I am not a huge sports person (I’ll leave that to my brother Tarek Fattal 🏀), but I recently listened to an episode of the How Leaders Lead podcast with Coach Roy Williams, and I’ve been thinking about it ever since.
Before Michael Jordan became Michael Jordan, he told Roy Williams he wanted to be the greatest player ever to play at North Carolina.
Roy’s response was simple:
“If that’s true, why are you working as hard as everybody else?”
Oof.
A few days later, after a brutal conditioning workout, Michael asked to speak with him.
According to Roy, he looked him in the eye and said:
“I remember what you said, and I’m never going to forget it. You’ll never see anybody outwork me.”
And then he spent the rest of his career proving it.
What struck me wasn’t the basketball story.
It was the standard.
A lot of people want extraordinary results.
Far fewer are willing to commit to the daily work required to produce them.
Roy had another philosophy that I loved:
“Don’t step off the court unless you’ve done something to make yourself better.”
That feels especially relevant as a founder.
Building a startup isn’t one giant breakthrough.
It’s hundreds of small improvements nobody sees.
One more customer conversation.
One more product decision.
One more problem solved.
One more lesson learned.
At Pistachio Pay, we’re building the financial platform I wish had existed years ago. The kind of platform that could genuinely change lives for people whose brains were never considered when traditional financial tools were designed.
That’s a high standard.
And high standards require more than good intentions.
They require showing up every day and doing the work.
Not because anyone is watching.
Because the mission deserves it.
Podcast: How Leaders Lead with Roy Williams. Highly recommend.
Money should work with your brain.
Pistachio Pay is being built to reduce the mental load of money management for neurodivergent adults.