The night Jay Williams chose his number

A couple of weeks ago I sat down to lunch and realized my favorite college basketball player of all time was sitting next to me.

Jay Williams. Duke. Coach K's point guard.

After lunch he shared his thoughts on leadership right here.

Of all the gems Jay shared, one stuck. It wasn't about a game. It was about his father.

Before Jay ever played a game at Duke, he sat in an empty Cameron Indoor Stadium with his father in the fall of his freshman year. Just the two of them, looking up into the rafters.

Jay had a problem. He wore 24 in high school. But 24 was retired, hanging up there for Johnny Dawkins. He needed a new number.

His father looked at the rafters and saw something Jay didn't. A gap. Bobby Hurley's 11 on one side. Grant Hill's 33 on the other. And nothing in between.

11. Blank. 33.

His father told him that gap was his to fill.

Jay chose 22.

Think about what Jay's father did. He didn't just hand his son a number. He showed him a sequence with a hole in the middle and told him the hole had his name on it. He pointed at a lineage and said: complete it.

That is the greatest gift a parent can give. Not ability. Belief.

He handed his son luggage that freshman year to go chase his dream.

Jay's career after Duke was not a straight line. The NBA and life threw a lot at him. He said it plainly: "I was not what the world thought. Thank God for my family."

No one is self made. Every person who ever made a mark was believed in first, usually by someone sitting next to them in an empty room.

In family business, I can get hyper focused on fostering people’s ability: skills, systems, process, a playbook.

But ability is not the real gift.

The gift is being the person who looks up at the rafters and sees a place for someone before they can see it themselves.

That is the work. Not the strategy. Not the succession plan. Building people up is the work.

What a gift we have in our family business to do just this. To sit next to someone before the world has seen their potential, point at the gap, and tell them it has their name on it.

Your kids. Your spouse. Your team. Someone is staring up at their rafters right now, waiting to be told which number is theirs.

Tell them.

I hope you had an incredible Father’s Day!

Onward, 

Matt

P.S. Jay's father saw the sequence before Jay did. 11. A blank. 33. Is there someone you can point out the gap in the rafters for? Then, hold the belief until they see it too.