As you move into the second quarter of your day, shift your focus to the “what”—what relationships matter?

Your daily breakthrough success isn't tied to what you got on your SATs, the prestige of the college you attended, what you do for a job, how big your house is, or even how elite your strengths are—it's all about your relationships. You don't focus on breakthrough confidence first because you come first—you work on your breakthrough confidence first so you're giving your absolute best to your team.

Routinely scheduling and creating breakthroughs requires relying on others. And not just for the little stuff or side jobs: you need to truly partner with people and trust them to play intricate roles. You cannot and will not achieve any significant breakthrough without cooperation. All the people who have changed the world—every mad scientist and inventor, tech innovator, artist, religious figure, writer, and doctor you can name—worked intensely in breakthrough cooperation with others.

Trusting in external variables? Not making it all happen yourself? Those are very tough pills for elite performers swallow. Trust me, I know! I was laser‐focused on playing in the NBA for twenty years, and I didn't have the type of talent that attracts an entourage at a young age. The grind‐it‐out path is hard and lonely, but I took pride in the idea that one day, I'd be a self‐made man.

I fought my way through the international basketball circuit like a man possessed, and it drove me crazy that not all my teammates were as committed and motivated. In Athens, I practiced to the point of collapse every day, while my Aussie teammate, Aron Baynes, played like he was half asleep and kicked my butt every time.

Do you think I wanted to share credit for my hard‐fought success with anyone, much less some loafer who just happened to ooze talent from every inch of his seven‐foot frame? Definitely not.

On our very last day as teammates, I finally broke and asked Aron why he even bothered playing a game he so obviously disliked. He was shocked—he was actually obsessed with basketball, and had no idea anyone thought otherwise. We spent the last few hours before flying home digging into motivations and perceptions and perspectives deeply. I ended up giving this guy—my basketball nemesis—some advice and mindset coaching to help him get to the next level.

When we finished, Aron gave me a hug and said, “Thank you for being a friend and caring about me, mate. It means a lot.”

And you know what? It meant a lot to me, too. Because, for the first time since we'd met, I'd stopped focusing on everything he had and I so desperately wanted—his height, his talent. I'd stopped competing against his strengths and used my own actual skills to complement his. In the taxi to the airport, I realized that I had finally joined the team.

And a few months later, when I turned on the San Antonio Spurs game and saw Aron Baynes in his number 17 jersey, playing with the joy I'd coached him on, I realized that my strengths could make the NBA better in a way I'd never considered. I could be a critical component of other people's breakthroughs. I wasn't a player—I was a coach. It was a world‐altering breakthrough for me, and Aron shares credit for that.

Whether you acknowledge it or not, you've relied on and benefited from breakthrough cooperation every day of your life. We romanticize the mythical lone genius for many reasons, and all of them stink. Which is ironic, because the eighteenth‐century scientists and philosophers who really pushed the idea that breakthroughs are solo endeavors are the same people who demoted the sense of smell. In a rush to make the world more clinical and rational, we stopped relying on our primal instincts. We disconnected from building our tribes in favor of building ourselves (how many of your connections on LinkedIn are you actually emotionally invested in?). This is probably going to sound a little weird, but building the best team requires not just your eyes and ears, but also your nose. We all have an innate ability to “sniff out” people who will lead us to our breakthroughs, and the rotten apple people who are less than genuine. Don’t worry—we’ll unpack the answers together. Trust me, I’ve got a nose for this type of thing.

I designed my very first mindset tool shortly after I realized I wanted to become an NBA shooting coach. I couldn't just call myself a coach—I had to become one. Someone had to hire me.

I knew most hires were made through network connections, and I had a great network—for playing basketball. I didn't have any connections with the NBA GMs and coaches who hired shooting specialists. So I started from scratch and networked like crazy, cold calling and showing up at games and offices, doing whatever I could to make myself known. Networking isn't exactly novel (although few throw themselves into it with the intensity I did), but as I started to make headway, I built out my Golden 15: fifteen connections in my industry who particularly inspired and challenged me. I knew these GMs, coaches, and team owners were frequently approached by people who wanted something from them. That was not going to be me. I decided I would help them in any way possible, and I made a special effort to genuinely connect with them. I built up equity and friendship through giving, giving, and giving without ever expecting anything in return. Just their presence in my life helped me grow, although when they realized I had no ulterior motives, they often became exceedingly generous mentors, advisors, and champions.

The Golden 15 was so effective that I still use it, and it's one of the most popular tools I teach. Learning to connect in meaningful ways isn't the difference between a big breakthrough and a small one—it's the difference between having a good idea and bringing it to life.

The Golden 15 is great, but it was really designed to connect with mentors and experts. Some members of your breakthrough team will be mentors, but there are many other roles to fill too, so there will be many more questions to ask yourself: Whom do you need on your core team? Whom do you rely on each day? What are they capable of? What can you offer them in support? This is a critical moment in your breakthrough day. You are creating more hands to do the breakthrough work, empowering people to join you on a mission, and addressing the talents you're not bringing to the breakthrough.

By really examining the full scope of your strengths with breakthrough confidence, you can also see what's missing. I don't care who you are; you don't have 'em all. Not possible. You wouldn't want 'em all even if it was possible! Even the most competitive elite performer has to admit that if they really want to be fluent in all 852 of the living languages of Papua New Guinea, they might only be mediocre at preparing some of the 31 different Indian cuisines while they speed‐read the 4 million books published in the U.S. last year.

Instead of trying to develop all our weaknesses into strengths, we make judgments about which ones are important. Even if you work hard to keep that type of thinking contained to yourself and developing your skills, it tends to leak out in judgment of others or in your perception of how the world works. It can absolutely ruin breakthrough cooperation.

I'm not a naturally judgmental person and I make conscious efforts not to judge others and I work the breakthrough formula every day—and I still found myself caught up in this type of thinking not too long ago. My wife is in show business, so big Hollywood events are a part of the job; I, of course, am her designated arm candy. (Or so I like to think.) A name kept popping up, someone all the actors were working with: Jim Kwik. Jim is a learning expert and an elite memorization coach who's worked with Elon Musk, Will Smith, the X‐Men cast, and so many others. After hearing so much about him at these big events, I was thrilled to have dinner with him—think about the stories this guy must have!

That dinner wasn't anything like the deep‐dish session I was expecting. I'm a talker—I can easily hold a lively conversation for hours with a stuffed animal—but Jim wasn't from the same mold. I was shocked to find out he was a true introvert. One‐on‐one, he keeps his cards close.

Months later, when a friend asked me to go hear Jim give a talk, I nearly said no. I knew Jim was brilliant, but after our dinner, I figured there was just no way he'd be powerful on stage. Speakers have to love speaking—right?

Nope. I have never seen someone dominate a stage like Jim does. He is captivating. When he's presenting, he's fully engaged with his passion.

I left that talk bubbling over with excitement and with the knowledge that I still had some breakthrough confidence work to do. My internalized judgments of what strengths are critical for public speaking were way off—and that's my field! I nearly missed an amazing speech and a breakthrough lesson. Jim and I walk onto the same stages, but with completely different elite strengths; it is inspirational and a genuine breakthrough to learn new modes of playing the game and moves I never would have considered. I'm so grateful to Jim for sharing his passion with the world, and I'm committed to finding how my elite strengths can assist him—because that's someone I definitely want to be in breakthrough cooperation with for the long haul!

