I remember watching Jordan’s 1993 NBA Finals on a tiny VHF Television with my dad, we had four channels and any time an event like that came across the screen, it was special. The Bulls beat the Suns and Jordan was unstoppable—I couldn’t wait to watch. It was magic. It was transcendent. I wanted to be like Mike.
Then, less than a year later, he was standing in a minor league outfield in Birmingham, Alabama, wearing a baseball uniform. Playing Double-A baseball for the Birmingham Barons. It was one of the strangest images in sports history—the greatest basketball player who ever lived, hitting .202 in the Southern League. If you’re not familiar with baseball, .202 is terrible—barely above the threshold where players get cut. Jordan had gone from the highest pinnacle of achievement to the lowest ranks in just a few months—and here’s the thing: he loved baseball. It was his father’s favorite sport, and after his father’s murder, playing baseball was Jordan’s way of honoring him and connecting with him. That’s beautiful and meaningful.
But it wasn’t right.
Jordan wanted to play baseball. But he needed to play basketball. There’s a massive difference there, and it’s something I’ve experienced myself.
When I started building guitar pedals, it felt like a hobby for a few weeks, but then something shifted. It stopped being casual and it started consuming me. For months, I stayed up through the night studying circuits, breaking things, figuring out why they broke. I gave my entire self to it. No looking back. It was all I could think about.
Then, a few years after JHS got going, I started studying the history of these things I had been making. Traveling across the world to interview the people who built them. Thousands of hours of research, documentation, preservation. I didn’t decide to do this. It just happened. One question led to another and suddenly I was on a plane flying all over the United States, England, and Japan to sit in someone’s living room or workshop and ask them about a circuit they designed decades ago. It was crazy.
And now I write. I think about it all day long. It eats at me. I know I’m good at it but I’m not great and I need to be great. I want to say what hasn’t already been said and I want to tell stories that make people like you stop in their tracks and think about their own ideas, passions and purpose. I write because these stories have to be written. Someone has to do it because what I see in my mind has never been done. That’s not a hobby—that’s a purpose.
I didn’t choose any of these things. They chose me and then they consumed me. Hobbies don’t do that. Hobbies are what you do when you have free time. They are the things that let you blow off some steam and recenter yourself. My hobbies are riding my bike and taking photographs. They are essential parts of my life but they aren’t my calling, that’s different. That’s the thing I can’t not do.
Jordan wanted to play baseball for deeply personal reasons. I get that. But basketball was wired into him. It wasn’t something he chose the way you choose what movie to watch. It was what he couldn’t live without doing. When you watch footage of him playing basketball, you can see it—this is what he was built for. It’s like watching Dylan at Newport, Tiger Woods drive a golf ball down the fairway or Julia Child master French cuisine. They are wired to be who you know them to be. If they weren’t, you would never know their name. That’s what I’m getting at.
Here’s something else: we can’t just be anything we want to be.
I know that’s not what you’re supposed to say. We’ve been told our whole lives that if we just believe hard enough, work hard enough, want it bad enough, we can be anything. It’s the American dream, right? The self-help promise. The motivational poster on the wall. I call bluff.
I don’t think it’s true. And I think pretending it’s true does more harm than good.
Michael Jordan couldn’t be anything he wanted to be. He could be the greatest basketball player who ever lived, or he could be a mediocre minor league baseball player. Those were his actual options. All the wanting in the world didn’t change his wiring and all the hard work he put into baseball didn’t get results. When you’re in the wrong place, no amount of effort will make you fit.
I couldn’t be anything I wanted to be either. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a forest ranger. I wanted to be a firefighter. I wanted to play college basketball. Later on, when I was “an adult,” I wanted to be a rockstar. I wanted to be a music producer. I loved these things. I worked hard towards each of these. But they weren’t me and they didn’t last.
What I was built for found me when I was looking somewhere else. I’m not wired to fight fires or produce records. But I am wired to design guitar pedals, to obsess over their history, to document stories before they disappear. That’s what I have. That’s what consumed me. That’s what I wake up every day wanting to do.
The question isn’t “what do you want to be?”
The question is “what are you built for?”
And those are very different questions.
When you’re in the wrong role, even if you’re successful, something feels off. You might be competent. You might even be good at it. But there’s this nagging sense that you’re not where you’re supposed to be. Not making the impact you’re capable of making. Many of you know that feeling. I do.
Jordan playing baseball, working his butt off—hit .202. Then in 1995 he came back to basketball, and by 1996 he led the Bulls to 72 wins and another championship. I watched that Finals too, on the same crappy TV. Same player. Completely different impact. He was in his element and nothing could stop him.
The things that change the world—the things that actually matter—they’re never casual. They demand all of you. They don’t play nice.
I don’t know what that thing is for you. Maybe you haven’t found it yet. Maybe you’re in it right now and you know it. Maybe you’re doing something that looks good on paper but feels wrong in your gut.
All I know is this: when you find the thing you can’t live without doing, you’ll know. Because it won’t let you sleep. It won’t stay in its lane. It will take over everything, and you’ll let it, because finally something makes sense.
Don’t ignore it. Don’t look away. Don’t talk yourself into anything else.
That’s your basketball. Everything else is just trying on uniforms.
This is a very thoughtful article. While I lovingly refer to the "Last Dance" documentary series, as one of the most effective piecesof propaganda ever made, there is also no denying what made Jordan special.
I think there's room for debate, about whether he could have had the same performance, and maybe treated his fellow players with more kindness. I'm not sure. I see both sides of that.
I just wanted to add that,while you can't be whatever you want, you also have to realize that doing what you're good at, may not always bring happiness. Keeping in mind that happiness and success are not mutually exclusive. There's the passion you might have for the thing you love, and your skill could be unmatched in whatever imaginary hypothetical field. That won't always be the thing that will feed your family. Jordan was able to start relatively young, even considering his early pro injuries.
There's many out there who do have a special skill,in the way Jordan did,but the choice they had to make was not what they wanted, but what the best thing that they can do to survive and feed their children.
To which my point is, there's happiness also, in not being who you want to be, but being who you needed to be. I still play in a band, I love playing my Artificial Blonde, Flight Delay, and Morning Glory(does EHX make those? jk) Those inspire me and bring me joy, as does recording music. But that, or my former profession as a chef, was never going to help pay my mortgage, or take care of my kids. I became who I needed to be, and that brings me the happiness that pursuit of who I wanted to be,never would.
Great article, I look forward to reading your past posts. Shalom.
A challenge I have faced is where you have a passion, that was all consuming and was there over many decades, was a core part of your personality, your life, and your profession and then… it goes. Finding your passion is amazing but losing that passion and trying to find a new one is really hard later in life.