The Daily Stoic
It Can Change Everything | A Real-Life Example of How to Build a Coaching Tree
11 May 2026
Chapter 1: What does it mean to grow a coaching tree?
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Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. It can change everything. The right thing at the right time can change everything. Zeno discovered Xenophon's writings on Socrates in Athens and went on to found the Stoic school of philosophy. It was just there this summer.
The Stoipokile is where it all began. A young Marcus Aurelius was given a copy of Epictetus' lectures from his teacher's personal library and relied on that book for the rest of his life, even as emperor. James Stockdale was handed the same works by a professor at Stanford, and he'd used what he'd learned to survive seven years as a prisoner of war in the infamous Hanoi Hilton.
Aunt Tracy gave me a copy of Man's Search for Meaning when I graduated from high school, which in retrospect set me up perfectly a few years later when I was turned on to the Stoics. I've been raving about the novels and writings of James Salter lately. If you haven't read his book, The Hunters, it's great. So is his memoir, Burning the Days.
But he has this great passage in his novel, Light Years. It says, the book was in her lap and she read no further. The power to change one's life comes from a paragraph, a lone remark. The lines that penetrate us are slender, like the flukes that live in river water and enter the bodies of swimmers.
When these paragraphs or pages come into our lives, they not only change us, they change the people around us too. How many people learned about Stoicism from Marcus in Stockdale? What about the men in that prison camp that were saved by Stockdale's heroism? How many lives have been shaped, even saved by the ideas from a book given at the right moment? And I've been thinking about that here.
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Chapter 2: How did Greg Popovich become a legendary coach?
It's graduation season, right? We have young people in our lives, nieces, nephews, sons, daughters, the children of our friends. And it's this entry point. It's a chance for something to enter their life that could stay with them, that could change them. Like, what would you have wanted someone else to hand you at such a pivotal time in your life?
Something that could have helped you stay grounded during your first big break or breakup to remind you that courage and discipline and justice and wisdom, the things you needed, they're there for the taking if you... know how to develop them. So we thought we'd put together a couple quick recommendations along these lines to give people you love this graduation season.
I'm going to give you a couple, and then I'm going to give you a couple sort of themed lists. I just did one on books I wish I read when I was younger. I think I'll play that for you as well. But look, obviously, Mark Shmuelis' Meditations. This is a book that changed my life at 19. It's one I keep coming back to, one that I picked up
on mornings and evenings and afternoons for the last two decades. I've read it hundreds of times. Because every time I read it, I get something new out of it. And I just think there's something immensely powerful about the thoughts of the most powerful man in the world. And... I got it at the right time in my life. I wouldn't say I wish I got it earlier.
I would say I wish more people got it that early. Of course, we have the leather bound in the Daily Stoic store. We also have the Daily Stoic box set, which is the Daily Stoic and the Daily Stoic journal. You can grab all those. Two books I've been raving about recently, How to Be a Leader by Plutarch. Plutarch's actually grandson or grandnephew was the philosophy teacher of Marcus Aurelius.
That's pretty cool. He was both a writer, a chronicler of history, and did some of the great biographies of Cato and Caesar. Cato's daughter, Portia Cato, Cicero, Demosthenes. The 300 Spartans, he wrote these great books and essays, mini biographies of some of the greatest men and women who ever lived. But he was also a politician himself.
I have a whole chapter in Wisdom Takes Work about Plutarch as both a writer and a doer. Speaking of which, a related recommendation on character by General Stanley McChrystal. I've loved that. He's a four-star general. And there's a bunch of stoic advice in there. I've been giving that to a lot of people. Also, just recorded an episode of the podcast with Senator Mark Kelly.
And this is like literally five minutes ago. I'm walking to the bookstore and this mom comes in. Her son is an athlete and has just gotten into reading. And I gave him a copy of The Way of the Champion by Paul Rabel. And I gave him a copy of Letters to a Young Athlete by Chris Bosch. That's another timely one.
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Chapter 3: What impact did the Spurs' coaching tree have on the NBA?
