Steph Curry, Marshawn Lynch, Rest and Value

At Sea with Justin McRoberts

During the first round of the 2023 playoffs, Stephon Curry of the Golden State Warriors, my favorite team, was on the sideline, and his head coach, Steve Kerr, came to him and said, I'm going to rest you for a little while to save your energy. Now, let me hit pause here and confess, admit to pointing out, yes, you are getting a sports analogy. And so if you're not a sports See, type person, and you're not down with the sports ball, I'm sorry, I'm sorry for several reasons, one of which is that they are just such great analogies and images. Sports really do provide some wonderful parallels to the practice of life in general. So yes, I'm a sports fan. And yes, I like the Golden State Warriors. I love Steph Curry. And having lost both my other teams to Las Vegas. I'm celebrating and savoring my relationship with the Golden State Warriors. So with a few minutes left, I believe in the third quarter, head coach Steve Kerr comes to Steph Curry, potentially the greatest point guard in the history of basketball, and says I'm going to arrest you. Now, that is the kind of rest you and I, most of us, are used to not only getting but seeking. It's the kind of rest that is contextualized. By work, I am resting right now from work I've been doing so that I can get back to work and do it more effectively. And better. That's a certain kind of rest. And it's not a bad kind of rest. It's just limited that kind of rest in the long run, won't actually get to the depths of my soul, my being, and help reframe not just my work but my life and my orientation, even towards the work that I'm doing. In other words, there are different kinds of rest. And we kind of need all of them. Steve Kerr knew that Steph would just call them stuff out here. needed some rest in order for the second half to be everything. It could be for Steph Curry. And it turns out it was Steph dropping 30 points in the second half. And we beat us collectively. I took part in this victory. We beat the Sacramento Kings in game seven, a game seven in which Steph Curry scored 50 points, which at the time was the highest point total in all NBA history and a game seven. He's just fantastic. That was the rest he needed in order to do the job. And the value of the rest was predicated on its effectiveness on the work. And part of what we learn is that rest exposes our values, rest points at the things we think are most valuable about ourselves. And at that moment, the most important and valuable thing about Steph Curry was his ability to score. If all of the rest of my life is angled at setting me up so that I can work more efficiently, then what I expose in that kind of rest is that I believe my highest value is my productivity. Rest is a way it's a metric by which we understand, evaluate, and expose our own values. Which is why Sabbath Keeping is such an absolute scandal. Because what it says to the culture around us is that there are things more important about me than what I do for you. And you'll hear great athletes or great artists say something along those lines when interviewed, especially deeper into their careers, that there's more to them than basketball, there's more to them than rock and roll. There's more to them than what they do with even the best of their talents. About three years previous before that basketball game Marshawn Lynch, who had played in the NFL for a number of years, including for the Raiders, when they were in Oakland, gave an interview about football and, ultimately, about rest and rhythm. And he was asked to some degree, like what his advice would be to younger players, and you can read the entire thing. Or you can watch the video, which I would suggest you do for so many reasons whether or not you're a sports person. It's actually a fantastic piece of communication, what he says to the young the advice he would give to young folks, this is you said I've been on the other side of retirement, and it's good when you get over there. And you can do what you want. So I'll tell you all right now, while you're on it, take care of your bread. So when you're done, you can go ahead and take care of yourself. So while you're in it right now, to kill those bodies. Take care of those chicken. Chicken's a way to talk about money. Take care of those mental because, look, we ain't last in that long. I had a couple of players that I played with that they're no longer here no more. They're no longer you feel me. Take care of your metals, heals bodies, y'all chicken. So when you're ready to walk away, y'all walk away, and you'll be able to do what y'all want to do.

What Marshawn Lynch is communicating is, while you're in the game, take care of yourself for something more than the game itself, that there is more to who you are than what you're doing in a particular season. That game was game seven of the playoffs, and Steph was tired. So the rest he needed was just enough to get him back on the court so he could do the job. And that's a way to do the game while you're in the game. It is not a way to live long-term. Sabbath Keeping and rest are practices that expose the values we are living with. And, namely, they expose the overvaluing we have of productivity as a way to define our lives. So take the advice of football legend, local hero of entrepreneur, and all-around dope dude Marshawn Lynch, that while you're doing what you're doing, take care of yourself, yes for the thing you're doing, but also in a way that when you walk away from the thing you're doing right now in this season, there's more of you.

Links For Justin:

Coaching with Justin
Order In Rest - New Book of Poems

Order Sacred Strides

JustinMcRoberts.com

Support this podcast

NEW Single - Let Go

NEW Music - Sliver of Hope

NEW Music - The Dood and The Bird

The Book - It Is What You Make it

Hearts and Minds Amazon Barnes and Noble