Jerry West: Nothing is ever good enough | Forward Progress

As we wrap up the week, we're bringing you one of the many positive messages from our past interviews. Each Thursday, we're sharing stories of our most watched athletes, celebrities, and leaders. We hope these problem-solving narratives inspire you to tackle obstacles in your own life. This week, Jerry West. You apparently, when you were playing, got so caught up in winning that you wouldn't even actually enjoy it when you did win. Explain why. Well, as I say, we're all wired differently. I believe in perfection. You can't have perfection almost in any sport. You know, you can go out and I think one night and one game, and I don't remember very much about my career. I think I missed one field goal and no foul shots. I had 14 rebounds and 12 assists like 40 points And after the game I said to myself I can believe I missed this driving layup And yet you walk out and say, my God, this was almost as good as it could get. But still in my own mind, I didn't think that it was necessarily a great game because I had numbers. We won, and that was the most important thing. But again, I analyzed everything that I did, horribly critical of myself, horribly. When I was speaking to your son Johnny the other day on the phone, I mean, he just reiterated that, that you are a perfectionist, that nothing is really ever good enough. You're never fully satisfied. How true is that? Very true. And again, I think that's a part of the competitive nature of people. I always winning championships in Los Angeles and we won a number there and I left a team that won two more after I left it really with no changes in the team I think the thing that I learned was that when the season was over how can we get better I really, really believe that that's what kept me going. The desire to have a perfect team or something that could be near perfect, knowing full well that wasn't going to happen. You wrote in your book, quote, my worst trait by far is that I expect everyone to care as much as I do about everything, and it is both terrible and unfair. Explain why you think that. Well, it is unfair because, again, as I say, when you're your own biggest critic, you're never going to be satisfied with yourself. I think growing up in a real small community, one of the things that you see, everyone has the same. Okay, no one is, some have less, and the ones that have more don have very much And I think it probably comes from you know watching people struggle to feed their families to try to do the best they can for their children and I know that with me the thing the things that always drove me I wanted to catch the biggest fish I wanted to be the fastest guy in school which I was I want to be jump to be able to jump higher anyone in school and I was it was just part of my again, part of my DNA. I just, I don't believe, I think if you hold yourself at a lesser esteem, then it's not going to work in getting to the top of the mountain. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week and every week sharing long form interviews on Mondays and shorter uplifting stories on Thursdays and then trending clips on Fridays. We'd love to hear from you with ratings and reviews. Do you prefer the longer podcast episodes or our shorter ones. I'm excited to get your take. Thanks again.