I love hearing stories of people who met him along the way. He treated, you know, the most powerful business tycoons the same way he treated the guys pulling up his car at the ballet. Always treated people with love and respect and kindness.
That was something that, you know, I will continue to carry on and be instilled that value in me. I think when you asked me what did I teach him that no one ever asked me that question before, I would say that he was always inspired by my sense of calm about myself, about learning through different kinds of therapy, you know, kind of taking responsibility for me as a person and being disciplined. And I think sometimes he kind of said, you know, you worked too hard, you know, take a weekend off. You know, as my dad, I think he kind of got a kick out of how much I worked and how much I applied myself.
I think he appreciated that. Yeah, that's wonderful. I always think that teaching and learning is an exchange, isn't it? It's whoever it is, whether that person's your parent or your partner or your friend, it's always a two way thing.
And I'm sure he was so inspired by you and learned so much from you as well. So thank you for sharing that with us. I'm really glad that we went there. Now, I read that you obviously became general manager of the LA strings at the age of 19.
And I'm thinking to myself, wow, that is that's that's incredible. First of all, at that age, at that time to do that, has there been a similar experience from that time that has felt very true today? Like, have you found some connection or parallel where you're like, oh, we went through that when I was 19 and I'm experiencing the same thing today. What are some of those leadership parallels that you're seeing in your journey?
When my dad named me, general manager of the LA strings at the age of 19, you know, I was like, oh, great. I now I've got a team to run and teen tennis consisted of four players, two men and two women that you drafted and they played each kind of tennis, meaning women's singles, men's singles, men's doubles, women's doubles and mixed doubles, five sets. And the scoring was cumulative. So it was the brainchild of Billie Jean King, who's one of my mentors, because it was a way of men and women competing together where they equally contributed to the outcome of the match.
And that's the kind of thinking that she does about gender equality. And I so appreciated it. So now I'm in charge. I go to my dad and I say, hey, dad, I have to draft the team, you know, let's let's go over the draft and let's pick players.
And he said, you know, I really want you to pick the team. I want you to know what it feels like to have success. And also, if it doesn't work out what it feels like to fail so that you'll know you'll learn that lesson. And I was kind of taken aback by that.
He wanted me to either own the success or experience the failure. And that was such a gift because he wasn't going to try to, you know, put training wheels on me. He wanted me to take responsibility to feel that position. And I so appreciated that.
Luckily, in that first year, I drafted Martina Navratilova and we won a championship that year. So I guess I got a taste for winning early on. But I really appreciated the the faith that he had in me and that he empowered me. And when I look back and I think, wow, he took a big risk because he really didn't know how things would turn out.
But there's people along the way who who believe in you. And that that change is your whole dynamic of how you envision yourself. And so, you know, I learned that lesson of when people see you a certain way that, you know, you can accept that and believe it yourself. Sometimes you're your own worst critic and your own fears are what hold you back and, you know, allow people's opinion of you to be reflected and accepted.
Yeah, I love what you just said that there's so many things that you said. And I hope everyone who's listening is taking notes right now. There's a beautiful thing you said your father shared with you, which was he wanted you to own the success and experience the failure. And when you said that, I thought, wow, what a powerful lesson to allow someone to do and to learn to do where we own our success.
We celebrate it, we evaluate, we take responsibility for it, but that we experience our failure. And then what you just said there at the engineer, I feel you're so right that we live in a world today where everyone has an opinion about everyone and everything. And it can be really hard for our self esteem because we already have an inner critic. And now on top of that, we have external critics.
And that can become a really loud voice. You started leading so early on. What was one of the first times you experienced that, you know, far before where you are now where you started to realize that your relationship with yourself had to be a priority? I truly believe that.
And you said it so well. I mean, I've been inspired by so many great leaders, you know, Billy Jean King, David Stern, Phil Jackson, people who didn't let the critics or the outside detractors feed the outcome. In other words, it's like, you have to be fearless. And sometimes it's hard to do.
And sometimes you could, you might say, I got to put on a face today for the people I'm leading. And maybe I have some doubts, but they can't see that. And I have to be strong. And I have to stand my ground.
I learned that because, believe me, I had many failures along the way on my path. And I'm sure I'll have more coming up in my future. That's just part of being a leader and not being afraid to stand out for what you believe in. You have to know what direction you're going.
