Just leave it this way. Alright. I dont consider myself a journalist. And nobody else would consider myself a journalist. I began to take on the life of being an interviewer even though i have a day job running a private equity firm. How do you define leadership . What is it that makes somebody tick . Coach k, thank you for taking time to be with us. I call you coach k, but your last name is krzyzewski. When you were growing up, how did you learn to pronounce it . Mike i remember it took me a while to learn how to pronounce it. We lived in chicago on the north side. My dad was from the south side. During christmas, we would visit relatives, and my uncle joe, who was a Chicago Police man, when we would go see him, the first thing when we opened the door he would say, what is your name . Before we walked in, i would say to my mom, mom, what is my name . She said its mike krzyzewski. The reason he asked that is because some of my family changed their name to cross because of ethnic discrimination. They couldnt get jobs and that. They did not want krzyzewski. He wanted me to always have krzyzewski. David you never considered changing your name . Mike no, although my dad did use the name cross when he was in world war ii and when he was an elevator operator in downtown chicago. Again, he was afraid of not getting jobs. On his tombstone he died when i was a senior at west point the government paid, and it was william cross. David really . Mike we finally had it changed when my mom passed away to say krzyzewski. David lets talk about how you got into basketball. You grew up in chicago. When you were growing up, did you say im going to be a great basketball coach . How did that come about . Mike i was an allstate player and went to catholic schools. I was the leading scorer in the Catholic League in chicago for two years and was recruited, but my mom never went to high school. My dad went two years. So, when i was recruited by west point, they could not imagine that a polish kid from chicago was going to go to school, could go to a school where president s went to. David right. Mike so, i did not really want to go to west point. David because . Mike i wanted to dribble behind my back or throw bounce passes that were fancy and did not want to carry a rifle. David did you have a division i scholarship offer . Mike oh, yeah. I probably would have gone to creighton, and wisconsin maybe, but my parents kept putting pressure. They would speak polish in the kitchen. We never had a house, but we had a flat and they would talk in polish. David and you did not know polish . Mike i did not. They did not want me to take polish in grade school and high school, so that i would not have an accent. Because they were afraid i would be david it was not because they did not want you to hear what they were saying . Mike they probably had a number of different motives, but they would put a few english words in there stupid, mike. Finally i said i will go, and it was the best decision i never made, you know, to go to west point. Going to west point is the basis, the foundation, of everything i am right now as a man. David when you went to west point, were the players a better level than you thought they were . Mike yeah, we were good. Yeah, coach knight, bob knight, the legendary coach. We were a top 20 team one of the three years. Freshmen were not eligible at that time. We always had a winning record. We went to the nit. The nit was as big as the ncaa during that time, so we were good. We were very good. I got to be a point guard and captain of the team. David so, did people come along and say you have to go into the military, but youre good enough to play in the nba . Mike no, i was not good enough to play in the nba. David did you know that . Mike yeah, its not like it was everyones dream at that time. My dream coming out of high school was to be a teacher and a coach. And i was able to play a lot during my five years of service. I was a captain in the army, field artillery, but i got to play on a number of allarmy and all Armed Forces Teams and travel around the world on temporary duty a lot during that time. David when you finish your military commitment when you go to west point, you have a commitment of fourfive years. You finish your commitment, then you got into coaching. Where did you first coach . Mike indiana, i was a graduate assistant. I was getting my mba at indiana. Coach knight was there, and i was there for one year and did not finish my mba. And i was fortunate to go back to my alma mater at the age of 28 and coach at west point. We took over a program that had 77 wins and 44 losses in two years. I had the best start you can get going there. David you coach there, then duke was looking for a coach, and they interviewed you. Your coaching record the year before you were hired was i think 916. Mike 917. David 917. So it was not that auspicious. So, why did they hire you . Mike first of all, they wanted to make a great decision. You know from your business, a lot of times if you look at one line item, it does not tell the full story. So, we took over a program that was 744, and after five years, we were 7359. David the Athletic Director at duke then was tom butters, and he took a chance on someone he did not know. Your record was explainable but not great. Did he know how to pronounce your name . Mike he did. I hit it off with him right away. David all right, so you got it. The first couple of years were not wonderful. After three years, you had a losing record. Mike 3847. David 3847. So, werent people calling for your firing . Mike a lot of people were calling for my firing, and we have a fundraising element called the iron dukes. During my first three years, i was able to establish a new fundraising element called the concerned iron dukes, and they were concerned about me being there coach. But my Athletic Director, tom butters, and president Terry Sanford at that time, said when i was hard, you have a lot of hired, youn i was have a lot of work to do. There is a lot of rebuilding to do here. Just keep doing it. So, i was never worried, whether i was naive or whatever, and the next year we turned it around and it went crazy. And it is one of the reasons i stayed at duke. They were loyal to me. I love duke, but i am a big people guy, you know . Like, if you are honest with me, you trust me, you believe in me, i am going to be committed to you, and that is how i felt about this university. David because you are so successful, a lot of people root against you. Mike our sport is a very intimate sport. You play in shorts, people can see you. They are right on top of you. If i can see five guys in the front row of some arenas who look like doctors or lawyers, and they are giving you finger signs and telling you Different