{"id":2990,"date":"2013-11-11T13:26:38","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T20:26:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lmlrn.com\/?p=2990"},"modified":"2020-08-19T06:42:02","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T06:42:02","slug":"kareem-abdul-jabbar-20-things-wish-id-known-30","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drprem.com\/life\/kareem-abdul-jabbar-20-things-wish-id-known-30","title":{"rendered":"Kareem Abdul Jabbar: 20 Things I Wish I\u2019d Known When I Was 30"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar<\/p>\n

Kareem Abdul Jabbar<\/strong> was one of the most successful basketball players in history. Abdul-Jabbar was a record six-time\u00a0NBA Most Valuable Player\u00a0(MVP), a record 19-time\u00a0NBA All-Star, a 15-time\u00a0All-NBA\u00a0selection, and an 11-time\u00a0NBA All-Defensive Team\u00a0member.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

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In an inspiring article in Esquire<\/a> magazine,\u00a0Kareem Abdul Jabbar shared some of the things he would have changed, if he could go back and talk to himself at 30.<\/p>\n

Here is what he would say to his 30 year old self:<\/p>\n

Kareem Abdul Jabbar: 20 Things I Wish I\u2019d Known When I Was 30<\/h2>\n

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar<\/p>\n

When I was thirty, I was living my dream. I\u2019d already accomplished most of what I\u2019d set out to achieve professionally: leading scorer in the NBA, leading rebounder, leading blocker, Most Valuable Player, All-Star. But success can be as blinding as Bill Walton\u2019s finger in the eye when battling for a rebound. I made mistakes. Plenty of them. In fact, sometimes I wish I could climb into a time machine and go back to shake some sense into that thirty-year-old me.<\/p>\n

If I could, here\u2019s the advice I would give him:<\/p>\n

1. Be more outgoing<\/h3>\n

My shyness and introversion from those days still haunt me. Fans felt offended, reporters insulted. That was never my intention. When you\u2019re on the public stage every day of your life, people think that you crave attention. For me, it was the opposite. I loved to play basketball, and was tremendously gratified that so many fans appreciated my game. But when I was off the court, I felt uncomfortable with attention. I rarely partied or attended celebrity bashes. On the flights to games, I read history books. Basically, I was a secret nerd who just happened to also be good at basketball. Interacting with a lot of people was like taking someone deathly afraid of heights and dangling him over the balcony at the top of the Empire State Building. If I could, I\u2019d tell that nerdy Kareem to suck it up, put down that book you\u2019re using as a shield, and, in the immortal words of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (to prove my nerd cred), \u201cEngage!\u201d<\/p>\n

2. Ask about family history<\/h3>\n

I wish I\u2019d sat my parents down and asked them a lot more questions about our family history. I always thought there would be time and I kept putting it off because, at thirty, I was too involved in my own life to care that much about the past. I was so focused on making my parents proud of me that I didn\u2019t ask them some of the basic questions, like how they met, what their first date was like, and so forth. I wish that I had.<\/p>\n

3. Become financially literate<\/h3>\n

\u201cDude, where\u2019s my money?\u201d is the rallying cry of many ex-athletes who wonder what happened to all the big bucks they earned. Some suffer from unwise investments or crazy spending, and others from not paying close attention. I was part of the didn\u2019t-pay-attention group. I chose my financial manager, who I later discovered had no financial training, because a number of other athletes I knew were using him. That\u2019s typical athlete mentality in that we\u2019re used to trusting each other as a team, so we extend that trust to those associated with teammates. Consequently, I neglected to investigate his background or what qualified him to be a financial manager. He placed us in some real estate investments that went belly up and I came close to losing some serious coin. Hey, Kareem at 30: learn about finances and stay on top of where your money is at all times. As the saying goes, \u201cTrust, but verify.\u201d<\/p>\n

4. Play the piano<\/h3>\n

I took lessons as a kid but, like a lot of kids, didn\u2019t stick with them. Maybe I felt too much pressure. After all, my father had gone to the Julliard School of Music and regularly jammed with some great jazz musicians. Looking back, I think playing piano would have given me a closer connection with my dad as well as given me another artistic outlet to better express myself. In 2002, I finally started to play and got pretty good at it. Not good enough that at parties people would chant for me to play \u201cPiano Man,\u201d but good enough that I could read music and feel closer to my dad.<\/p>\n

5. Learn French<\/h3>\n

My grandparents were from Trinidad where, though it was an English-speaking country, the school system was started by the French. Whenever my grandparents wanted to say something they didn\u2019t want me to know, they\u2019d speak French. The language seemed so sophisticated and mysterious. Plus, you earn extra James Bond points when you can order in French in a French restaurant.
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6. Get handy<\/h3>\n

I always wanted to be one of those guys who, whenever something doesn\u2019t work, straps on a tool belt and says, \u201cI\u2019ll fix it.\u201d I like the Walden-esque idea of complete self-reliance. Build my own house, clean out the carburetors, find out what carburetors are. Recently my washing machine broke and flooded my entire downstairs. I was forced to stand idly by waiting for a plumber to arrive while water rose around my ankles because I didn\u2019t know how to shut off the water. That\u2019s the kind of experience that makes you have your testosterone levels checked.<\/p>\n

7. Be patient<\/h3>\n

Impatience is the official language of youth. When you\u2019re young, you want to rush to the next thing before you even know where you are. I always think of the joke in Colors that the wiser and older cop (Robert Duvall) tells his impatient rookie partner (Sean Penn). I\u2019m paraphrasing, but it goes something like: \u201cThere’s two bulls standing on top of a mountain. The younger one says to the older one: \u2018Hey pop, let’s say we run down there and screw one of them cows.\u2019 The older one says: \u2018No son. Let\u2019s walk down and screw ’em all.\u2019\u201d Now, to counter the profane with the profound, one of my favorite quotes is from the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer: \u201cTalent hits the target no one else can hit; genius hits the target no one else can see.\u201d<\/strong> I think the key to seeing the target no one else can see is in being patient, waiting for it to appear so you can do the right thing, not just the expedient thing. Learning to wait is one of my greatest accomplishments as I\u2019ve gotten older.<\/p>

