Great piece today on CBS' Sunday Morning about the decades-old friendship of basketball legends Larry Bird and Earvin "Magic" Johnson. As told through separate interviews with correspondent Jim Axelrod, the two future superstars lived similar paths--one in Indiana, one in L.A.--until meeting at a high school competition and recognizing each other's excellence.
But they didn't become friends then. Nor did they become friends when they started to play against each other in the legendary days of the NBA. In fact, they were bitter rivals. According to the piece, it took a commercial for Converse (for which they both were being highly paid)--and an excuse to stop for lunch.
The shoot, held at Bird's house in French Lick, started tense (as you'd expect from these fierce competitors)--until the noontime break. I'm paraphrasing here, but the interviews Axelrod shared went something like this:
Magic: "I was headed back to my trailer and figured he was going to his."
Bird: "I said, 'My mom made lunch; we figured you'd come eat with us." And Magic did.
With the enforced detente of lunch (and I'm betting the quiet but strong presence of Bird's Midwestern mom),the two young men opened up, learning how much they had in common (poor upbringing, intense work ethic and competitive drive). Lunch provided the opportunity to plant seeds of friendship; seeds that grew and blossomed after their competitive days ended. Says Bird: "I love him like a member of my own family."
Now, their workplace was a little different than yours or mine, but the story inspired me to think about what breakthroughs can happen when we stop from time to time--for lunch, for a question, for a conversation, for a laugh. What a difference stopping made for Bird and Magic's life long-term.
Without that lunch, would they have ever overcome their fierce, competitive energy? Maybe--but maybe not. What would they--and the world--have missed if they never created such a positive, inspiring friendship as they have today?
Too many times in our busy-filled work world, we don't give ourselves permission to stop. We try to squeeze more calls out of the white space between meetings and lunch. We rattle out more email during the minutes between "getting there" and "getting started".
At a meeting of leaders at my old company, we trickled back into the room after returning from a break. One of the people who returned last walked in to the quiet room and observed all of us thumbs-a-flying on our mobile devices. "What did we ever do before we had Blackberrys?" someone said. Someone else had the answer:" We talked." And sometimes we stopped for lunch.
Recent Comments