With breakthrough confidence in our own strengths, we better understand how they complement other people's and vice versa. The world calls our missing talents “weaknesses”—but people with breakthrough confidence recognize them as a “complements wish list.” We're supposed to have different strengths to complement each other. We're supposed to work together.

Being the best alone is absolutely impossible. Determine what team members you need to operate at full capacity and what additional skills and talents you need in order to execute your breakthrough solutions. Q2 determines whether your breakthrough day is a rich perfume or a total stink bomb—you're the mix master!

WHAT ARE YOUR HEROES DOING?

You're elite, you're well networked, you're driven. Who are the first people you want to recruit to your breakthrough team? Whom do you admire and prize the most? Your heroes, of course!

That's always been my first instinct when I'm looking for breakthrough cooperation. My heroes have achieved something I want—why wouldn't I ask for directions from people who've already been to the breakthrough I want? Original inventions are rare—most breakthroughs are innovations, remixing things and ideas that already exist. Someone has taken the path you're embarking on and successfully done what you want to do. That's great for you! Compare yourself to the greatest ones in your field, emulate what they do, study who they are. Pay attention to how they play the game, and try to glean what has made them so successful and which of their breakthrough detours you want to avoid. Try to get in the room with them. Take the chance to approach them when the opportunity arises.

But don’t get so starstruck that you forget your mission.

Recruiting your heroes to your breakthrough team requires taking off any rose colored glasses you may be wearing and seeing them for who they truly are. As a BIOnic leader, you have to put the breakthrough first. Breakthrough cooperation is about getting a good sense of who someone truly is and figuring out whether you admire them, want to emulate them, or truly need them on your breakthrough team.

***

My mind was set: I would coach in the NBA. Now all I needed to figure out was how the heck to get in. Everyone promised they would outwork the competition; I did a very little bit of math, and realized that we couldn't all outwork each other. I needed to craft my own way in, to find a door everyone wasn't pushing past each other to run in. Rather than relying on the sheer power of perspiration or hard work to get noticed, I'd develop my own God‐given ability to shoot a basketball and become the best shooting coach in the NBA.

San Antonio Spurs' Chip Engelland was the gold standard of NBA shooting coaches. He was the million‐dollar‐per‐year man who took athletes like Tony Parker, Tim Duncan, and Kawhi Leonard—players who couldn't hit the broad side of a barn when they first came into the league—and turned them into top shooters. If I could emulate his every move and develop myself in his image, I'd be made.

I began to study Chip. Like, really study Chip. I watched every YouTube video I could find on him teaching players how to shoot, I read every article, I even tuned in to every Spurs game just to see how he interacted with the players and the other coaches during the game.

But all this watching and reading just wasn't making the cut. It felt mechanical and sterile. Down at the park, mimicking Chip's moves step by step, I felt more like a robot than the beast I needed to be to make the NBA.

I was distracted by two dogs passing each other on the nearby sidewalk. I watched in amazement as they went from semi‐hostile strangers on opposing leashes to BFFs in less than a minute. They sniffed each other out and knew instantly that they were on the same team. That was exactly what I needed! Watching all the game film in the world wasn't going to cut it—I needed to get a sense of who Chip was. If we could just sniff each other out, I knew we'd be on the same team.

I found his phone number, sucked up every ounce of pride, and made the call.

Crickets.

Email? Same deal. Handwritten letter? No response.

Luckily, I had another in—my buddy and former teammate Aron Baynes was playing for Chip in San Antonio. Aron could certainly convince Chip to give me a chance—just ten minutes was all I needed.

I texted Aron, and he got back to me the same day: “Sorry, mate, Chip said he wasn't interested.”

So I did what any totally sane person would do: I drove to Las Vegas and posted up outside the Summer League gym, hoping to catch him.

Three days later, Chip started the long walk down the corridor of the Thomas & Mack Center towards me, carrying a black notebook I was convinced held all the earthly secrets to shooting. I held my breath and caught his eyes just as he caught mine. The moment of semi‐hostile lock‐in and split‐second judgment we all make (consciously or subconsciously) was on. For the first time, I wondered if I really was a big dog. Only one way to tell—I had to strain my leash.

“Chip!” I said, walking straight to him with a big smile on my face and my hand extended.

I could tell he didn't know who I was—and there was no reason for him to. But whatever big dog instinct I'd been relying on played out real‐time, right in front of my eyes. He grinned like he was meeting a cousin for the first time in years. Chip greeted me with a warm handshake and a very firm pat on the back: “Walk with me, kid.”

On our way into the arena, Chip peppered me with questions—not easy ones, no surface‐level fluff. I must have passed the test, and I got a real sense of who Chip was—maybe even more from the energy he asked the questions with than their content alone.

Throughout the game, Chip shared everything he had done to get to where he was and how I could do the same. He gave me tips I'd never heard before and haven't heard from anyone else since, like “Use your sister as your business manager when you deal with money from NBA players, you'll look more professional,” “Never make the workout about you, always make it about what you can give the player,” and “Don't take pictures with players unless they give you permission—you want to be friends with them when you are eighty years old, not just use and burn.” The advice was invaluable, this one afternoon completely shaped the way I coach players, approach the business of being a shooting coach, and just the way I treat others, putting their needs and comfort before my own.

To this day, I couldn’t even tell you what teams were playing in that game, nor did I care. Chip laid out a blueprint to achieve my dreams. I owe him a lot. He gave me exactly what I needed, and none of that could have happened if I hadn’t been able to seek out Chip and figure out how we were alike, how we were different, and what I wanted to emulate from his excellent example and experience.

Figure out who you want to be like, not who you want to be. Breakthroughs become much easier when we recognize that there is someone who has done something similar to what we are dreaming of, or they are farther along the path than we are. There’s no such thing as a 100 percent original—everything is a variation on some theme. Compare yourself to the greatest ones in your field, emulate what they do, study who they are, and create your own mixture of what is authentically you. The best aura you can ever exude: integrity with a heavy splash of authenticity. I set out to get Chip to like me, but what he gave me, the experience of knowing him, was so much more valuable.

It was definitely a breakthrough—but was it breakthrough cooperation?

I've been blessed to meet many of my heroes, and the number who have been helpful and gracious blows me away. Like Chip Engelland, Carlos Reynaldo, Jerry West, and John Mark Comer have all sat with me and imparted wisdom and guidance that I treasure and carry with me into every breakthrough. But as valuable as these one‐time meetings were, I don't think we can call them true breakthrough cooperation. They were on their own breakthrough path, and mine intersected with it for a moment. I haven't been able to contribute my elite strengths to their breakthroughs yet, and I wouldn't expect them to commit any further to mine.

Other heroes who have become mentors and members of my Golden 15 include Casey Wasserman, Erik Spoelstra, and Jim Kwik. I am dedicated to helping them in any way I can, without worrying whether I ever see anything tangible in return. It's not about what I can get from them, but instead what I can provide for them. These relationships are incredibly important to me, and absolutely inform and help shape my breakthroughs.

There is a third category of heroes with whom I'm now working in breakthrough cooperation with. I know Jon Gordon, Ed Mylett, and Cori Close are invested in my breakthrough, as I am in theirs. They bring their considerable elite strengths to help me, and I am able to use mine to help them in return. It's not always an even give‐and‐take, but when you're on a team that lives out breakthrough cooperation, the members never keep score.