I was lucky enough to work on both of those books. What else would I recommend book-wise? I'm trying to think. grad in your life, somebody going through something. Oh, I like The Movie Goer by Walker Percy. That's sort of catcher in the rye for adults. So Good They Can't Ignore You by Cal Newport. You know what? Let me just play the other books that I wish I'd read earlier.
I'll play that for you now. Someone was asking me books that I wish I read when I was 18. I can think of a bunch. I did read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations at 19 in A Change in My Life. I think this is a book every young person should read, so I'd start there. Robert Greene's Mastery is a must read for anyone that age. General McChrystal's On Character. As a young person, you're obviously thinking
a lot about success or thinking about ambition, but you should be spending more time thinking about what kind of person you're going to be. It's so good they can't ignore you. It's not about finding your passion. It's finding the thing that only you can do.
I think every 18-year-old should read Autobiography of Malcolm X. Not just the first part, but the second part of the book is the important one. I like this book recently, Necessary Trouble by Drew Galpin Faust. It's a nice coming of age memoir. Louis L'Amour's Education of a Wandering Man. Anyways, that's today's episode. The right book, the right time.
How can you be the person that enables that? That's what today's episode is about. And then let me get you to the rest of the show right now. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Soak podcast. I am exhausted. I just got off the phone with my wife and she was like, I'm so tired. I'm like delirious.
We're both exhausted because we went to the Spurs game last night in San Antonio and I And it was an incredible game. I don't know when you're listening to this. We went to game two, which was like an incredible blowout. My kids had an amazing time. They are also quite tired. Well, well past their bedtime.
But some of my fondest memories are playoff basketball games, going to see the Sacramento Kings when I was a kid. And so I had a chance to do that. I've gotten to know the organization over the years.
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Chapter 4: How do successful leaders cultivate talent in their organizations?
Manu Ginobili has read some of the books. I know R.C. Buford really well. He's been an awesome supporter of Daily Stoic and Painted Porch and stuff. I was texting about something because I was watching game one or maybe it was the last game in the last years, I forget. But they were like showing the crowd and it was like showing the multi-generations of Spurs leadership and alumni.
And I just sent him a message. I was like, it's so amazing to see that on TV. It's just, it was really inspiring to see like this whole town and community coming together to support the team. He said, you got to come out to a game. And I was like, I'm not going to ask you for playoff tickets. And he said, no, no, come sit in my box. bring her whole family. And so I did.
And yeah, sitting there, Manu Ginobili is in the front row. Tim Duncan is right in front of us. Bruce Bowen is there. And then I'm looking down and I'm seeing Brian Wright, the GM. You're seeing Mitch Johnson, the coach, like organizations, for-profit organizations, politics, life, period. We don't do succession plans very well. There's an old TV show about this called Succession, right?
But like, other than, you know, Hadrian handing it to Antoninus, handing it to Marcus Rios. There's not a lot of great success stories in history of a GM like R.C. Buford stepping aside so Brian Wright can take over, supporting him, it going well. The draft went beyond it, which is incredible. Watching this team go through a rebuild, but not... fall apart in the process is absolutely incredible.
Then Greg Popovich, one of the longest serving coaches in NBA history, having some health issues, getting towards the end of his career, stepping aside, but staying in the organization. So Mitch Johnson can take over, who's now doing incredible. Tim Duncan was briefly an assistant coach, which he was doing largely to support Craig Popovich. Manu Ginobili is still with the organization.
All you need to know about the San Antonio Spurs is that in their new practice facility, which they just built a couple of years ago, they had to build an alumni locker room. Even though San Antonio is a small market, even though these players have unlimited money, could live anywhere in the world, so many of them have...
stayed in Texas, stayed in San Antonio and still come to the facility, even though they don't in some cases work there, but just want to be a part of the organization, want to contribute, want to be around the people. And by the way, the team wants them around. It's just an incredible statement about cultural values. And by the way, this isn't just how they treat the players and the coaches.