Because if your doubts might be about which decision you're making, and you can't be a leader like standing on two different sides of the fence, you have to be decisive. And you have to believe and stand for what your values are. And I feel like I'm a values-oriented leader, that my values dictate my decisions. And when you are clear about what you value, then the decisions become very easy.
I love that you just spoke about values. In my book last year, my first chapter is entirely about defining your values. So hearing you say that rings so true. How did you develop your values?
Because I think a lot of people hear that today, but they don't really know how someone chooses their values, how you define them, and also then how you use them. And it sounds like you're absolutely right. As a leader, you have to make some really big decisions. You don't get to kind of toe the line and sit on the fence as you said.
Tell us about what your values are in leadership, and how did you develop them? Where did they come from? I think the most important value that drives me is integrity. And it's about being truthful.
Do what you say and say what you do. That you are consistent in your decision making. You don't look for excuses. If you didn't live up to your expectation that you can accept it instead of trying to find someone to blame.
In this day and age you can't sit by the sidelines. You can't see something that's wrong and ignore it. That's really important to me. And that's like integrity throughout an organization, throughout society.
And that's really holding yourself accountable. And speaking the truth and not trying to lay off blame if things don't go your way. Such a powerful quality. Such a hard thing to truly embody every day.
And it takes work. I'm sure it takes work to even practice that on a daily basis and the amount of attention it takes. I think we all continue to evolve. And that's why what you bring to the world is so valuable because you help people learn about themselves and continue to evolve just from all the social unrest that we experienced this past year.
And I had to make a decision. I posted on my social media a letter, a horribly, and I get a lot of them unfortunately. But it was a letter using words that disgust me. And I decided to post it on my social media with the words blacked out so that it didn't offend anybody.
But I did that because I wanted my white friends to see that racism exists in this world. And that we can't turn a blind eye anymore. And living with that example and whatever I'm willing to do because I think it's important. And I think that so many people just, if it doesn't affect me, then what do I care?
Well, if it affects one person, then it affects us all. Like we have to realize that we're all part of a community. And that if there's unfairness, then we're not living up to what we can truly be as human beings. I'm so glad you raised that.
I'm so glad you shared that. I saw you post that letter. And if anyone hasn't seen it, first of all, I highly recommend you follow Jeannie on Instagram. But then go and see that piece too, because I love sports.
But I felt that the NBA and the Lakers did a phenomenal job of standing up with integrity as activists through the sport. I really felt that. I mean, when you're consuming the sport, you could see the NBA had taken a really clear stance. And then of course, the Lakers had taken such a clear stance.
And then that's not an easy decision. And it's a big decision. But as you said, it came from a powerful place. What you just said, it's like, a lot of people say, well, yeah, it's not our space.
It doesn't affect me. Why did you and the Lakers feel it was so important to be a part of that messaging in the sense where you felt we feel this is going to have an impact? Were you thinking about younger viewers? Were you thinking about all the years?
Like, where was your mindset when you're making a decision like that? Well, you know, when I talked about my dad, you know, and what I learned from him and the values that he instilled in me and the respect for human beings that he had, no matter what their circumstance was, you know, this is just the next step. This is what, you know, the Lakers are champions of the NBA and a well-known brand around the world. But we also belong to a community and, you know, there are people in our community that are suffering.
And if there are people who are suffering, then what can we do? And we can stand up for what we feel is right. You know, I don't think of myself or our organization as activists. I think we're just illuminating what needs to be known and what needs to be seen, you know, to have a player like LeBron James, who I am so proud of and so honored to stand beside in so many things.
I think he represents so much of what the Lakers stand for. He is our leader. He has, you know, led us back to the top of the NBA, you know, and when we lost our beloved Kobe and Gianna Bryant, he was there to lead us through the darkness and the painting and the broad Laker Nation together so that we could mourn our favorite song Kobe Bryant. Yeah, no, and this is why I love hearing you speak about these themes and topics.
It's, it shows me what a, what an incredible leader you are and what breadth of vision you have. Like it's such a, it's such a wide vision. It's, you know, we could be sitting here just too much sports and stats and numbers and, you know, that kind of stuff. And, and obviously I, we knew we weren't going to talk about any of those things.
That's why we did this. But I love hearing that because I think anyone who's listening or watching right now can see that becoming a leader of an organization in an industry doesn't stop you from illuminating on things that are meaningful to you. It doesn't stop you from being who you are and caring for people. I think often we feel that when you become a leader, you have to kind of toe the line and be really specific and then you can't go out of your area.
