Being a true G.O.A.T., he took the audience through the different stages of his exceptional career 🚀. For each of these stages, he highlighted a person who was instrumental and connected them to individual learnings 💡.
He did this without being preachy, but yet highly emotional , full of gratitude, and with quite a bit of humor too.
What an incredible role model, hard worker 💪, and exceptional athlete 🏅:
– Born in a small town in Bavaria 🥨 (like me :-))
– Left Germany to play in the NBA at the age of twenty ✈️
– Played for the same club (Dallas Mavericks) throughout his entire professional career
– Won every title there is (NBA MVP in 2007, 14x NBA All-Star, NBA Championship in 2011)
– 6th highest scorer of all time in the NBA
But more importantly, what a person!
I had the pleasure to meet Dirk twice in the mid-00s during commercial productions when I worked for Nike. Each time, he was humble, nice, and really funny, without any superstar behavior at all. During lunch breaks, our entire crew sat around on transport boxes eating pizza together 🍕.
There is this one story where apparently all the Mavericks players were asked what personalization they would like to have for their seat in the Mavericks jet ✈️ – and while most opted for gaming consoles 🎮, Dirk asked for a bookshelf 📚. Not sure if it’s really true, but the fact that it absolutely could be says it all 🤷♂️.
So yes, I am a Dirkules fanboy – and that is okay with me 😅.
But even without that, his speech is an absolute gem 💎 and if you only watch one thing today, then this should be it: 📽️👉
Oh, and for a bit of nostalgia, here’s a little memory from the Nike Battlegrounds shoot in 2004 in Dallas 📸.
#DirkNowitzki #RoleModel #TeamSpirit #CareerJourney #FanboyAlert #Leadership #PersonalGrowth #Memories #Throwback #Nostalgia
This was orginally published as post on Linkedin on August 14th, 2023.