You know, I've had R.C. on the podcast. He came on when we were doing the Daily Stoic Leadership Challenge, and I wanted to do deep dive. He's now the CEO of the Spurs organization, which includes the arena and a bunch of other stuff. So he moved up to a bigger job, but it was also fascinating to watch the learning curve for that, how hungry he was to learn and develop new skills.
I was talking to someone the other day who knew R.C., and I was like, but you're an AI expert. And he's like, yeah, RC wanted to understand how to bring AI into the organization.
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Chapter 5: What role does mentorship play in building a strong team culture?
And that's what I'm teaching him. So here's a chunk from that episode, which I think is worth sharing. How do you think about that risk management of like, who do you think we can get to buy in and who is just doing their own thing and they're not a fit for the Spurs?
I think we're probably more aligned with they're not a fit to the Spurs and haven't taken the risks that an organization like the Patriots have. They've got such structure and stability built up for so many years that there was a structure and a process and a system that they knew how to manage the risks that they did take.
Pop's got an expression, they am who they am, which is kind of like character is fate. And more often than not, your wrists don't outperform the reward would be my guess.
Well, isn't there a certain amount of ego in that too? The idea that like we tell ourselves, I'm gonna change this person, right? Like, no, everyone else failed because they're not as good as we are. They don't have this, you know, the idea that you're gonna change someone or reform them, it can come from a place of compassion, but it can also feel like it comes from a place of ego.
When you get in the way of yourself, ego is the enemy. You know, Manu brought me that book first. And there was so much that when you have failures, there's so much of that that is apparent in how you get in your own way.
One of the things you and I connected with specifically about Duncan and Tim Robinson, because I wrote a Daily Stoic email about it, but to me was a... a lovely illustration of the Spurs culture. When Tim Duncan was inducted into the Hall of Fame, he was saying, you know, people often ask him, what did David Robinson teach you about leadership and about being a good man and all these things?
And he said, I don't think David Robinson ever had a single conversation with me about any of these things. He just embodied it day to day on the court. I just thought that was so beautiful.
Not even day to day on the court. They both live their lives and hold themselves to standards that raise the standards of everybody around them. In 19 years, Tim Duncan was never late once to a practice, to a meeting. He wasn't doing that to demand that of anyone else, but what he demanded of himself raised the standards for all of us. David was very similar.
David's impact in our community will live on for years because of the building blocks that he put in place that he'll never see the cathedral eventually finished. But he set such a great example and challenged us all to really care for each other.
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Chapter 6: How can you create a sustainable culture in a small market?
And then I think the structure that Pop put in place, the community, one great thing about our community is that our community allows these superstar players to live their lives and they don't have to live reluctantly going through life because they will get overwhelmed.
South Texas, Central Texas does a great job of letting people be who they are and supporting and sharing in their success in a non-judgmental and also a non-invasive way.
Sitting in the box also was a family whose kid worked in the video department. And I remember I was talking to RC one time, and this is going to connect to today's episode, but I was talking to them about the coaching tree of the Spurs organization. I was making the mistake that maybe you're making mentally right now, thinking about the coaches and the players.
And he was like, no, no, no, I'm also really proud of what our salespeople have gone on to do. What our video people have gone on to do, what our stats people have gone on to do, what our marketing people have gone on to do.
They see themselves as an organization that makes people, that grabs people that they think have potential, helps them realize that potential and understands that a lot of them are going to go on to somewhere or something else.
And then maybe come back at some point, which is also a key part of sort of the resiliency of the organization is that there's such a good landing place for talent and for people who have had an off year or have been fired. And people know that the Spurs will let you come back. And so it encourages them to try new things.
It encourages them not to burn bridges, encourages them to speak positively about the organization. It just helps their reputation across the board. Anyways, the story I wanted to say is I remember one of the first Spurs games that RC had me come out to, getting the elevator to go up somewhere. And I notice that the elevator operator has a championship ring on. And I go, what's that?
And he goes, oh, the organization gives us all rings when we win a championship because we're all contributing. Like the elevator guy saw himself as part of that Spurs organization, part of their coaching team, which is what is going to cue up today's episode. Seeing that sitting in that box, our kids getting to be a part of it, was just absolutely incredible.