But what you said, they're beautiful is you don't see yourself as an activist. You see yourself as illuminating things that are important to your community. And I'm guessing that you felt a lot of support, but I'm sure the players also felt a lot of confidence knowing that the team felt that way, knowing that you felt that way. Like I'm sure that built a lot of trust.
How have you built trust over the years? Because I think that's one of the hardest things in leadership. Like it's, you can have a group of people that win, you can have a group of people that succeed, but trust, especially these kinds of themes require a lot more trust. Tell me a bit about what you've learned about trust over the years, Junior, and how that's been built.
Well, I think in, in my business, there's a lot of ego involved. And when there's big decisions that need to be made, it seems like everybody looks for the scapegoat. Unfortunately, the media can be complicit in hosting, you know, reporting on an unnamed source. What I've seen in my experience is I've seen when a team has to trade a player.
And what if that player goes on to the next team and does better? Well, then that's gonna make me look bad. So now they have to create a narrative that this guy doesn't work hard enough, or this guy, you know, was bad in the locker room. And that I cannot tolerate.
I cannot tolerate a person, you know, destroying someone else's character to pump up their own value. And you know, so when the media quotes, you know, unnamed sources, I throw that out the window. Like I don't listen to that. I would never be a part of that.
But I know even in my own organization, when we were struggling for a few years, there were so many leaks in our organization that now you can't have integrity, you can't have trust. Because when you're bringing your leadership together to talk about something, and then the next thing, there's something in the media that was spoken behind closed doors, now nobody trusts each other. Well, who was it? Finger pointing, it's completely undermining to an organization to try to build any kind of success.
So we have extinguished the the leaks, we have built a level of trust. And now we don't have that, you know, who's stabbing me in the back? Who's supposed to be on my side, but is setting me up for failure? With all that distraction aside, now, this is what can be accomplished.
You can accomplish great things. And it doesn't mean that, oh, we have the formula of how to win a championship. But what what happens is that we experience each other in the best way possible, that we can let down our guard and rely on one another and allow each other to compliment, you know, my skill set with your skill set, because I know you're not going to, you know, make me look bad. That's how the pieces come together to be stronger than the sum of its parts.
You know, we got lucky that we won a championship because it does take luck. It takes, you know, injuries, you know, avoiding injuries and all that. But, you know, we came out on top. We've got a really special thing going, a team that truly cares about each other in LeBron signing an extension and Anthony Davis signing an extension is really a great reflection on that, you know, what we're building here.
And that that's what is the fulfilling part of it is the trust and the connections and the relationships that we build. And then the winning happens. Yeah, that's what metric of success, like that's like winning the championship, of course, is an incredible metric of success. But the deeper metric of success is that trust that rebuilding together, that desire for people to want to commit and stay on, those are those are the real signs of something truly being created is what I'm hearing.
And yeah, and what you were saying around, it sounds like you've just created really clear boundaries of what your expectations are, because I feel when you were talking about the idea of, you know, having people around you that don't trust you or having people where there are challenges and conflict, I think anyone who's listening watching can relate to that in whatever workplace they're in, like everyone goes through that on a daily basis where you don't know if that person's going to stab you in the back to get promoted or that. And so I feel people can relate to that. But it sounds like you've just created really clear boundaries for you and your team, and you're trying to hold everyone to a high standard. What do you think, Ginny, has been your personal biggest?
And I use the word challenge because I think failure often paints a negative view. But what would you say has been your personal biggest challenge in your life? And how have you worked to overcome it? Wherever you had to go internally to overcome that challenge?
That's a great question. Because I recently experienced that it was when Natcha Johnson stepped down as the head of our basketball. It really took me by surprise. And again, like that, I don't know really what's happening right now.
And that's when, you know, the people that I truly trust that are close to me said, you have to have an organization that reflects what's important to you. And you can't fight what's happening out with all the speculation in the media, don't fight it. Just be quiet and do your work. And that's what we did.
And it was the hardest thing I ever did was, you know, reading horrible things about me or other people I work with. And your first instinct is to punch back. You want to, you know, you want to tell people shut up and like, you know, so, but you know what, for as much as they know, that's very acting to what they see. So you have to let people own their opinion.