As you approach your heroes with breakthrough cooperation in mind, remember each of these three categories. They all offer unique value. Deeply appreciate the heroes who meet with you once and impart amazing wisdom and heroes that become mentors and members of your Golden 15. The dream is to work with your heroes in breakthrough cooperation, but you can't force that and you wouldn't want to. You cannot be in breakthrough cooperation with everyone—it requires mutual support.

What can you offer in support of your most generous breakthrough heroes?

***

Even as a die‐hard ten‐year‐old Utah Jazz fan, I idolized one man and one man only on the Chicago Bulls in their most legendary years. It wasn't Michael Jordan—it was Phil Jackson, the Zen‐like coach in his mid‐fifties with the long gray beard. I was mesmerized with how Coach Jackson could masterfully orchestrate the triangle offense and flow together such disparate personalities. I had no idea how he did it, much less with such a calm, peaceful disposition that he could lower even my ten‐year‐old ADD blood pressure. I wasn't going to cheer for him when the Bulls played my beloved Jazz, but I respected the heck out of Phil Jackson.

That admiration only increased with age, as Phil Jackson went on to coach the Los Angeles Lakers and maestro two of the biggest personalities in all of sports: Shaq and Kobe. They despised each other, but Phil made this unlikely marriage of egos work—no, thrive—without breaking a sweat. Phil Jackson led the Lakers, a team of incredible talent that would have absolutely imploded without his guidance, to their first three‐peat NBA Championship run. The last team that had done that? Yeah, the Chicago Bulls—under the coaching of Phil Jackson.

After my experience with Chip, I was set to become an NBA shooting coach—but I toyed with the possibility of becoming an NBA head coach, so I knew I needed to meet Phil. Who better to learn the intricacies of the game from than this living legend?

Once again, I found myself at Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas for NBA Summer League—the hot box living sauna that was quickly becoming my annual July home. Phil was there to watch the New York Knicks Summer League team, as he was now the president of basketball operations, hired to revitalize the always‐underachieving Knicks. I was there to watch Phil for my opportunity to pounce.

My opportunity arose just as the game ended and the crowd got twenty minutes to stretch or move seats before the next tip‐off. Swiftly weaving through rows, hopping over entire seats when necessary, I made my way to Phil Jackson.

I waited my turn to talk as patiently as I could, panting like an overzealous pup. Phil wrapped up his conversation, and I was practically wagging my tail.

“Yes?” Phil asked in his very deep, very Zen voice.

I spilled over about how much I admired him, how much respect I had for him, and how he was my favorite coach for as long as I could remember. I told him I aspired to be like him one day, and if I could become one‐tenth the coach he was, I would be ecstatic. I waited for a response or a pat on the back, a word of encouragement to keep going, the smile that Chip had granted me. I didn't need the hours from Phil that Chip had given me—even just ten minutes would boost me for years.

Phil simply nodded his head, turned, and started a conversation with the Knicks’ staff member sitting behind him.

I was crushed. I knew Phil had sensed my eagerness and determination, yet he completely blew me off. I couldn’t run with him. Embarrassed and extremely let down, I walked back to my seat with my tail between my legs.

My idol, my coaching role model, didn’t want anything to do with me.

I never talked to Phil again, but other coaches assured me it wasn’t just me. His nickname was “Two‐Minute Phil” because he didn’t give anyone more than two minutes of his time. He wasn’t looking for breakthrough cooperation, and after getting a two‐second experience of him, I realized I didn’t want his either. I will always admire, respect, and appreciate Phil Jackson’s incredible coaching abilities, but I will never try to emulate or incorporate his style. I met my hero and realized our styles just didn’t match.

We put our idols on extremely high pedestals. We can aspire to be like them, we can study and emulate everything they do. But this doesn’t mean they are the people we want them to be. Until you rub shoulders with them, you don’t really know whether you truly want to follow in their footsteps, much less be in breakthrough cooperation with them.

Of course, not all of our heroes are celebrities. Our heroes can come from anywhere—our families, jobs, and communities. Most of us would probably be more comfortable calling our parents our heroes than our boss or our neighbor, but whatever position they fill in our lives, they just exude a heroic aura.

Emotions, including happiness, fear, and disgust can often be detected, sometimes even outside of our awareness. What’s crazier is that the emotions may actually be contagious. People who lose their sense of smell aren’t as in tune with other’s emotions, even when they’re seeing the same facial expressions, and they don’t “catch” the mood as easily as people who have a sense of smell. For all our other senses, our brains register the information first, then transmit our emotional reactions. Smells actually register as emotions first, so they can powerfully influence our subconscious thoughts and behavior.

In other words, when someone seems like a hero to you for no particular reason, maybe your nose knows!

Think about that person in your workplace who just seems to have it all together, who has hit their life rhythm, and who goes about their day with such a calm, peaceful pace—yet who is a top performer and accomplishes so much. How can that be? How do they have such joy and success all wrapped together in one? Stop trying to rationalize it and spend time with them. Their aura might just be infectious!

As a BIOnic leader, what type of energy do you want to give off, and what emotions do you want it to share with your breakthrough team?

WHAT DO YOU VALUE MOST IN YOUR TEAM?

Okay, so some of your heroes are breakthrough cooperation material, some aren't. Either way, you're going to need a deeper bench—and more variety.

You were drawn to your heroes because you admired them and wanted to emulate them; obviously, there's going to be a lot of crossover between your elite strengths and theirs. However, your core breakthrough cooperation team has to address your complements wish list. You need cooperation from people with elite strengths you don't have, and you want to offer your elite strength in return.

Even though you may never have consciously built a breakthrough cooperation team, you've asked for guidance, accepted assistance, and even hired people to handle things you aren't qualified or equipped for. When it comes to engaging people for a task, most prefer one of two options:

1. The absolute top, best, most elite professional in the field

   or

2. Someone from their trusted close circle—as close to family as possible

Do you know which option you prefer? Before you start reading, take a guess at which one works better for breakthrough cooperation.

***

When my smart, responsible much better half graduated from college, she knew the safe move was law school. Taylor grew up just thirty miles from the center of Hollywood, so she wasn't naïve. She knew that it took a perfect alignment of talent, timing, and pure luck to make it big in the City of Lights. Most people never even line up with an agent, much less a successful audition.

But she just couldn't shake the urge to act.

When a friend's acting manager offered to represent her, Taylor was thrilled. This guy was the real deal, well established in the business with a full roster of stars. With management like this, she had a real chance to break through. Taylor knew her talent existed, but it was raw and unfinished, like a block of marble. This manager was a man who knew talent and knew potential, and had formed many fine and successful actors; he could help her chisel this block of marble into a masterpiece.

The manager set to work, chipping away at her edges, and Taylor welcomed every piece of guidance and advice. When the manager told her she was overacting, Taylor hired a personal acting coach to bolster the wide variety of acting classes she was already in. When the manager advised her that her wardrobe wasn't sophisticated enough, she dropped a pretty penny on revamping her closet. When he told her the professional modeling portfolio she'd been collecting for years didn't show the range she needed to present, she arranged headshot sessions with the photographer he recommended. When he set her up with an agent, Taylor showed up with her brightest smile and left the meeting positive that the agent really liked her. When the manager told her that he wouldn't connect them again because the agent wasn't interested in her, Taylor smiled bravely and asked for additional feedback to better prepare for the next opportunity. When he told Taylor her voice was too deep and manly, she connected with a voice coach. When the manager informed Taylor that she should get bangs because her advanced age and forehead wrinkles were an incredible hurdle, she sat in front of the mirror and genuinely tried to find these flaws.

