Donovan Mitchell Says Every Leader Needs One Phrase: 'I Fucked Up'
Ever wonder what your favorite athlete does when they just aren't playing very well? Do they watch a Will Ferrell comedy? Play Mario Kart with their kids? Suffer a fit of deep, existential angst? We wanted to know, too. Welcome to How I Take a Loss.
For our latest edition, we jetted off to NBA All-Star Weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah. There, we caught up with Cleveland Cavaliers guard Donovan Mitchell, who—to put it simply—is having the season of his life. After the Utah Jazz traded him to the destination he was least expecting (sorry, Knicks fans), Mitchell led the young Cavs to the top half of the Eastern Conference, nabbing his first All-Star start along the way. By the way, Mitchell, 26, was off doing something deeply cool minutes before our chat. At adidas Basketball's "Remember the Why" event, he gifted a dolly-full of special D.O.N. Issue 4 shoes to the Grambling State men's basketball team. Then, popped a Tootsie roll in his mouth, and settled in to talk about the losses that got him here—with his mom, as always, nearby.
ESQUIRE: How's your All-Star weekend been?
Donovan Mitchell: It's been pretty chill. A little tired! But it's early.
Tell me a little bit about the Grambling State shoe.
Yeah, so… [spits out Tootsie Roll.] We're just not going to eat that.
So, I wanted to find a way to give back to an HBCU. The shoes are one thing, and I'm excited, and blessed [to donate them]. But being able to see the students, meet them, talk to them, be there in the moment is something that I really cherish.
Charity-wise, what can you learn from actually getting out there, in real life, to help people?
I think the biggest thing is being able to—when you talk to kids, talk to different schools, walks of life—you get to know different stories. You can give monetary donations. You can give all those different charitable things, but I think the biggest thing is you actually use your time. At the end of the day, you're seeing somebody for five seconds, five minutes, 10 minutes. Quite frankly, it can change the trajectory of someone's entire life.
That's the best advice I've been given—being in a busier job now—is that even if you're with someone for 10 minutes, you need to make them feel like they're the only person you’re thinking about.
You never know what it'll do for a person. I've had positive and negative experiences growing up around that.
I still remember the Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher who rejected me when I asked for an autograph when I was little.
You never forget. I try to make sure I'm always able to do that for the younger generation.
On the All-Star end, I feel like people are always using the phrase, “He made a jump!” like suddenly leveling up is something new for you. But you’ve done this at Louisville, and probably as a kid before that. What’s different about this leap in Cleveland?
I think it's because of how bad the last season was. We had such high expectations here in Utah—and we failed… I just didn't answer the call. And we put it on a national stage. Everybody saw that, and saw the dysfunction, and saw different things. So going into a summer with a lot of unpredictability, there's just so much talk when you go into a new situation, and there’s uncertainty there. Am I good enough? Are the Cavs giving up too much? Is Donovan good enough to help this team? There's always that. I feel like for myself, it's a different level of confidence. Different levels of peace, happiness, joy.
Since your mom is here—and this is the losing column—what kind of advice would she give you maybe when you were five, six, seven years old on the way home from losing a game?
"Understand [that losing is] part of the process. It's part of the building process that'll make you who you are." So as a man, having that mindset helped me learn. It's tough, when a lot of people—especially in today's generation—seem to be thriving in this world on Instagram and Twitter. So she said, "Stay in your lane, run your race, and there's going to be things that go well for you, and things that don't go well. But as long as you continue to put the same work in and same effort in, eventually it'll pay off—and God's always got you."
What’s the difference between bad criticism and tough love?
Bad criticism is saying, "You can't." Certain words that are tied to it. Can't, won't, shouldn't. Criticism is like, "You should be." I've been told that I wasn't going to succeed, and here I am today, flourishing. Being able to have that experience—and have those different elements of [bad criticism and tough love]— there's a difference between them. Those are big problems. There's no limits on what you can and can't do.
You're probably the last person I can think of who would get up on a podium at a press conference and blame someone else. For anyone reading this, why admit it out loud when you fuck up?
Not even just for yourself, but for others. If you're at work, you're a leader. People look up to you. There's someone in this world—no matter what you do—who looks up to you. Someone who looks to you for advice. They see you and say, "Hey, I want to be like this person," or, "This person's got it going," whatever. For me as a leader, saying, "I fucked up. My fault," That goes a long way. It takes that pressure off everybody else.
It's hard to do sometimes, especially in public.
It’s not if you have a belief in yourself. I have that belief that I want to be perfect—I'm trying to be perfect—and there's no such thing as perfection. You chase that. What ultimately makes you great is trying to chase that perfection, but also being satisfied with understanding that you will hit bumps in the road. And when you do mess up, it is on me. And I'll be better in taking that on, because at the end of the day, not everybody's able to do that. So being able to do it relieves that pressure from other people. It's not the easiest job in the world, but it's one of those things that, as a leader—in whatever field you're in—you need that.
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