But you know what the truth is. And so I had to just keep my mouth shut and not react to the negative and do the work. And again, we were the fortunate winners of the championship, which is always the goal. But really what I learned was that I could trust the people that I'm surrounded with.
And that that was always what was important to me to have, was that trust that I give that I would get back. And it's such a pleasure to work with the people that I work with now. And I, you know, there was, you know, a moment when when magic stepped down, because he was such an important part of why LeBron came to the Lakers to begin with, that I thought LeBron might decide, Hey, you know, this isn't what I signed up for. You know, I want to be traded.
He didn't do that. Instead, he knew what the truth was. You knew that the organization was well run. He believed in what we were doing.
He believed in me. And that was, that was such a turning point. I can't imagine the levels of uncertainty when something like that happens. Like the questioning and the insecurity about what and if and what's this person going to think and say, and how's this going to react to them when you're dealing with all of that.
I wonder what does Jeannie have to do before she's in the boardroom, right? It's like, what do you have to do behind closed doors behind the seats? What are your, what are your practices and some of your habits, maybe Jeannie, that you do that, that allow you to stay. You were saying that the biggest thing you followed up about you was your ability to work hard, but be calm.
And he likes your calming presence. Even today, I feel such a, you have, and I've seen interviews with you before, I've seen you celebrate and I've watched you many times, but you have this beautiful calming energy about you even, even through this screen. And I wonder, what are some of your practices and habits? What are some of the internal rituals that you've created for yourself that are not there in the boardroom, that aren't there on the news, but that you're doing every day or every week or every month that are helping you be calm during that chaos?
Having a routine in the morning is really important. And before you go to sleep, I think that's valuable. But I was with Phil Jackson for over 15 years, living with him. You know, they call him the Zen Master.
So, you know, I got a lot of my kind of clarity about what's important and how to focus, watching him that, you know, there's a lot of ups and downs in our business, you know, just every day life there's ups and downs. And he's so consistent in how he approached things. He never, he always looked forward. There was always a path.
He never dwelled on what had just happened. If the team had lost by 60 points, it was forgotten about or not forgotten. It was, you know, okay, well, now we have another game coming up. It's always looking forward.
And I guess that's the beauty is that we always have the next day. We always have do our morning routine. We deal with what we deal with in the day. And then we go home, we have our routine, and we go to sleep to the next day, and we can make things better.
So I guess there's like an optimism with that, but also that staying in the moment that our routine allows you and know that you're going to have the next moment and you're going to do better and you're going to have another opportunity. So there's no reason to collapse now because you're going to have another chance. I guess that's where, you know, the calmness comes because it's like, you know, there isn't anything that we can't overcome or take on. You know, things might not always go our way, but you know, we have another day.
Yeah, I really appreciate you saying that. I think, I think that's something we often forget that we often forget that there's another opportunity. You can take another shot, you can try again, you can rebuild, you can recreate, you can change this, you can adapt, and sometimes we live two in the moment where we're just like, oh, no, this is all there is. And it's not going right now.
Not realizing that there's always a growth. Now, one of the areas we don't see growth is that, you know, there aren't many other women yet that are general managers or franchises. And I think that that's something that we are going to see change. It is something that you're a forefront leader in and will inspire so many.
Do you ever feel though that? And this is an honest question. Do you ever find that lonely or do you find that inspiring? Like, how do you see that?
Do you see that as like, oh, no one understands me and no one can relate to me because there's not many of us. And as you said, you've had such amazing mentors in that space. You've also felt that loneliness or inspiration. How do you process that?
I know what it meant to me as a young person to see women in positions of power and how inspiring that was for me. You know, in the last 40 years, I've seen a lot of change in women having powerful positions in all areas of sports and entertainment. And, you know, it's just my advice to young women is to follow your passion. And, you know, that will lead you to where you want to be.
And, you know, if you feel that being a woman, you know, it's such a competitive business that if somebody wants to get an edge on you and they think that if they can push your buttons because you're a woman, because you might think you're less than they are than a man, then they found your button. They found a way to get to you. So, you know, I can tell you that gender doesn't matter. You know, it's, you know, people are what matter talent is what matters.
And that's what, you know, will take you to where you want to go. How much have you engaged with Gini with whether it's therapy or mindfulness in your own practice in your own life? Like, how much of that has been useful to you because of the extreme pressure you've had to handle throughout? Has that been a tool that you've reached into your toolkit that has been that has been powerful for you?