It was true; Taylor was getting older. She had just reached the extremely advanced age of twenty‐four, nearly two years older than when she'd started with this manager. Although she was routinely told she could play in her teens, she suddenly felt older … and smaller. The manager was chipping away at her, as promised, but she felt more crushed than developed. And she wasn't any closer to getting the roles she was interested in.

Taylor didn't know where to turn. She wasn't ready to quit on her dream, but she didn't want to feel this way anymore. She needed someone to talk to. She always had her parents, and they were wonderful and supportive—but she needed someone more objective, with more experience in her field.

Luckily, along the way, Taylor had developed a close professional relationship with her acting coach. When she finally opened up to him and expressed her concerns, he affirmed her growing suspicion: this manager wasn't interested in developing her. He was playing sadistic, controlling mind games.

Taylor knew she needed to get out of this toxic relationship, but it was pilot season. An actor dumping her manager before the end of pilot season is about the same as a basketball player dropping his agent the night of the NBA draft: in no way, shape, or form a good idea.

A bad team member is better than no team at all, right? That's how most of the world operates. You don't quit your job, even if it is crushing your soul, before you find something better. You don't fire your accountant, even if he can't add and subtract, before you line up a new one. You don't break up with your partner, even if the relationship has run its course, before you find a new love interest.

But Taylor had breakthrough confidence in her strengths, and she knew she needed more than just a team member—she needed breakthrough cooperation. She could look around her life and see the many people who wanted to help her grow and flourish, and whom she wanted to help in the same way. They didn't have the connections or the expertise of the manager, but he wasn't using his connections and expertise to develop her anyway. If she wanted to break through, she needed her breakthrough team. And she was finally in the position to recognize that having someone on her team who wasn't interested in cooperating on her mission was actively detrimental. The best in the business doesn't necessarily make them the best in your business.

Taylor took a deep breath and bet on her own breakthrough. She sent the manager an email to terminate her contract; he responded with a stream of vile verbal abuse. Taylor smiled and sent back a very kind email thanking him for his time. That's who she was, is, and always has been, and she wouldn't let the manager change anything about her ever again—not even her goodbye.

Taylor went the next four months without getting even a sniff of an audition. From the outside, it might have looked like she made the wrong call on the manager, but Taylor had breakthrough confidence and knew her mission would continue to attract members to her breakthrough team. She poured into her own development, attending five different acting classes a week when most actors can barely commit to one. She submitted herself on casting sites to raise the chances a casting director would notice her. She surrounded herself with the people she did have breakthrough cooperation with, including her friend Gabby. Even after two years with intensive management, Taylor still had zero credits to her name, so the two actresses put their heads together and created their own short film.

Now that casting directors could see how Taylor held herself on camera, they were genuinely interested. Suddenly, she was inundated with auditions—including a project she really, really wanted.

And they gave Taylor her first callback.

And then a second callback.

And then a third callback!

When you get three callbacks in Hollywood, you're in—the spot is yours.

When they called back for the fourth time, Taylor was devastated to learn that the spot was not, in fact, hers. Another actress had come in at the last moment—a big name who would help the movie secure funding. Taylor was surprised to learn that this actress was even interested in the role—until she learned the name behind the move. Yup, Taylor's own former manager was pulling the strings—still working against Taylor.

She wanted to quit. She didn't want anything to do with acting ever again—she sure as hell never wanted to set foot into another audition room. The force of her breakthrough confidence just wasn't strong enough to fight against a malicious anti‐breakthrough squad.

Gabby was helping Taylor drown her sorrows in a tub of Ben & Jerry's when a new audition notification came in. A film with no title or name producers attached and little chance of being greenlit had requested Taylor's audition tape for one of the lead roles. With all the power of breakthrough cooperation one person can muster, Gabby insisted that Taylor submit. (And that truly is one of the most crucial elements of breakthrough cooperation—no one person can keep the flame alive through every twist and turn. When you have a team as committed to your mission as you are, there's someone there to hold the torch aloft when your arms are just too tired.)

Taylor submitted her audition and held her breath once more. After many days, she exhaled. No response. Taylor wrote this project off—she had the pen ready, and she was finally prepared to write off her acting career altogether. It was over before it even began; she wasn't cut out for Hollywood.

When Taylor sat at the end of her mother's bed, explaining her decision and feeling like a shell of herself, her mom put a hand on her back and said, “Taylor, this is God's way of telling you that you need to let go of control. Why don't you just take a step back and let God be God. You are going to be very busy soon; this is a time God has set aside for you to rest.”

Taylor realized that in all her efforts to build breakthrough cooperation, she had been stubbornly trying to dictate the timing. If she wanted God on her breakthrough team (talk about a well‐established, big‐deal connection!), she had to cooperate with Him. She was in charge of developing the gifts and talents and dreams He'd given her—He was in charge of timing.

The next day, Taylor rededicated herself to developing her gifts and trusting that she would be as ready as possible when God decided the time was right. She started making an acting reel—hiring actors to put on scenes together with her to show the full range of her talent. It wasn't cheap, but Taylor walked out of that room feeling much wealthier than the $73 she had left in her account. She was pouring into her talent and developing her strength with renewed breakthrough confidence, trusting again that her mission would attract the breakthrough cooperation she needed.

Weeks later, one of the actors in Taylor's reel (and a new member of her breakthrough cooperation team) messaged her on Facebook; a friend was directing a project. Actually, it was the same project Gabby had insisted Taylor submit her audition to months before, but now it had a title: I'm Not Ashamed. A film about the true story of Columbine’s first victim Rachel Joy Scott. The next day Taylor received a request to participate in a virtual callback session with the director.

Still, nothing went smoothly. Taylor arranged to read once again, but as she signed into the Skype audition, the power went out in all of Marina del Rey. Talk about timing. She learned on Facebook that the table read had begun before she'd even heard back about her audition. The independent film was on a tight budget, and decided to cast actors local to Nashville. All signs pointed towards no—including the hard no Taylor got from the casting director.

But these hurdles, which would have made any actor write off a project, didn't crush Taylor any longer. She had unshakable breakthrough confidence in who she was, and she was acting in breakthrough cooperation with an amazing team. She kept being true to herself—sending a kind email to the casting director's rejection and praying for the success of the project. And she trusted God with the timing. If this was the right project for her, He'd find a way.

One night, Taylor had an extremely vivid dream of an email outlining her participation in the film: flight info, set meals, everything. Hiking with Gabby the next morning, Taylor admitted she still had a burning feeling she was going to be part of this movie.

Now, Gabby is kind, considerate, and a wonderful breakthrough team member—but part of being truly breakthrough cooperative is refusing to be a yes‐man. Taylor was fully expecting her practical friend to give her a reality check based on her own Hollywood experience and to encourage her to stop chasing a project that had already gone by.

To Taylor's surprise, Gabby nodded thoughtfully and admitted that, even though it made no sense, she was also still certain that Taylor was called to be in this film.