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8. Listen more than talk<\/h3>\n

And that\u2019s all I\u2019m going to say about that.<\/p>\n

9. Career is never as important as family<\/h3>\n

The better you are at your job, the more you\u2019re rewarded, financially and spiritually, by doing it. You know how to solve problems for which you receive praise and money. Home life is more chaotic. Solving problems is less prescriptive and no one\u2019s applauding or throwing money if you do it right. That\u2019s why so many young professionals spend more time at work with the excuse, \u201cI\u2019m sacrificing for my family.\u201d Bullshit. Learn to embrace the chaos of family life and enjoy the small victories. This hit me one night after we\u2019d won an especially emotional game against the Celtics. I\u2019d left the stadium listening to thousands of strangers chanting \u201cKareem! Kareem!\u201d I felt flush with the sense of accomplishment, for me, for the Lakers, and for the fans. But when I stepped into my home and my son said, \u201cDaddy!\u201d the victory, the chanting, the league standings, all faded into a distant memory.<\/p>\n

10. Being right is not always the right thing to be<\/h3>\n

Kareem, my man, learn to step away. You think being honest immunizes you from the consequences of what you say. Remember Paul Simon\u2019s lyrics, \u201cThere\u2019s no tenderness beneath your honesty.\u201d So maybe it\u2019s not that important to win an argument, even if you \u201cknow\u201d you\u2019re right. Sometimes it\u2019s more important to try a little tenderness.<\/p>\n

11. Cook more<\/h3>\n

After I got divorced I missed home cooked meals and the only person I had to rely on was the guy in the mirror. Plus, I found it impressed women if you could cook a good meal. Once, very shortly after I started cooking for myself, I had a first date with a woman I really wanted to make a good impression on. Of course, I could have done the usual celebrity thing: fancy restaurant, signing autographs, wait-staff fawning. But I wanted this to be special, so I decided to cook for her, everything from soup to dessert. Some women get a little freaked seeing a 7\u20192\u201d black man with a carving knife and butcher\u2019s apron, but she appreciated the effort. Which was good because the soup was a little salty, the steak a little overcooked, and the flan a little watery\u2026<\/p>\n

12. Compassion is better than passion<\/h3>\n

When choosing someone to date, compassion is better than passion. I\u2019m not saying she shouldn\u2019t be passionate. That\u2019s a given. But look for signs that she shows genuine compassion toward others. That will keep you interested in her a lot longer.<\/p>\n

13. Do one thing every day that helps someone else<\/h3>\n

This isn\u2019t about charity, this is about helping one individual you know by name. Maybe it means calling your parents, helping a buddy move, or lending a favorite jazz album to Chocolate Fingers McGee.<\/p>\n

14. Do more for the community<\/h3>\n

This is about charity, extended to people close by whose names you don\u2019t know. You can always do more.<\/p>\n

15. Do one thing every day that you look forward to doing<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s easy to get caught up in the enormous responsibilities of daily life. The To Do List can swallow your day. So, I\u2019d insist to my younger self to make sure he has one thing on that list that he looks forward to doing.
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16. Don\u2019t be so quick to judge<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s human nature to instantly judge others. It goes back to our ancient life-or-death need to decide whether to fight or flee. But in their haste to size others up, people are often wrong\u2014especially a thirty-year-old sports star with hordes of folks coming at him every day. We miss out on knowing some exceptional people by doing that, as I\u2019m sure I did. I think the biggest irony of this advice is that it\u2019s coming from someone who\u2019s black, stratospherically tall, and an athlete: the trifecta of being pre-judged. And I have a lifetime of hurtful comments to prove it. Yet, that didn\u2019t stop me from doing the same thing to others. You have to weigh the glee of satisfaction you get from arrogantly rejecting people with the inevitable sadness of regret you\u2019ll eventually feel for having been such a dick. A friend of mine told me he routinely attends all of his high school reunions so he can apologize to every person he mistreated back then. He\u2019s now on his fortieth reunion and still apologizing.<\/p>\n

17. When breaking up with a woman, you can\u2019t always remain friends.<\/h3>\n

I have managed to stay friends with many of the women I have dated because I truly liked and respected them. But sometimes emotions run too deep and efforts to remain friends, while that might help you feel better, actually might make the other person feel worse. Take the hit and let it go.<\/p>\n

18. Watch more TV<\/h3>\n

Yeah, you heard right, Little Kareem. It\u2019s great that you always have your nose in history books. That\u2019s made you more knowledgeable about your past and it has put the present in context. But pop culture is history in the making and watching some of the popular shows of each era reveals a lot about the average person, while history books often dwell on the powerful people.<\/p>\n

19. Do more yoga<\/h3>\n

Yes, K, I know you do yoga already. That\u2019s why you\u2019ve been able to play so long without major injuries. But doing more isn\u2019t just for the physical benefits, it\u2019s for the mental benefits that will come in handy in the years ahead, when your house burns down, your jazz collection perishes, and you lose to the Pistons in a four-game sweep in your final season.<\/p>\n

20. Everything doesn\u2019t have to be fixed<\/h3>\n

Relax, K-Man. Some stuff can be fixed, some stuff can\u2019t be. Deciding which is which is part of maturing.<\/p>\n

To read more from\u00a0Kareem Abdul Jabbar, click here<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

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