Absolutely. I think therapy has been a huge benefit for me. I even had the experience of going through group therapy, which was really, really valuable. And I think there are so many opportunities for people now, you know, before it was like, therapy was something that people kept quiet or didn't talk about.
But I think the more we can shine a light on it and show how valuable a tool it is about learning about yourself in group therapy, one of the things that I learned was it was a co-ed group, probably about 10 or 12 people, I forget. And these are people you knew or people you didn't know? No, I didn't know. Just like around the same age, you know, experience, I was going through my divorce.
And so a co-ed group was good for me. People just dealing with everyday problems and finding a place where they could discuss it. Well, there was there was one guy that, no matter what, I couldn't connect with him. Like, everything I said, they said, I just didn't like anything.
And I knew it was I was coming to a point where I was going to have to confront him and ask him, what is it about me that you don't like? Because it was driving me crazy. It was haunting my dreams. Like, you know, like, I could always find common ground with people.
You know, I finally got up the courage to say to him, like, I just get the feeling you don't like me no matter what I say or what I do or, you know, can you tell me about that? And he said, oh, it's not you. It's just that you look like someone that I went to high school with that I asked out and she didn't go out with me. And like, he was kind of surprised that he he didn't realize that he had an attitude towards me, not for anything that I did just because I reminded him of somebody he had a situation with.
And that that just like, I was like, oh, wow, it's like the whole world that's revolved around me. It's not always me. That's the problem, right? And so you just kind of opened my eyes to like, you know, sometimes people aren't going to like you and it has nothing to do with you.
And you can't spend all your time worrying about making sure everybody does like you because it just may just not happen. That's such a good story. I love that. That's such a good story.
It's such a truth not to take things personally and not to make everything about you and what you just finished with that. Even if you did everything right, not everyone's going to like you. And that's just not possible and that that addiction we have to hoping that every person we meet loves us. Giving that up allows us to receive love from the people who do love us and love the people who do love us in our lives.
It really frees up so much mental space because otherwise we're just pursuing this one person or two people that we want to impress and we want them to think we're amazing and it can be a whole life can be wasted doing that. I was going to ask you the same question that I asked you earlier about your father and you've mentioned LeBron a few times. What's something that LeBron's taught you and what do you think you've taught LeBron? I wish I could teach LeBron something.
He is fearless. Everything he says or does has a purpose. It isn't just wasted words or to get on camera. It's like if he says something, if he's thought about it and it means something and he's very consistent in his message and I think he's like a real life superhero because he fights for what he believes in and he's the strongest person I've ever seen on the court.
He's been just an inspiration and I enjoy getting to know him as a person and he has inspired me and I hope that I've inspired him because he has a daughter and I hope that as a father he sees what is possible for his daughter because the collaboration that we have in winning the championship. Thank you for sharing. It's beautiful and I love hearing the genuine friendship you have with so many of the team and the players and I wanted to ask you because it's such a deep and dear memory of mine and obviously such a big impact on Hall of Lake and Nation. When I think about Kobe Bryant and Gianna Bryant, when I sat with him for the interview, I've never felt that energy in the room before.
It was different. It was completely different and I say that to people and I said that as soon as I'd interviewed him and I'm not and I just want everyone to know I'm not over amplifying it. It was that in the moment. It is not based on the events afterwards that make me say that it was very real.
What was one of your memories with him that you think people may not be aware of or something he shared with you or a moment you guys shared that you think really embodies just who he was and how important his legacy and messages. You have to remember that we met Kobe when he was 17 and he grew into this. He evolved into this great man, this great leader and he learned so much about himself through basketball and his lovely Oscar winning film, Dear Basketball, where he talks about that love and what experience he had. I guess the story I would share is when he had made the decision to retire from the game and at that time I didn't oversee any of the basketball but I obviously ran the business side of the team and Kobe asked to meet with me privately and he had never done that before and was unusual because I didn't run the basketball side.