By the time they arrived home, the dream email was waiting. Taylor had been offered the role of Rachel Joy Scott's best friend. And they'd just renamed the character—Gabby!

Taylor flew out the next day and filmed I'm Not Ashamed. Not only was the project miraculously fully funded, but it was widely released all over the world and grossed millions. Taylor's breakthrough team grew as her performance caught the eye of multiple agents, managers, and publicists. The role opened doors for her career in television. And Masey McLain, the actress who played Rachel Joy Scott, became one of Taylor's best friends; they have now begun writing, pitching, and producing several shows on the biggest networks and online platforms together.

The other projects Taylor had wanted so badly, the big projects she'd tried to force the timing on, that her evil ex‐manager had blocked her from? None of them saw the light of day. Had Taylor booked them, she would never have been free for the breakthrough she was actually meant for.

As high performers, we can try to beat down every door to the breakthrough on our own. We can try to make a team work without breakthrough cooperation. But until we put together the team of the best scents that work for us and our breakthrough, all we can do is hope to get there by accident.

Disconnect with the mindset that there is a “best of the best” you have to work with. Results and résumés don’t speak to the values you need the people on your team to share with you. Decide the values that matter most to you and build your team from that foundation. Someone who believes in you and has the same values is always going to be a stronger long‐term teammate than someone who has a shiny title. Focus on the true relational, not the facade transactional.

What values are most important to you and your breakthrough, and what would you be compromising by ignoring those values?

***

I was a junior in high school in 2003 when Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine started arriving on our doorstep in Kearney, Missouri. I took it like an omen of my true calling. I just knew I was going to get rich trading stock; specifically, my detailed plan was to hit a home run right away by choosing the high‐growth stock no one else knew about. Foolproof.

I transferred all the personal wealth I had amassed ($300, give or take) to E*TRADE, a mobile stock exchange website. My dad reminded me that my car would not run on future earnings alone, so after a detour to referee a middle school basketball game, I finally sat down with my insider info (Kiplinger's) to start choosing the stocks that would earn my portfolio its first millions. One “great value buy” after another graced my cart, but I kept finding myself drawn back to a dark horse. The stock was less than a dollar a share, and the company was described as “going through a major change: it's make‐or‐break time.” I waited through the ever‐present internet lag for articles to load about this mail‐order movie rental company's new announcement: they were developing a way to blast movies right into your home! I didn't understand the science or how it could possibly work on my computer, which was still on dial‐up internet service, but the more I thought about it, the more attractive it was to me. This was mind‐blowing sci‐fi for 2003; if I couldn't make my first fortune on jetpacks, this was the next best thing. I would be obscenely wealthy and a visionary!

I swapped out my entire stock cart for 300 shares and set up the auto‐purchase option to grab more whenever my earnings allowed. I knew it was a risky move, though, so before I pressed the final button, I turned to my key advisor on anything and everything—my dad. He wasn't just a brilliant math whiz and ace salesman; he loved me unconditionally. If this idea was as genius as I thought, I wanted him investing with me. I could see our father‐son cover of Fortune already. (It was stock market–superhero themed.) In the off‐chance that I was about to lose my shirt, he'd set me on the right path to protect my investment. He always would make sure I was safe, happy, and very loved.

Over a serious dinner meeting of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, I gave my dad the rundown on my stocks. To my shock and disappointment, his verdict was quick and resolute: “No way. That will never work. Netflix will be bankrupt within a few months.”

With a heavy heart, I packed up my jetpack dreams and placed the orders for my good value buys. Netflix was not the way to go. My dad said it was a bad investment, so it was a bad investment.

Less than a month later, Netflix started to surge … and continued to surge … and then surged some more. As we all know, Netflix's crazy movie‐streaming service did work, and it launched them into the $500‐plus‐per‐share stock market juggernaut they are today.

I'll save you the trouble of doing the math: 300 shares at $1 in 2003 would have been an investment quickly worth $150,000. Not bad for a high school kid, huh? I can't do the retroactive math for how much I would have netted with the standing order to buy more stock, but let's just say that Fortune cover wasn't exactly a pipe dream. The safe‐bet stocks I actually put my money in went belly up.

I lost some cash, but kept my advisor for managing my time, my calculus homework, and learning to grill a mean sirloin. Even in the Netflix deal, my dad inadvertently provided me with rare and valuable insight: when you're looking for breakthrough advice, your advisors should be focused on your breakthrough—not on you.

We start valuing the advice of parents and friends as soon as we are old enough to comprehend it. Why? Because it works. It keeps us alive and afloat. These people want what is best for us in a real, holistic, long‐term way—which means they'll almost always champion safe, slow growth than risky innovation. We get tricycles before we graduate to big kid bikes. Even if jumping on a motorcycle could teach us balance, drive, and speed more quickly, no parent in their right mind would swap out their toddler's training wheels for a Harley.

You're grown up now, though, and your breakthrough will require doing new things in new ways. Breakthroughs are risky—and you're going to have to take risks. When you need breakthrough cooperation, you're not always looking for advice from the warm fireplaces, the fresh‐baked cookies, or the clean linen that brought you here. You'll need advice from people who are more dedicated to your breakthrough than your safety.

The people closest to you don’t necessarily want what’s best for your breakthrough; they want what’s safest for you. Safe keeps you from your best. The biggest risk you can take is no risk at all; you risk everything when you collaborate only with people who are looking out for you. Seek out wisdom from the wise in the category you need to be wise in, not from the ones who want the best for you.

Many breakthrough teams, particularly in the corporate world, don’t have 7.6 billion people to choose from. Sometimes you have to choose from a much smaller team, or it’s already chosen for you. As a committed BIOnic leader, it’s still your responsibility to follow your intuition and figure out how to utilize the best guidance from your team members in their elite strengths. Don’t rely on the hierarchy of the org chart. More than likely, you have someone working above you, beside you, and below you. None of them will be the best person to turn to for advice in every category. In the worst (but seemingly pretty standard) case, you might have a yes‐man below you, competition beside you, and someone barking orders above you. Decipher who you can actually form a coalition with: people who will challenge and support you.

What amount of risk do you want in your breakthrough team?

WHAT ARE YOU HATING ON?

A lot of people don't like to use the word “hate”—certainly not directed at people. I understand that. Call it what you like (or “strongly dislike”), there are certain things you are repulsed by.

I, for example, loathe sauerkraut.

The smell of Swiss cheese is revolting to me.

The only thing worse than eating corned beef is the stench while it cooks.

I wouldn't eat a salad covered with Russian dressing on a bet.

Rye bread? Hard pass.

But the best sandwich in the entire world is a Reuben from Katz's Delicatessen in New York City. Which also might make it the best breakthrough cooperation model BIOnic leaders have.

There's not a single group with more potential for fruitful breakthrough cooperation than the people you just don't automatically gravitate towards. Think of the greatest crew of misfits of all time: the twelve disciples of Jesus. Society either scorned them or ignored them. Matthew, an awkward tax collector despised by his own people, wrote one of the most important books in the Bible. Peter, a simple fisherman with no standing in society, became the rock on which the church was built and the leader of the apostles. Zealots. Thieves. Not exactly the crew you'd imagine being chosen to spread the word of God throughout the world. But like a Reuben, together, they were the perfect combination.