Things and you are saying, whoa, you know, where did that come from . Mike its really what i have done for most of my life. I sought good people. Thats why i am at duke for 36 years. How can you be better . How can you be better . [applause] mike and so, as you move forward, choose your occupation, but choose people. Good people will make you better. Believe me. Good people will make you better. David so you turned it around and then you won the National Championship for the first time in 1991. Mike right. David but to do that, you had to defeat a team that crossed crushed you in 1990, unlv. What was that like preparing your team for that . Mike they had won 45 in a row going in. A lot of people felt they were one of the greatest teams in the history of sport, but we were good, too. And the two best players stayed on the team, hurley and laettner, and then we added a player who was better than anybody in grant hill, because unlv had beaten us by so much, im not sure they had the edge that we did. And so, we ended up winning one of the greatest games in the history of college basketball, but it was not the championship game. So now, psychologically, we have got to get ready 48 hours and beat kansas, and we were able to turn that around to where they were thinking of kansas, and we won our first one. David but the next year you came against kentucky in a semi final, and that became one of the greatest games ever played. Can you recount what happened at the end . Mike it was really a backandforth game, and they went ahead 102101, and so our guys called a timeout with 2. 1 seconds. We were down by a point, and when all the guys came in i think the very first thing a leader has to show is strength, and so so i met them as they were coming to the bench and i said, we are going to win. We are going to win. I dont know if i really believed that, but i kept saying it. And then we sat down, and a lot of times it is good to ask a guy to do something instead of telling them, so grant hill, i said, can you throw the ball 75 feet . He was going to inbound the ball, and he said, yeah, i can do that. I said, well, i want you to throw a ball and im going to bring laettner up to the top of the key, and i looked at laettner, very confident, very cocky, and i said, can you catch it . He said, coach, if grant throws a good pass, i will catch the ball. David ok. Mike i said, well, he throws it, you catch it, and ill have two guys run this way, maybe dont have a shot, hit one of them and less see what happens. So he threw it, laettner caught it, dribbled once, which your heart sinks because david he is not a famous dribbler . Mike no, there are only 2. 1 seconds. He had enough courage and knowledge where he put it in, then he shot the ball and it went in. There is the pass to laettner. Puts it up. Yes david so, you won the game and went on to win the National Championship. The last championship you won, the fifth one, 2015, you are basically playing freshman. How did that happen . Mike it was a most unusual year. Three of the freshman who went pro after that, they went early. They were one and done. They did not really care about their own stats. If you can find people who are all into winning david you mention the phrase one and done, and for those who are watching this who may not be basketball aficionados, that refers to the fact that you have to play at least one year of college before you can play in the nba. Then you can go professional. Mike and be 19. David are you a supporter of this one and done rule . Mike it does not make any difference if you are supportive of it. We have no control over it. What you have to do is like what you do in business you have to adapt. You are not only adapting to different players over to 40 years i have been a coach, but also adapting when guys leave and the age of the team, how you teach our culture. So, grant hill, laettner, and hurley, if they were here today, i know mrs. Hill and mr. Hill would not but some probably would have gone after one year. But now, that has changed. It is a different thing. David lets talk about recruiting. Mike i work harder on recruiting now than i have ever worked, because you have to do it more often. To recruit the top players you dont know if they will be one and done, but they will go early. The really good ones are going to go early. So, that means you have to do it over and over, and it is not so much what you do in their home. Before you get to their home, its what you do on social media, the texting, how you communicate, the relationship building. Relationship building is so much different now than it was then, and that whole landscape has changed dramatically where many nights you go home and you are texting 17yearolds. David let me ask you about the Overall Program you have built. Now, you have a situation where duke is considered royalty in college basketball. But as a result of that, because you are so successful, a lot of people root against you. Do you take it personally . Mike no, i never take any of that personally. I think that is useless to do that. You cant run your life based on that. And i think though those people respect you, and they respect me and my program. You know, our sport is a very intimate sport. You are playing in your shorts, and people can see you. They are right on top of you. So, it is not like what the papers say as much as like during a game where people can say the worst things imaginable. I cannot say them on the show. They have to be hardnosed, you know, enough to take that. I get that, too, but im older. I can laugh it off. I can see five guys in the front row of some of the arenas who look like doctors or lawyers, and they are giving you finger signs and telling you Different Things and i say, whoa, you know, where did that come from . David last year, you win your third gold medal on behalf of the united states. Mike i love duke. College basketball has been my life, but when you win a gold medal and have those guys with medals around the necks and your National Anthem being played, there is Nothing Better than that. Mike so, all the teams i have been on whether the duke team, or the u. S. Team, you i would be shocked. We would have these meetings with lebron, kobe, kevin durant, westbrook, and all these guys. We sit around and say how are we going to live. We talk about fundamental things, communication. We will look each other in the eye and tell each other the truth. We will have each others back. We are going to show strong faces. We are never going to be late. We are going to be enthusiastic. We are going to win and lose together. Those are great standards. David lets talk about the olympics. Last year, you won your third gold medal on behalf of the united states. Mike the biggest honor, david, is representing your country. You know i love duke. College basketball has been my life, but when you win a gold medal, world championship, or the olympic goldmedal, it is the whole world, and we respect the world. Basketball around the world is unbelievable. And to have those guys with medals around their necks and your National Anthem being played, there is Nothing Better than that. David initially, you were the assistant coach to the 1992 socalled dream team. Mike dream team, yeah. David for those who do not really follow basketball, at that time it was professionals who played at the olympic level. 