Today I want to talk about routine and ritual.
Okay, so we’re back in Axel’s—my 8-year-old son’s—room. Up on the wall, as we went through last time, is his 20-year plan, his dream and how we’re going—how he is going—to make that come true. I don’t think anything great or really excellent has ever been brought to life in this world without a routine, without a ritual. And let me just tell you Axel’s and my ritual every night before he goes to bed.
So just like your kids, just like your grandkids, you put them to bed, read them a story and they go to sleep. What we do is a little bit different because the story is of Axel and of his future because we want him to get in touch with is his future self so that his dreams can then come true. So every night Axel gets in bed, I tuck him in and we kiss our fists. Then we fist bump and go through every single thing on this 20-year plan. We touch every picture—the championship blueprint, picture of me, picture of him, picture of his coach, picture of Jordan and Kobe—all of it. And then we do a heart transplant because we want him to have the heart of everybody on this wall. So to Axel, these are the people he wants to emulate heart-wise—these are the ones. These are people with gigantic hearts to be able to achieve what they want.
Every night I take the heart of Steve Nash, I take the heart of Steph Curry, I take the heart of Kobe Bryant, Michael Jordan, of Axel, of me, of his coach A.J., of my brother, of the cheetah, of Usain Bolt, the fastest man in the world, and I pound my hand pretty hard on Axel’s chest. Then we spit on our hands and slap them together. All of their hearts are transplanted into Axel’s heart. As I listen to his heart, I say, “That is the heart of a lion.” We smile and look at each other and we say, ‘goodnight,’ to him having the heart of everybody that is fast, that is excellent, that is great. So he goes to sleep knowing that this is the dream and this is where we’re headed. We do this as a routine or ritual day in and day out. Sometimes when we’re really tired we try to skip it but then he calls me on it and we go through it. Heart transplant—ritual always is there.
What happens when you do something routinely or as a ritual? Those things start to become real. You start to live them year after year. I want you to think about your rituals and routines. Are they equivalent to you having your dreams come true? When you do it with another person it’s doubly great because you get the power of that other person. What are your routines? What are the rituals that you go to sleep with? That you wake up to? Are they accurate? Or are you spending time on other people’s issues right when you wake up and go to sleep? I want you to go to bed with your dreams so that when you wake up, you hit your foot on the floor and your dreams are going. Your dreams are alive. They’re not a fantasy. They’re dreams. They live in the real world. Look at your routines and rituals, like Axel and I do every night, and see if they’re in line with your dreams. If they’re not, get them in line.