Where's a better place to search for a complementary strength diametrically opposed to yours than someone you just can't imagine having anything in common with? Recognize the misfits, the “flawed,” as elite talents the world has not yet embraced. Their loss, your gain! And your closest competition is on a nearly identical mission to you—if you were just a few years behind, that person would probably be one of your heroes. You can go farther together. There is no one person at the top—breakthrough cooperation is understanding that you're building a platform at the pinnacle, and you can make it as large and inclusive as you want.

***

Oh, it was the best of times! I was so in love with Taylor, and we were embarking on our first trip together as a couple, and it was to Israel! Taylor, travel, tahini—three of the all‐time best things (in that order)!

But, sitting in a hotel conference room surrounded by “influencers” the night before we left, while not exactly the worst of times, was not great. Not for me. Everyone else, including self‐proclaimed introvert Taylor, seemed to be having a great time, chatting and stuffing their faces with pizza.

Was I surprised by my company? No, I knew what I was walking into. Israel Collective was sponsoring this ten‐day trip specifically for influencers to learn about the Holy Land and share it with their followers. I'd weighed my options when Taylor told me about it, but that triple‐T‐threat made the choice obvious. I needed a break from running up and down basketball courts twelve hours a day, but I was here for the tour, the food, and my girlfriend—not to make friends. Not with these people.

I would never call myself an “influencer.” (To be fair, none of the people in that room would have either. I had fewer than 2,000 Instagram followers; I was clearly Taylor's plus‐one.) These YouTubers, rappers, gospel singers, and general social media‐ites were not my crowd, to say the least. I had no idea why others would follow them, and no interest in finding out. I plastered a fake smile on my face and deflected conversations as quickly as possible. I was teetering on a thin ledge between obviously rude and very obviously rude. Welcome to the Israel Collective trip.

Finally, Taylor sat down next to me. She put her hands on my knees and said, “David, what's it going to hurt to talk to these people? I know they might not be the people you're used to interacting with, but what if they can offer you a completely different perspective? What's it hurt to try? Someone in this room needs you; act like it's a game of Clue and find out who it is.”

That was a dirty trick. Taylor knew I couldn't resist Clue.

I embraced the challenge and began asking people questions like I was trying to get to the bottom of a mystery I put my detective hat on and became curious. Curious about others, curious about their stories, curious about what they wanted to get out of this trip. I had so many notes in my head, I could have solved the mystery right then and there on the spot.

As the night went on, I found myself genuinely laughing, smiling, and having a really good time. I actually tried to put my Grinch face back on and act like it wasn't fun. But it was. I was fully embracing the curiosity of looking deep into the people around me. And they were definitely curious. These misfits were weird and different … and intriguing and inspiring.

We made it to Israel the next day and had an amazing trip, touring the whole country, floating in the Dead Sea, seeing where Jesus was hung on the Cross, climbing mountains in Capernaum, cruising on a boat in the Sea of Galilee, and, of course, eating a lot of high‐level hummus. That trip puts all my other vacations to shame.

But what I will remember best from the trip are the people. They were weirdos, for sure. They didn't have that relentless “mission‐on‐the‐mind‐24/7” Michael Jordan style I associated with greatness. They were unapologetically different. Total hams. They would get up and give impromptu speeches on the bus, they wrote a lot and took pictures of everything, they were always on their phones, and they just seemed to genuinely enjoy and engage with everyone and everything around them, even when they got some disapproving glares….

Okay, they were a lot like me. More like me than a lot of the other “normal” people I usually hung out with. I wasn't a weirdo though, was I?

Well, I gave some of my first public speeches, impromptu, on those buses. And they gave me a lot of great photography tips and explained the economics of “influencing.” And I started writing a lot more—so much more that I started my first book when I got home. And obviously I had to keep up my social media accounts when I got home—I couldn't just stop sharing daily life with my Israel Collective friends!

Turns out, there was a weirdo inside of me all along.

You do yourself a disservice if you only surround yourself with like‐minded people who look like you, think like you, and act like you. You need the people you would never naturally be drawn to. They can draw the best out of you.

The breakthrough cooperation I shared with the people on that trip launched my career in a whole new direction. They inspired me to take my NBA mindset coaching out into the world. I left for Israel determined not to make friends; I came back with something better—a whole team of breakthrough collaborators.

I make a point now of going to places where I'm not similar to everyone else, from pottery painting studios to hip‐hop dance class with my wife. Whenever I feel my face pull into that smelly “Ew, that isn't me” grimace, I know I am going to grow from it. And who knows—I might find some more breakthrough cooperation!

Pay attention to people who have the breakthrough confidence to be unabashedly weird. Trust me, you're not the first person who has noticed. The weirdos have needed to battle against people who wanted them to bury their “flaws” their entire lives. They know something about themselves that is too strong to be worn down. There's an elite strength in refusing to hide, an incredibly rare and valuable resource for just about any breakthrough I can conceive of.

What's the rarest complementary misfit strength you're searching for?

***

I hated Drew Hanlen. This goofy twenty‐three‐year‐old kid from St. Louis had no great basketball pedigree, no out‐of‐this‐world on‐court talent. He was just another nobody—a nobody who basically every top NBA player looked to for advice and training.

Here I was, twenty‐six years old, and this child was dominating my profession. I wanted the ESPN articles talking about the amazing job I was doing for the next up‐and‐coming NBA All‐Star. I wanted agents and teams and players knocking at my door to work with me. Sure, I had some of that, but so did Drew, and that drove me nuts. We were like two competing vanillas in the baking cabinet—and so many people kept reaching for him.

I resented everything Drew had when we were competing neck and neck; imagine how ugly it got once he pulled ahead! For five years, I seethed across the court at my worst enemy. I coached in the NBA for the Brooklyn Nets, trained a ton of players on my own, and my business and reputation grew, but it was never enough. Every time I thought I was one step closer, another top NBA draft pick would crush me with a simple, “I want to thank my trainer, Drew Hanlen, for helping me become the best player I could be,” and Drew would take another two leaps ahead on the ladder.

In those moments, I might have traded every one of my successes just to see him fail. I had to just settle for living out my dreams, professionally and personally. In 2019, I married the perfect girl and we moved to the beach in Marina del Rey. Even my apartment complex gym was perfect—until the day I hopped off the treadmill to see Drew.

“What are you doing here?” I snarled.

My mortal enemy accosted me … with a giant hug. “Man, it's so great to see you! I've heard about all the awesome work you have been doing with NBA players. So proud of you. We should do something together sometime.”

Drew didn't seem to notice I was frozen dead in my tracks as he shared that he'd just moved in so his girlfriend could help him learn to walk again after ACL surgery. The one person in the world I wanted to hate and envy was wounded; I should have felt like all my wishes had been granted. But here he was—kind and encouraging. My heart sank as I realized he'd never once been disrespectful to me or treated me poorly—just the opposite. Drew Hanlen had no idea we were “enemies.” He was confident in his skills and talents, and admired mine. He didn't see me as a threat, but as a resource.

I swallowed hard as I actually looked him in the eyes for the very first time and finally saw my greatest adversary reflecting back at me—this crazy jealousy of mine.

The person I thought I had to hate to be successful, my top competition, was actually a great human being and someone I could work together with. Instead of competing, I would be completing. That's when it really hit me: collaboration over competition with others is what drives success and joy in the process. I'm definitely not saying you shouldn't compete; competition is a must. But the competition shouldn't be against others. The competition should be against yourself, to fully become the person you were made to be. Don't compete with others, compete alongside others.

Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi are two uber‐successful entrepreneurs and business tycoons in the same market. They can compete against each other for bigger slices of the pie, but they know the pie doesn't have to stay the same size; it can be layers on layers on layers with whipped cream on top. Tony and Dean teamed up and in a one weekend Zoom event during the 2020 crisis that was COVID, they netted over $50 million. Yeah, I'd say it worked to compete with and not compete against.

It's a simple and startling concept we all learn early in life: if someone wins, someone else loses. If your sister gets the last ice cream bar, you don't. If you want the best swing on the playground, you need to race your classmates there. There's not enough of all the good stuff to go around.

Call it zero sum bias or call it scarcity mentality, this mindset affects high achievers in every field, but it is deeply ingrained in 99 percent of athletes. Competition is one of the very cornerstones of sports. Playing a great game is nice, but winning is everything. Having enough is never enough. Being enough is never actually enough. If you are not the winner, you are a loser.

Of course, if you're around the true geniuses of any game, you know that's not true. Sure, most high achievers have this mentality, but those rare ones who don't shine the brightest. They show us all how it's really meant to be played. Their names are held in the highest regard, their plays are spoken of through generations, their teamwork is legendary. No one remembers the final scores of the games they lose. Through it all, they always win by playing with abundance, kindness, and joy.

That's what stung as I confronted my mortal enemy—I should have known better. Drew's example showed me what I'd truly lost out on over the five years I held this competitive hatred in my heart. My own scarcity mindset had kept me from achieving my truest potential as the coach I was meant to be. I saw limitations and felt bitterness where he saw opportunity and felt joy. He'd known all along that there was plenty out there for everybody, so he'd been able to commit 100 percent to his players. The moment I let him, he looked to collaborate and promote our mutual success and drive even better results for our players—so we could all win.

It kills me now to see people who “have it out” for others in their industry, who think they must step on someone else to boost themselves up. It's toxic, which is bad, but you're poisoning yourself worse than you could ever hurt them. Envy others' success, and you will never truly find it. Focus on competition and outdoing your opponent, and you will always be outdone. Selfishly keep everything to yourself, and everything will be kept from you. Embrace completion, collaboration, and connection, and not only will you become more successful than you could have imagined, but you will also have peace. Spend the energy you would have wasted on battling an enemy who doesn't even know you hate him on your breakthrough. Recognize, like Drew Hanlen, that your competition is your greatest resource—the only people who truly know what you're going through, what you're up against, what you're dreaming of, and what amazing ways you've found to level up. Share with them, and they will share with you.

That's the type of breakthrough cooperation that doesn't stop at the individual level. We are all trying to sell something, whether it's a tangible widget or our personal brand, and none of us are that original. We can compete against a nearly identical brand for the same customers, or we co‐populate, like hamburger chains. McDonald's, Burger King, and In & Out all build in the same centralized locations, figuring that people will at least know the spot to come when they want a burger. Sure, they each might lose a few customers to the others, but it all works out; a stand‐alone McDonald's never does as well as a McDonald's surrounded by the competition.

One is far too small of a number ever to achieve greatness. We need others. Surround yourself with the best in your industry, the best in your organization, and watch as people flock in. One of the most successful sources of breakthrough cooperation is to recruit your competition—not to work for you, but with you and alongside you.

What competitors do you want to cooperate with for your breakthrough?

WHAT DID YOU FORGET?

We've touched on connecting with heroes, family, professionals, co‐workers, nemeses, competition, misfits—what did we forget?

It's a big one. You're going to be embarrassed you didn't think of it—I was.

Absolutely none of the work you do to connect in breakthrough cooperation matters if you don't cultivate that connection!

I really can't hammer this home hard enough. At best, mindlessly and thoughtlessly networking with people is useless for your breakthrough. It's nearly always actively harmful to your mission.

Don't take advantage of people.

Don't make promises you don't plan on keeping.

Don't believe anyone is too small to be worth keeping your word.

Pay at least as much attention to what you can add to their breakthrough as what you hope they'll contribute to yours.

People remember how you've treated them, and it weighs way more than you think.

***

One of my most valuable God‐given talents has to be my ability to connect. I've always been a social person, but I threw this talent into a networking hyperdrive obsession—and then took it around the globe many times.

As much as I hate the term “networking,” I am an absolute master. I pride myself on having a guy for everything in every city. Even for someone with an NBA background, I have a more developed network than many, particularly because of my overseas experience.

So, would it surprise you to learn that my two biggest career setbacks and disappointments are directly related to my strong networking abilities?

When I was looking for the breakthrough to become an NBA coach, the Las Vegas Summer League was my playground. Late night Tuesday $5 blackjack hands at Ellis Island Casino, early morning pickup basketball runs at Sierra Vista High School, or just bluntly standing in the lobby of Thomas & Mack Center (where all the Summer League games were played) waiting for an NBA team polo to walk through the door, I covered that whole town. I connected with everyone I could find, hoping to make an impression. I amassed a booklet of over fifty NBA business cards for my efforts—but this wasn't an arcade. There was no counter to cash them in for the big prize. I had to hope that at least one of those card owners would give me a shot.

I was half a world away, mentally preparing for another sweaty, smelly, all‐day basketball camp in a January‐hot summer gym in Melbourne, Australia, when I got word that the Brooklyn Nets wanted to add me to their coaching staff. There was no one person that I'd made an impression on—it was simply the fact that my name had kept coming up. Multiple connections, multiple impressions, lots of effort, and I was in.

Stepping on the plane back to the States and into the breakthrough team I'd been dreaming of, I vowed to be the best ingredient they'd ever added. Fast‐forward to the end of my first NBA coaching season, and everyone agreed I'd more than meshed—I had taken the Nets’ three‐point percentage from twenty‐eighth in the league to second. I was hot and getting hotter, the zesty pepper of the coaching squad. I was a top shooting coach, and the only thing that could derail me from becoming the top shooting coach was the instability of the other ingredients. The Nets were hiring a new head coach, and new head coaches are notorious for coming in and cleaning house, making sure they can bring in all the ingredients they want. I knew I could add heat to any squad—but would the new head coach agree?

On April 17, 2016, the Nets announced former Atlanta Hawks Assistant Coach Kenny Atkinson would take on our top spot, and I was pumped. I hadn't just collected his card at the Las Vegas Summer League—we'd had a full meeting at Starbucks! I knew Kenny would remember me; he'd been so impressed by my overseas connections that he'd even asked me to look for opportunities for one of his players. Jeremy Lin had played for Kenny, so he even called in and sang my praises. I felt as safe as I could hope to be.

Kenny did a first wave of firings right off the bat, but I didn't hear a word from him—at all. It was a mixed blessing; I was happy to still be on the court with my players, but I felt a little uneasy about the silence. I wasn't off the team, but was I on it?

I waited for days to hear from Kenny … and I never did. I was still at the gym late one night, breaking down game film for a player, when the GM called me: “Kenny has decided to let you go. You're excused of all duties with the Brooklyn Nets. Please clear out your locker by the end of the day tomorrow and we'll schedule a flight back home for you.”

I was rocked to the core. My hopes, goals, and the dreams actively in progress were swept out from under me. Kenny hadn't just rejected the zingy pepper I brought to the mix—he'd actively avoided it.