1992 was the first time professionals played, and those who played were michael jordan, magic johnson, larry bird among others. What was it like to coach that team . Mike it was literally a dream. And it really off an explosion worldwide for basketball. International pro players played anyway, and now the players when they were seven years old or eight years old were watching, and it exploded. To be with them would be like if you are in music and have the best singers all on one team, the best musicians, and true professionals. David so, when you coached that team 11 years ago, you won the olympic gold. What was it like saying to professional players, let me tell you how to do something . Mike you say this is how i want you to do something a little bit differently than you do to College Players. One, they are professionals. The other thing is they have a wealth of experience. So, when i am Coaching College kids, they are going to adapt to me. I am teaching them to change their limits to get better as a unit and individually. When i am with lebron james and kobe bryant and chris paul and all these guys, they are already accomplished. I want to know their best practices, and then my best practices, and what we do, it becomes our best practices. So, we do a lot of adapting so that i think, david, a keyword is to create ownership, where everybody owns it and where they feel like they are not playing for the u. S. They are the u. S. And in order to get that feeling, we incorporated a lot of work with our military, so that they could get a feeling of what it was to serve our country. No greater part of our society than the military to teach that. David so the three olympic teams you have coached, how would you compare them to the dream team . Mike well the dream team in their prime there are 11 hall of famers on that team. In their prime, there is no team like that. The beijing team was really good and could hold their own, but there is no team with the accomplishment all in their prime that was better than the dream team. David did you ever think you could lose . Mike oh, yeah, yeah. I think we can lose every game. If you dont think you think you can lose, youre not prepared to win. And in the pros, they dont play one and done. So, in your mind, you can play poorly in a game and get a chance. There are no Second Chances in olympics or world championships. David so, when you are coaching an olympic team today, would you say it is possible if we only had College Players to win the olympics . Mike no, there is no way. There is absolutely no way our college kids could beat the International Teams. The International Teams are too good. They are, you know, a number of the International Teams would be playoff teams in the nba. About 25 of the nba is international. No way, because you are playing men. We would get killed. David if you had to pick among the pro players that you have coached and witnessed, who would you say is the most competitive player you have ever coached . Mike wow. Well, they are all they would not get to where they are probably the two biggest assassins were when they look at you, you feel like, ok, im going to lose this guy, where jordan, i think jordan is the best player ever and kobe bryant. Their preparation and their ability to just focus is off the charts. I mean, you can take lebron james being one of the most talented and smartest. Chris paul, Durant Durant has been the leading scorer in the u. S. In the three competitions he has played in. David, one of the things i have admired from all those guys is they understood it wasnt about them. You hear expressions like leave your egos at the door, and i always told them to not leave your egos at the door, because i want you to be lebron and kobe, but when you bring them in, can we play for one ego . Can we play for the u. S. . And thank god they did. David as you have been coaching over the years what would you say are the most important lessons of leadership you have learned . Mike the very first thing is that to get better you have to change limits. When you change limits, you are going to look bad and fail. At west point, id learned failure was never a destination. In other words, when youre not knocked back, figure out why and change. The other thing is that you will not get there alone. Be on a team. Surround yourself with good people, and learn how to listen. You are not going to learn with you just talking. And when you do talk, converse. Dont make excuses, you know . Figure out the solution, and you dont have to figure it out yourself. To me, that is what we have tried to build our program on for the 42 years now that ive been a coach. David now what you have done in the community is that you have started a Program Named after your mother, Emily Krzyzewski center. What does that do . Mike it is 10 years old now and really services about 1500 kids a month, and every one of the kids who has gone to the program has gone to college. It has been fantastic. And i am really proud. I was firstgeneration, you know, college for my family. David so was i. Mike yes. Also, to honor my mom, to let all those kids know that the love of parents and stuff that your parents did to put you in a position to maybe take advantage of some of these opportunities. David final question, what would you like to have as your legacy or what you see as your legacy for having done what you have done in your career today . Mike you know, i will let other people define that. I just like to work hard every day, and i love what i do, and make every day like it is my first day, but with the experience of 42 years. And that i was hungry every day. I gave everybody my best shot, and i always wanted to be a part of a team. Obviously, i wanted to lead that team. What an interesting life it is to be a leader. Narrator our world today is wealthier than ever. But not everyone shares in this wealth. Todays young Business Leaders are challenging this. Changing the way we think about money its power and its purpose. This is a new generation. This is the new philanthropy. Narrator Alexandre Mars knows what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur. Alexandre three letters