And it confirmed something that I wrote about in Right Thing right now. I have a chapter in the book about coaching trees, specifically about Popovich, but I'm really speaking about the Spurs organization as a whole. And I wanted to bring you that today because it's something that changed my life. I'm part of the Robert Greene coaching tree.
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Chapter 7: What are the benefits of a diverse coaching tree?
At one point, nearly 30% of all the coaches in the NBA had worked for or played under Popovich, and his protégés have independently won 11 championships as head coaches and one G League championship. Five times someone from his forest has been named the NBA Coach of the Year. Of the current 23 black head coaches and GMs in the NBA, seven spent time under Popovich at the Spurs.
Becky Hammond, the 2022 WNBA head coach of the year, spent eight years with the Spurs, where she was the first female assistant coach in the NBA and the first to serve as an acting head coach after an ejected Popovich designated her his replacement. And she won two straight WNBA titles as a coach, too.
And if one were to begin to trace out the coaching trees from the coaches in Popovich's coaching tree, you would touch nearly everyone in the NBA and NCAA basketball. It was this thought that struck Adam Silver, the commissioner of the NBA, during the 2022 finals, which pitted two coaches whom Popovich had coached, hired, and mentored against each other.
The Spurs were more than just a basketball team, Silver said. They were practically an academy for future coaches and team executives. If Popovich was running an academy, a nonprofit mission-based educational organization, these accomplishments would be quite impressive.
The fact that he managed to do this while operating at the highest level of a cutthroat game where he's actually helping, if not producing the competition. This is something he has done outside of his commitment to winning both as an ideal and as an expectation of his employment.
This is not the old boys club either with a bunch of people scratching each other's backs or one leader making identical replicas of themselves. No, it's the act of opening a door, extending a ladder to a diverse group of unique leaders, different types of athletes, coaches, and executives as they each reach to fulfill their own potential.
So as you look at your career, it bears asking, who have you given a shot? Who have you helped get ahead? More revealing, how similar to you or unlike you were these people? Yet far too often, we are more interested in how to get someone to give us a shot or how to get another one or a bigger one or a better one.
We think that by thinking about others, we jeopardize ourselves as if life or work was zero-sum. Highlander syndrome says there can only be one. No, there is room for all of us to succeed, far more to succeed than currently are. Maybe you've been hearing the buzz about live shopping lately. I know I have. And it makes sense. Like people are already on their phones. They're hanging out.
They're looking for stuff to do. So why wouldn't business want to meet people where they're at? If you're hoping for people to find your listing or waiting for them to walk into your store, I know a little bit about that. You're setting yourself up for disappointment on whatnot. You can go live and sell directly to people in real time. They see what you've got.
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Chapter 8: How can we support and empower the next generation of leaders?
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George Marshall advanced in his career was able to get to the top of his profession and do well there, precisely because he understood that his job was to help other people, to build an army full of talented officers.
While other generals fought tooth and nail for their own advancement, wrote letters to their superiors, lobbying for promotions or choice assignments, Marshall was advocating for promising young men like Omar Bradley and George Patton, Walter Kruger, and most of all, Dwight D. Eisenhower, whom he nurtured into history-defining talents.
His coaching tree, you might say, was the oak upon which the Allied victory depended. In this life, of course, we are measured by our accomplishments as individuals. We strive to realize our potential and do our best. But after a certain point, this means only so much. What matters more, what matters over a longer horizon, is who we have helped to succeed along the way.
To be clear, it's not just sports where a coaching tree counts. Socrates bought us Alcibides and Xenophon and Plato. Plato in turn brought us Aristotle and Aristotle Alexander. Emerson not only generously supported the literary scene in New England, but actively encouraged talent wherever he encountered it.
I greet you at the beginning of a great career, Emerson gushed in a letter to a struggling Walt Whitman in 1855, which Whitman promptly added as a blurb in front of his then undiscovered self-published masterpiece, Leaves of Grass.
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