It took a minute, but I licked my wounds and reminded myself that I wasn’t going to be for everyone. None of us are. That’s okay. No one has ever had a 100% approval rating in the history of ever. Think about that. So why will you? You aren’t the right ingredient for every team, but you are for the right team…

And then my friend Alex Saratsis became Giannis Antetokounmpo's agent. This “Greek Freak” was one of the best NBA players in the league, and I'd been watching him with interest ever since we'd both been playing professionally in Greece. I'd been playing at the highest level, first division, while Giannis was in second division, so we'd never played each other (it's one of my claims to fame—I played at a level above Giannis!). Of course, he was thirteen at the time and playing professionally against a sea of full‐grown men. By the time Giannis made it to the NBA, he'd grown into his seven‐foot height; with arms longer than Inspector Gadget's, this kid could now move like a gazelle, handle the basketball like a point guard, and had Kobe's killer mentality. The only flaw left in Giannis's game was an inability to make a shot before the three‐point arc.

That's right: the Greek Freak's only flaw was my primary strength. And I was buddies with his agent. The whole world was going to know how I'd impacted the next MVP of the NBA. I was back in, for sure.

Alex Saratsis is a top‐notch human being: kind, genuinely caring, and very loyal—maybe even to a fault. Alex and I became fast friends through a mutual client. Most agents really don't care about the development of their players; they are more interested in signing on the dotted line of a fat contract. But Alex would take the extra time to call me and talk about his client's improvement, show up at his workouts to watch, and even hop in drills just to show he still had it. (Which he didn't, exactly, but hey, I respected the attempt!) It wasn't just this client, either; Alex was on the hustle, all the time, for each of his clients. Once we were better friends, he even asked me to pull my Australian connections to help another client. I told him I'd make it happen!

When our mutual client went over to play professionally in Germany, he dropped Alex, so I didn't have daily interactions with him anymore. I was hustling with my players and I knew he'd be hustling with his, but when I heard he'd signed Giannis, I was excited to work alongside him again. Together, we'd take the player taking the NBA by storm into the stratosphere!

I whipped out my phone and texted, “Alex, hey man. That's so cool you have Giannis as a client! Great work! I would love to work with him and help him become an elite NBA 3pt shooter.”

I watched the three dots bubbling up with a huge grin on my face. Alex was already texting back—in a few short seconds, I would be well on my way to establishing myself as the greatest three‐point shooting coach there ever was! All love and respect to Chip Engelland, but I was primed to leapfrog way over him!

Those bubbles burst into Alex's response: “David, I like you. I really do. But I haven't talked to you in over two years, and that is how you are going to reach out? Asking me for the most prized possession in the NBA? Sorry, David.”

I dropped my phone, absolutely crushed. How could this be? Wasn't Alex my friend? Didn't I help his former client get better? He'd known my abilities—how could he turn me down?

Sitting on the floor, I remembered Alex had asked me to help him with a connection in Australia … but I never actually did it. I hadn't actively worked against him, I just hadn't followed through. At the time, it just didn't move the needle for me, and it was a lot of work to help a player I didn't even know, someone I wasn't getting compensated for. Why would Alex help me now? I never went out of my way to actually help him. On the surface, we'd worked well together—meaning I’d done my job—but when it really mattered, when he really needed me, I didn’t even try to come through. I hadn’t been playing with breakthrough cooperation—I’d been a one‐note wonder, playing solely for myself. I hadn’t even bothered to combine our strengths into something with lasting power.

It cast new light my experience with Kenny Atkinson, too. Yeah, I'd made an impression on him when we met at Summer League, I probably even impressed him with everything I'd worked for, the fifty‐plus countries I had traveled to doing basketball camps, the years and years of connecting—but I hadn't followed through and actually helped him. I didn't cultivate the relationship; I didn't join forces with him. Kenny didn't even need to bother telling me himself when he decided we weren't going to work together in breakthrough cooperation at the Nets—I'd already made him feel like I wasn't working in breakthrough cooperation with him long, long before.

Call it connecting, call it networking, call it making an impression—most of us are more eager to be known than to know. We'll take the phone call, send an email, and hand out the business card, but after that, our energetic spark fizzles out. We wait on others to recognize the power of our potential and connect with us.

It doesn't matter how great you think you are. No one cares or remembers your individual needs or wants. If you want to make a lasting impression, a real connection, you have to be the cultivator. Breakthrough cooperation isn't about how great you are—it's about showing others how, together, you can make something more complex, powerful, and dynamic.

Connections can just happen, but relationships take work. Intentional time is the only way to cultivate a relationship, and you absolutely need true, genuine relationships with the people you want to work in breakthrough cooperation with. What are their hobbies? Do they have kids? Are they a foodie? What makes them think or act the way they do? Embrace this. Take a colleague who loves coffee to the best roastery in town and ask them about their future goals. Take your co‐worker who loves authentic Mexican to their favorite restaurant for lunch and talk about their kids. Ask the misfit to take you to the place they like most—your treat!

You don't get a pass on cultivating the connection with your family, either. Time isn't the most important thing you can give to your kids—intentional time is. You can be around your kids as they play at the park, but yet your nose is stuck in your iPhone, surfing the latest deals on Amazon. Imagine one of your heroes treating you like that after you spent all day anticipating an amazing one‐on‐one! If you want your kids to leave with the impression you truly care for them, step one is to be there. Step two, actually be there. Don't be present and absent at the same time.

Connections are easy—cultivating is hard. Don't wait for the other person to do the toughest work—be the one who pushes breakthrough cooperation by figuring out the formula and making the partnership work.

What connections are you forgetting to cultivate?

BREAKTHROUGH COOPERATION KEYS

• Your daily breakthrough success depends more on your relationships than any other factor.
• Weaknesses are just a complements wish list.
• Heroes can contribute to your breakthroughs in many ways.
• The “best” might not be the best for you.
• Compete with your competition.
• Embrace the misfits.
• Cultivate your connections.

BREAKTHROUGH COOPERATION TOOL: CULTURAL COMPASS

Before you begin Q2 of your day, take a few minutes to set the Cultural Compass for your breakthrough.

“Culture” is one of those terms that gets thrown around way too often. Ask around for the tangible definition in play, and nine times out of ten, you're going to get the Casablanca Test: Everyone just seems to know it when they see it.

To be fair, culture is complicated. I have been deeply entrenched in some of the worst NBA cultures (coaching with the 2016 Brooklyn Nets, for example), celebrated in the locker rooms with one of the best (the 2019 NBA Champion Toronto Raptors), and have soaked in the knowledge from the architect of the 2009 and 2010 NBA Champion Miami Heat, Erik Spoelstra. I can offer a lot of informed opinions about what makes for great and terrible organizational cultures, but I certainly don't have a failproof cultural formula (yet).

I do know we can't just dictate it. Saying something is our culture doesn't make it real. We can't even just emulate the cultures we admire. Culture is built one day at a time by the ways we act and treat each other, the things we believe, the rules we make and break, the missions we're driving towards, and many other things. But our cultures are never just one person—everyone contributes to the complex blend.

As the BIOnic leader, you're responsible for recruiting the cooperation your breakthrough requires and setting the cultural tone. You can't control it or rush it, but you can steer and influence it. The true essence of your breakthrough culture will be a collaborative effort, but you get to choose the people you're bringing in.