I mean obviously I knew Kobe but it was my first meeting that he asked for and at that meeting he you know shared with me that he wanted to announce his retirement from the game he loved and he had a very specific way he wanted to do it and it required planning and logistics to make sure because he wanted he wanted a letter to be given to every fan in attendance at the game I think it was two weeks in advance that we had. He wanted you know nobody would know anything that he was going to make this announcement until he made it. There was no weeks there was nothing and I knew who I could trust in the organization to execute this that it wouldn't get out and that it would the announcement would be on his terms and that's when I think he really he knew that I was there in his corner for him and you know that that gift that he gave us by announcing his retirement at the end of November of that season allowed the whole NBA to pay you know tribute to him so every every town we went to it was you know because at the the the team at the time was you know we were in last place we were not doing well but you know the Lakers sold out every arena that we went to because the fans that you know booed him and didn't want him showed him their love and I think he was so moved by that like I don't think he even if he you know saw that coming but he gave all of us such such a gift because he shared with us something so personal and allowed us to show him our love you know that that just meant the world to me that you know that he trusted me and he knew that I would do the right thing so that he could retire on his terms which was so important for his mental well-being to leave the game on his terms I know the energy that you're talking about he had the charisma that knowing who he was and you know we all know the mama mentality and the tough but it all was from love everything from love the competitiveness he loved playing he loved when an opponent you know was we love playing the Celtics he you know it was all love that was that was an anger and you know that that determination just was who he was like he wanted everybody to challenge him because it brought out the best in him and that that was such a beautiful part about him was appreciating the journey and appreciating the game and appreciating the opponents that were willing to to lace him up and take him on and try to stop him from scoring 81 points so that's amazing thank you for sharing that and thank you just this whole interview I appreciate your candidness your open-heartedness you've been raw and vulnerable and open and I'm always going to remember this interview for having felt that I've experienced heartfelt and ego-less leadership from you and I really appreciate that like I think that's very rare today and often we think that that doesn't exist and even the mentors you mentioned or the people in your life you mentioned it's amazing to see that the people that have risen to the top have all had that in common they were fighting for something great to themselves they were working for a purpose higher than themselves and that it was all heartfelt and it was ego-less and fearless and so I want to thank you for your time we end every interview with a fast five this means these questions have to be one word or one sentence answers so these are your fast five genie last five minutes you've been so generous with your time you usually do short interviews you gave us an whole hour which I which I really value but these are your fast five so genie what's the best piece of advice you've ever received tell the truth you know face the cameras just own it amazing and what's what's the worst advice you've ever received I don't have a good answer for you I'm sorry no that's fine you just don't remember it right yeah you don't remember it that's fine I would say the third question is what's been the biggest surprise in your career what's been the biggest like moment where you felt an element of surprise winning that championship you know I my goal was to see the team do well in the playoffs and to be the last team standing in what LeBron has said you know it was one of the hardest championships ever to win after living in a bubble during the pandemic that the championship of 2020 I love that question number four what's something that you're so confident about but other people may disagree with or may they may not understand yet but what's something you're so sure about you got to have passion you got to have passion that's what will attract people to you that's it you know you have to you have to find what inspires you and you know and be authentic about it you can't create that great answer all right fifth and final question for you is if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow what would it be no line just I can't stand liars I can't stand uh hypocrisy and and you know stop lying tell the truth all in the truth it'll set you free amazing everyone that is Gene University thank you so much for doing this interview and on purpose today I'm so excited to share it with my community I loved your lessons on leadership I thought the insight you gave about making difficult decisions and overcoming failures was huge and it's so wonderful to get to know you on a deeper level and I hope everyone's felt that today to hear your heart uh to see your tenacity and relentless desire for success and growth but also balanced with this idea of doing it with integrity and love I think that's such a beautiful tapestry and message you're creating with your life and I hope everyone takes a moment to get to know you at that level because I think when we look at what we see in news and little clips and everything you don't really understand a human so thank you for allowing us to spend this much time with you well Jay I'm a fan I count myself as one of your listeners and I look forward to meeting you in person and hopefully hosting you at a Lakers game if we're ever allowed to get back to Staples Center and play with fans um you know I just I really appreciate what you do keep up the good message yeah thank you so much now I look forward to that too I really really do and uh I can't wait to see you go from strength to strength and for you to hopefully one day share all of your lessons in many different ways and teach classes write books and help other people because it's uh it's really special the way you're doing what you're doing and I think that's what I admire so much is your way and uh that's what we need more of so thank you so much Dini from the bottom of my heart everyone who's listening and watching please share on instagram on twitter or on facebook whatever you're learning from this conversation make sure you tag Gini and I so we can see the incredible insights you've gained from this conversation and as always we will see you again next week for another episode thank you Gini and thanks everyone for listening.